the restaurant and yet she found herself looking over her shoulder, paying extra attention to the patrons entering and leaving the establishment. And she hated the laptop thief for stealing her sense of safety.
Immediately her mind flung back to the stranger, how he’d appeared from nowhere and disappeared as easily.
“Hey, Portia. How are you, honey?” The diner’s lead waitress greeted her and grabbed a menu. Molly was a Silver Valley mainstay, the woman who served up hot soup or Belgian waffles when you needed them most. Molly sat her at a single booth, knowing how Portia enjoyed eating in the back corner of the diner, with a table to spread her books out on. “I heard you had a little excitement today.”
“I did, and it’s over.” Portia shrugged out of her parka and hung it on the hook adjacent the bench seat. “I called my parents right after, so that they wouldn’t find out on social media or the online paper.” Molly knew her parents, the entire DiNapoli family in fact.
Molly waited for her to sit. “That was smart. I’m surprised your parents aren’t here with you now.”
Portia smiled, still too worn out to laugh. “Trust me, I had to convince my mother that I’m totally fine. I promised her I was coming here to eat, then spending time at the shelter, where the other volunteers are like my second family.”
“It’s turned out okay, but honey, you were almost killed. Don’t treat it so lightly, give yourself a little time to process. I’m so glad you’re okay. That’s all that matters.”
“I appreciate that.” And she did, but she couldn’t keep dwelling on the frightening part of the situation or she’d never feel safe in Silver Valley again. “I see the chef made a batch of pepper pot pie.” She referred to a local central Pennsylvania dish, which was actually a beef or chicken soup with square noodles, not a pastry-crust pie with filling.
“He did, and it smells divine in the kitchen tonight.”
“I’ll take that, and my usual.”
Molly laughed, shaking her head. “I envy your ability to consume grilled cheese so regularly and not gain an inch.”
“I’m on my feet all day.” And today she’d earned all the comfort food she could manage to eat. She’d never forget how close she’d come to death, nor the enigmatic man who’d saved her life.
“Do you want hot tea, honey?”
“Yes, please.” Molly walked away and Portia counted her blessings. Her parents were still in the area and she saw them fairly regularly, but her two siblings had moved away to Boston and Austin, Texas, respectively. Her brother worked with the FBI and her sister was a medical researcher. Their family times were great when they happened, but they were infrequent. It was nice to come into a diner and be treated like she belonged. Just like it was great to look forward to going to the homeless shelter tonight. Since her high school friend Lani had OD’d, Portia had found herself craving more human connection than what work provided. She wondered if her need to be with others would only intensify after her near-death experience today.
Certainly her obsession over her rescuer indicated she might need more human contact.
As she ate her pepper pot pie and sandwich dripping with Gouda and cheddar, she studied her handheld tablet. In a medium-sized town like Silver Valley, charities often combined events to help individual nonprofits to raise exponentially more cash. Since she’d been the one to suggest marrying the homeless shelter’s fund-raising efforts to the library gala, Portia knew her professional reputation was at stake. If the gala raised the same amount as last year, that meant less money for the library, as they’d agreed to give the homeless shelter 25 percent of the funds raised. There was less than a month left, and so far they had sold the same number of tickets as last year. She needed to figure out how to sell more by the RSVP deadline, two weeks away. The gala was to be at the end of the month, and would include a Silver Valley ice sculpture festival and contest. She was grateful for five weeks in January this year.
The homeless shelter was a short ten-minute walk from the diner, but it was located at the end of town, where the buildings thinned and the northern wind was a force to lean into. She’d traded her shoes for snow boots and wore her warmest down parka, but nothing seemed enough to stay warm in the sub-zero windchill.
The shelter was a modest craftsman-style home that had been converted to a fifty-bed mission by an anonymous donor three years ago. The porch and entry, usually full with patrons waiting until the last minute to go in for the night, stood empty. It was totally because of the cold, no question.
Still, a shiver raced up her spine and Portia knew a moment of sheer terror as she stared into the dark shadows of the porch. And then made herself look at the windows, aglow with light and promising warmth.
But she couldn’t shake the frigid snare of fear that stabbed at her previous sense of safety, of surety about Silver Valley’s place in the world. Would she ever regain it?
Kyle hoped tonight’s surveillance at the homeless shelter would lead him to whomever might know when and by what means the next heroin shipment was coming in. On a cold night like this, addicts who normally avoided the shelters for fear of getting arrested for carrying illegal substances were sure to come in. He wanted to know who the newest dealers were, and where to find them.
Kyle checked in early to the shelter, well before the time he knew Portia normally showed up. Just in case she did. He’d expect her to go home and take the night off, after what she’d been through today.
Who was he kidding? Portia would no more likely bail on a volunteer shift than he’d quit an undercover op. Wasn’t one of the things that he found so attractive about her the dedication she appeared to have to her work, her community? He tried to mentally brace himself to focus on finding someone else to date, to be with. Yet his gut instinct seemed to laugh at him, as if what he felt toward Portia were predestined, beyond his control.
He tried to breathe through his mouth, to not inhale the scent of his unwashed clothes. Part of his successful capture of intelligence regarding ROC’s heroin and illegal-goods shipment operation was blending in, no matter the circumstance. As a homeless man, that meant stinking as if he’d been on the streets for several days.
He’d refuse to bathe here, unlike most of the men and women who gratefully accepted a hot shower. He couldn’t risk anyone seeing him without the dirty wig or baggy clothes. He promised the intake person that he’d shower before bed. The mission also offered gently used but clean pajamas, to change into and wear so that their dirty clothes could be washed. Kyle found it easiest to play the role of the reluctant shelter-seeker. No one bothered him, save for the social workers who always tried to convince him to let them help him.
He’d found an old, scraggly wig at a used clothing store and wet it thoroughly, doused it with dirt, rubbed it around the attic of the house he rented, until it was sufficiently matted. No one would recognize him as the man who’d knocked Silver Valley’s librarian off the local train tracks, in front of an oncoming train, just hours ago.
He scratched his head, hating the wig, and wished he hadn’t shaved and had his hair cut. He’d had to, in order to hang around the library and not draw unwarranted attention. He’d needed to blend in, which he did by wearing different types of clothing each day, his wardrobe flexible to accommodate the needs of a farmer, teacher, professional or what he really was. An undercover agent.
After pouring a cup of hot coffee from the urn set up in the dining room area, he settled into a worn sofa and prepared to listen and learn. Observe. It was his job to do so.
A gust of polar air rushed into the room as the front door opened with a bang. His nape tingled and he silently swore to himself. It wasn’t a premonition or anything portending danger. It was what he’d labeled his Portia Radar. He’d had to call it something, because as a good undercover agent, he couldn’t afford to ignore how he reacted to people.
Before her shiny brunette hair that curled around her face and hung to her shoulders appeared, before the overhead lights reflected off her doe-brown eyes, before her confident,