Chapter 13: The Diner

The couple from the chat asked to meet us on Thursday at six, in the booth by the window at the Ossery Diner.

Beckett had set it up.

He had told them nothing except that Tegan was alive and had something to show them.

I sat on the side facing the door, with Dee beside me and Rowan on the end, a plate of fries untouched between us.

"If they bring Santino," Dee said, "I'm throwing the ketchup."

"They won't bring Santino."

"Then I'm throwing it at whoever's the most like him."

They came in at six exactly, out of the dark, with their hoods up.

The woman had been at my birthday dinner in May.

She had hugged me at the door and told me my dress was perfect.

Her boyfriend had split the check with me and, I realized now, had let me round up.

They stood at the end of the booth and neither of them sat.

"We saw the video," the woman said. "From the vigil."

"I know."

"We thought you were having a breakdown."

"Santino told you that."

"Bailey did." She looked at her hands. "She said you'd stopped taking your medication and gone to stay with some man."

Rowan didn't move, but I saw his jaw shift.

"I'm not on any medication," I said. "Sit down."

They sat.

I slid my phone across the table with the first photo already open.

It was the member list.

Then the pinned picture of the dock, then the first message, the one about the beer and the old ladies.

The woman read it, and her face changed slowly.

"This is dated the fourteenth," she said.

"My grandmother's funeral."

"Oh my God."

Her boyfriend took the phone out of her hand and kept scrolling.

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