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They both asked for omelets, but Max added a bowl of oatmeal and some fresh fruit to his order.
She folded her hands on the table and tilted her head. “When was the last time you ate?”
“It’s been a while.” He brought the coffee cup to his lips and stared at her over the rim. “Airport?”
She gripped her hands together and sucked in a breath. She let it out on one word. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I have some ideas, Max.”
The waitress placed Max’s oatmeal between them, and he dumped some brown sugar and raisins into the bowl. “I’m listening.”
The maple smell of the brown sugar rose on the steam, creating a homey feel completely at odds with their conversation.
“I know where Dr. Arnoff lives—lived.” She pushed her cup out of the way and tapped a spot on the table. “The lab is here and Albuquerque is this way. He lives in a suburb, a high-end suburb. We can start with his house and see if he has anything there, any of those blue pills. I know he keeps a work laptop at home.”
“Is he married? Does he have a family?”
“He is married, but his children are adults. One lives overseas and the other one is in Boston.”
“You think his wife, his widow, is going to invite us into her home so we can snoop around in her dead husband’s personal effects?” He plunged his spoon into the oatmeal.
“You’re a spy, aren’t you? We either break in or gain entrance through some kind of subterfuge.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I repeat. You do not have to do any of this. You can hop on a plane and put this behind you.”
“No, I can’t.” Whatever happened, she’d never forget Max Duvall. She’d always wonder if he made it or not, and if he didn’t make it she’d always blame herself.
He left his spoon in the bowl and pushed it to the corner of the table. “You mentioned you had no family. Do you have friends you can stay with?”
“Out of the blue like this?” She spread her hands. “No.”
“If anything happened to you...”
She pressed her fingers against his forearm, and his corded muscle twitched beneath her touch. “I’ll be with you. For better or worse, you still have T-101 pulsing through your system. You’re practically indestructible.”
“I may be, but you’re not.” He covered her hand with his own, his touch rough, awkward but sincere. “You can give me directions to Arnoff’s and I’ll go there on my own.”
“What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go?”
They broke apart when the waitress delivered their food. “You had the Denver and you had the spinach? Ketchup? Salsa?”
“Both, please.” Ava flicked the napkin into her lap.
When the waitress returned with their condiments, Max spooned some salsa onto his plate and took up the conversation without missing a beat. “You can stay here.”
“Stay here?”
“I’d come back after going to Arnoff’s in case nothing panned out there. You could help me find a few other agents and be on your way.” He sawed off an edge of his omelet with his fork. “Once you decide where you want to go.”
“I’d need to call the CIA or rather the emergency number I have.”
“You have an emergency number?”
“I thought I told you that.” She stabbed a potato and dragged it through the puddle of ketchup on her plate. Then she remembered the blood all over the lab and placed the tines of her fork on the edge of her plate.
“You told me you planned to call the CIA.”
“Yeah, the emergency number.”
“You know for a fact that the emergency number goes to the CIA?”
“I just assumed it did.” She wrapped her hands around her cup, still warm from the coffee the waitress had topped off. “D-do you think it’s the number for someone at Tempest?”
“Could be.” The blood-red ketchup didn’t seem to bother him as he squirted another circle of it on the side of his plate.
Her hands tightened around the mug. “I can’t call that number. Those men at my house could’ve been from Tempest.”
“They were from Tempest.” He tapped her plate with his knife. “Eat your breakfast.”
