Escape to Morning Read Free Page A

blood from his nose, his mouth. It wasn’t uncommon for a bloke to stroll into the Wolf looking like he’d had a run-in with a truck, but the fewer questions the better.
    He blew out a breath, put on his game face, and hiked into the bar/burger joint. Please, Simon, be here .
    The old log-cabin-turned-eatery and Friday night hangout had barely crept into the twentieth century with electricity and indoor plumbing. To expect anything but a raucous jukebox and the smells of beer and grease embedded in the walls would court disappointment. The dingy, dimly lit restaurant proved, however, a perfect clandestine rendezvous spot and plan B checkpoint.
    Will beelined to his table near the back—the one with a good view of the door—and sat with his back to the wall, trying not to immediately dive under the table where Simon sometimes pasted the USB pendant with his latest communication. Willie Nelson crooned from the jukebox, competing with the sounds of sizzling burgers from beyond the double saloon-style doors. Just over Will’s head hung a mounted walleye, glassy eyes open in near panic.
    Will wondered if he wore the same opened-eyed, please, no! expression as he slid his hand under the table and discovered … nothing.
    A waitress sauntered over, her hair pulled eye-stretchingly tight into a wispy, mousy brown bun. Joanie was already pushing forty, and it made her look about ten years older than that. Not that he cared, but sometimes he wondered if there wasn’t a story behind the eyebrow piercing, the missing teeth, and the haunted look in her muddy brown eyes.
    Then again, everyone had a story, didn’t they?
    â€œHey there, ace,” Joanie said. “The regular?”
    â€œYeah.” He glanced around the room, kept his voice casual. “My friend been in?”
    She put two rolls of napkin-wrapped silverware on the table. “The one with the tattoo and beard?”
    Will nodded. He certainly didn’t mean Sally Appleton from border control. While she had a tattoo, she could hardly be confused with a six-foot-three former linebacker from upstate New York. Still, he supposed Joanie might confuse Sally as his friend, although he’d taken great pains to keep her at a healthy distance while he wheedled information from her.
    Not that Sally didn’t try to turn their informant-recipient relationship into something PG-13. Last week’s working lunch still left a gritty taste in his mouth. Well, he’d considered it working. She’d somehow decided that their biweekly get-together merited her wearing a hot pink, spandex T-shirt and low-rise jeans that showed off a— ouch —belly-button ring. He could barely look in her general direction the entire meal. Whereas she had given him a thorough scrutiny, one that had obvious meanings attached. He’d ignored it, just like he had such suggestions for the past three-plus years. He knew where temptation led and ended up. And the residual hollow and used feelings.
    Will wondered if he didn’t really know what it meant to have a friend of the female persuasion.
    Then again, any friendship would require someone getting inside the layers to the real Will Masterson. There was a reason he worked so well under an alias. He’d been operating under one guise or another for most of his life—sheriff’s son, troublemaker, Green Beret, and now Homeland hero. He supposed out of them all, the last was the one that gave his life the most resonance. Still, his current profession left little time, ability, or inclination to let the real Will out of hiding. Perhaps women like Sally were all he could hope for.
    Oh, he hoped not.
    â€œYour friend hasn’t been in,” Joanie answered.
    Will glanced at the door, then checked his watch.
    Maybe Simon was simply late. He’d arrived late a couple of times—once, sporting a black eye, which didn’t seed any feelings of calm in Will now. Simon had the rough part