River Bodies (Northampton County #1)(29)

They’d made it to the riverbank, where his mom had collapsed in the mud, her scalp bleeding where the hair had been torn out. Parker’s dad had asked her questions, checked her scalp, examined her. When he’d finished, he’d dropped on the ground next to her. It had been several minutes before anyone had spoken.

“Mom,” Parker had said.

“I’m okay.” She had patted his arm.

Parker and Becca had stared at one another, scared and relieved at the same time. As for Parker’s mom, her hair eventually grew back, but the patch where it had been yanked from her scalp was white, wiry, compared to the rest of her soft brown locks.

Tonight, Becca stood outside the diner hoping to see Parker again. A small family approached. Becca stepped to the side to let them pass along the narrow sidewalk. They continued across the street on their way to the pedestrian bridge. Another couple lingered outside the storefront window of Paul’s antique shop. Most people walking the little town at night were tourists who came down off the mountain, leaving the bigger resorts farther north in the Poconos to shop in the smaller gift stores for postcards and trinkets, to buy fresh produce, or to walk the bridge. But the biggest business in town was the rental shop where people came from all over to rent kayaks, canoes, and tubes to risk a day on the river.

An older couple exited the diner. She said hello, letting them pass before entering. The place smelled like she remembered, rich with butter mixed with a sweet, syrupy scent. The floor was the same red-and-white-checkered pattern. The red vinyl seats were faded and cracked from heavy use. She slid onto a stool in front of the counter. A young girl wearing a white apron and collared shirt, her face smattered with pimples, asked Becca if she would like to see a menu.

Becca shook her head, not recognizing the waitress.

“Does Gloria still work here?” she asked.

“Oh, no.” The waitress shook her head. “She died a few years ago.”

Becca looked at her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Were you a friend of hers?”

“I guess I was. I used to hang out here a lot when I was a kid.”

“You’re from around here?”

“I used to be,” Becca said, leaving out any further details. She was sure the waitress didn’t want to hear how Becca had been sent away against her will, but then later by choice, how she’d fled to college never to return. Until now.

“On second thought,” she said. “I will look at a menu.”

The menu hadn’t changed; even the tasty drinks remained the same. She ordered the vanilla milkshake for old times’ sake and checked her phone. It was closing in on eight thirty. There was another text from Matt asking for her to call him. He said he wanted to talk, but he could wait until she was ready. He only wanted to know that she was okay.

She put the phone down and eyed the door. She continued the pattern for the next hour, checking the time, ignoring Matt’s text, staring at the door. She sipped the milkshake on and off, tapping her foot on the stool.

She’d told Parker she would wait, but after another thirty minutes had passed, she wondered if she’d been stood up. It wouldn’t be like Parker to do something like that, not the old Parker anyway. She couldn’t be sure what the new Parker would do, the new Parker she’d seen today dressed in a television-show-detective suit. Everything about him being a cop bothered her suddenly. She couldn’t bear to think he might’ve turned into her father. Maybe she was better off not knowing if he had. Maybe she was being unfair. Maybe she should get up and leave, say she’d waited as long as she could if they ever happened to cross paths again.

She turned to make her exit when the door swung open and Parker stepped inside. He strode to the counter, confident and sure, sliding onto the stool next to her.

“Hey, Pam,” he said to the young waitress. “I’ll have the usual.”

After an awkward moment, he angled his head slightly in Becca’s direction. “So,” he said. “You’re back.”

“I’m back. For now, anyway.” They’d covered this already.

Pam set a root beer float in front of him. She looked back and forth between Becca and Parker before walking away to clear a dirty table.

Becca picked up her milkshake, sipped the vanilla cream from the bottom of the glass. A long silence stretched between them. She hadn’t expected him to throw his arms around her, thrilled to see her again, not after his lukewarm greeting that afternoon, but she hadn’t expected things to be so uncomfortable either.

“You know,” she said, “I tried searching for you online on all the usual sites, Facebook, Instagram, but I couldn’t find you.”

“That’s because I’m not on any of them. I don’t think you’ll find a whole lot of guys in law enforcement on the internet unless it’s job related.” His words were clipped, cool. He sounded like a damn cop.

“Well, I tried to find you anyway.”

He didn’t say anything. Then he played with the whipped cream in his float, sucked it through the straw. He looked like the Parker she remembered, the seventeen-year-old boy who had been one of the best wide receivers their football team had ever had, who had tried out for the track team every spring for no other reason than that he’d loved to run.

“So how long have you been a detective?”