Page 5 of Girl Lost (The King Legacy #1)

THE DINER’S SURVEILLANCE CAMERA hadn’t caught the kidnappers. Just Luna. Sitting there, waiting.

Luna. The sight of her, even after all these years, had sent a shock wave through him.

Corbin watched Blade lead Angie to a quiet corner of the diner for questioning. He glanced at Marge. If he wrapped this up quickly, he could try to find Luna. He needed to talk to her. Needed to understand why she’d come back. Why now? Why here?

A tsunami of questions threatened to drown everything, but he couldn’t dwell on Luna now. He needed answers about Carlie, and Marge might have some.

The older woman stood with her arms folded across her chest, her weathered face set in a scowl. Smells of burned coffee and grease hung in the air. He could use coffee right about now, but Marge wasn’t offering.

“The real reason I came in here today was to ask you a few questions about Carlie Tinch,” he said. “Mind if we sit?”

Marge’s scowl deepened. “Ain’t got time to sit. Got a business to run, you know.”

Corbin glanced around the empty diner. “I saw the video, Marge. It looked pretty quiet in here all morning.”

Marge huffed.

He had at least one thing in common with Marge. He didn’t want to be a part of this interview right now any more than she did. “Listen, I have a missing kid, and it’s my job to find her before trouble does. You’d be doing me a huge favor if I can have a few more minutes of your time.”

“Fine. But make it quick.” She jerked her chin toward a nearby booth. “Sit.”

They settled into the cracked vinyl seats.

“I’m investigating Carlie Tinch’s disappearance.

” He placed his phone on the table with the screen showing a picture of Carlie.

“This is her. She’s been missing for a while now, and we’re trying to retrace her steps.

I recently learned she was a regular here.

Anything you remember about the last time you saw her, even if it seems trivial, could be really important. ”

Marge squinted at the photo, then peered over her bifocals at Corbin. “Carlie. Sweet girl, but trouble. Always trouble.” She tapped a long, nicotine-stained fingernail on the table. “Let’s see, now. Last time I saw her ... yeah, she was here. With another girl. Ashley, I think.”

“Ashley Phillips?” Corbin pulled up another photo on his phone and showed Marge.

“That’s her.” Marge coughed into her fist. The phlegmy rattle didn’t sound good. “Those two. Thick as thieves.”

Ashley. Carlie’s “bestie” as the girl had put it during their first interview. “Do you remember anything about that morning?”

“They sat right there.” Marge pointed to a table in the far corner. “It was busy, I remember that much. Angie called in sick, so I was filling in. Don’t do much waitressing these days. Not as strong as I used to be.”

Corbin nodded. “Did you overhear any of their conversation?”

Marge chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “Overhear? Honey, in this place, I hear everything. Those two girls? They were gabbing away like magpies. Mostly about their parents. Typical teenage stuff. The world’s against them.

Nobody understands them, blah, blah, blah.

Ashley complaining about her twin brother, like always. ”

“How do you know they’re twins?” He’d somehow missed that detail.

“They come in sometimes as a family on Sunday after church. Locals. Been coming since they were little squirmers who couldn’t hardly sit still.”

Corbin nodded, making a note to interview both Ashley and Andre again. “Was Ashley doing most of the talking, or was Carlie equally involved in the conversation?”

“Ashley was telling Carlie that her parents never pay attention to her. Too busy with work, gone all day. Then when they get home, they work even more. Said they hole up in their office, don’t even bother making dinner anymore.”

“Did Carlie respond to that?”

“Hold your horses,” Marge grumbled. “I’m getting there. Ashley complained that the only time she sees her parents is when they’re fussin’ with Andre. Didn’t hear why Andre was always in trouble, though. Had to get food to the customers while it’s hot, you know.”

As if on cue, Marge launched into a complaint about how hard it was to keep the diner going. “Hard times, economy. People get mad when I raise the prices. And now, with that cop blocking the entrance and the closed sign up, I’ll be losing a whole day of wages.”

This place had been here forever. A staple of their small town. One he didn’t visit. There were too many memories for him here, and the thought of Marge struggling and closing down, it didn’t sit right. “I hear you, Marge. We’ll figure something out for the diner later. Let’s keep going.”

Marge took a deep breath. “Well, I was serving a customer. You know how it is. Missed bits and pieces. But I did hear Carlie tryin’ to be supportive. Said she could relate because her parents were real pieces of work.”

The commissioner had pulled Corbin for this case to keep the details of his personal life private. Hadn’t wanted anyone to know about his wife’s struggles with mental health issues. The commissioner knew the dirty details of Corbin’s past and decided he could be trusted with his own.

Marge said, “And Carlie’s pretty sure her dad just plain hates her, wishes she’d been a boy so he could have a son to follow in his footsteps.”

Another thing Commissioner Tinch wouldn’t want the whole town hearing.

Though he doubted it was true. According to her father, Carlie was smart and driven.

A bit rebellious, maybe. Angry that her father wouldn’t let her get away with sneaking out or stealing her mother’s medications. “Did you believe Carlie?”

“Well now, I do hear a lot of how people talk around here.” Marge scratched her neck, then studied the underside of her fingernails.

“I know that them teens have all their emotions runnin’ wild.

Every little thing that don’t go their way, seems to them like they’re being tortured worse than them folks in Japanese POW camps.

They have problems, but not real ones.” She paused, giving Corbin a knowing look. “Not like you and Luna.”

Corbin’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of Luna’s name. They’d had problems, all right.

He remembered them sitting at their corner table, the same one where they’d shared their first milkshake, two straws, one glass, a nervous laugh bubbling up between them ...

Luna’s fingers shredded a napkin into long strips that she wrapped around her finger. “I missed my period. I took a test.” Her eyes , fixed on the tabletop , refused to meet his. “I’m pregnant.”

Pregnant. The word splintered his focus.

Everything else drowning beneath the blooming terror.

His father’s face flashed before him , contorted in anger.

Too many times he’d seen that same expression in himself .

The hot rush of rage when some punk looked at Luna the wrong way.

The tightness in his chest , the clenched fists , the struggle to keep it all in check . ..

“What are we going to do , Corbin?”

Everything was slipping away. College plans , career dreams , his entire future— all of it shredding like the napkin in Luna’s hands.

Eighteen. He was eighteen , and Luna sixteen. Too young to be parents. They didn’t even have jobs. To others , he’d be just another statistic. Another deadbeat teen dad. Another failure.

The clatter of dishes from the kitchen pierced through his spiraling thoughts. Marge talked on, her words barely registering. He had to push away the past and deal with the present.

But Luna’s words lingered. “What are we going to do?”

“You listening, boy?” Marge’s sharp tap on the table snapped him back to the present.

The seat creaked as he shifted. “Sorry, Marge. What did you say?”

Marge rolled her eyes. “I asked if I could smoke.”

“Here? You know about the no smoking laws, right?”

“You think I don’t know that?” Marge snapped. “I mean out back.”

“Oh, sure,” Corbin agreed, relieved to have a moment to collect his thoughts. He followed Marge out the back door into a small concrete area littered with cigarette butts. The heat hit him like a wall, and he tugged at his collar as Marge lit up.

He waited while she took her first long drag before he prompted, “You were talking about Carlie’s and Ashley’s problems with their parents.”

Marge blew out a stream of smoke. “Right. Well, like I said, I missed bits of it. But I remember Carlie saying something about how if she disappeared, her father would never even notice until he got a text that her grades had slipped.”

“And Ashley’s response?”

“Ashley said her parents wouldn’t notice either. But she got all morbid about it. Said if she slit her wrists, her parents would only complain about the bloody mess she’d made.”

Corbin winced. There was teenage drama and then there was a crisis. A cry for help. “Pretty dramatic stuff.”

Marge sucked smoke into her lungs. She blew it out as she said, “Yeah. I had to seat some customers.”

The smoke stung his eyes, and he shifted, trying to put space between them without taking a rude step away.

“When I came back to refill the girls’ drinks, they seemed all serious. So, I’m not ashamed to say that I eavesdropped. Didn’t like no suicidal teens making plans in my diner. Wanted to see if they really meant it.”

She flicked the ash off her cigarette. “I was busing the table beside them and heard Carlie saying they should just run away together. Said she had enough money for both to get to New York. They could get jobs, be roommates, and their parents would have to spend the rest of their lives wondering what happened to them.”

This was new information. No one had mentioned this before. Not even Ashley. “Did they make any concrete plans?”

“Not that I heard.” Marge breathed out a long stream of smoke. “But Carlie gave something to Ashley.”

“What was it?”

“I didn’t see. Just heard her say, ‘Here, this will get you through the weekend.’ Then Ashley paid for their food and they left.” Marge dropped her cigarette and stubbed it out with her toe. “On the way out, they made plans to sneak out and go to some party.”

Corbin’s mind put it together. Carlie giving Ashley something to “get her through the weekend” could mean a lot of things, but given Carlie’s history, drugs seemed like a strong possibility. “Either of them mention a boyfriend?”

“If they did, I didn’t hear it.”

No surprise. Adults seemed to be the last ones to know when a teenager was in a relationship. He sure hadn’t told Stryker when he’d started falling for Luna.

But Ashley would know if Carlie had a boyfriend. She hadn’t mentioned it during their first interview, but her parents had been there. Now her best friend had been missing for weeks. Maybe she would be more forthcoming.

“Is there anything else you remember, Marge? Anything at all?”

She shook her head. “That’s all I got. Now, if there’s nothing else, I got to get my restaurant back in order.”

“Thank you, Marge. You’ve been very helpful.” The new details filled in a few more gaps.

As Marge headed back inside, he lingered. The Florida sun had turned the alley into an oven. He yanked at his tie.

Carlie Tinch, the commissioner’s daughter, wasn’t just a rebellious teen. She was dealing with serious family issues, that much he’d known. But possibly sharing drugs with her friends and making plans to run away? That was new. It sounded like more than just typical teenage drama.

He thought about his own teenage years, about the pain and confusion he’d felt when Luna told him she was pregnant. How scared and overwhelmed they’d both been. How badly they’d handled it all.

And Luna? She’d vanished. Disappeared from his life without a trace. Just like Carlie.