Sergeant Jack Davis of the U.S. Army Signal Corps was trying to decompress. After nine months in a place where every sound could be a threat, the clatter and chatter of a roadside diner in rural Pennsylvania was supposed to be a soothing balm.
He was on a two-week leave, a solitary road trip to clear his head before heading home. He was actively trying to turn off the part of his brain that analyzed, assessed, and looked for trouble. It was proving to be more difficult than he’d imagined.
He was halfway through a plate of eggs and bacon when they walked in. A man and a little girl. The man, dressed in an expensive-looking blazer, was handsome and polished, but his eyes were in constant motion, scanning the room with a restless, predatory energy.
The girl, who couldn’t have been more than eight, was small and pale, clutching a well-loved porcelain doll. She walked with a tense, guarded posture, her eyes fixed on the floor. They took a booth near the window.
Jack’s training, a deeply ingrained instinct he couldn’t switch off, kicked in. He noted the details. The man’s suit was too clean for a long road trip.
The girl’s dress, while pretty, was slightly rumpled, as if she’d been sleeping in it. There was no warmth between them, none of the easy, chaotic affection of a typical father and daughter. The man’s control was absolute.
He ordered for her without asking what she wanted. He arranged the salt and pepper shakers into a perfect, straight line. When the girl shifted in her seat, his hand would dart out and rest on her shoulder, a gesture that looked like affection but had the weight of a command.
She would immediately freeze. This wasn’t a family on vacation. This was a man with cargo, and the cargo was a terrified little girl.
Jack tried to ignore it. He was on leave. This was not his business.
He focused on his coffee, on the sports highlights playing on the small TV above the counter. But he could feel the tension radiating from their booth, a cold spot in the warm, greasy air of the diner. The waitress brought their food.
The little girl, whose name he heard the man call Ava, picked at her pancakes with a silver fork, her movements small and timid. Then, it happened the first time. The fork slipped from her grasp, clattering loudly on the checkered tile floor.
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