Someday Never Comes

Chapter Six

The rest of the day passed at an inexorable crawl.

Breakfast was the highlight, at least the first half. The cafe was named Katie's. It was small and bright and obsessively clean and served up Huevos Rancheros that had me ready to storm the kitchen and propose marriage to whoever was working the griddle.

From my vantage point at the rearmost booth, I tossed back an orgasmic mix of eggs and spicy tomato salsa and examined the breakfast crowd. There were a few old timers at the booths, making loud (I'd have ventured by necessity of their hearing) conversation over the cups of coffee the young waitress was in a constant state of refilling and a cluster of blue haired women who leaned halfway across their table to whisper excitedly at each other.

The majority of the clientele was middle aged and male though. They took up the whole of the old fashioned counter; a solid line of men in matching grey shirts. More park rangers and fish cops. Their pants sagged under the combined weight of sidearms, walkie-talkies and canisters of what could only be bear spray.

Curious about what parkland was nearby, I moved to pull out my phone. I had my hand in my coat pocket before I remembered it was laying somewhere along The World's Loneliest Road. At some point between the car and the restaurant I'd temporarily forgotten my predicament. The revelation of my absent cell brought it all rushing back.

I'd never returned Wesley's calls. Hadn't even listened to his message. By now he'd be angry as a nest of fire ants and would have almost certainly set on my parents with his predictions of doom. If there was any one trait of Detective Wesley Olinescu's fit to rival his pig headed stubbornness, it was his skill for imagining worst case scenarios. That very second he probably had them cornered in their sunny Mercer Island living room and was regaling them with the suicide statistics for thirty-something white males. And short of getting on a computer or calling headquarters back in Seattle and requesting my own emergency contacts numbers, I had no way of calling them.

Stomach threatening barrel rolls, I'd pushed my plate to other end of the table; far from me as it could go.

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Post-breakfast I made a return visit to the church to let Pastor Riggs know I'd indeed be needing to stow away for another few nights and had (further confirming my suspicions on her sanity) received the spare key to the kitchen entrance.

She'd waved off my concerns when I balked at the offer.

"What are you going to do, young man? Steal the bibles?" she'd said with the cheery condescension only those over seventy are truly capable of. She'd then rattled a keychain resplendent with wooden crosses at me like someone trying to catch a fussy toddler's attention.

I had no salient reason to dislike the woman. She'd been nothing but inexplicably kind and helpful. She'd gone truly above and beyond in that department. I decided right about then I didn't entirely like her all the same. I remembered Jamie's whistle when the Sheriff had mentioned the pastor. No telling what the beef was there, but I was starting to share his sentiment.

Keys weighing heavy in my pocket, I'd set to exploring the town. My nerves were tying my stomach in increasingly angry knots as the minutes wore on and action seemed like the best distraction from my thoughts. Even if that action was just sightseeing.

I'd learned from the pastor that there was a gas stationed. On the highway. I hoped it was farther down from where I'd turned off and I hadn't simply been so out of it that I'd missed it in passing. Relegating the station for later investigation, I set course for the main drag.