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I sat beside her, she put her arm around me, and I rested my head on her shoulder. “I knew this was coming.”
“It doesn’t make it any easier, sweetheart.”
I wiped the tears that slid down my cheeks away, wishing I could stop them from falling.
“It’s okay to be sad, you know.”
“It’s silly.”
“No, Emme, it’s normal. You know what we should do?”
I shook my head.
“Eat.”
“You don’t want to cook in my kitchen, Mom.”
“You’re right. We’ll get your father to take us out for dinner,” said my mom.
“I’m not that hungry.”
“You will be when you see where he’s taking us.”
I shook my head. I could guarantee my father had no idea where my mother would be insisting they go.
“This place is such a tourist trap,”I said when my father drove up to the only place in Boston that made lobster the way my mother liked.
“Everyone says that, but I bet ninety percent of the people having dinner here tonight are from Boston.”
“Sorry about this,” I said to Decker, who my mother had insisted join us regardless of his protests. “But unless you want hundred-dollar lobster, they don’t have much else.”
“Lobster’s good. Can’t find it much back home.”
“Where is home?”
“I live on a ranch just north of Austin, Texas. You want a steak? Come visit.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Decker.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, as though he understood that him being along gave me the moral support I needed to get through not just tonight, but the next few days too.
The maître d’ led us to the back of the restaurant to a private dining room.
“We have business to discuss,” my father murmured, escorting me into the room.
Once we’d ordered dinner and our drinks were delivered, my parents stood. My father walked my mother to the door and closed it behind her after she’d walked out.
“Decker, do you want to fill Emme in on what you’ve uncovered?”
“As you know, U.S. intelligence—the CIA specifically—has suffered major setbacks in China.”
I was aware that the agency’s once-robust espionage network had been falling apart for the last five years. In that time, dozens of CIA informants in China had disappeared, either jailed or killed.
“The agency has been convinced there was a mole feeding information to Chinese intelligence officers.”
“And you suspect Paxon?”
“More than suspect, Emme,” said my father.
