"You think helping Ethan fixes what happened with your son?" she asked gently. "No," Grim said at once. "Nothing I do for somebody else gives me my son back or excuses what I said to him." He let the answer settle. "But tonight I had the chance to be the man who goes looking instead of the man who stays behind with a story about why he couldn't. I wasn't going to miss it."
Millie had no prepared response. She put her hand briefly over his on the counter, and he did not move away. Outside, a distant engine approached along Route 66, then another. Danny turned toward the window, his expression tightening as several headlights swung into the parking lot. The safe part of the night, such as it had been, was coming to an end.
Danny reached the window before Grim had set down his coffee. The parking lot had once again become a blur of wet asphalt and reflected light, but there were too many engines for ordinary customers. Four pickups stood across the far side of the property with their headlights angled toward the building. Beside them sat a marked patrol cruiser with its roof lights dark. No one had yet approached the door.
"How many?" Grim asked. "Seven or eight in the trucks," Danny said. "One deputy. I can see Clay in the second pickup, passenger side."
Grim looked through the glass, then toward Jesse, who had gone pale enough that the color of his lips seemed wrong. "He knows you're here," Grim said. Jesse nodded. "He knows by now. If he doesn't know about the drive, he knows I haven't come back."
Millie came from behind the counter carrying the shotgun she kept secured beneath the register. The old side-by-side had belonged to her father and had not been fired at anything more threatening than a rattlesnake in years. She held it with familiarity, but Grim noticed her knuckles were white. "Behind the counter," he told her. "Please. The children are gone, and I don't intend to turn your diner into something their mother has to hear about tomorrow."
"This is my diner, Victor." "I know whose diner it is," Grim said. "That's why I don't want a firefight in it." He looked around the room.
"Everyone away from the windows. Nobody goes out back unless Danny says it's clear. If you have a telephone, keep it within reach." Millie studied him, then lowered the gun and moved behind the counter, where she could keep it secure without displaying it to the people outside.
Frank rose immediately. At sixty-seven he still stood with the straight-backed economy of a man whose body remembered training even after the job had ended. "What do you need from us?" he asked. Grim shook his head.