“I moved east to stay with her those last six months,” she said. Her silky hair fell forward, obscuring her face but not completely covering her down-turned mouth and furrowed brow.
I wanted to tuck the strands behind her ear and stroke her cheek. I resisted the urge because I’d made enough stupid mistakes for one day. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the funeral.”
She waved her fork in the air. “Don’t be ridiculous. You were deployed. It was lucky that Mai was on leave so she could be there.”
Mai had been deployed then, too, in SWA—Southwest Asia. I didn’t know where, exactly, but I knew damn wellshe’d pulled every string she could and traded on every favor she was owed so she could get home to support Savannah. I’d tried to do the same, but at that point, I’d served two fewer years than my sister had and didn’t have enough favors to call in.
I was a little surprised Mai had lied about having leave, but I understood. Savannah would have felt guilty if she’d known Mai had gone to so much trouble. Not only did she not like depending on anyone, but she also hated feeling like a burden.
Which was ridiculous because in the sixteen years I’d known her, I’d only ever seen Savannah take on other people’s problems, never once asking for help with her own. My chest tightened as I realized how much it must have cost her to reach out to Mai and accept help from me. I needed to go easy on her. Hell, maybe I’d even apologize for the manhandling before this trip was done.
“I moved back to California right after the funeral,” Savannah continued. “I’ve avoided traveling east as much as possible since then.”
Mai’s home base was near DC, so I assumed whatever protection plan she had for Savannah would be near there. That discussion could wait another day or two.
We ate in silence for a few minutes, the mood decidedly darker.
“How’s your dinner?” I asked.
“Good. Not the best chicken marsala I’ve ever had. That would be—” She cut herself off and looked up at me.
“My dad’s recipe,” I finished for her.
I grew up eating my mom’s amazing Vietnamese cuisine, but twice a week when he wasn’t deployed, my father took over the kitchen. One weekly dinner was something grilled on the outdoor barbecue, no matter the season. The other meal was one of the three dishes he knew how to make: spaghetti with homemade meatballs and sauce, blackenedtuna, or chicken marsala. Mai never learned to cook from either of them, but Michael and I had each apprenticed with my dad during our respective middle and high school years.
The chicken marsala had been Savannah’s favorite of my dad’s dishes over the many dinners she’d eaten with our family over the years. The one time I’d cooked for her the summer we were dating, choosing the menu had been a no-brainer.
“That’s the only meal I remember from that summer,” Savannah said. She’d been making the same trek down our shared memory lane. “Other than that, did we even eat?”
I grinned. “Not much. We were too busy.”
I’d been doing odd jobs for my parents while I waited to ship out for boot camp, and she’d had her three-day-a-week internship and a weekend job waiting tables. Working around our messy schedules, we’d spent every minute possible together, usually hiking to a secluded spot in the woods where we could have sex, or hiding out at her mother’s apartment while her mother worked so we could have sex, or sneaking into my apartment over my parents’ garage so we could... Shit, we really did have a lot of sex that summer.
Savannah cleared her throat and set down her fork. “I’m going to run to the ladies’ room. If the waitress comes by, she can take my plate.”
As she walked away, I pushed my plate away from me. Being thrown back into each other’s company was torture. I knew I was the best man for the job, but I couldn’t help wondering if I should have told Mai to find the next-best person. Mai couldn’t have known how hard this would be for us because we’d never told her about our relationship. I hadn’t told anyone until one day near the end of the summer when I’d decided I wanted to go public. Then I’d told one person, the wrong person, and everything between Savannah and me had gone to shit.
I asked the waitress to clear our plates, then paid the bill. Iwas sliding my credit card back into my wallet when Savannah came around the corner, returning from the restrooms. She was pale, maybe even a little gray. I jumped to my feet and met her halfway across the room.
“Were you sick again? Maybe you’re coming down with something.”
She shook her head and held out her burner phone. The phone that only Savannah, Mai, and I knew about. I took it from her and stared down at a text message on the screen.
Run, little rabbit, run.
A cold lead ball settled in my gut. Someone was taunting her. Maybe Devlin. But why? “Do you recognize the number?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Did you—”
“I’m not an idiot. I understand the purpose of a burner phone. I swear, no one has the number except Mai.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled her with me back to the table. Luckily, the waitress hadn’t finished clearing it. I used a butter knife to wedge the back off the phone, then popped out the SIM card. I poured salt into one of the water glasses, dropped the SIM card into it, and stirred it all together.
“What are you doing?”
“Corroding it, I hope,” I answered. I took her hand more gently and led her toward the exit. “We have to get out of this town. We’ll call Mai once we’re clear. She knows IT people who can do crazy things.”
