The Diner

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

“Well damn, looks like someone’s finally bought the old bakery shop. I wonder what it’s going to be now.” Noah stopped walking, looking across the street at the vacant storefront. The For Sale sign that had been in the window for the last month now had a Sold decal plastered over it.

“Another bakery?” Cody replied to Noah’s comment.

“With our luck, probably,” Noah said in disgust. “Just what this town needs, a third bakery.” He chuckled. “If it is, they can name it Bakery Number Three, and be done with it.”

“What we really need,” Cody said adamantly, “is a decent place to eat that isn’t a tourist trap.”

Noah nodded in agreement. “But then what can you expect in a tourist town? Delmonico’s or Jean Georges?”

Cody looked at his friend, laughing. “Like you ever ate at them when you went to New York.”

“Well…no.” Noah grinned. “But I did case them out. Talk about ritzy and ex-pen-sive.”

“I just want a nice diner with decent food and no frills.”

“Dream on, boy, dream on. That doesn’t bring in the tourist bucks and you know that’s all Mayor Dunn and the city council are interested in.” Noah rubbed his fingers together. “Like the song from Cabaret, ‘Money, Money’.”

“It makes the world go around. Yeah, yeah. Right now though I’d better get moving.” Cody sighed, starting to walk again. “I definitely need money to pay the rent, which won’t happen if I don’t get to work.”

Noah called out, “See you later.” Cody casually waved over his shoulder and kept going, while Noah remained where he was. He looked across the street again and for a brief moment he thought he saw something move inside the empty shop. “The new owner?” he wondered aloud. He thought that was unlikely, as no lights were on and the front door was padlocked—as it had been since the bakery had moved out. “Ghosts.” He laughed softly and started walking. Like Cody, he had a job and he didn’t want to lose it by being late.

* * * *

From inside the vacant shop, a man watched Noah turn the corner onto a side street. He tapped his lip pensively, and nodded before going back to what he’d been doing.

* * * *

Noah and Cody had been best friends since grade school. In high school they played on the baseball team, took many of the same classes, and worked after school at Mr. Winston’s hardware store. They were as close as two friends could be, almost carbon copies of each other except in looks. Cody was blond with blue eyes and a muscular build. Noah was slender, with dark brown hair and eyes so deep green they sometimes appeared almost black.

There was one other difference. One that no one in the town of Spirit Falls knew about, except for Noah’s parents, and Cody. Noah was gay. It was a secret he’d kept well-hidden even before hearing how some of the guys on the team talked about “fags” and “fruits.” They would use those and other even more derogatory words while pointing to one kid or another who met what they considered the criteria for being gay.

By the time he reached his junior year, Noah was well versed on how to date a girl without letting it get beyond the occasional hug and maybe peck on the lips. He also knew how to break off with them before they got too clingy. As soon as he graduated, he bought an old car and used it to take periodic trips to New York City, which was only a hundred miles from Spirit Falls. Generally, he’d just go to a club to dance and talk and, as he laughingly put it to Cody at one point, “Be with my own kind.”

The two young men were now twenty-two and still living in the town where they grew up. Cody was a manager at the hardware store they’d both worked at while in school. Noah was the desk clerk and general factotum at the Irish Rose Bed-and-Breakfast, located just a quarter of a mile from the base of the falls that gave the town its name.

* * * *

As the sheriff parked in the lot behind the town hall he shook his head in amusement. Noah Graham was dashing across the bridge over Spirit River. If you’d leave home earlier…”That’ll be the day,” he murmured as he got out of the patrol car.

Once he was inside the building, his first stop was his office in the basement where the sheriff’s department was located. He paused long enough to let the dispatcher know he’d arrived and that he had an appointment with the mayor, then headed upstairs.

The mayor’s secretary looked up when John entered the office.

“Is he in yet?” John asked, glancing at the open door behind her.

“Not yet. He should be here any second though, Sheriff Darkman.”

John nodded, taking a seat in one of the chairs along the wall to wait; contemplating as he sometimes did how much he disliked his last name, with all its connotations of evil and villainy. When he was younger he’d seriously considered changing it. However now, as the last surviving male member of his family—a family well revered in the town—he knew it would hurt his grandmother deeply if he did. Staring off into space, he thought about how far he’d come since high school.

* * * *

Following in his father’s footsteps, John was the town sheriff—the youngest in Spirit Falls’ history at the age of twenty-seven. James Darkman had held the position until his untimely death at the hands of a couple of men who had thought holding up the local bank would be as easy as pie. James and his deputies had stopped them, but he’d been fatally shot in the process. John had been away at school at the time, studying law enforcement, with the intention of joining a big city police force. After his father’s death, he completed his studies and returned home to be with his mother, who was gravely ill. When she died, there was only he and his grandmother, Constance Darkman.

He joined the sheriff’s department and at his grandmother’s request—”Because I’m old and lonely and would love your company,”—he moved into her mansion at the edge of town. When the man who became sheriff after James’ death decided to retire, he insisted John should run for the office. His grandmother thought that was a fine idea so he did, and was elected by a landslide. He was more than certain it had as much to do with his family name as it did with his qualifications for the job. Either way, he did his best to run the department the way it should be. Much to his relief none of the deputies, most of whom were older than him, gave him any problems because of his age.

* * * *

John glanced at the clock on the wall and realized fifteen minutes had passed. “He’s running late,” he commented to the secretary.

“I know. I’m sorry. He’s usually very punctual. Let me call his house.”

John listened while she did and frowned when she said to, he presumed, the mayor’s wife, “Maybe he stopped for something to eat on the way.” After a brief pause the secretary said, “I’ll have him call you the minute he gets here,” and hung up.

“His wife says he left the house half an hour ago, after—” she smiled slightly, “—eating a big breakfast.”

John nodded, frowning again. “So he didn’t stop for that on his way in.”

“Obviously not. Let me see if he has his cell phone turned on yet. He hates the damned thing, as he calls it, and usually leaves it off until he gets here.” She dialed and shook her head, leaving a voice message to remind Mayor Dunn of his meeting with John. “Not that he’ll get the message until he gets here,” she said with a small, worried laugh. “I can’t imagine what’s keeping him.”

Standing, John told her, “When he does arrive call me, please. I’ll be in my office.”

* * * *

Noah helped the last of the departing guests—an elderly couple who had spent the weekend at the bed-and-breakfast—take their luggage to their car. When they drove off he started back inside, stopping on the wide front porch for a moment to enjoy the warm sun and the view of the town below him. The sidewalks were full of people, mostly tourists from what he could tell. People came to Spirit Falls for the beauty of the small town and the surrounding mountains. And for the antique shops and art galleries. He chuckled. “Never could understand coming to the middle of nowhere for those, but to each his own I guess.”

“Talking to yourself?” Mrs. Douglas, the owner of the Irish Rose, asked, coming to stand beside him.

He laughed. “I guess so.”

“Have you heard? Someone finally bought the old bakery building.”

“I know. Any idea what they’re going to do with it? If it’s another antique store…”

“It better not be,” she replied with some asperity. “So far, all I know is that it was sold. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough who bought it and for what.” She started to turn away then stopped, looking out across the road toward the top of the falls. “I hope that fool knows what he’s doing.”

Noah looked up. A man stood on a rock at the edge of the falls. From what Noah could tell, he was dressed in dark clothing, a shirt and jeans, and a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his face. As he watched, the man stepped forward onto another rock, bringing him closer to where the water began its descent to the river several hundred yards below. “If he’s not careful…”

The man seemed to be looking down at them, and the town. For a moment he stood poised where he was. Then he turned and walked away, disappearing into the trees beside the top of the falls.

“Tourists,” Mrs. Douglas muttered.

“Can’t live with them, can’t survive without them, at least in this place,” Noah replied before they both headed back inside to get on with their day.