Chapter Two
“Two scrambled eggs, toast, and black coffee.” Mable had waited on Roland Greer every morning for the past nine years. She set the plate on the table in front of him and asked, “How are you this morning, darlin’?”
Roland looked up through his long, stringy bangs.
“Oh, fine, I guess.” His doughy cheeks, flecked with straggly whiskers, jiggled as he spoke.
His skin had a fleshy look to it, as if it had lost all elasticity.
Though he was only twenty-nine, every move he made was slow and calculated.
He hunched his massive shoulders over the table, his arms encircling the plate—a habit he’d picked up in his foster home years ago, and had yet to relinquish.
When Roland was just a boy, he’d been separated from his fraternal twin sister, Marissa, and placed into the Lowrey Home For Children.
Roland reached into his pocket and withdrew the familiar photograph.
In the picture Marissa had been anxious to pull away, to go play with her Barbies.
Roland rubbed the photo with his thumb. Soon, he thought, and tucked the picture back into his pocket.
Roland looked up, watching Mable work her way from table to table.
She was the type of woman he’d often wished he’d had as a mother.
Her gray hair, piled high on her head in a messy, efficient fashion, somehow made him believe she would have been the type of mother to hold a child when he was scared.
She always wore a smile and looked right at him, not away, like everyone else.
She looked past the burn across the right side of his face as if it didn’t exist.
The local news blared on the television mounted above the counter.
Roland had a perfect view. The television was the reason he’d chosen this booth the first day he’d happened across the diner, located across the street from Taylor’s Trucking, where he’d secured a job as a mechanic after trade school.
Working on eighteen-wheelers was the perfect job for Roland; he worked with his hands, which he loved, and he worked in solitude, giving him plenty of time to think.
Roland ate with fervor, listening to the anchorwoman ramble on about the Vice President’s visit to Williamsport, Maryland for a ribbon cutting ceremony at the small town’s Civil War museum, and how Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where Roland lived, would benefit from the same type of political attention.
Roland’s eyes dropped back down to his almost empty plate, but his attention remained on the report.
Williamsport. Just the name gave him shivers.
Marissa lived in Williamsport. Marissa. Soon, he thought, soon.
He used the sides of his fork to scrape bits of egg from his plate and slid the fork into his mouth, glancing up at the ceremony on the television.
“How you doin’ today, Roland?” Sergeant Agnew stood next to Roland’s booth, hand on his gun, fingers drumming against the leather holster. His thick, dirty blond hair swept off his forehead in a feathered style reminiscent of the 1980s.
Roland’s head lifted slowly, the fork held in midair. He nodded, sizing up the man’s five-foot-ten frame. “Sergeant.” Roland knew Sergeant Agnew kept an eye on him. He’d seen him talking with his boss, Harry, on several occasions.
Agnew looked toward the television. “Glad they don’t do that stuff around here. Can you imagine the ruckus?”
“I doubt you’d have any trouble controlling it,” Roland said sarcastically, then took a bite of his eggs. Roland had heard the rumors about Sergeant Agnew. A few years earlier, he had questioned a rape suspect, Charles Maynor, and let him go. A week later, Maynor raped a third girl.
Agnew looked down, then pulled his shoulders back and met and held Roland’s gaze.
“Oh, I can handle just about anything. It’s not the folks around here I worry about.
It’s the people those events bring. Strangers bring trouble.
” A grin spread across his face. “You just never know when an outsider will turn dangerous.”
Roland sat back and set his fork next to his plate. “Gotta problem, Sergeant?”
“Just look at all the trouble you brought,” he said, laughing. “Following the same routine day in and day out. I’m just waitin’ for the day you order pancakes instead of toast.”
Roland held his stare until the other man turned back toward the television. Roland’s eyes followed.
An old man’s wrinkled face appeared on the screen, full of pomp and missing teeth. The camera scrolled left to the anchorwoman. Roland’s mouth went dry, his eyes transfixed on the television screen.
The anchorwoman tapped a passerby on the arm. “Excuse me, ma’am? What do you think of the ceremony?”
The woman turned and faced the camera head-on, her blond hair tumbling in waves, just as he’d remembered.
A line of perfect white teeth gleamed at the camera as she spoke.
Roland rose to his feet and walked past Sergeant Agnew to the edge of the counter.
His eyes were riveted to the television screen.
“Whatcha need, hon?” Mable asked, then followed his eyes to the camera. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? They just don’t grow ’em like that around here.” Mable returned to wiping down the counter with a damp rag.
Roland’s heart pounded within his chest. There she was, his coveted twin sister.
This had to be a sign. Just like the release of the last restraining order, which had opened the doors for him to search harder, smarter.
It was time. A lump formed in his throat.
Roland reached up and touched the scars on his cheek.
Roland’s mother had sent them to Lowrey’s because she had slippery fingers, she’d said.
She didn’t want to accidentally burn Marissa the way she’d burned him.
He and Marissa had been reunited with their father, only to be separated three years later.
Marissa had been ripped from Roland’s clawing hands, and he’d been returned to Lowrey’s.
To Roland, it was like having half of his heart torn from his chest. They were fraternal twins on the outside, but Roland was sure they were identical on the inside.
Marissa had treated him as if he were a real big brother, not just a mere one minute older.
He missed Marissa, the way she’d curled up next to him and told him how lonely and scared she was.
He knew in his heart God had given him Marissa as a gift, someone who could look past his disfigurement and love him, trust him; he’d promised her, and himself, that he would always protect her.
His hands fisted. He’d broken his promise.
How could he protect her if he wasn’t with her?
At the Lowrey Home For Children and then at Pittsburgh Social Services, he’d threatened trouble if they didn’t disclose her whereabouts, but was always met with the same frustrating story. The files are sealed, they’d said.
But he’d found her. There she was: beautiful, captivating. Waiting.
At work, Roland watched the minutes tick by like hours.
He’d had to reset a manifold three times, unable to concentrate.
His heartbeat quickened as he thought about relinquishing his daily routine.
He’d watched a show on overcoming anxiety, and had been practicing the self-soothing technique involving his sister’s picture ever since.
He reached into his pocket and touched the picture of Marissa now, taking a deep breath, and letting it out slowly.
He could do this. His plans were already in motion.
He felt guilty for not giving Harry notice, but he knew better than to open a door for his plans to be foiled.
Harry was a kind and generous boss. He’d find someone to replace Roland without trouble.
Besides, Roland was two trucks ahead of schedule at all times.
He’d worked extra hard this week and brought that number up to four, buying Harry time to find a replacement without getting behind schedule.
In the locker room, Roland swiped the travel alarm clock from his coworker’s locker. A grin lifted the corner of his lips. He’d prepared for his and Marissa’s birthday like a squirrel, stowing away supplies for the winter. He was ready. He’d show them.
For years the system had kept him and Marissa apart.
He’d spent eight of his twenty-nine years trying to track her down.
It hadn’t been easy. Roland had a mind for mechanics, but he had no mind for complicated computers or those newfangled cell phones.
His boss, Harry, had tried to teach him to use them once.
The frustrating lesson made Roland feel like the kid who never did anything right, just like at Lowrey’s.
Why can’t you get good grades like Jeffrey and Michael?
Lowrey used to ask. Jeffrey and Michael, the smart kids, had met untimely accidents shortly thereafter.
Roland clenched his jaw as he thought about Mr. Lowrey’s frustration at his inability to calculate simple formulas.
The tutoring sessions always ended with Mr. Lowrey shaking his head in disgust, whispering under his breath.
He’d tried to get Roland to take special courses at someplace called the Staton Learning Center, but there was no way Roland would go to some school for special kids, hours away from where Marissa lived.
He wasn’t special. His brain worked just fine.
He just wasn’t numbers oriented. Roland didn’t need any reminders of those days.
What he needed was Marissa. He’d show them.
He eyed the clock, wiping axel grease on the thighs of his dark blue Dickies. 4:50. Almost time.