Chapter 4 - The Phantom At The Diner
Instead of heading straight back to the red-brick building, which would surely be monitored by security personnel, I decided to take a calculated detour. If Rebecca was alive, she had to eat, sleep, and maintain some semblance of a physical routine.
Three years ago, before her supposed accident, Rebecca had an obsessive ritual: every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, she would sit at the corner booth of The Blue Anchor, a gritty, twenty-four-hour diner tucked beneath the highway overpass near the harbor. She claimed the noise of the traffic helped her concentrate on her research papers.
It was a long shot, but grief-stricken habits die hard.
I parked two blocks away from the diner, pulling my coat collar up around my neck to conceal my face. The afternoon sky had turned a bruising shade of purple, threatening heavy rain. I pushed through the diner’s aluminum doors, the familiar brass bell chiming overhead. The smell of burnt coffee and sizzling bacon grease hung heavy in the air.
I swept my eyes across the room.
And there, in the very back booth under the flickering neon sign, sat the ghost.
She had her back partially turned toward the door, typing furiously on an ultrathin, military-grade rugged laptop. She was wearing the same charcoal gray sweater I had seen earlier that morning. Beside her laptop sat a mug of black coffee and a small plate of dry toast—her exact order since she was twenty years old.
My knees nearly buckled. Up close, through the dim diner lighting, the reality was indisputable. The curve of her cheekbone, the delicate posture of her shoulders, the nervous habit of chewing her bottom lip as she scrolled through code—it was Rebecca.
I approached the booth in complete silence. My sneakers made no sound on the worn linoleum tiles.
""Does Elena Vance prefer black coffee too?"" I asked, my voice cutting through the hum of the diner like a sharp blade.
Rebecca’s fingers froze mid-keystroke. Her entire body locked up as if struck by lightning. Very slowly, she closed the laptop lid, taking a deep, shuddering breath before turning her head to face me.
Up close, the scar above her eyebrow was stark and unmistakable. Her face was thinner than I remembered, her eyes shadowed by dark, violet exhaustion, but it was her. The sister I had loved more than my own life.
""Clara,"" she whispered, her voice cracking. ""I told you to stay away.""
""You told me?"" A bitter, hysterical laugh tore from my chest, causing an elderly couple in the next booth to glance over in surprise. I slid into the booth across from her, my eyes blazing with white-hot fury. ""You died, Becca! I washed your clothes! I gave away your books! I held Mom while she suffered two heart palpitations at the cemetery! We buried a wooden box full of dirt and rocks because of you!""
""Keep your voice down,"" Rebecca hissed, her eyes darting frantically toward the front entrance of the diner. She reached across the laminate table, trying to grab my hands, but I recoiled as if she were a venomous snake.
""Don't touch me,"" I snapped, tears streaming freely down my face now. ""Explain it to me. Right now. Why is my husband giving you tens of thousands of dollars? Are you sleeping with him? Is that what this is? Did you two stage this whole sick circus so you could be together while I played the grieving widow?""
Rebecca stared at me, genuine shock washing over her pale face, quickly replaced by deep, sorrowful horror.
""Sleeping with Eliam?"" she breathed, shaking her head violently. ""Clara, are you insane? Eliam is the only reason I am breathing right now. He isn't my lover. He’s my handler.""
""Your handler?""
""Three years ago, my research at Aegis discovered something catastrophic,"" Rebecca whispered, leaning across the table until her lips were inches from my ear. ""Our biometric algorithms weren't designed for security. They were being sold to a private cartel for human trafficking logistics and surveillance on high-profile dissidents. When I tried to whistle-blow to the Department of Justice, my brake lines were cut. The car went off the bridge, Clara. That part wasn't staged. I barely climbed out of the sinking wreckage through the broken rear window before it hit the rocks.""
My heart stopped. ""Then why didn't you come home?""
""Because the moment I surfaced on the riverbank, two hitmen from Aegis were waiting at my apartment,"" she said, her voice shaking with raw terror. ""The only person I could call was Eliam. His firm consults for federal intelligence agencies. He staged the dental records, he secured the stone-weighted casket, and he built a black-market identity for me inside a rogue safehouse so I could finish decrypting the database to bring them down.""
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She looked straight into my eyes, her hand trembling as she pointed toward the street.
""Eliam didn't lie to you to hurt you, Clara. He lied to you because anyone connected to me was placed on a kill list. And by following him this morning, you just put yourself right at the top of it.""
