“Your name?” he asked her quietly.
She hesitated.
The man in the suit answered first. “Eleanor Voss.”
A flicker crossed the woman’s face. Fear. Fury. Something deeper.
Then she said, clearly, “My name is Margaret Weller. And if you let him take me, I will be dead before sunrise.”
Silence dropped over the diner.
The suited man exhaled like a patient father. “You see? Delusions.”
Gideon studied both of them. He had spent enough time around liars, drunks, fugitives, and men who wore friendliness like a disguise. The old woman looked terrified. The man looked careful. And careful was often worse.
Marla set the coffee pot down. “Should I call the sheriff?”
The suited man turned to her with a polished smile. “That won’t be necessary.”
Margaret clutched Gideon’s sleeve. “Call them,” she whispered. “Now.”
The man reached into his coat.
Every muscle in Gideon’s body tightened.
But instead of a weapon, the man produced a leather wallet and flipped it open. “Daniel Voss,” he said. “Family attorney. Medical power of attorney included. My mother has been under my care for three years.”
He placed papers on the table.
They looked official. Stamped. Signed.
The trucker nodded uncertainly. “Seems legit.”
Margaret made a broken sound in her throat. “He forged them.”
Daniel smiled without warmth. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Mother.”
Gideon did not touch the papers. “Why’d she run from you in the rain?”
Daniel’s expression stayed calm. “Because paranoia does that. We were on our way to a private care facility outside Reno. She became agitated at a gas station and disappeared.”
Margaret’s grip turned desperate. “No facility. He’s taking me to a house in the desert.”
Daniel’s smile faded a fraction. “That is enough.”
Gideon looked at the bruise on her wrist again. Fresh. Finger-shaped.
He rose slowly from the booth.
At six-foot-three, broad across the shoulders, leather jacket creaking as he stood, he turned the diner air heavy. Daniel noticed. His polished calm shifted into measured caution.
“She stays,” Gideon said.
Daniel folded the wallet shut. “This is a private family matter.”
“Not anymore.”
The storm cracked outside with a flash of white light, and for an instant every face in the diner looked carved from bone.