Ruby Falls Read Online Free Page A

and soon Margie brought two big plates of waffles, piled high with strawberries and whip cream. She also slid a plate of honey biscuits in front of Steve, and she refilled their coffees.
    “Y’all need anything else, now?” she asked.
    “No, Margie. Thanks,” Steve said, as she set the check down on the table.
    “Enjoy your breakfast. It was nice to meet you, Summer. And Steve, say hello to Jessie for me.” She walked away.
    “Who’s Jessie?” Summer asked Steve.
    He poured syrup on his waffles. “She’s my daughter. You’ll meet her later, when she gets home from school. She’s a senior in high school.”
    “Oh. I didn’t realize you were married,” Summer commented, lowering the mouthful of waffles she was about to eat.
    “I’m not. I was.”
    “You’re divorced then?”
    “Umm, no, not divorced. My wife disappeared twelve years ago,” Steve said, his expression turning blank.
    “Disappeared?” Summer asked, looking up from her plate. “What do you mean?”
    “She just vanished. Went to town one day and never came home.” He didn’t say anything more for a few minutes. He just sat there, drinking his coffee.
    Summer didn’t know what to say. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. She looked down at her plate. “I’m sorry. It’s really none of my business. I-”
    Steve interrupted her, as if he hadn’t even heard her. “She’d gone to town to run some errands, and she left Jessie with Pop.”
    He was staring at the table, and Summer had a feeling that he was reliving it in his mind.
    “Jessie was four years old then, going on five. Rita stopped to pick up some photos of her and Jessie that I had taken that week. Patsy at the drugstore had called to tell her they were in, and Rita couldn’t wait to see them. She was supposed to meet her girlfriend for lunch, here at this diner,” he explained, tapping the table with his finger. “Patsy said Rita couldn’t wait to hurry over and show her friend the photos. She said she remembered that Rita had glanced down at her watch and that it had been about five minutes to noon.”
    He looked up at Summer and smiled, remembering his wife. “Rita never liked to be late, so she had hurried out.”
    Summer nodded.
    He looked away. “It’s only two blocks from the drugstore to here. She never showed up. Her girlfriend called the ranch at twenty minutes past noon to see if she had left yet. Pop told her that she’d left a while ago and was going to the drugstore first to pick up her photos. Her friend waited for a little while, but she had to be back to work at one.”
    He paused to take a sip of coffee.
    “What happened?”
    “Rita never came home. At first Pop didn’t worry. He figured she must be busy. After all, she hardly ever had any time for herself since Jessie was born. He figured she needed it, and she hadn’t seen too much of her girlfriends, either.
    “I had been across the state line that day, looking at a new tractor. When I got home at five o’clock, she still wasn’t back, and Pop was starting to worry. It wasn’t like Rita to leave Jessie for that long, or not to have called. Of course, back in those days, no one had cell phones.
    Summer nodded.
    “We went looking for her. We found her car parked where she’d left it, parked around the corner from the drugstore. We searched and searched, and we reported her missing to the sheriff.”
    He was quiet for a moment.
    “We never found her. It was like she just disappeared off the face of the earth, and no one saw a thing.”
    Summer reached across the table and touched his hand. “I’m so sorry. It must be terrible, the not knowing.”
    He didn’t say anything, just nodded and took another sip of his coffee. “Come on, eat your waffles. They’re getting cold,” he said, breaking out of the somber mood and forcing a smile.
    They both sat in silence for a while, until finally Summer pushed her plate back. “That’s it. I can’t eat another bite. I’m