The Vault of Destinies (James Potter #3) Read Free Page B

you two need a few more minutes—"
    The bell at the counter dinged again, louder this time. The waitress glanced back, her temper flaring, but another waitress passed behind her and touched her shoulder.
    "I'll get it, Trish," the younger (and decidedly prettier) waitress said. "Table three, right?"
    Trish exhaled and scowled at the pickup window. "Thanks, Judy. I swear to you, one of these days…"
    "I know, I know," Judy smiled, crossing the narrow floor and waving a hand to show she'd heard it a hundred times before.
    Judy ripped an order slip from her pad and jabbed it into one of the clips on the cook's carousel. With a deft movement, she scooped up the plate and carried it to a table in the corner by the door.
    "Here you go, love," she said, sliding the plate onto the table in front of a middle-aged man with thinning black hair. "Enjoy."
    "Thank you very much," the man replied, smiling and unrolling his napkin so that his silver clattered onto the tabletop. "Why, if I thought I could get waited on by the likes of you every day, I might never even leave."
    "You sweet-talker you," Judy replied, cocking her hip. "You're not from around here, then?"
    The man shook his head with derision. "Not likely. I'm from up the coast, Cardiff. Just passing through."
    "Is that so?" Judy said, smiling enigmatically. "I have family up that way, though I hardly ever get to visit. I wonder if you know any of them?"
    The man's smile turned condescending. "Cardiff 's a big place, dearie. Unless your daddy's the mayor, seems unlikely I might know 'em, but go ahead."
    Judy leaned toward the man and cupped one hand to her mouth, as if she was about to share a secret with him. "Potter," she said, "James Potter. He'd be young… not a boy, but not a man yet either."
    The man narrowed his eyes in a parody of deep thought, as if he really wanted to say yes, just to keep the pretty waitress talking to him, but couldn't quite bring himself to do it. He blew out a breath and shook his head. "Sorry, can't say I know 'im. Frankly, I don't run across too many boys anymore, now that my own are mostly grown. My youngest just went off to the milit'ry, you know…"
    The waitress nodded, straightening. "You let me know if you need a refill on that, all right?" She smiled again, a somewhat more plastic smile than the one she'd shown him a few moments before, and then turned away.
    Trish, the older waitress, was standing by the cash register counting out her end-of-day tips. Without looking up, she said, "What is it with you and this Potter kid? You've been asking about him since your first day here, what, three weeks ago? I, for one, don't believe he's any relation of yours. What is it? He lay into your kid brother or something? His folks owe you money?"
    Judy laughed. "Nothing like that. He's just… a friend of a friend. Someone I've lost touch with and want to find again. It's nothing. It's sort of a hobby, really."
    Trish chuckled drily. She slammed the register drawer shut and stuck a thin roll of bills into her apron. "Some hobby. I've seen your little apartment, remember? If you want a hobby, maybe you should take up decorating. That place is as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard. Not even a bed. Creepy, if you ask me."
    Judy wasn't listening to Trish. Her eyes were locked on the front window, expressionless and unblinking, transfixed.
    "What is it, Judy?" Trish asked, looking up. "You look like someone just walked over your…"
    Judy held up a hand, palm out, instructing the older woman to be still. Trish went still. Judy stared through the front window, between the faces of the overweight couple who were still arguing over the map, beyond the narrow footpath and the lamppost, across the street, toward a small man as he ambled slowly down an alley, tapping a twisted cane as he went. Judy's eyes narrowed slightly, quizzically.
    Behind her, loudly, the short order cook banged the bell again. A plate clanked onto the counter. Neither Trish nor Judy