“What do you want with Josh?” At her son’s name, her bewilderment tunneled into a feeling of intense protection. Like hell would anyone be dragging a child into this mess. There was no answer. She looked out the window.

The man in the tan jacket was running out to the desert. She could just barely see him at the edge of the parking lot’s radius of light. His arms were swinging wildly, his suitcase swinging along. His legs were flailing, great puffs of sand kicked up behind him, his head thrown back, sweat running down his face visible even from where she sat. The kind of run that was from something and not toward. Then he left the faint edge of the light and was gone.

She looked down at the slip of paper in her hand. It read “KING CITY.” She gathered up her things, hiding the pen in her bag, mortified that she’d left a potential misdemeanor out on the table for anyone to see.

She was still uncertain how long she had been at the diner. Had she said good-bye to Josh? Did he know where she was? She would text him.

Before leaving, she scanned the diner for Troy. She couldn’t see him.

Jackie waved at her from the counter. They exchanged pleasantries. There was something odd about the way Jackie considered her. Thoughtful and suspicious. Diane tried to seem completely at ease. They exchanged some words that didn’t mean much. Then things turned. Diane said, “What?” and Jackie shook her head impatiently.

“Never mind. What do you got there?”

She nodded at the paper in Diane’s hand. Diane realized that Jackie was holding an identical paper, but couldn’t get her mind to rest on that fact long enough to become curious about it.

“Nothing,” said Diane, and stuffed the paper into her purse. It stayed in her purse.

“Lucky,” said Jackie, and turned back to her coffee, tapping the edge of her paper against the counter.

Diane still didn’t understand, but Jackie seemed grumpy, and so Diane let the conversation end there. She said some sort of casual good-bye, and Jackie threw it back in her face as a sarcastic joke, which Diane thought was unnecessary and rude.

As she walked to her car, she reached into her bag for her keys.

Her hand came across some crumpled paper. She pulled it out. “KING CITY,” it said. Why did she have that? Where would this piece of paper have come from? She tossed it on the ground and then, feeling guilty, picked it up to carry around to the dumpster. Before she could toss it in, there was a crashing sound next to her, which made her jump.

Troy was there, throwing big bags of trash into the dumpster.

“Oh, hey,” he said, and ducked quickly through the back door.