Chapter 20
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“Guys, stop.” Cassie looks between us, and Quinn and I grin sheepishly. “I’ve eaten at simple places before, and you’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
“Are we?” I ask, waggling my eyebrows. “Do you remember what it’s like to sit in a sticky booth and eat greasy burgers and fries?”
“Wait, are the booths really sticky?” Cassie jumps out of the station wagon and looks at Quinn for help, but she simply shrugs.
“Guess you’ll have to find out.”
“Let’s do this.” She looks like she’s about to walk into a den of lions and face them without a weapon or an idea of how to defend herself. I find it adorable. When she was younger, she used to like it when we’d go to one of the diners around town for burgers, fries, and milkshakes. Her dad would laugh and split a second chocolate milkshake, saying he had no idea how she ate like a seventeen-year-old boy.
She pauses at the entrance of the diner. It’s just dawning on her where we are. “Dad used to love this place.”
“I think he’d be happy to know you’re here now.” I put a hand on her shoulder. It’s just to comfort her because she is feeling down. Seems I’ve gotten better at lying to myself.
She stops at the wall of pictures just past the entrance. Her fingers trace the hundreds of smiling faces until she finds the picture she’s looking for. It’s a small shot, right in the corner, but it’s been there for as long as I can remember. It was taken before I came into Robby and Cassie’s lives.
Cassie is holding up a piece of cake with eight candles, all squeezed into the same tiny slice. Her dad has his arm around her, the biggest smile ever stretched across his face. They look so happy; it makes me sad.
“I remember that day.”
“You do?” I look down to find her eyes filled with memories. My heart aches for her.
“I think about it all the time. He got me the strawberry cake. My favorite was chocolate before that, but after that night, it was strawberry. I think it was because of how happy we were that night.”
Her explanation makes perfect sense because Robby had that effect on people, especially on his daughter, to make them so happy they didn’t know what to do with themselves.
“I think your old booth is available.” I lead her to the back of the diner. Quinn trails behind us.
The booth is not sticky. In fact, it looks like the place has been refurbished. It’s been a while since I’ve been here. Probably because the few times I did, it felt a little wrong without Cassie or Robby there. I let her in first, then take the seat opposite. Quinn slides in beside her.
A little while later, the menus are produced. All of their main dishes look the same. Cassie smiles when she sees that and picks what her dad used to order for her as a kid.
Quinn and I both follow suit.
It doesn’t take long for the food to come.
Cassie takes a French fry and dips it in her chocolate shake. “Mmmm, this is delicious. I‘d forgotten how much I enjoyed this.”
“Don’t get too attached,” I warn her, immediately feeling like a jerk.
“I’ll get as attached as I like,” she throws back. “What about you, Quinn? What’s your favorite childhood place to visit?”
“Not sure.” Quinn shakes her head. Now that Cassie mentions it, Quinn never talks much about her family. She usually avoids the topic by asking questions neither of us can help but answer.
“Really? There’s not a single place you can think of?”
Quinn shrugs.
“Library, I guess.” She dips a fry like Cassie did, and her face lights up. “I can see what you were saying about this. I wish I hadn’t drunk that whole coffee in the car on the way here. Otherwise, I could have eaten two of these since Lincoln is treating.”
My head whips around.
“Me? I never volunteered for that.”
“I think it’s an unspoken rule when you invite two coworkers out to a diner of your choice.” Cassie giggles, and I can’t figure out if it’s a good or bad thing that I’m being ganged up on. Cassie and Quinn fall into natural conversation while my mind wanders. The clues to our case don’t quite add up. Something is missing, and it’s staring me in the face.
Sometimes, when I solve cases, there will be a single piece of information that makes everything make sense, and that hasn’t happened yet, which is frustrating me.
I can feel it so close to being there, but it’s just not. Why would someone want to shoot us? I’m worth more to Phineas alive than dead, so it wasn’t him, but he was our best suspect until we were almost gunned down.
Even though three guns were shooting at us, we weren’t hit—a slight miracle in itself. I've heard of people dying from less dangerous situations. Does that mean the shooting wasn’t meant to kill us at all?
“What’s up?” Quinn’s voice interrupts my musings.
“I was just thinking, why were we shot at, but none of us were hurt?”
“What?” Cassie pauses, a fry halfway to her mouth.
“I mean, if they wanted us dead, they could have stayed longer. They could have gotten out of the car. There was no reason for them to leave so quickly in the first place. They had every opportunity to make sure both of us were dead. What if they didn't want us dead at all?”
“You mean like they were just scaring you guys?” Quinn’s straw slurps as it scrapes the bottom of the cup.
“Well, think about it.” Why? The question pounds in my head.
Cassie bites her lower lip. “Maybe they were trying to get us to do something.”
“Do something?” Somehow, that makes more sense than what I was thinking.
“I don’t know if you guys remember on my show, but the team was after this criminal in the first season. He wanted them to suspect someone else, so he made a pass at them, using the other guy’s MO. It got them off his back long enough for him to escape.”
“A diversion, but what were they diverting us from or to?” I frown. Her explanation makes a lot of sense, but what is the rest of it? What does the person we’re after want us to do, and how can we keep from doing it?
I pick up my burger and take a big bite. Regardless of what’s waiting for us, this is the best thing I’ve eaten in days. I lose myself in the meal for a few seconds until an idea emerges. Before it’s fully formulated, the booth is behind me, and I’m slipping off to the kitchen, with the girls giving me questioning looks.
After talking with the kitchen staff, I return to the table with three plates of strawberry cake. The plates rattle softly as I set them down in front of Quinn and Cassie. Cassie doesn’t say anything. She just looks down at the cake, and her face isn’t visible. My heart skips a beat for a moment. Maybe she’s upset I did something that was a special tradition between her and her dad. I didn’t mean to mess anything up for her. I just wanted to bring back a sweet memory where she’d been happier.
The diner feels stuffy and just a tad suffocating. This is it. I’ve driven her away once and for all. It needed to happen, but it’s still a little heartbreaking.
She looks up, her eyes full of tears, but a sad smile sits on her pretty red lips.
“Thank you, Lincoln.” Her voice shakes. “This was exactly what I needed tonight.”
My heart swells with pride, and I want nothing more than to push Quinn out of the way, pull Cassie into my arms, and tell her that her dad would have been so proud of her and how much I wish he could be the one returning to the diner with her and buying her strawberry cake, but it would be inappropriate. So, instead, I sit on my side of the booth and fill my mouth with cake.
“This is delicious.” Quinn shakes her head. “I always got the vanilla and the carrot cake.”
Cassie giggles. “You’ll never go back.”
“No, I won’t.”
I watch the two of them. For a moment, a feeling of longing sweeps through me. If only it were possible for me to bring Cassie here all the time. We’d come for strawberry cake and talk about the past. I’d tell her how much I missed her while she was gone, how somehow she manages to ground me when nothing else can. We’d share everything, and she’d be mine. But that illusion shatters as soon as it appears.
The age difference, her dad being my best friend, the fact she doesn’t want to be here, I’m a danger to her… there are so many reasons.
“So, what are we going to do about the case?” Cassie says, around a mouthful of cake.
“Exactly what Robby would have wanted us to do. It can only be solved by solving.” I grin. I’ll enjoy this last job with her, and then I’ll let her go back to her life, where she belongs, and pick up the tiny little pieces of my life she leaves behind.