She rinsed off, the tepid water doing nothing to loosen the knot of tension at the base of her neck.
By 6:00 a.m., she was back in the diner. The smell hit her the moment she pushed through the back door: a suffocating wall of old frying oil, bleach, and burnt coffee. It was the smell of her life.
"You're late," Frank barked from the tiny glass-walled office in the corner. He didn't look up from his clipboard. Frank was a man made entirely of sweat and anxiety: his ties always stained, his patience always frayed.
"Bus was delayed," Sadie lied flatly. She grabbed her time card and punched it into the heavy metal clock. Clunk-ring.
"Section three is yours," Dale called out. "We got the new kid on the grill. God help us all."
Sadie tied her damp, freshly scrubbed apron around her waist. The fabric was stiff, smelling faintly of citrus dish soap—a small rebellion against the grease. She grabbed a stack of menus and walked out to the floor.
The morning rush was a blur of mechanized motion: pour coffee, wipe table, smile, nod, ignore the leering comment from the regular in booth four, carry three plates of eggs on one arm, feel the burn in the wrist, keep moving. She operated on muscle memory and caffeine. By noon, her lower back felt like it was being compressed by a vise. By 2:00 p.m., she was numb.
It was during the mid-afternoon lull that she noticed the black car.
Sadie was wiping down the condiment station, aggressively digging a clump of hardened mustard out of a crevice with a toothpick, when a flash of movement caught her eye. She looked out the smudged front window.
A sleek, heavy sedan was parked at the curb. It wasn't the Bentley from the other day, but it was just as out of place—it looked like a shark swimming in a dirty bathtub. It sat idling, the dark tinted windows revealing nothing.
Sadie's heart did a strange, uncomfortable stutter.
Don't be stupid, she told herself, tossing the toothpick into the trash. It's just a lost Uber.
But the driver's side door opened. A man stepped out. He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a charcoal gray suit that fit him with the kind of precision that screamed bespoke. He didn't look like he belonged in this zip code; he looked like he owned it and was severely disappointed with his purchase.
He walked toward the diner. Sadie gripped the wet rag in her hands, her knuckles turning white. Instinct, honed by years of living on the financial edge, flared up. Men in expensive suits coming to cheap diners never brought good news: they brought eviction notices, health department citations, or lawsuits.