Pretend I’m Your Dad
The first thing Hank Reeves said to Sarah Mitchell that morning was not hello.
It was, “You’re in danger. Pretend I’m your dad.”
Sarah’s coffee pot stopped in midair.
For half a second, she thought she had misheard him.
The Riverside Diner was full of the ordinary noises of a Portland morning—plates clinking behind the counter, bacon snapping on the flat-top, an old Fleetwood Mac song murmuring from the ceiling speakers, rain tapping against the windows.
But something in Hank’s face made every sound seem suddenly distant.
He sat alone in booth nine.
He had been there every morning that week.
Black coffee. Two eggs over medium. Wheat toast he barely touched.
Leather vest over a gray thermal shirt. Thick hands. Silver beginning to show in his beard. A red-and-white Hells Angels patch curved across his back, though he kept his body positioned so most customers never saw it clearly.
Sarah had assumed he was another biker passing through.
Portland had plenty.
Now he leaned across the table as though telling her a family secret.
“Laugh,” he said.
“What?”
“Laugh like I just told you something embarrassing.”
She stared at him.
His eyes flicked toward the mirror behind the pie display.
“Sarah. Now.”
She laughed.
It came out wrong—too sharp, too short, almost frightened—but it was enough.
“Good. Pull out your order pad.”
She did.
Only then did she look into the mirror.
Two men had just entered the diner.
Dark jackets.
Dark jeans.
Neither removed his coat.
Neither looked at the hostess sign.
One paused near the register.
The other scanned the room once, slowly, then looked directly toward Sarah.
His right hand drifted inside his jacket.
Not reaching.
Resting.
Sarah felt something cold move through her stomach.
Hank did not turn around.
“My name is Hank Reeves,” he said.
“I know. Your card says Hank.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
One of the men moved toward the counter.
The second began walking down the aisle.
Sarah whispered, “Do you know them?”
“Yes.”
“Who are they?”
“Men who’ve been watching you.”
Her fingers tightened around the coffee pot.
“What?”
“Four days.”
“That’s how long you’ve been coming here.”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
“You’ve been watching me too?”
“Yes.”
That answer frightened her more than if he had denied it.
The man in the aisle was ten feet away.
Hank lowered his voice.
“Listen carefully. In about five seconds I’m going to stand up. You’re going to roll your eyes like you’re annoyed with me, then walk toward the kitchen.”
“Why?”
“Because the two men behind you are here for you.”
Sarah’s throat went dry.
“What do they want?”
Hank’s jaw tightened.
The expression that crossed his face was strange—not fear, not anger exactly, but something old enough to have lost its sharp edges.
“They got an order this morning.”
“What order?”
He looked directly at her.
“To finish what they started twenty-four years ago.”
The man in the aisle was six feet away.
Sarah nearly forgot to breathe.
“What happened twenty-four years ago?”
Hank’s eyes did not leave hers.
“They murdered your father.”
Sarah’s hand jerked.
Coffee spilled across the table.
Hank caught the pot before it fell.
Her father.
The word itself felt incorrect.
Her mother had spent Sarah’s entire life describing Michael Mitchell in the shortest possible terms.
He left.
That was the story.
No photographs.
No letters.
No angry divorce.
Just a man who discovered Diana was pregnant and decided fatherhood did not belong in the life he wanted.
Sarah had built an entire private architecture around that absence.
She had imagined him wealthy.
Poor.
Married.
Dead.
Happy.
Regretful.
She had imagined meeting him at grocery stores, traffic lights, airport gates.
At twelve, she used to study the faces of men in crowds and wonder if one might recognize her.
At seventeen, she stopped wondering.
By twenty-four, she had turned the man into an empty room she had learned not to enter.
Now a biker she had known for four mornings was telling her there had never been an empty room at all.
There had been a body.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
The approaching man was three feet away.
Hank smiled suddenly.
Wide.
Easy.
A performance.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he said louder. “You know your old man needs more coffee.”
Sarah’s body understood before her mind did.
She rolled her eyes.
“Dad, you’ve already had four cups.”
The man stopped.
Only for a second.
But he stopped.
Hank looked toward him for the first time.
The stranger saw the president patch.
Something in his expression shifted.
Not fear.
Calculation.
Hank pushed the coffee pot toward Sarah.
“Kitchen.”
She walked.
Not fast.
That was the hardest part.
Every instinct told her to run.
She forced herself past booth six.
Past the waitress station.
Past Jimmy Navarro working the grill.
He looked up.
“Sarah?”
“Burnt coffee,” she said.
She had no idea why.
Jimmy frowned.
She pushed through the swinging kitchen door.
Hank entered four seconds later.
“Back exit.”
“What is happening?”
“Move.”
They crossed the prep area.
Jimmy called after them.
“Hey!”
Hank shoved the service door open.
Cold February air hit Sarah’s face.
A black motorcycle waited in the alley.
Sarah stopped.
“Absolutely not.”
Hank looked back through the narrow kitchen window.