He hadn’t seen Stiles all day, not since they talked on the street earlier that morning. Last he’d seen, the “handyman” was headed toward the diner for a cup of coffee and was still there well past noon. Bean had spied him twice through the window. He was keeping Billie preoccupied, that was for sure. She was fawning over him and rolling her eyes and laughing and damn near crawling over the counter onto his lap, for Christ’s sake. It wasn’t that Bean was jealous or anything—he’d only taken Billie out a few times in all the years he’d known her and hell, he was tied up with Susie these days. She just shouldn’t have been acting that way toward a stranger, that’s all.

Stiles must have had that kind of effect on people, he figured. Instant likability. He was not an unpleasant-looking man, he supposed, and he was soft-spoken and friendly, the kind of person you take to right off like a long-lost fishing buddy or high-school chum. But Bean refused to buy it. He had trained himself to look beyond a person’s veneer, to probe beneath the skin so to speak. There was something hidden behind that young man’s lean, bearded face, behind those intense eyes. There were secrets there. And that bothered him.

Bean may have had Stiles pegged in his own mind, but he still hadn’t decided what to do about him. On the one hand he was a nice enough guy and had threatened no one and done nothing wrong that he knew of. And until he did so, he had every right to be where he was. On the other hand, he was a question mark, a random element that gave the deputy a case of the mental itchies, and he would’ve slept a lot easier with Stiles on his way. And yet, Bean was curious. Part of him wanted to sit back and wait, and watch, and see what kind of trouble Stiles might want to stir up.

Murder. That was wishful thinking. . . .

One last pass by Moore’s Diner. The lights were still on—on weekends they were open till almost 2 a.m. for the late-night crowd—but Stiles’s van was no longer across the street and hadn’t been since late afternoon. He knew it was gone, but not where, and that was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. He sort of hoped Stiles might come back, just so he could keep tabs on him. Billie was working a double shift herself tonight, and that was incentive enough. But no such luck. He headed for the Tri-Lakes Inn, the only motel in town. But the parking lot was still empty. No van there either.

Maybe he’s gone, he figured with a mixture of relief and disappointment. Maybe I scared him off this morning.

Nah. Not very likely.