Got Your Number

coffeepot.
    He frowned, then snapped his fat fingers in succession. "Well, don't just stand there—can't you see we're swamped?"
    The things a woman put up with for major medical. She returned to her mysterious customer and filled the white mug in front of him. "One black coffee."
    He drank deeply and swallowed hard. "Not bad."
    "Will there be anything else?"
    He set down the cup. "I need to ask you some questions, Ms. Beadleman."
    She glanced around at hungry customers who shot daggers her way. "Unless it's about the menu, sir, I'm a little busy at the moment."
    "What time do you get off?"
    She frowned. "I'm not interested."
    His frown mirrored hers. "I'm not hitting on you."
    "Then who are you and what do you want?"
    "Detective Capistrano, Biloxi PD." He gave her a sardonic smile. "I'd show you my badge, but I'd hate for the people you work with to think you're in some kind of trouble."
    Despite the spike of her pulse, she manufactured a plausible laugh. "Am I in some kind of trouble?"
    "Could be. I'm looking for Melissa Cape."
    Two weeks had passed since she'd escorted Melissa and her daughter to the airport—all along she'd had a bad vibe about the case, but she'd finally started to relax.
    "Roxy!" Rigby jerked his thumb toward a six-topper waiting to be served.
    She looked back to the detective and shook her head. "Sorry, the name doesn't ring a bell. And I really have to get back to work."
    His hand snaked out and encircled her wrist loosely before she could react—a fact that distressed her much more than his gesture of intimidation. "Not before you explain why the last call Melissa Cape made before she disappeared was to your cell phone."
    Roxann wet her lips. "I get lots of wrong numbers on my cell phone. Now, Detective, unless you want your hand amputated, I suggest you let go."
    His casual smile belied the pressure of his wide fingers. "Not until I get a straight answer."
    Having worked most of her life with bullied women, she conceded that she was a tad more sensitive to being manhandled than the female population at large...but it was one of her character flaws that she could live with. Roxann returned his smile and dumped the "not bad" contents of the coffeepot in his lap.
    He did indeed let go, punctuated by a howl that silenced the entire diner. Roxann called upon one semester of high school drama to feign innocence. "Oh, I'm so sorry."
    Rigby trotted over and gawked at the man's wet pants. "You're fired, young lady!"
    "But he grabbed me." She looked at Capistrano. "Tell him."
    But the detective was frozen in a half-standing, half-hunkering position, his face a mask of agony.
    "Get out!" Rigby yelled at her. "And don't even think about filing a dental claim."
    Roxann glanced at a tearful Helen, then turned on the heels of her sensible shoes and walked out, fighting a rare attack of tears herself. Over the years, she'd worked almost every kind of job imaginable to accommodate her commitment to the Rescue program—tutoring college math, selling mortgages over the phone, delivering flowers, modeling for art students—but she'd never been fired. Graduated top of her class at Notre Dame, and she'd just been sacked by a fat guy with one name.
    A too-clean, too-new black Ford Dooley pickup in the parking lot caught her eye, and she smirked—Detective Capistrano's ride, no doubt. She indulged in a half second of victory before surrendering to the spiraling sensation in her gut as her situation sank in. No income, no insurance, no prospects.
    Bad memories plucked at her—estrangement from her father, the nasty breakup with Richard months ago, the bizarre encounter with her roommate Elise. The only good thing she had in her life right now was her work with the Rescue program, but lately...
    She climbed behind Goldie's steering wheel, her mind spinning in a hundred directions. Turning the key, she cajoled the van to life with a series of thumps on various surfaces that had nothing whatsoever to do with combustion, but usually worked. Sure enough, the engine sputtered to life and, as a bonus, she received a face full of singed air from the vents. Goldie had been retrofitted with air-conditioning circa 1995, but the blower had pooped out one week after the two-year warranty expired, and Roxann hadn't gotten around to having a new one installed.
    "I'm getting too old for this," she murmured, hating the unease that stirred in her empty stomach. Thirty-two and still trying to fix the world one broken family at