by Dan Dillard
*****
Her car was there when he pulled up which meant she’d been in town for work. When she left from the office, he always beat her to dinner. Jim bounced up the three wooden steps to the old diner and pushed the door open causing a familiar bell to jingle.
“Hello sweetness,” said Ellen, the owner and waitress. “Dana’s right over there.”
“Hey Ellen,” Jim said.
He ordered a glass of water and a club sandwich, one of the few things on the menu which didn’t contain something that had come through Anson’s. He couldn’t stomach a lot of meat after working there. Dana made him promise he would never tell her what went on inside those walls.
“What made today so long and terrible?” he asked her and grasped her hands in his.
“Missing child,” she said curtly.
“Another one?”
She nodded. “The little Edison baby. I went to see them today. Husband wasn’t home, but Jeannie was there. She’s a wreck.”
“That would explain why I haven’t seen her at work the past couple days. Police know anything?” Jim asked.
“Only that the kid isn’t at home with her momma.”
“Clever, aren’t they?”
She cracked a faint smile.
“Where’s her husband?” Jim asked.
“She said he’d been out looking for their little girl ever since the police left their house. Those poor folks. I can’t fathom what it must be like,” she said and teared up again.
“It’ll work out, Dana. That kid’ll turn up.”
She smiled at his kindness, but he knew it was an empty statement. “I talked to a few others out that way but no one saw or heard anything aside from a car or two driving by, nothing abnormal. They’re so secluded out there, Jim. Jeannie said they don’t even lock their doors most nights.”
“Probably will from now on,” Jim said.
“I imagine so.”
