THE TATTOO ON HIGHWAY NINE
Chapter I: The Solitary Cup
The midday sun slanted through the dusty glass-block windows of the roadside diner, cutting pale rectangles across the checkerboard linoleum floor. The ceiling fan turned with a lazy, rhythmic squeak, doing little to move the thick aroma of black coffee, fried bacon, and stale tobacco.
Sitting alone in a red vinyl corner booth was Cole.
He was a solitary traveler in his late forties, wearing a faded olive field shirt over a patched leather vest. His beard was trimmed close, streaked with silver and grey, and a fresh, shallow cut ran across the bridge of his nose—a souvenir from a roadside skirmish two towns back. Cole stared silently into his white ceramic coffee mug, his right arm resting on the laminate table, lost in the heavy silence of a man carrying years of unresolved grief.
From across the diner counter, a small figure slid down from a booth.
It was a little blonde girl, no older than six. She wore an oversized yellow t-shirt, denim shorts, and worn canvas sneakers. In her left arm, she clutched a battered, grey stuffed bunny whose floppy ears had been stitched and re-stitched with thick yarn.