Chapter 1 - Pretend I’m Your Dad
“More coffee?”
Lena Harper had asked that question a hundred times before noon, and never once had it changed her life.
Until Tuesday.
The Bellhaven Diner had survived three owners, two recessions, one kitchen fire, and nearly sixty years of people promising that the highway bypass would kill it. Somehow, it was still there—a low silver building beside Route 16 with red vinyl booths, chrome stools, a jukebox that played more Patsy Cline than anything recorded after 1985, and coffee strong enough to wake the dead.
Lena had worked there for six years.
At twenty-nine, she knew almost every sound the place could make.
The metallic slap of the kitchen window opening.
The bell above the front door.
The hiss of bacon hitting the grill.
The rattle of ice dropping into a glass.
The impatient tap of a spoon against an empty coffee cup.
She knew which customers wanted conversation and which wanted silence. She knew who tipped with folded bills and who left quarters beneath their plates. She knew that Mr. Daugherty wanted his eggs burned, that Gloria from the pharmacy always ordered half a grapefruit on Tuesdays, and that Sheriff Nolan pretended he hated blueberry pancakes while ordering them twice a week.
That morning should have been exactly like every other morning.
It wasn’t.
The gray-haired biker had been sitting at the counter for twenty minutes.
Lena had noticed him because strangers were easy to spot in Bellhaven.
He looked to be around sixty. Broad shoulders. Weathered hands. Salt-and-pepper hair swept away from his face. A dark leather vest rested over a faded black shirt. His beard was short, gray around the chin, and carefully trimmed.
He had ordered coffee and apple pie.
He had barely touched either.
What interested him seemed to be the mirror behind the counter.
Every few minutes, his eyes moved toward it.
Never his head.
Only his eyes.
Lena approached with the coffee pot.
“Warm you up?”
He looked at her.
For one strange second, something in his expression made her stop.
Recognition.
Not the casual recognition of someone reading her name tag.
Something deeper.
Sadness, almost.
Then it vanished.
“Please.”
She reached for his cup.
The man suddenly leaned closer.
Lena nearly dropped the pot.
His voice was barely louder than the jukebox.
“Pretend I’m your dad.”
Her fingers tightened around the black plastic handle.
“Excuse me?”
“Smile.”
“What?”
“Smile at me.”
Every instinct told her to step away.
Instead, something about his eyes stopped her.
They weren’t threatening.
They were afraid.
Not for himself.
For her.
Lena forced the smallest smile she could manage.
The biker pushed his cup toward her.
“That’s better, sweetheart.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Sir, I don’t know what—”
“Mirror.”
He didn't move his head.
Lena looked past him toward the long mirror mounted behind the counter.
At first, she saw nothing unusual.
Customers.
Chrome napkin holders.
Booths.
A waitress carrying toast.
Then she noticed them.
Two men occupied the last booth.
Both wore dark jackets.
Neither had food.
One held a menu.
Upside down.
Lena stared.
The younger of the two slowly raised his eyes.
Their gazes met through the mirror.
He immediately looked down.
Cold moved through her chest.
The biker spoke softly.
“They came in eleven minutes after you started your shift.”
Lena kept pouring.
Coffee reached the top of his cup.
She almost overflowed it.
“You know them?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know they're watching me?”
“Because I’ve spent most of my life knowing when someone is watching somebody.”
That wasn't an answer.
Lena put the pot down.
“I’m calling the police.”
“No.”
She looked sharply at him.
“Why not?”
“Because if I’m wrong, you lose nothing by waiting sixty seconds.”
“And if you’re right?”
His expression hardened.
“You don't have sixty seconds.”
Her heart began pounding.
She glanced toward the register.
Her phone was underneath it.
Ten feet away.
The biker suddenly smiled.
It looked bizarrely warm compared with what he had just said.
He lifted his coffee cup.
“More coffee, sweetheart?”
Lena understood.
They were being watched.
He wanted the men to think they knew each other.
She swallowed.
Then she forced herself into the role.
“Dad, you’ve had enough.”
The biker’s smile disappeared.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
Something changed in his eyes.
Pain.
He lowered the cup.
“What?” Lena whispered.
He leaned closer.
“Your father is alive.”
Everything inside her stopped.
The coffee pot tilted.
Dark coffee splashed across the red counter.
Neither of them moved.
“My father died when I was twelve.”
“No.”
Lena stared at him.
She could suddenly hear her own breathing.
“My mother buried him.”
“No, Lena.”
The use of her name hit harder than anything else.
She stepped backward.
“How do you know my name?”
He glanced at her badge.
She almost laughed from sheer panic.
Of course.
Her badge.
LENA.
But the relief lasted less than a second.
Because the biker reached slowly inside his vest.
Lena stiffened.
He removed a photograph.
Old.
Creased.
He placed it face down on the counter.
“Don't turn that over yet.”
“What is it?”
“Proof.”
“My father died seventeen years ago.”
“That’s what you were supposed to believe.”
Lena's throat tightened.
Images she had spent years forcing into quiet corners of her mind returned without permission.
Her mother crying behind a closed bathroom door.
A black dress.
Rain.
A cemetery.
A minister speaking about a man whose coffin Lena had been too frightened to touch.
Daniel Harper.
Her father.
Dead at thirty-eight.
Killed in a highway accident outside Missouri.
That was the story.
That had always been the story.
“You're lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Jack Mercer.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“It shouldn't.”
“Then get out.”
“Lena—”
“Get out of my diner.”
Jack looked toward the mirror again.
The two men were still there.
“You can hate me later.”
“I already do.”
“Good. Hate keeps people alert.”
She reached for the photograph.
Jack caught her wrist.
Not violently.
Just enough to stop her.
Lena looked at his hand.
He immediately released her.
“Sorry.”
“Don't touch me.”
“I won't.”
She turned the photograph over.
And the diner disappeared.
For several seconds there was only the picture.
Three people stood beside an old fishing boat.
One was Jack, much younger, his hair dark.
The second was a woman Lena recognized instantly.
Her mother.
Claire Harper.
And beside Claire stood a tall man with dark hair, smiling at the camera.
Lena knew that smile.
She had seen it in childhood photographs.
Her father's smile.
Daniel Harper.
But something was wrong.
Lena turned the picture over.
A date had been written on the back.
August 14, 2016.
Lena's father had supposedly died in 2009.
Her fingers began trembling.
“No.”
Jack said nothing.
“No.”
She looked closer.
Maybe the date had been added later.
Maybe the photograph was manipulated.
Maybe this stranger was insane.
“That could be fake.”
“It isn't.”
“My mother wouldn't lie to me.”
Jack's eyes changed.
That was when Lena became truly frightened.
Because he looked sorry for her.
“Your mother lied because Daniel asked her to.”
“Stop calling him Daniel.”
A chair scraped behind them.
Jack's gaze moved instantly toward the mirror.
One of the men had stood up.
Lena's pulse jumped.
The man buttoned his jacket.
Then he began walking toward the counter.
Jack calmly picked up his fork.
“Don't look.”
“He’s coming here.”
“I know.”
“What do I do?”
Jack took a bite of pie as if they were discussing the weather.
“Keep being my daughter.”
The man approached.
Thirty feet.
Twenty.
Fifteen.
Lena picked up a rag and wiped the spilled coffee.
Her hand shook so badly that she knocked a spoon onto the floor.
Jack didn't look at her.
“Breathe.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Actually, it isn't.”
Ten feet.
The stranger stopped beside them.
“Morning.”
Jack continued eating.
Lena forced herself to look up.
“Morning. Coffee?”
The stranger studied her face.
Then Jack's.
“Your dad?”
Every muscle in Lena's body tightened.
She looked at Jack.
For one second she remembered being seven years old, sitting on her real father's shoulders at the county fair.
Then she smiled.
“Unfortunately.”
Jack gave an offended grunt.
“Kids.”
The stranger smiled.
It never reached his eyes.
“Family's important.”
“So they tell me,” Jack replied.
The man glanced at the photograph.
Jack's hand covered it.
The stranger noticed.
His expression changed almost imperceptibly.
Then he looked back at Lena.
“You work tomorrow?”
It was such an ordinary question that it terrified her.
“Why?”
“Good coffee.”
“We're open at six.”
“I asked if you worked.”
Jack set down his fork.
“You trying to ask my daughter on a date?”
The stranger stared at him.
Jack smiled.
For several seconds neither man spoke.
Then the stranger laughed.
“No offense.”
“None taken.”
He walked toward the restroom.
Jack waited until the door closed.
“Go.”
Lena didn't move.
“Where?”
“Kitchen. Back exit.”
“I’m not leaving with you.”
“You don't have to.”
“Good.”
“But you do have to leave.”
“What about my shift?”
Jack stared at her.
“Lena, those men aren't here for breakfast.”
A loud crash came from the restroom corridor.
Jack stood.
The second man had left the booth.
He was walking toward the front entrance.
Not leaving.
Locking it.
Lena's face went cold.
“What the hell is happening?”
Jack pulled several bills from his wallet and dropped them beside the pie.
“Seventeen years ago your father disappeared to keep you alive.”
He looked directly into her eyes.
“Today, somebody finally found you.”
The restroom door opened.
The first man emerged.
He was no longer smiling.
Jack grabbed Lena's hand.
“Run.”
And for the first time since she was twelve years old, Lena ran because her father might not be dead.
May you like
She ran because someone wanted her to believe he was.
And somewhere beyond the diner walls, seventeen years of lies were waiting to tell her why.
