He Leaned In and Said, "Pretend I'm Your Dad"

CHAPTER 2 - THE NAME SHE HADN'T HEARD IN YEARS

Lena stepped back so quickly her hip struck the pie case.

Doris, the lunch-shift cook, looked up from the grill. "You all right, honey?"

"I'm fine," Lena said too fast.

She wasn't fine. Her hands shook so hard she had to set the coffee pot down.

The dark-jacketed man reached the counter and gave her a smile that never touched his eyes.

"Miss Harper?" he asked.

She hated the way he said her name, like he already owned it.

"Who wants to know?"

He laid a business card on the counter. No company logo. Just a name she didn't recognize. Thomas Bell.

"We've been trying to reach your mother. We have questions about your father."

Lena's stomach turned.

Her mother, June, had spent twelve years saying one thing whenever Daniel Harper's name came up: He is gone. Let the dead rest.

The biker swiveled on his stool before Lena could answer.

"You ask grieving women about dead men in every roadside diner," he said, "or is today special?"

Thomas Bell glanced at him, annoyed. "Family matter."

The biker smiled without warmth. "Then ask family at home."

The second man stepped closer, but Doris came out from the grill with a spatula in one hand and a look sharp enough to cut glass.

"If my waitress doesn't know you," she said, "you can leave."

The men exchanged a look. Thomas picked up the card, then changed his mind and left it behind.

"We'll be in touch, Miss Harper."

When they were gone, Lena let out the breath she'd been holding.

The biker finally held out his hand.

"Name's Wyatt Mercer."

"You knew my father?"

Wyatt nodded once. "Vietnam? No. Roofing jobs? No. Church softball? Definitely no." His mouth twitched. "I knew him from the kind of work people don't list on tax forms."

Lena stared.

Before she could ask more, her phone buzzed in her apron pocket.

It was her mother.

Lena answered at once. "Mom?"

June's voice came in ragged and frightened.

"Lena, don't come home," she said. "They've been in my house. And they found the photograph."

"Lena, don't come home. They've been in my house."