He turned to Mara. "I need you and Eli to come with me. Quietly. Don't bring the tea. Bring your bag and your coats."
"Who was on the phone?"
"I'll explain once we're somewhere we can talk without an audience."
Mara held his gaze. "Cole, I have spent eight years being told that people can't explain things. I'm not doing that again."
The correction landed. Cole stopped reaching for his jacket. He looked at her and saw a woman who was exhausted, frightened, and unwilling to surrender her judgment to the first stranger who arrived claiming to know her husband. He respected her more for it.
"I heard a voice I recognized," he said. "It said Evan is alive. I don't know whether the voice was telling the truth. Those riders arrived at almost the same moment. Until I know who sent them, I'd rather we not sit in a window where they can count every person at this table."
Mara went pale. Her hand found the edge of the booth. Eli was looking at her, then back at Cole, his mouth slightly open. Neither spoke for a few moments. The words had made the diner seem somehow farther away, its smells and noises unimportant beside the possibility that a man they had each mourned differently might be living somewhere beyond the rain.
"Alive?" Mara whispered.
"That's what the caller said. I promise you I won't pretend I know more than that."
Mara closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. She stood, pulled Eli's hood over his damp hair, and lifted the backpack. Her hands were remarkably steady. "Then tell me where we're going."
Cole approached Della at the counter. "Is there a back exit through the kitchen?"
Della studied him, then glanced at the motorcycles. Her expression changed only slightly. "Door beside the storeroom. Leads to the workshop bay. Something I should call someone about?"
"Not yet. If anybody asks whether a mother and kid were in here, I'd appreciate it if you gave them nothing more than what you know firsthand."
"That's my policy on most nights," Della said. "And on all nights involving people in leather who think they own the road."
He paid for the meal and tucked extra cash beneath the saucer. Della pushed two wrapped pieces of cornbread toward him. "For the boy. The mechanic's got a heater back there. Go on."
They passed through the kitchen, where the cook barely looked up from a pan of onions. The rear door opened onto a narrow alley slick with rain. Cole checked both directions before stepping out. Mara followed with Eli at her side, and the three moved toward the adjoining repair shop where a broad-shouldered man in coveralls was working beneath the hood of their truck.
"You must be the mechanic," Cole said.
"Name's Warren," the man replied, wiping his hands on a rag. "If this is about the fuel pump, it still won't be here before morning."