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“And your family? I thought I was taking you to the airport tomorrow so you could fly out to be with your family.”
“My family.” She launched from his bed to hers, peeled back the covers and slipped beneath them. “I have no family.”
Chapter Six
Ava buried her head beneath a pillow and ran her tongue along her teeth. She needed a toothbrush and a meal.
“Are you awake?”
Lifting one corner of the pillow, she peered out at Max sitting in front of a tablet computer at the table by the window. “What time is it?”
He flicked back the heavy drapes and a spear of sunlight sliced through the room. “It’s around ten o’clock. You must be hungry. When was the last time you ate?”
“I had my dinner at the lab before...before everything went down.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“An eternity. A lifetime.” She retreated beneath the pillow. How was she supposed to do this with Max? Why did her life always manage to get upended?
She heard his footsteps across the room and the crackle of plastic.
“I went down to the little store in the hotel and bought you a few things.”
“A new life?”
The silence yawned from across the room and engulfed her. She tossed the pillow away from her and sat up.
Max stood in the center of the room, a plastic bag dangling at his side. “You don’t need to do this, Ava. In fact, I’m going to take you to the airport right now. I’ll pay for a ticket anywhere you want to go. Then you can call the CIA or whatever number the lab gave you in case of an emergency and you can forget about all of this.”
She sighed. “I was trying to make a joke. I want to help you. I feel responsible for your predicament. If I hadn’t been so anxious for a job, any job, I wouldn’t have been injecting you and Simon and countless others with poison.”
“Not your fault. They would’ve found someone else.” He chucked the bag onto the foot of the bed. “Toothbrush, comb, deodorant, some other stuff. Take a shower. I have some stuff to get out of the car, and then I’ll meet you in the restaurant downstairs for breakfast. You can let me know then what you want to do.”
The door closed behind him and she stared at it for several seconds. A ticket to anywhere. A new start—again. How many new starts did one woman need?
She threw off the covers and grabbed the bag of toiletries. She didn’t need a new start. She needed a finish. She needed to help Max Duvall.
Forty minutes later, freshly showered but wearing the same clothes from yesterday, Ava made her way down to the lobby. She spotted Max immediately. Did everyone else notice the aura of power and menace around him or did she just have that special switch that flicked on when danger sent out its Siren’s call?
He glanced up from his newspaper and watched her approach with an unwavering gaze, as if willing her to his side. He didn’t have to throw out any lures. She was all in.
He rose to his feet when she reached the table and pulled out her chair. “Do you feel better after your shower?”
Sitting down, she flicked the collar of her blouse. “I’d feel even better if I had some clean clothes to step into.”
“I wouldn’t recommend going back to your house for a while.”
“Ever?” She turned her coffee cup over and nodded at the waitress bearing a coffeepot.
“When this all blows over.”
“When will that be?” After the waitress came by with the coffee, Ava poured a steady stream of cream into her cup, watching the milky swirls fan out in the dark liquid.
“When the CIA or Prospero gets a handle on Tempest and puts a stop to its clandestine operations.”
The spoon hovered over her cup. “In other words, I’d better get used to these clothes.”
“Buy new ones.”
“Is that what you do?” She took in the dark blue T-shirt, very similar to the black T-shirt he’d been wearing last night. He’d swapped the camouflage pants for a pair of faded jeans.
“I’ve been carrying my clothes—and everything else—with me for the past month. I have one bag for my clothes and a second one for my...tools.”
She slurped a sip of coffee, wondering how best to ask him about his tools, when the waitress came back and saved her from doing something stupid.
