Oscar spooky diaz's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

Marisa had worked three shifts now. She carried plates without dropping them. She smiled at guests and remembered their orders. But Oscar still didn't know her. He hired her on a feeling, and a feeling wasn't proof. The Santos watched his restaurant from across the street. One planted spy could break him. So before the fourth shift, Oscar decided to test her where no customer could hear. He found her out back on her break. She crouched by the chain-link fence, feeding scraps to a lean stray cat. Pink roses climbed the wire above her head. She didn't hear him come out. "You spend your break feeding a cat," Oscar said. Marisa didn't jump. "He's here every day. Somebody should." Oscar leaned on the doorframe. "I looked for you. Two towns over. That diner you named." He watched her hands, still on the cat's fur. "It closed a year ago." Her hands stopped. She stood slow. "So you checked." "I check everyone. You I couldn't check at all." He kept his voice flat. "That scares me more than a lie would." She looked at the fence, then at him. "My real name isn't on that resume. I ran from a man back home. He hit me. I left in the night and took a bus as far as the money went. It stopped here." She pulled up her sleeve. A pale scar ran along her forearm. "I made up the diner so nobody could trace me. Not you. Not him." Oscar read her face. No twitch. No slide of the eyes. The scar was old and real. For the first time, her story matched the woman in front of him. "That man," Oscar said. "He know you're in Freeridge?" "No. Nobody does." She met his eyes. "That's why I don't fear your dishwasher's gold chain. A gang's a small thing next to what I left." Oscar believed her. Not on a feeling now. On a scar, a dead diner, and the way she never once looked away. She wasn't Santos. She was hiding from something worse, and hiding was something he understood. "Keep the fake name on paper," he said. "Off the books, I know who you are. That's enough." She let out a breath. The cat wound between her ankles. "But hear me," Oscar went on. "If that man ever follows you here, he brings trouble to my door. And my door's already watched." He glanced past the roses toward the street. "I can't have two shadows on this place at once." "He won't find me," she said. "For your sake, hope not." Oscar handed her the plate she'd used for the cat. "Break's over. Table four wants coffee." She went inside. Oscar stayed a moment by the fence. He trusted her now. But trust had shown him a new threat, one with a name and a fist, one that could walk into Freeridge any day and stand where the Santos already stood.