Page 67 of Letters From A Stalker

I glance toward Mara again.

She points the carving fork at me. “You got yourself into this. I’m staying out of it.”

I lean toward Connor and lower my voice as though sharing classified information. “The problem is that bikers don’t have spider sense.”

He studies me through the white plastic eye panels. “You could.”

“I’m thirty-seven. I think if superpowers were coming, they would have arrived by now.”

“Maybe they’re late.” Something about the certainty in his voice makes me laugh.

Not the dry sound I use at work. A real one. Connor grins behind the mask as though he has personally accomplished something significant. Across the table, Mara looks at me in the same irritatingly knowing way she always does when her son manages to pull a reaction out of me other adults have to work harder for.

I point at her before she can say anything. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“You were about to.”

“I was thinking.” She smiles and starts serving dinner.

For the next hour, I let myself exist somewhere uncomplicated. Connor explains a school project in enough unnecessary detail that by the end I know more about volcanoes than I did after medical school. Mara tells me about a woman at the grocery store who apparently attempted to start a fistfight over the last rotisserie chicken, which she narrates with such unnecessary dramatic embellishment that Connor nearly chokes laughing.

By the time I stand to leave, Connor has fallen half asleep on the couch with the Spider-Man mask still pushed onto his forehead, one sock missing for reasons no adult in the house can explain. Mara walks me to the door and hands me my jacket.

“You going straight home?” The question is casual.

My answer almost is too. “That’s the plan.”

Her eyes linger on me as I slide the jacket on. For one uncomfortable second, I wonder whether she can somehow see the outline of the black envelope through leather. Obviously, she can’t. Still, her expression changes.

“What?”

Mara leans one shoulder against the wall. “Nothing. You’ve just had that look lately.”

“What look?”

“The one where you’ve already decided something and you’re waiting for the rest of the world to stop inconveniencing you with objections.”

I stare at her when she smiles slightly. “I’ve known you for six years, Kai. You’re not as mysterious as you think you are.”

For several seconds, the warning she gave me weeks ago returns with uncomfortable clarity.

“I’m going home,” I tell her.

Mara studies me for another second before apparently deciding not to push. “Text me when you get there.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Connor makes me say that now.”

“Of course he does.”

Her smile softens. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Mara.”

The cold catches me the second I step outside.