Chapter Two
Roulette
I pushed through Patsy’s front door a few minutes after seven.
The bell jingled overhead, and the smell hit me right away -- bacon grease and burnt coffee, the particular sour-sweet note of yesterday’s pie sweating under plastic wrap, and underneath it all, the heavy smell of a place that had been cooking for thirty years and didn’t plan to stop anytime soon.
The jukebox in the corner sat untouched. Nobody bothered with it before noon.
The breakfast crowd was thin. An older couple sat in the first booth, the man reading a newspaper folded into quarters, his wife buttering toast with the slow, deliberate movements of someone who wasn’t in a hurry.
Two guys in work shirts at the counter, halfway through their eggs, talking quietly about a job site.
I headed for my usual stool at the far end, back to the wall, facing the door.
Habit. I could see the entire room from there without turning my head.
Lark was behind the counter, reaching for the coffeepot. She didn’t look up when I came in. That part was expected. Everything else was not.
Her posture had gone too high and tight, like she was listening for something behind her.
She checked the door twice in the five seconds it took her to grab the pot -- quick glances most people would miss.
Her hand trembled when she poured, the coffee sloshing just enough to leave a dark ring on the Formica.
She wiped it with her sleeve without looking at it.
I set my mug down. Her gaze found mine for half a second, then slid away to the kitchen pass-through.
I’d been coming here long enough to know her baseline -- the efficient movement between tables, the reliable cadence of her steps, the smile that came and went depending on how tired she was.
Today, that cadence was broken. She was working the coffee station like it was a shield, staying close to the kitchen where Dave’s voice and the hiss of the grill filled the room.
She refilled the older couple’s mugs without being asked. When the man said thank you, she paused for half a beat before answering, like her brain had to translate the words before they reached her mouth. Dark circles were under her eyes. Not one bad night. Older exhaustion.
I drank my coffee and let her work. She came back twice to top me off without me asking, and both times her hand was steadier, but her eyes kept cutting to the door. This wasn’t the casual check of someone working a public-facing job. It was sharper. More specific.
When she brought my plate -- two over easy, wheat toast that Dave had charred at the edges again -- I caught the corner of her mouth twitch. Not quite a smile. Too tired to become one.
“Usual today?” she asked, even though the plate was already in front of me.
“Yeah.”
She nodded and turned away. I ate slowly, keeping the room in view.
The work shirts paid and left. A woman came in and sat at the counter, ordered coffee and a Danish to go.
Lark took the order, poured the coffee, and when she turned to get the Danish from the display case, she paused for a second, her hand on the glass door, and checked the front window as if she were measuring the street.
Then she reached for the pastry, wrapped it, and handed it over with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
I was halfway through my eggs when she came back with the coffeepot. She refilled my mug without asking, and I watched the careful pour. Steadier this time, though tension still lived in her wrist, in the hard line of her mouth.
“Something happen?” I asked.
The question hung between us. She blinked, and for a second I thought she might brush it off completely. Then her gaze dropped to the counter.
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
The silence did what silence does. She filled it.
“Got home last night and things weren’t right.” Her voice was clipped, barely above the din. She kept her gaze on the coffeepot handle. “Looked like someone had been inside. Stuff just enough out of place to make sure I noticed.”
“Anything missing?”
“No. That’s the part that…” She stopped. Took a breath. “Everything was still there. I checked twice.”
I drank some coffee, and let the quiet stretch, giving her time to think.
“Probably overreacting,” she said. “Maybe there’s some explanation for it, but the windows were closed and the doors were locked. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ve learned not to ignore things just because they don’t have a simple explanation,” I said.
She looked at me then. Really looked. Her blue eyes were clear but wary, sharpened by too many easy answers that had turned out to be wrong.
“You lock up when you left for work yesterday?” I asked.
“Yes. Both doors. Deadbolts. I always do.”
I gave a single nod. She stayed with me another second, then glanced at the clock above the register.
“I should get back to it. Meredith’s in the back doing inventory.”
“Go ahead.”
She moved away, coffeepot in hand, and started on the other end of the counter. I finished my eggs. The toast was burnt but I ate it anyway. The coffee had gone cold but I drank it down to the dregs.
When I was done, I left a twenty on the counter for the seven-dollar check and slid off the stool.
Lark was at the far table, taking an order from a couple who’d just come in.
She didn’t look over when I stood. I pushed through the door and the bell jingled behind me, and the morning air was warm and thick with the smell of cut grass from somebody’s lawn down the block.
I walked to my bike without hurrying. The decision was already made. I’d known it the moment she admitted the place had been disturbed, but I’d let her talk anyway because people need to say things out loud sometimes. Need to hear how they sound. Need someone listening.
I’d known her address for three weeks by then.
Hadn’t needed it for anything until now -- just habit, the same reflex that made me clock exit routes in a room I’d only be in for twenty minutes.
Gunner had pulled it off a utility record the first week I started going during her shifts, back when I was still telling myself I only came into Patsy’s for the coffee.
Standard practice for anyone who started mattering to the club, even before they knew they mattered.
I’d filed it away and hadn’t thought about it since.
I swung my leg over the seat and started the engine. The vibration ran through the frame and into my hands, solid and familiar. I pulled away from the curb and pointed the front wheel toward her street.
I parked the bike half a block down from her house and killed the engine.
The street lay empty. Mid-morning on a weekday, most people at work or inside with the air conditioning running.
Her rental sat at the end of a row of similar houses -- single-story, vinyl siding that had faded to the color of old newspaper, a chain-link fence around a postage-stamp front yard.
The concrete stoop had a crack running diagonally across the top step.
A place that had stopped trying to impress anyone around the time Reagan was in office.
I didn’t go to the front door. I walked past it instead, hands in my jacket pockets, moving at the pace of someone who lived nearby and had nowhere particular to be. A man checking his mail, maybe. A neighbor out for a stroll. Nothing to see here.
I moved to the side gate. The latch was a simple hook-and-eye, easy enough for a child to open. A single dark hair was caught in the metal where the hook met the eye, stretched taut like a guitar string. Too coarse to be Lark’s. Too dark. I left it there.
The back of the house was where it got interesting.
The doorframe had a scuff on the exterior -- faint, but intentional.
A mark from someone bracing a boot against wood.
A kick would have left a deeper indention.
This was from a slower motion. More patient.
I ran my thumb over it. The wood was smooth except for that one spot, where the finish had been compressed and slightly darkened by pressure.
I stepped back and checked the bedroom window.
The blinds were drawn, but one slat near the center sat bent at an angle -- pushed aside just enough to leave a clean sightline into the room from the yard.
Not broken. Adjusted, and adjusted from the inside -- someone had bent it just enough to leave themselves a window to look through later, without ever having to touch the glass again.
I stood in the backyard for a minute, hands on my hips, and let the pieces settle.
Someone had been here. Someone had entered the house without force, moved through it without disturbing anything valuable, and stood outside her bedroom window watching. Not a robbery. A message.
I pulled my phone from my jacket and called Fox. He picked up on the second ring.
“Talk to me.”
“Woman who works at Patsy’s Diner. Name’s Lark. Came home yesterday, found signs someone had been in her house. Didn’t look like theft. I just walked the property. Dark hair caught in the side gate. Boot scuff on the back doorframe. Bedroom blind adjusted for a sightline.”
Fox went silent for three seconds. I could hear the soft click of a lighter, the exhale of smoke.
“She have anyone nearby?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“Police?”
“No. She thinks she might be overreacting.”
Another pause. He was turning it over, considering angles I couldn’t see.
“Keep it in-house,” he said. “Don’t spook her, and don’t loop in anyone outside the club -- no cops, not yet. Watch her. If whoever it is comes back, we handle it. You need anything, call.”
“Copy that.” I paused. “But to have enough eyes on her, I think she’d notice.”
“Then don’t make it round the clock. Just enough to hopefully keep her safe.”
The line went dead. I pocketed the phone and walked back to my bike. The neighborhood stayed still. A dog barked two streets over. A lawn mower started up somewhere behind the houses. Ordinary sounds.
I started the engine and pulled away from the curb. The bike carried me back toward Main Street, past storefronts and parked cars and people going about their days with no idea the air had changed. When I reached Patsy’s, I slowed just enough to see through the front window.
Lark was there. Still moving between tables, coffeepot in hand, refilling mugs and taking orders.
From this distance, through glass, she looked small.
Not physically. Worn down, maybe. Carrying too much for too long.
She turned toward the kitchen, and I caught the profile of her face -- the set of her jaw, her shoulders still caught in that defensive hitch.
She glanced at the door. Then again, two seconds later.
I twisted the throttle and the bike surged forward, carrying me past the diner and onto the highway that would take me back to the compound.
My mind was already running through what came next -- schedules, rotations, who would watch and when, how to keep it invisible so she wouldn’t feel watched.
The club had done this before. We knew the drill.
But knowing the drill didn’t make the cold feeling in my stomach go away. Someone had walked through her house. Someone had stood outside her window. And the fact that nothing appeared to be missing only made it worse, because it meant whatever they wanted was still there.
I pushed the bike harder and let the wind take the thought.