Christa was the one who pointed him out while I was putting on my apron in the kitchen. I’d gotten to work late, since my car keys had gone missing again.
“Did you see who’s here?” she whispered, nodding toward the dining room.
I glanced out the little window. Vernon was at his usual place, and a guy was sitting alone at a booth near the door. I shrugged at Christa, who was acting weird and flustered, like Adolf Hitler was out there chowing down on biscuits and honey butter.
“That’s him,” Christa said. “Lizzie’s boyfriend.”
I froze.
“He probably killed her, and I’ve been bringing him coffee for the last hour. That’s all he wants. Black coffee.”
I looked out at the dining room again. Lorenzo Calvetti. Lizzie’s boyfriend. It was him in the booth. I’d only seen him twice, once in a newspaper picture and once from far away at the vigil. He looked even skinnier up close. His hair was greasy. His clothes looked slept in. But since he was maybe, probably, going through a really awful time, I figured I should cut him some slack. I shouldn’t expect him to look the way he did in the newspaper photo when Lizzie was snuggled up next to him. That picture had been taken when he was happy. When he had a girlfriend. When he didn’t have half the county pitying him, which was better than the other half, who thought he was a murderer.
Christa moved closer to me, as if Lorenzo could hear us from across the diner. “He totally creeps me out.”
“I’ll take over,” I said.
I could tell Christa was relieved, which sort of made me feel good but sort of made me feel guilty, because Christa’s discomfort hadn’t inspired me to make the offer.
“Really? You don’t mind? My shift is almost over anyway.”
I told her that it really wasn’t a problem until she looked like she believed me. I just had to make a quick phone call first.
• • •
“Emily? You won’t believe who’s here,” I whispered.
“Who’s where?”
“At the café. I’m working.” I’d gone into Mr. Walczak’s office to make the call, because I’d forgotten to charge my cell phone again. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind, due to the obvious importance of the situation.
“Is it Lizzie wondering why you stole her job?”
Since when was Emily such a comedian?
“This is serious, Em.” I was so anxious that I was practically bouncing. The conversation was taking too long, and if Lorenzo was gone by the time I got back, I was pretty sure my plan would be ruined.
“OK, Hawthorn. Who’s there?”
“Lorenzo Calvetti.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Lizzie’s boyfriend?”
“Yep.”
There was another pause. This one was longer. I was thinking Emily and I’d gotten disconnected, but she finally said, “Please think about what you’re doing.”
“Well, I’m not going to walk up and tell him Lizzie’s a werewolf.”
“I have no idea what you’re going to do, Hawthorn. That’s what worries me.”
Her response was too sad to bear. Emily and I used to have adventures. We used to talk about our lives and all the possibilities, and the future seemed so amazing. Emily didn’t lecture me back then.
“I have to go,” I said.
“Wait. I didn’t mean to upset you. Just… This guy is grieving. You know that. This is serious for him.”
“It’s serious for me too.” I hung up without waiting for her response.
• • •
“More coffee?”
Lorenzo barely glanced up. “Sure.”
I filled his mug, and my heart was pounding so hard that I was sure it would burst right out of my chest and cover half the restaurant in blood and gore. Which would remind Lorenzo of his potentially dismembered girlfriend, and he’d probably go home and commit suicide or something. Then all three of us would be dead, me and Lizzie and Lorenzo, and Emily would walk around telling people, “I told Hawthorn not to talk to him.”
But that didn’t happen. I finished pouring the coffee. He didn’t say thank you. I was about to walk away. But that didn’t happen either.
“Hey, you’re Lorenzo Calvetti, right?”
He looked up. “Yeah.”
“Your girlfriend is missing.”
“Yeah.”
“That really sucks.”
He didn’t say anything, just stared at me. His eyes were dark blue and bloodshot. He must not have been getting much sleep lately.
I was getting uncomfortable and wondered if I’d said something totally inappropriate, which I guess wouldn’t have been unusual.
“Look,” I said, “I didn’t mean to be weird or anything. I just thought I should say something, because it would be weirder to act all quiet around you so you’d wonder if I was, like, thinking you killed her, which I wasn’t. Well. Maybe a tiny bit. You didn’t kill her, did you?”
He stared at me like I was an escaped mental patient, like I was the only one who’d straight-out asked him if he was a murderer.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t kill my girlfriend.”
“Well. That’s good.”
We stared at each other for another second, and there were so many important things I wanted to say, but I didn’t know how. So instead, I said, “Let me know if you need more coffee.”