The House in the Pines(20)

“Sit anywhere you’d like,” said a teenage waiter.

Maya looked up and found the security camera, and used it to orient herself, then sat in the same booth where Cristina had sat with Frank.

“Anything to drink?” the waiter asked.

“Water, please.” She opened her menu, but as soon as the waiter walked away, her eyes skimmed the room. Less than half of the tables were full. Several diners sat alone at the counter. Maya recognized the décor from the video: the chrome-plated stools, the faux-vintage clock. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She was about to get up and walk around when the waiter returned with her water. “What can I get you?”

“Tea, please.”

“Anything else?”

Just then, behind the counter, the kitchen doors opened, and the redheaded waitress from the video walked out. She stayed behind the counter, filled a few coffees, apparently working a different section tonight.

“Actually,” Maya said, “I think I’ll sit at the counter.”

The waiter looked annoyed.

Approaching the counter, Maya wondered if this was, in fact, the right person: The waitress in the video had looked to be her own age, while the woman before her was easily in her fifties. Creases framed her heavy-lidded eyes and painted lips—but then, the camera might not have seen those things. And the waitress’s hair was right—short and red. Her nametag read barb.

She handed Maya a menu. “Know what you’d like?”

“Tea, please. And buffalo wings.” Maya was much too addled to eat, but ordering food seemed a step toward the waitress’s good side.

“?‘Cruisin’ or ‘Come On, Snake, Let’s Rattle’?”

“I’m sorry—what?”

“You want your wings mild or hot?”

“Oh. Hot.”

The waitress turned to make Maya’s tea, poured hot water, while behind her, Maya steeled herself. She dabbed her face with a napkin. Three other people sat at the counter, two elderly men with newspapers and a woman in hospital scrubs.

“Here you are,” said the waitress, setting the mug on the counter. “Do you want honey with that? Milk?” Her voice was kind but cautious, as if she’d sensed something off about Maya.

“Actually, I was wondering if I could ask you something. My name’s Erica. I’m a friend of Cristina Lewis.”

“You saw the video. That thing’s all over the place.” Barb sounded almost proud of this. She glanced up at the security camera. “Still no idea who posted it online . . . Who’d you say you were again?”

“Erica,” Maya said, dropping her voice. Even with all the lies she’d told recently, she felt self-conscious. “Cristina and I went to school together back in Moab. Kindergarten all the way to high school.”

From the corner of her eye, Maya saw that everyone at the counter had fallen silent.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Barb said. Then: “They find out what happened to her?” Her voice was bright with curiosity.

“Not that I’ve heard.”

The waitress looked disappointed.

“I was hoping you could tell me what you saw that day?” Maya said. “Or maybe you heard something?”

“Burger, extra rare!” said a voice from the kitchen, and the waitress turned to take a plate from the window.

“Need an order of wings! Hot!” she called back. She served the burger to the woman in scrubs, then turned back to Maya. “I didn’t hear a word they said. There was music playing, just like there is now. And what I saw is pretty much what anyone can see on the video.”

“Pretty much?”

“There was one thing the camera didn’t pick up. I told the cops about it, of course.”

Everyone at the counter was listening, and Maya sensed that the waitress didn’t mind. “What was it?”

“Cristina’s eyes,” the waitress said. “The video makes it look like she was staring at Frank. But if you were standing over there, you would have seen that she was actually looking past him, at something in the corner.”

“What was it?”

“Nothing. Literally. An empty booth.” Maya followed the waitress’s gaze to the red vinyl booth. “No one was sitting there that day either, but she just kept staring as if she could see something the rest of us couldn’t. My cat does the same thing sometimes. Creeps me the hell out.”

A cold dread bloomed in Maya’s chest. “Did she seem . . . normal?”

“Well, sure, if you call that normal.” The waitress leaned closer to Maya as if to tell her a secret, but then spoke loudly enough for the whole counter to hear. “Between you and me, I’ve always thought this place was haunted. I can sense these things, and I think maybe there was something over there that day.”

Maya’s dread turned to skepticism. “What—like a ghost?”

The waitress nodded.

One of the elderly men leaned over to Maya. “Don’t get her started.”

The waitress scowled. “That’s enough out of you, Doug.” She refilled his coffee.

“So you think,” Maya said to the waitress, “that Cristina saw some kind of ghost and it . . . killed her?”

“All I’m saying is she definitely saw something right before she died. Something only she could see.”