But the waiter had disappeared.
As well as almost every other customer in the place.
She glanced around. There had been several people in the diner when she arrived, but they were all gone now. It was eerily quiet.
And then the bell rang as the front door opened.
She looked inside her purse for cash to leave on the table.
A man slowly began to approach her.
She wasn’t paying much attention until he stopped at her table.
“Miss Covington?” the man asked.
She looked at him, suddenly wary. Her senses were on alert.
He was charismatic in a way that intimated great power. He seemed out of place in the diner.
“Yes?” she asked.
He gestured to the diner table.
“May I have a word?” he asked.
But his tone of voice, and the way he was physically blocking her from leaving, meant it wasn’t really a question.
She glanced around her.
The diner was empty.
There had been a cook behind the counter. He disappeared into the kitchen. The host had stepped outside for a cigarette.
“How do you know my name?” she asked.
“Word gets around when you’re a famous columnist,” he said. But his face was flat as he slid into the seat opposite her.
“And you are?” she asked.
“Someone who would prefer to stay off the record.”
She nodded. Her mouth had become bone dry.
“Do you have information for me, then?” she asked. She gripped her napkin under the table.
“Not information, not exactly. But I do have an offer for you.”
“An offer?” she asked.
“A deal to propose. To put an end to you publishing these salacious rumors.”
“They’re not rumors,” she said, frowning. “Everything I’ve written is the truth.”
“You’re stoking fear, and therefore tainting the experience of thousands of people. Maybe even millions. And that has its consequences.”
“Financial consequences, you mean,” she said. “For the fair.”
“And financial incentives to cooperate,” he said. “For you.”
