Two Coffees, No Sugar

Every night at 2:40, the same man ordered two coffees and drank one. Rosa had worked the graveyard shift at the Lighthouse Diner for eleven months, and she had seen people do stranger things at that hour, but none of them did it so politely.

“For a friend,” he said the first time, and tipped like the friend had eaten a full breakfast.

Tonight the second coffee sat untouched until 3:15, steam long gone, and then the man stood, put on his coat, and left a key beside the saucer. Brass, old, with a paper tag tied on with kitchen string. The tag said, in neat block capitals: ROSA. ROOM 4.

There was no Room 4 at the Lighthouse Diner. There was a kitchen, a walk-in freezer, a bathroom with a lock that only worked if you leaned on it, and a supply closet that Hector, the cook, swore was haunted because the mop kept moving.

“You’re going to look for it,” Hector said, watching her turn the key over. It wasn’t a question. He’d known her eleven months, too.

“I’m going to finish my shift,” Rosa said. Then she pocketed the key, which they both understood to mean yes.