Frank and Dolores Whitcomb occupied the booth nearest the rain-streaked window. They were retired, on their way home from visiting a daughter in California, and had planned to leave twenty minutes earlier. Dolores looked at the girl's trembling hands and felt the remembered reflex of a mother whose children had long since grown. Frank, a former Marine, glanced toward the parking lot and then back toward the entrance. Neither of them discussed whether to stay. They simply ordered another pot of tea.
Grim watched the children with an expression nobody at the other tables could interpret. When Rosie had eaten enough to slow down, he pushed his glass of water toward her. She looked at Ethan before drinking, and Grim felt a brief, unwelcome pressure behind his ribs. Children were supposed to look to their parents for permission. The boy across from him was making parental decisions with a face that still had baby softness around the jaw.
"What's your name?" Grim asked. "Ethan Cole." The boy answered without lifting his eyes from Rosie's plate.
"This is my sister, Rosie. She's seven." Rosie gave the smallest possible nod, and Grim acknowledged it as if it were a formal introduction. He told her, "Good to meet you, Rosie," and waited until she looked back at her food before speaking again.
"How long have you been out in that rain?" Grim asked. "Most of the day," Ethan said.
"It wasn't raining when we started." He took another bite, chewed, and swallowed before adding, "We left before the sun. We got a ride for part of it." He did not say where they had started, and Grim did not ask immediately, sensing that information had to be earned rather than extracted.
Millie brought the soup and hot chocolate. She set the mugs down on folded napkins and spoke softly enough that the children did not have to become the center of the room again. "These are on the house," she said. "You can take your time."
Ethan glanced at the prices printed on the menu in its plastic holder. "We don't have money for this," he admitted, his voice dropping. "I didn't ask whether you did," Millie replied. "I told you it's on the house."
Rosie wrapped her hands around the hot chocolate, then winced when she tried to straighten her left arm. Grim saw it and felt the muscles in his jaw tighten. Ethan noticed him noticing and immediately put a hand over his sister's wrist, not to hide it exactly, but to protect her from a question he did not know how to answer. Grim changed his tone. "Anyone know you're here?" he asked. "Anyone looking after you?"
"Our mom knows we left," Ethan said. He seemed relieved to have a question he could answer truthfully. "She told us which road to take. She said we couldn't come back." His fork went motionless above the plate. "She said if we found someone safe, we were supposed to stay there no matter what happened to her."