I left the kitchen with my coat half-zipped, the plastic bin still sitting by the back door of the diner. The walk across the gravel alley to Crestview Gold was short, the dark sky already heavy with the cold mist of an East Tennessee evening.
Inside the back room of the pawn shop, Arthur stood near the high green safe, his yellow microfiber cloth tucked into his shirt pocket. I was still holding my knit cap, my fingers stiff and my uniform smelling of the lemon dish soap from the diner kitchen.
The rear door of the shop, the one leading to the narrow alley behind the downtown blocks, groaned on its hinges.
A woman stepped through the frame, pulling a knitted blue wrap tight around her shoulders. She was sixty-eight, with silver hair pinned neat behind her ears, and she held a black leather handbag flat against her chest with both hands.
“Cara,” she said.
Her voice had the soft, slow drawl of the valley, a sound I had not heard since my grandmother Merinda passed away. She did not wait for Arthur to introduce her before she crossed the linoleum floor.
