THE CADILLAC AT FOUR O'CLOCK

The interior of Thomas's house was sparse, almost monastic. A worn leather sofa, a single bookshelf filled with old paperbacks, and a small kitchen with a clean counter. It was the home of a man who lived simply, quietly, hiding from a world he no longer wished to participate in.

Clara emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later, wrapped in an oversized grey sweatshirt and a pair of drawstring sweatpants that trailed on the floor. Her wet hair was combed back, revealing the pale, fragile lines of her face.

Thomas was sitting at the kitchen table. In front of him lay the contents of the metal box: a disassembled SIG Sauer P226 pistol, three full magazines of 9mm ammunition, a small cleaning kit, and a faded leather-bound notebook.

Clara stopped in the doorway, her eyes widening as she saw the weapon. "You're... you aren't just a waiter, are you?"

Thomas didn't look up as his calloused fingers expertly snapped the slide onto the frame with a sharp, mechanical clack.

"I spent twelve years as an investigator for the state police," Thomas said softly, his voice devoid of pride. "Special Crimes Unit. I was good at it. Too good, maybe."

"What happened?"

"I got greedy for justice," Thomas replied, loading a round into the chamber and setting the safety. "I pushed a case against a state senator who was running a land-protection scheme. He had friends in high places. Within a month, my partner was framed for evidence tampering, my pension was revoked, and I was given a choice: take an honorable discharge and disappear, or spend ten years in a maximum-security facility on manufactured charges."

He looked up at her, his dark eyes tired. "So I took the discharge. I moved here, took a job at the diner, and tried to forget that the world is run by men like Vance."

Clara walked over to the table, sitting down across from him. "Why are you doing this for me, Thomas? You could have taken the two hundred dollars. You could have walked away."

Thomas looked at the dirty apron lying on the counter nearby. "Because twenty years ago, I had a daughter. She would have been about your age now. Her name was Sarah."

Clara held her breath. "What happened to her?"

"Leukemia," Thomas said, his voice flat, stripped of the raw pain that had burned out years ago. "I couldn't save her. I couldn't do anything except sit beside her bed and hold her hand while she drifted away. I promised myself then that if I ever saw someone small and helpless suffering right in front of me, I wouldn't just stand by and watch."

He reached out and picked up the loaded pistol, slipping it into a shoulder holster resting on the chair beside him.

"Vance mentioned four o'clock tomorrow for a reason," Thomas continued, his mind moving back into detective mode. "Why four o'clock? Why at the diner?"

Clara froze, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to recall the details. "The diner... my father used to meet his contacts there years ago. He told me once that if anything ever happened to him, I should wait at the diner because... because the night supervisor was an old friend of his."

"Arthur?" Thomas scoffed. "Arthur doesn't have friends. He has creditors."

"No," Clara said, her eyes lighting up with a sudden, terrifying realization. "Not Arthur. The man who owned the diner before Arthur took over two months ago."

"Old Man Miller," Thomas muttered. "He died in his sleep back in March."