Take the Fall(2)

“Stop, you guys. I can’t believe we’re even talking about this.”

“I’m just stating the facts. Anyway, the cops know it was him. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Do you . . . do you think she was scared?”

The coffee filter I’m holding shakes in my hands. I take a sharp breath, aggravating the pain in my left side, and dump in four more scoops of grounds. I grab an order pad and come around the corner into view, not even attempting a smile. “Hey guys, what can I get for you?”

The table falls silent, my friends pointing fingers at one another with their eyes.

“Sonia, what are you doing here?” asks Haley Jacobs.

“We’re busy,” I murmur, peering at the table of cops by the door. There are only three deputies there now, but if you’d been here this morning you might’ve thought the sheriff’s office had relocated from down the street.

“We heard what happened.” Aisha Wallace slides out of the booth and wraps me in a careless hug, setting my bruised ribs and scratched arms alight with pain. I pull back. “Are you okay?”

“I’m . . .”

I’m alive. But maybe I shouldn’t be.

“You’re at work, are you insane?” Haley exchanges a look with Aisha. “I can’t believe your family’s okay with this.”

They’re not. I glance at the door to the kitchen. “I just kind of need to be here right now.”

“You poor thing, of course you do,” Aisha says, sitting close to her boyfriend, Derek. “You must’ve been so scared.”

“Seriously, after what you’ve been through,” Haley says. “You could’ve been—”

Aisha kicks her under the table.

I support myself on the edge of the booth and nod slowly. My uncle Noah took one look at my face this morning and insisted I go straight back upstairs, but the idea of staring at my bedroom ceiling for a second day while everyone in town debates how my best friend died made me sicker than I already felt. I’m not supposed to be waiting tables, but my thoughts were getting way too loud back in the kitchen. And since my family has lost it and won’t tell me anything, snatches of random conversations have become the only way for me to guess what’s going on.

Derek clears his throat, eyeing the cops across the room. “This is probably the safest place in town right now anyway.”

“Have you guys heard anything?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.

Haley leans forward. “They arrested Marcus Perez.”

My stomach knots. I should be glad about this. Gretchen’s recent ex would be the most likely suspect, and it’s not like Marcus and I ever got along. But deep in my heart, I’ll admit . . . I don’t want it to be him.

“They didn’t arrest him,” Derek says. “They just brought him in for questioning.”

“I—I’d heard that.” The whole diner has been buzzing about it.

“Her car is still missing,” Aisha adds. “And they found signs of a struggle at the top of the falls.”

Haley’s eyes go wide. “Did you get a look at the guy who attacked you? Do you think it was—”

The bells above the front door jingle and my head jerks up, but it’s just another news crew. My mom comes out of the kitchen, her eyes darting around the diner until she finds me. The alarm on her face dissipates, but her mouth pulls into a frown. I sink in my shoes.

“Be back in a sec, you guys—two Diet Cokes and a Sprite, right?” I don’t wait for an answer. One of several talents I’ve cultivated growing up in the diner is an ability to remember the food and drink preferences of just about every person in town. I can hardly grasp everything that’s happened to me the last two days—most of it I’d desperately like to forget—but when I come back, I know Haley and Aisha will still order grilled cheese and Derek will go for a burger with extra pickles.

These little details are all that’s holding me together right now.

My aunt Dina is busy cleaning up a spilled milk shake, so I grab a couple of menus and scan the room for a table to seat the reporters, but my mom heads me off before I get to them.

“Honey, what are you doing?”

I avoid her eyes. “Seating the people who just walked in.”

“I thought the agreement was—”

“I can’t sit back there and roll silverware for eight hours.” I clutch the menus to my chest.

“You could go upstairs.” She reaches out to tuck a loose curl behind my ear. “I’d feel better if you were resting anyway. You must be exhausted.”

“I rested all day yesterday. I need to know what’s happening.”

“Sheriff Wood said he’d give us an update when he knows more—everything you’re going to hear will be gossip and rumors.”

“Look, Mom, I just—” I take a deep breath, but my jaw starts to tremble. “I just want to be here, close to everyone.”

My mom presses her lips together, her eyes shining like she might start crying again, and I’m afraid if she does, I will too. “Oh, Sonia—” The bells above the door jingle a second time and she stops, looks carefully at my face, then wipes her cheeks. “You can take some of my tables, but come get me if you need me and don’t push yourself too hard. The sheriff’s coming by soon with more questions.”