Page 62 of A Seer and Present Danger

“I hate this job.” She pulled a stack of paper napkins and shoved them in her apron pocket.

“I thought you liked it here.”

Her scowl shifted into a frown. “The diner’s fine.” The way she said it made it sound like it was very much not fine. “It’s just all these boring people. They order the same boring things. They say the same boring things. I used to have a job I loved.”

“The antique store?”

“I was so good, you should have seen it. I could spot a rare find from a thousand feet.”

“Wow,” I said. “Why’d you leave the industry? You could have worked in another antique store.”

“No. No. I had to get away from all of it.”

“So why do this instead?”

“It’s still a place to…meet interesting people. To see interesting things. I’ve overheard—” She glanced up at me, shrugged. “You know how it is. People have conversations in diners like they’re not out in public.”

“So true.”

“And the location is perfect for…I mean it’s close to Ordinary, which is an interesting little town. All those festivals.”

“Yeah, Bertie—she’s the community organizer—is a powerhouse.”

“It’s quirky. Different. I guess I wanted different.”

“Speaking of different. You know the other night? When Hugo was killed?”

Everything about her changed. She was no longer frowning or scowling or trying to convince me she changed her entire career to be near a small town no one outside of Oregon had ever heard of.

She smiled, bright, like a switch had been thrown, the curtains had opened and it was showtime.

“It was terrible,” she said. “Did you hear anything else about it? About what he stole?”

Weird that she seemed to go straight toward the fact that he was a thief every time I brought up his death.

“No. I don’t even know if he had stolen anything.”

“Come on. He was a thief. He stole something that made someone mad. Mad enough to…” She made a stabbing motion.

“Like jewels?”

“Oh, there are things more valuable than jewels, things people would never expect. Vases, artwork, jewelry boxes, stamps, cars.”

I laughed. “I don’t think he had a Ferrari stuffed in his pocket.”

She grinned. “Never know. Keys to one? Location of one? But probably something smaller. Are you sure you didn’t see anything on him?”

I thought back. No, he’d looked like someone whose coat had been pulled back—or searched. That thought stopped me in my tracks.

What if whoever had killed him had searched his pockets and found the item he had stolen?

What if they’d thought he had a stolen item, then searched his pockets and hadn’t found it?

Would that be cause enough for murder?

“You went out on break that night, right before Buzz, didn’t you?”

She blinked. “Sure. Of course I did. The police already questioned me. I was only outside for a couple minutes. Didn’t see anything. Didn’t hear anything. I was in the bathroom for the rest of my break, resting my feet. Then I left.”