October in Murfreesboro had turned the light gray and thin, pressing flat against the plate glass windows of the diner. The coffee machine hissed. The radio was playing something with a steel guitar. In the kitchen, Jimmy hummed along to a song the radio was not playing—the comfortable sound of a man who had worked the same eight square feet of kitchen floor for eleven years and made his peace with it.
June refilled table three, cleared table two, and felt the back of her neck tighten before she consciously understood what her eyes had already told her.
Two men at the counter. Dark suits. The kind that do not wrinkle.
They had come in together at 8:17 but sat one stool apart, not looking at each other, not speaking. One of them had ordered coffee; the other had not. Neither cup had been touched. Their eyes had not moved from June in four minutes.
June pressed a crescent mark into her left palm without noticing, thumbnail driving into an old groove, and moved toward the far end of the counter where two truckers sat scrolling on their phones.
She let the coffee pot tilt slightly, a small fumble practiced in quiet, just enough to create a reason to lean close. She tilted her head toward the suited men without looking directly at them.