Chapter 2 - The Diner

When Julian woke up the next morning, Nora was gone. He woke up alone in the bed, blinking at the thin lines of sunlight streaming in through the blinds. Looking around the room, letting his werewolf senses stretch, he heard movement out in the kitchen, and he could smell Nora all over this bedroom. Andy, too, that scent so close to Nora's, now a few days old. Julian wondered if the lingering scent of her son was a comfort to Nora, or if it just reminded her anew of what she had lost.

He got out of the bed, gathered up some clothes, and went to take a shower. The warm water felt nice, but he didn't linger in there too long, he got out, toweled off, dressed for the day, and walked out to the living room. Today he was wearing brown pants, a white T-shirt, a zip-up light blue sweatshirt, and he'd throw his winter jacket on when he left Nora's. Nora, he quickly saw, was in the kitchen, sipping a cup of coffee while leaning back against the counter.

"Morning." Julian greeted Nora, taking in her appearance. She seemed more well-rested today, and the redness around her eyes had faded some. She still looked worn, but she didn't look exhausted anymore, like she might fall asleep standing up. Her brown hair fell down her shoulders today, the ends of it curling into loose ringlets like it had when he'd known her in Los Angeles. She wore the glasses still, but her outfit today was black pants that hugged her curvaceous hips, along with a white top that was snug around her lovely chest but looser around the stomach.

"Morning." Nora yawned. "Do you want some breakfast?"

"Coffee's good enough." Julian shook his head.

Nora set her cup down to grab the coffee pot and pour Julian a cup into a green ceramic mug. She handed it over, and Julian thanked her, taking a sip.

"So, I did come up with some questions to ask you, if you're up to it." Julian said.

"Sure." Nora said at once. "Ask me anything."

"You have any security system?" Julian asked, and Nora shook her head.

"No, nothing like that." she sighed.

"Alright, what about neighbors? Were any of them home during our eight minutes?" Julian wondered.

Nora opened her mouth partway, hesitated, then shrugged. "I don't know. I think the police talked to them, but I haven't."

"OK." Julian nodded slowly. "Then let's talk Andy. It's been bothering me, the fact that there was no extra scent in the house, but there was one out on the edge of the yard."

"What are you thinking?" Nora asked him, looking worried.

"I'm thinking someone lured Andy out of the house." Julian itted. "Maybe someone he knew."

"Oh, God." Nora exhaled. "I... I don't know who that would be. He doesn't know a lot of people. Well, it's a small town, so he knows who people are, but enough to go out in the yard to see them? I don't know. I've always told him to not leave the house, no matter what."

"Alright." Julian nodded. "Just try and think if there's anybody Andy would trust that much, alright?"

Nora nodded, lifting her mug to take another sip of coffee. "I'll think about it, but I have no idea."

"That's alright." Julian said kindly. "Now, what about supernaturals? What's going on in this town? Anything?"

"It's a pretty small town, there's not much going on here in the way of supernatural activity." Nora shook her head. "I'm pretty sure I'm the only werewolf in town, but I do know there's a witch, she runs the local apothecary."

"A witch running an apothecary?" Julian asked wryly. "A little on the nose, isn't it?"

Nora gave a small smile. "Yeah, a bit. It's a pretty normal shop though, actually. She sells some basic over the counter medicine, along with some herbal remedies, essential oils, that kind of junk."

"Alright, so we've got our witch doctor, anything else here in town?" Julian wondered.

"Not much." Nora shook her head. "There's the Bigfoot legend in this part of the country, of course, but I have no idea if that's real or not. There's some hamadryads out in the woods, there's naiads in the river... plenty of nature spirits, but living in town? Nothing really. Not that I know about anyway. It's not like Los Angeles, we don't have any veiled places here."

"Yeah, I figured as much." Julian mused. "I think our first order of business is to figure out if there's anything else weird happening in town right now. If Andy was an isolated incident, it could mean someone with a personal grudge. If there's other things happening, it could be more of a random chance thing."

"A grudge?" Nora echoed, her blue eyes wide. "I don't... who would have a grudge against me?"

"No idea." Julian shook his head. "Do you have work today?"

"I was supposed to, but there's no way I can go to work while Andy is missing." Nora said firmly. "My boss understands, he's an ass, but he's not that much of an ass."

Julian chuckled wryly, then nodded. "Alright, I'm going to go speak with your neighbors, I think."

"Let me grab some socks, I'll come with you." Nora said, upending her cup and finishing off the dregs of her coffee before she dashed down the back hallway to her bedroom. Julian went to the door and put on his boots, grabbing the winter coat he'd brought in last night and shrugging it on. Nora came out wearing a navy puffer jacket, along with a pair of white socks with purple toes. She put on some shoes that looked a bit like hiking-type shoes, and then the pair of them both walked out into the snow.

Julian had some natural insulation against the cold, being a werewolf, but it still made him grit his teeth as the icy wind smacked him in the face. "Any preference which one we talk to first?" he asked, looking to Nora.

"Yeah, let's do the Youngs first." Nora sighed, leading the way to the house to the left. Julian followed her across the snowy front yard, and he ed her on the patio outside the Youngs' front door as Nora lifted her hand and knocked on the front door. It took a minute, but eventually the door was opened by an elderly woman wrapped in a floral shawl.

"Oh, Nora!" the old woman gasped, putting a hand to her chest. "We heard about Andy from that nice police woman, Carol. I'm so sorry."

Julian was wondering how on earth she could think that the sergeant was a nice woman, but Nora replied. "Thank you, Linda. I appreciate that. I'm actually here to ask about him, if maybe you saw something the day he disappeared?"

"Saw something?" the old woman, Linda, asked with pitying eyes. "No, I'm afraid not, dear. Carol asked me the same question, but I was laying down for a nap at that time, and Frank was in town buying stamps."

Julian put a consoling hand on Nora's arm, and the motion drew Linda's eyes to him. "Oh, and who's this? He looks like a real winner, Nora."

The old woman winked conspiratorially at Nora, who gave a small, almost disbelieving laugh. "This is Julian, he's an old friend of mine. A detective, from Los Angeles."

"Los Angeles?" Linda asked, surprised. "You've come a long way, Detective."

"Yeah, well, Nora called me and I drove up as soon as I could." Julian shrugged.

"And they say chivalry is dead." the elderly woman laughed, shaking her head. "I do hope you can help her, Andy is such a sweet kid. He helps water my plants sometimes, you know. In summer, of course. They don't need much watering right now."

"I'm going to do my best." Julian said, nodding at Nora, who lifted her hand to squeeze his arm gratefully.

"We're sorry to bother you, Linda." Nora apologized. "Have a good morning, and tell Frank I said the same."

"Thank you, dear, I will. Frank's not having a good start to the day, he's up in the attic trying to find the rats up there, so I'm sure he'll appreciate it. I wish you and Andy both luck." Linda said warmly, closing her front door. Nora let out a shaky exhale, and Julian looked at her.

"You alright?" he checked, but she nodded.

"I'm fine." Nora replied. "Let's talk to Tyler."

Nora and Julian walked back across the snow, ing Nora's house and continuing on to the one past it, which had a pickup truck in the driveway, the bed covered to avoid it being filled with snow, presumably. Nora knocked on the door, and it was opened just a few seconds later by a guy in a tank top and jeans. He had black hair, slicked back, and a patchy beard that looked pretty shit, in Julian's estimation.

"Nora!" Tyler said, looking surprised but pleased, then his gaze slid to Julian and his smile dropped. "What's this? Who are you?"

"We just have a couple questions about Andy." Nora said quietly. "Did you see anything two days ago, when he vanished?"

"No, I didn't." Tyler said, still looking at Julian with displeasure clear in his eyes. "I was at work. Mechanic shop doesn't close until 5."

"Alright, thanks." Nora said, moving to walk away, but Tyler shook his head.

"Hold on, hold on. You don't have to go rushing off. Who's your friend?"

"Julian Anderson." Julian said, holding out his hand. Tyler looked at it, but didn't extend his own.

"Yeah, and who are you, buddy?" Tyler huffed.

"I'm a friend of Nora's." Julian replied. "A detective, from Los Angeles."

"Cool." Tyler said sardonically. "Look, Nora, what happened with Andy, it's terrible. Let me buy you dinner or something, maybe it'll cheer you up a bit."

"Are you kidding me?" Nora demanded. "My son is missing, this isn't some opportunity for you to try and hit on me again."

"Oh, come on." Tyler protested, holding up his hands. "I'm just being neighborly."

"Yeah, sure, you are." Julian scoffed.

"Hey, nobody was fucking talking to you." Tyler snapped, sizing up to Julian. Tyler was a little bigger, but Julian was thoroughly unfazed. Some human wasn't going to be able to do a damn thing to him.

Nora rolled her eyes. "You don't want to pick that fight, Tyler, trust me."

Nora took Julian by the hand and yanked him away from Tyler's door, back across the snow to her house. Nora opened the door, and Julian couldn't help but glance back towards Tyler, who was standing on his patio glaring. Julian didn't do anything, he just looked at the guy as he followed Nora into her house, closing the door behind him.

"What a prick." Julian shook his head.

"Ugh, you don't know the half of it." Nora scowled. "He's been trying to hit on me ever since he moved in."

"You want me to straighten him out?" Julian asked, only half joking.

Nora scoffed. "I'm a werewolf too, Jules. I can rip him apart if I need to. It's better just to let him be."

Julian nodded, still turning things over in his head. No witnesses to whatever had happened with Andy, which was a shame, but he also hadn't really expected much else. So how was he meant to get clues here? His werewolf instincts had failed him, so what did that leave?

"Where do you think the best spot in town would be to hear about strange things in town? Would the police know?" Julian asked Nora, who frowned, shaking her head.

"No, best place for it is Earl's Diner, absolutely." Nora told him. "Where I work, unfortunately."

"Well, maybe I do want some breakfast then." Julian decided. "Might be something worth hearing."

"Let's go then." Nora nodded. "I'll follow your lead here, I have no idea where to even hope to begin with this."

"I'll drive, then." Julian smiled.

———

Julian pulled the Cutlass into the small parking lot around the back of Earl's Diner. This was clearly an actual entrance, as there was a pair of glass double doors leading into the diner, along with a bench out front where an elderly man was sitting enjoying the fresh air, it seemed. He was bundled up with mittens, a scarf, a flappy winter hat, and a sizable winter coat.

"Nora!" the elderly man greeted her. "I heard about Andy, it is such a tragedy."

"Thank you, Charles." Nora said weakly.

"Who's this?" the bundled up old man, Charles, asked.

"This is Julian." Nora introduced him. "He's a friend of mine I called when Andy went missing."

"That's good." Charles nodding, his breathing puffing out. "It's a good thing you're not alone right now, Nora."

Nora gave the kindly old man a slightly strained smile, and led Julian inside. The diner was a pretty stereotypical diner, Julian had to it. A black and white checker-patterned floor, with teal and white leather booths, a stainless steel counter with several customers sat there on stools while eating. The smell of frying bacon was very strong in the diner, and a handful of cooks were working behind the counter, all of them in a similarly stereotypical teal diner waitress outfit.

"C'mon." Nora mumbled as most people in the restaurant turned to stare at her. She led Julian to a corner booth, and Julian took the side with a view of the entire diner while Nora sat on the side that would hide her from most everybody other than the few tables to their right, most of which were empty. Julian glanced down at the laminated menu, his eyes sliding along the food options, mostly standard diner fare.

"Nora." a surprised voice said, and Julian looked up to see a blonde of maybe 24 or 25 approaching their table. She was in the diner waitress outfit, with a white oval nametag with 'Rose' written on it. She was cute, Julian thought, with her blonde hair pulled back in a bun, plump heart-shaped mouth, kind brown eyes, and a quite sizable bust, even bigger than Nora's, though it was fully covered by the modest waitress outfit.

"Hey, Rosie." Nora said tiredly. "How are things?"

"They're fine here, but I'm shocked to see you here. Didn't you get some days off from Earl? Why would you come in for breakfast? And who's this?" Rose asked, looking to Julian.

"This is Julian, he's an old friend of mine, a detective from LA. I'm just feeding him, I didn't feel like cooking." Nora explained with a sigh.

Rose gave Nora a deeply sorrowful look. "I get it. You here to find Andy, Mr. Detective?"

"That's the plan." Julian nodded, looking up at Rose.

"Well, what kind of crime-solving fuel can I get you?" Rose asked with a smile.

"Scrambled eggs, bacon, and a pancake or two." Julian said, glancing down at the menu.

"Sounds good. Anything for you, Nor?" Rose asked, looking to Nora.

"No, I'm not hungry." Nora shook her head.

"When did you last eat?" Julian asked her, lifting an eyebrow.

"Yesterday sometime. I think." Nora sighed.

"She'll have the same thing as me." Julian nodded at Rose, who smiled approvingly.

"Can do." Rose said. "Any coffee or anything?"

"Yes, please." Nora groaned, rubbing her face. Julian shook his head, and Rose walked off back behind the counter.

"I didn't need you to order food for me." Nora said with a frown.

"We had this same talk last night about you not sleeping." Julian shook his head. "You need food just as much as you need sleep. You can't do anything for Andy if you're sleep-deprived and starving."

Nora hung her head before lifting it and nodding slowly. "It's just so hard to make myself care about that stuff."

"I know." Julian said sympathetically. "But it's important."

And with that, Julian stretched out his werewolf hearing, keeping momentarily quiet as he listened. The diner was quite full, with plenty of overlapping conversations, so it took some focus for Julian to pick out individual speakers. The man in the worn trucker hat and black jacket at the counter was talking to his wife about his plan to switch the kind of dog food he bought for their dog because their elderly dog had stopped eating, and the three old women beside them were discussing the quilts they'd been working on. The younger couple a few booths down were discussing how good the food was, the pair of teenage boys at one of the tables in the center were whispering about Rose, the guy sitting alone at the end of the counter was watching some video about true crime on his phone, but nobody was talking about anything relevant to Andy in any way. Julian shifted his focus back to Nora, letting his enhanced hearing fall away for the time being.

"Anything?" she asked him, but Julian shook his head.

"Nothing important, anyway." he said as Rose started coming back their way holding a cup of coffee. Now that he knew to look for it, Julian spotted the teen guys, who were maybe 18, staring at Rose. He caught their eye, and they both looked hastily away, refusing to look again in Julian's direction.

"Here's that coffee for you, Nor." Rose said, setting it down on the table.

"Hey, Rose." Julian said, glancing up at the blonde waitress. "How often do things like what happened to Andy happen here in Crescent Hill?"

"Oh, pretty much never." Rose exhaled. She reached out and rubbed Nora's shoulder soothingly, tilting her head back and forth as she considered.

"Last time I heard about someone going missing was Dave Beckett, maybe seven years ago. It was a whole big thing in town for a little while, before... well, they did find him eventually. He had died of the cold out in the woods." Rose said softly. Nora's hands balled into fists, which Julian and Rose definitely both noticed.

"Andy's a tough little kid though, I'm sure he's fine." Rose said consolingly. "The whole police department is out looking for him, Officer Sullivan was just in here an hour ago picking up some to-go orders to bring to them."

"What about deaths?" Julian wondered. "Not disappearances, just strange deaths."

"Strange deaths?" Rose repeated. "Hmm. I can't think of anything that recently. Crescent Hill has an older population, so there are some sad deaths that happen here. But that's just dying of old age, I don't think that's a strange death. No murders, if that's what you're asking."

Julian nodded, and Rose walked off after giving Nora's shoulder another squeeze.

"I told you." Nora said sadly. "This kind of thing just doesn't happen in Crescent Hill."

"You're right." Julian nodded. "And I think Dave Beckett is the reason the police think Andy just ran off. I'd guess most everyone in the department worked that case, and they have no reason to think Andy is different."

Nora sipped her coffee, and Julian stretched out his hearing again, listening for anything of interest. The three women were still discussing quilts, the teenage boys had shut up about Rose after being caught staring, the young couple had moved on to discussing one of their friends who had just had a miscarriage, which was sad, but not exactly the kind of death Julian was looking for. Julian was listening in on the waitresses discussing their orders when the front door burst open, the little bell above it dinging as a man around Julian's age burst into the diner, panting.

"Everything alright, son?" the man in the trucker hat asked, but the panting man waved him off.

"There's been another disappearance!" the panting man exclaimed. "Three police cars just took off, over towards the west bend. I heard from Officer Scott that another kid went missing."

Julian jumped to his feet. "Where? Who was the kid?"

"It's the Millers' little girl." the man said, pointing past Julian, out of the diner and down Main Street. "They woke up this morning and she was just gone."

———

Julian and Nora, armed with a pair of to-go boxes from Rose, tore down Main Street in the Cutlass, with Nora giving Julian directions as she tore apart her bacon. Werewolves didn't do hungry too well, and as Julian had guessed, Nora was starving. Julian turned off of Main Street, heading towards the western part of the town, the opposite direction from where Nora's house was. The houses over here were a little bigger, though it was still a pretty average suburb. The house that Nora pointed Julian to was two stories, a nice little red brick home with three cop cars parked in front and a flurry of activity in the street outside.

Julian pulled over, turning off the Cutlass and climbing out, glancing both ways as he and Nora strode over across the road to the throng of neighbors who were ogling what was happening. Many of them had winter coats thrown over clothes that were either pajamas or hastily assembled outfits. Officer Harold Sullivan, one of the cops Julian had met in the forest last night, was standing beside another police officer who was a little bit more in shape, though no less advanced in age, and the pair of them seemed to be on perimeter duty of the scene.

Julian muscled his way to the front of the crowd, Nora right behind him, and they emerged right in front of Sullivan.

"City boy." Sullivan sighed. "You know I can't just let you in."

"Sully, come on." Nora pleaded. "It's another disappearance not even 48 hours after Andy. These have to be connected."

"We're looking into it." Sullivan assured Nora, holding his hand up. "Just because your son is gone too doesn't mean that you can just come into a crime scene."

Julian looked past Sullivan's shoulder towards the Millers' house as a distraught couple were led from the house by Sergeant Carol Murphy. Mrs. Miller was sobbing, clinging to Mr. Miller, who looked just as shattered, his arm wrapped tightly around his wife. Murphy spotted Julian, and after she got the Millers' into her car, she came walking right over to him.

"LA." she greeted, her voice tight. "You're not coming in here."

"Yeah, that's what Officer Sullivan here told me, too." Julian said. "I'm just here seeing what's going on."

"Was it like Andy?" Nora asked the police sergeant urgently. "No intruder, no disturbances?"

Carol Murphy looked between Nora and Julian, then gave a long sigh. "No, it was not like Andy. Someone was definitely in this house last night. There's no blood, but there's some kind of slice in the curtains of Jenny Miller's bedroom. We think someone with a knife came through the window and wasn't too careful with it."

"Does it look like a knife cut?" Julian wondered.

"What?" Sergeant Murphy blinked.

"Does it look like a knife cut? Or is it a little strange?" Julian asked.

Sullivan and Murphy exchanged looks of surprise, before the sergeant schooled her features into a poker face. "We cannot comment on the details of an ongoing investigation, whether you're an LA Detective or not."

Murphy nodded at him, then she turned and walked off, heading to her police car that had the Millers in the back, probably on their way to give a statement down at the station. Julian scowled, looking up thoughtfully at the Millers' red brick house. He glanced towards Nora, gesturing for her to move, out of the crowd. She nodded, and led the way as they pushed back through the crowd, which had swelled a little, up to maybe twenty or twenty-five people now.

"What now?" Nora asked him as they walked back towards the Cutlass.

"We need to get into that house." Julian shook his head. "Once things die down a bit here, we need to come back and look around."

"Works for me." Nora said firmly as they reached the car.

"You know, this is a good thing." Julian said as he opened the driver's side door and climbed into the car.

"How do you figure that?" Nora asked incredulously as she sat down in his enger seat.

"Because," Julian said, pulling his car door shut. "Now we have clues to look into."