"In the office. And one behind the register."
"Does your mom have a cell?"
"It doesn't work up here. Nobody's does. You have to go to Coudersport or up on Denton Hill."
Hollis had figured. He'd seen it on his own phone, the little NO SERVICE in the corner, for the last forty minutes of the ride. That was the thing about this part of the world that people from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh did not understand: it was not just remote, it was disconnected, a dead zone the size of Rhode Island, and the people who lived in it had made their peace with that the way people on islands make their peace with boats.
"Second thing," he said. "Who's the cook?"
"Ferris. He's Mom's uncle. Kind of. Like her mom's cousin."
"He a good man?"
Toby thought about it seriously. "He's grumpy," he said. "But he gives me the burnt ends of the bacon for free."
"Good enough." Hollis looked toward the counter. The trucker woman had finished her eggs and was counting bills out of a wallet on a chain. The old man was folding up his paper. In ten minutes, Hollis thought, the counter would be empty, and it would be him and the boy and the mother and an old cook, on a mountain with no cell service, and a truck in the lot. He did not like that. He did not like it at all.
"Third thing," he said. "I'm going to go use the restroom. When I come back, I'm going to talk to your mother. You sit right here, in this booth, where you can see me and I can see you, and you don't go out by that ice machine, and you don't go back in the office, and if anybody you don't know comes through that door you get up and walk straight into the kitchen to Ferris. You understand?"
"Yes."
"Say it back."
"Stay here. Don't go outside. Don't go in the office. If somebody comes in, go to Ferris."
"Good man," Hollis said, and stood up, and his knees cracked like kindling, and he walked back down the hall past the boy's booth toward the restrooms. He did not go into the restroom. He went past it to the door marked OFFICE—EMPLOYEES ONLY and opened it and went in.