Page 89 of Tessa's Trust

“I’m not sure what the technical term is.” I returned to the odd area and dropped to my knees. “I think it might be destruction of property.”

With that, I inserted the butter knife between two of the boards and lifted. It creaked slightly. I did it again. It creaked more. Finally, I used all my strength, twisted, and lifted it. The board sprang up. “Oh, my.”

“What?”

“There’s something under the floorboards.”

The narrow opening led to a dark and square space. I reached in, hoping there wasn’t anything waiting that would bite me. My hand touched a small, metal box. I lifted it out, noting it had a combination lock. “Oh, man. I bet I can get this thing open.”

“What is it?”

I told him, and he hummed. “You need to take that to Sheriff Franco.”

“Sure,” I said, having no intention of doing that—at least not right now.

As if Nick could read my mind, he groaned. “Fine. Get your ass back over the pass and bring that thing. Leave the cabin. Now.”

The wind whistled an eerie and mournful tune outside. I shivered. “Yeah, good idea.”

Chapter 31

When I swung into Smiley’s Diner after a hairy drive over the pass, I could instantly tell the late afternoon had gone awry. Grabbing my new metal box off my passenger seat, I parked at the curb and hustled inside, slipping across the icy walk. Nobody had put down gravel or salt all day. I hurried inside, and chaos ensued.

Tito looked up. “Oh, thank God you’re here.” She dropped three plates at a table with a shrieking toddler.

I looked around for the other server. “Where’s Bertra?”

“Crying in the bathroom.” Tito threw up her hands. “Customer got angry with her because we screwed up the order, and the chick just lost it.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ve got this.” First, I hurried toward the counter and around to the kitchen, where smoke lightly filtered out. “What is happening?” I bellowed when I ran inside.

Lewis, one of the two cooks, looked up. “I don’t know. Jack was trying to cook something new. He wanted to be creative and started the second grill on fire.”

I looked over at the mangled grill. “Where is Jack?”

“His girlfriend called. They got in a fight, and he left.” Lewis ducked his head.

“All right. Stick to the easy stuff. We’ll push people to order burgers and salads. We’ll worry about the grill later.” Yanking on an apron, I shoved the metal box onto a shelf near the stove and ran back outside. Within ten minutes, I’d taken orders from four tables and handed them back to Lewis. Tito was handling her side of the diner well, so I hustled into the bathroom to find Bertra wiping her face.

“You can’t go crying every time somebody gets irritated,” I said. “You wish bad things upon them.”

She looked up. She was about eighteen years old with wide brown eyes and blond hair tipped with pink. “But they yelled at me.”

“We’ll take care of that. Nobody has a right to treat you poorly. But you can’t just give up. We need you out there, and we need you working.”

“I just can’t.” She shook her head. “I just can’t talk to people right now.”

I kept myself from pointing out that I was a person and shoved down my irritation. I had been eighteen at one time. “Fine, go bus tables. Anything empty, do it. You can also refill drinks. Tito and I will handle the actual people.” That was about as good as I could give.

“All right,” she said, sniffing.

I hustled outside, surprised by how many people were there, considering it was after dinnertime. Or perhaps they’d been here so long they’d started at dinner. We were efficient from that point, taking orders and delivering food. After, I made sure to give everybody a free dessert. It eased things quickly.

Mert called right as things were calming down, and I lied my ass off, telling him everything was fine. When I clicked off, Tito shook her head. “Man, you’re not a bad liar.”

“Thanks. I don’t usually get that a lot.”

The bell over the door rang, and a woman walked inside. It was Louise Transkei. She took a seat at a center booth, her red coat matching the leather. She slowly shed the heavy material, and her shoulders hunched.

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