Curtis looked at the wrist. Then over his shoulder at Wren, who was behind the counter rolling silverware again, very carefully, her head down.
"She's clumsy," he said. "Always has been. Her mama was the same way." He turned back to Tom and smiled. "Want me to top it off? Warm it up?"
"Nah. This is fine." Tom wrapped his hand around the mug, which had cooled to merely warm, and lifted it halfway to his mouth, and set it down again as if he had changed his mind, and picked up the menu. "Chicken-fried steak, I think. Mashed potatoes. And a big glass of water, if you've got it. Lots of ice. I'm about cooked."
"Sure thing." Curtis stood there a second longer. "You sure you don't want me to warm that up?"
"I'm sure. Thanks."
Curtis went back to the kitchen. On his way, he stopped beside the counter and said something to Wren, low, that Tom could not hear. Tom saw her nod without looking up. He saw Curtis put a hand on the back of her neck, lightly, almost tenderly, and leave it there for a second, the way you might rest your hand on a dog. He saw her go absolutely still under it.
Then Curtis went through the swinging door, and the spatula started up again on the grill.
Tom looked at the clock on the wall above the register. Two thirty-one. Thirty minutes, the dispatcher had said. Maybe less. Maybe more.
He looked out the window at the gray pickup under the cottonwood, and the shape of the man behind the windshield, and the glow of the phone. Somewhere on that phone, Tom knew, there was a map, and on the map there was a little dot sitting perfectly still in the parking lot of the Silver Sage Diner, waiting for him to get sleepy.
He picked up the mug, and held it near his lips for a long moment, and put it down again.
Wren brought his water a few minutes later. It came in a tall plastic tumbler sweating with cold, and she set it down without a word, and then she did something Tom did not expect. She glanced toward the kitchen, where Curtis had gone out the back door with his phone pressed to his ear, and then she slid into the booth across from him, fast, perching on the very edge of the seat like a bird ready to fly.
"He went out back to call Darrell," she said, very low. "He does that. He's telling him you didn't drink it yet."
"Darrell's the one in the truck?"
"His cousin." She was looking at the table, not at Tom. "You didn't drink any, right? Not even a little?"
"Not a drop."
Her shoulders came down about an inch. "Okay," she whispered. "Okay."
"I called the police," Tom said. "From the bathroom. They're coming. Thirty minutes, maybe less."