Chapter 7: Spare Room

The man in the back of the SUV wore a Whitbread Hotels security jacket and a polite smile.

"Mrs. Hazard," he said through the open window. "I'm here for hotel property."

"What property?"

"A phone, or a file. Whatever your friend left with you."

"He left nothing."

"Then you won't mind if I wait."

"Wait for what?" my mother said behind me.

She had the bread knife from the kitchen in her hand, and she was holding it very casually.

The man's smile stayed where it was.

"Ma'am, we're only parked."

"This is a delivery alley," she said. "You're blocking my flour."

He didn't move the car.

I heard a door shut at the far end of the alley.

Kip came walking up from the street, hands in his jacket pockets, and stopped beside me without a word.

He looked at the security man, and then at the license plate, and he took out his phone and photographed both.

"Hospital privileges, sir?" he asked pleasantly. "Or are you just in the habit of sitting in people's loading zones?"

The window began to close.

"We'll be speaking with our attorneys," the man said, and the glass shut on the last word.

The SUV didn't leave.

It stayed in the alley with its engine running, all through my mother's closing routine and the wiping of the counters.

By nine there were three news vans out front, with their lights pointed at the diner windows.

Upstairs I stood at the curtain and counted the people on the sidewalk.

There were eleven.

"They aren't going anywhere," my mother said from the doorway.

She had an overnight bag in her hands, packed with my things.

"And I won't have you lying awake listening to that engine."