The silence woke him. The interwoven murmur of voices and whining babies and shuffling feet—all that noise had stopped. He opened his eyes and found himself alone in a sea of empty chairs.
Adrenaline flooded his bloodstream. Run!
Trying to hide the shaking, he folded the newspaper and was struggling to get to his feet when a figure passed close in front of him.
A short, paunchy man, wearing a scruffy plaid coat with over-sized patch pockets, dropped into the chair next to his. “Hey, pretty.” He put a surprisingly strong hand on Rafe’s arm to prevent him from rising. “Sorry, sugar, but it’s already too late to run. Look around.”
Resigned to what he’d find, Rafe nonetheless scanned the edges of the room. People were staring at him from every direction. Nervous mothers with their children
