I tell myself I'm studying him. Trying to understand what's happening to him, what's changing him, what threat this woman might pose to the family. I tell myself I'm being responsible. The heir to the empire—or one of them, anyway, Nathan would remind me—has a duty to protect what his father built.
But I'm not watching my father anymore.
I'm watching her.
She works the graveyard shift. I learn that from watching. She comes in at ten-thirty, ties her apron, checks the coffee, rearranges the pie case. She talks to the cook—a man named Del, according to the glimpses I catch of his nametag—and sometimes she laughs, and sometimes she doesn't, and sometimes she stands at the window and stares out at the street with an expression that looks like homesickness.
She's not from here. I can tell. The way she moves, the way she holds herself, the way she flinches at sirens—she's not a city person. She's from somewhere else. Somewhere quieter.
My father comes at midnight. Every night. He stays until two or three, and then he leaves, and she watches him go with an expression I'm still trying to decipher.
On the fourth night, I decide to stop watching from the car.
The door chimes when I walk in.
Cheap and cheerful. The sound makes me want to flinch, but I don't. I've been trained not to flinch. I've been trained towalk into rooms like I belong there, even when every instinct is telling me to turn around and run.
The diner is empty except for the cook—a large man in a stained apron who glances up from his grill and then looks away—and her.
Monika. I know her name now. I heard my father say it, through the window, the shape of it on his lips like something precious.
She's behind the counter, wiping it down with a rag. She doesn't look up when I walk in. Just keeps wiping, circular motions, the kind of cleaning that's more about keeping her hands busy than about actual cleanliness.
"Take a seat," she says. "I'll be right with you."
I sit at the counter. Not the stool my father uses—I've memorized which one that is, the second from the left—but the one next to it. Close enough to talk. Far enough to pretend I'm not watching.
She finishes wiping and turns to face me. And for the first time, I see her up close.
She's pretty. Not beautiful—not in the way the women in my father's world are beautiful, polished and perfect and purchased. She's pretty in a way that feels accidental. Her face is open. Her eyes are brown, the color of river stones, and they look at me like she's actually seeing me, not just cataloging me as another customer.
"Hi," she says. "What can I get you?"
"Coffee," I say. "Black."
She pours it without comment. The coffee pot is heavy, and her hands are steady, and I watch the steam curl up between us.
"You're new," she says.
"I've been in the neighborhood a few times. Never stopped in."
"Where are you from?"
"Around."
She raises an eyebrow. "That's not an answer."
"No," I agree. "It's not."
Something flickers across her face. Recognition, maybe. Or amusement. "You sound like someone I know."
"Who's that?"
"Just a guy. Comes in late. Orders the same thing." She sets down the coffee pot and leans against the counter, across from me. "He never answers questions either."
"Maybe it's a personality type."
"Maybe it's a conspiracy."
