He spent a minute or so watching the family two booths over. Daddy was stuffing his face as though he hadn’t eaten in years, Baby was sleeping and drooling all over the place, and Mama was trying to wrestle the syrup bottle from the little girl who’d been so fascinated with Riley. Mama was losing. This was going to be fun once the sugar kicked in. Well, she’d wanted the kid to finish her pancakes. Be careful what you wish for, Riley thought.

In the corner booth across the room, an older woman was slowly and very methodically emptying a bowl of grits and a plate of bacon and eggs.

Spoonful of grits. Swallow. Forkful of egg. Swallow. Bite of bacon, spoonful of grits. Chew. Swallow. Forkful of egg. Repeat. It was kind of mesmerizing, but it got old fast. Two Hispanic men in coveralls were sharing the table next to hers, pouring over the classifieds while two cups of coffee were getting cold next to their empty plates. At least five more people were lined up at the bar, parked on the cheap pleather seats with their backs to Riley. Most of them looked tired and grumpy; road-worn.

Maureen the waitress didn’t seem daunted by the overall lack of cheer.

She had shouted Riley’s order through the serving hatch at a sleepy-eyed

Hispanic cook and was currently leaning against the bar chatting with a good-looking guy in a rumpled business suit. Business Suit was slurping coffee as if his life depended on it and complaining loudly about some sort of hold-up on the I-10 in between gulps and not-so-discreet glances down Maureen’s cleavage. Riley listened without much interest, mostly because the man’s voice carried across the room with a certain salesman quality that was hard to ignore.

“Ruptured pipeline, my ass,” Business Suit bitched, tapping his toes against the metal rungs of the bar stool like a tired preschooler. The arrhythmic clunk clunk clunk grated on Riley’s nerves. “My ex lives in Junction, and she never heard a thing. I’m telling you, this was some kind of military exercise or shit.”

“What,” Maureen said, apparently torn between irritation and the desire to flirt with a pretty man even if he was kind of tiresome, “you think it’s a cover up? Like, a weapons test or something?”

“I’m thinking they’re wasting tax dollars, is what I’m thinking.”

Business Suit stopped twitching his feet, much to Riley’s relief. It was a brief break, though; he started up again almost immediately. “I never see a guy in uniform again, I’ll die happy.”

He keeps up that fucking tapping, he’ll die sooner than he thinks, McClane declared darkly.