“That’s not hunger. That’s a craving,” he replied.
She didn’t know why, but something about the way he said it made her face heat. She purposefully kept her eyes on her feet. Would she live in this weird place with him for the rest of her life? Aware, but keeping her distance.
Probably.
But she’d made it this long, and she masked her feelings well. Being a Special Agent honed those skills. Thinking about her job offered the perfect distraction. It brought her mind back to tomorrow’s BIG PLAN™. Tomorrow was her first day off in two weeks. Her personal investigation had been heating up for months, and tomorrow would be the day she put her plans into action. Everything would fall into place—as long as her mother didn’t catch her.
* * *
The sun shone brightly on the familiar storefront of her mother’s favorite café. It was in one of the older parts of town. Quinn had lived her whole life in DC, and her mother never failed to be here for her usual cup of sencha tea promptly at seven after her morning workout.
The ideal time for a setup.
Quinn pulled her hair out of its usual low ponytail, doing her best to obscure her face. It would be a shame to let all of her efforts go to waste by being spotted.
She made her way across the street to settle on a bench close to the patio her mom always sat on. It had a great view of the river. For as long as she remembered her mom sat at the same table, by herself, staring at the water like it was the only peace to be found in her hectic life.
Quinn thought it looked immeasurably lonely.
Her mother, Special Agent Karyn Lehi, had been alone all of Quinn’s life—or at least the parts Quinn remembered.
But that was all about to change. Today.
Months of planning, or years really, if you considered the time she’d spent tracking down her father in her teens, had led to this moment. And it would be perfect.
Quinn had never met her father in person. She’d only spoken to him once. But that one conversation had told her what she needed to know. It had been the summer before her senior year of high school. Her mother had never spoken about him, just said they’d broken up before Quinn was born. For a long time, she’d resented him. How could someone just leave their girlfriend and unborn daughter? But the older she got, the more she’d decided she had to know why. What happened? What if he didn’t even know about her? Her mother was a secretive woman. No doubt there was more to their story. Then she’d found him. He consulted for a popular software tech firm as a developer, just like she’d wanted to be. Not even that far away, just an hour’s drive out of the city. His company worked on cutting-edge programs. They gave back to the community with tech education charities, and his background was squeaky clean.
So, she’d called, and he told her not to contact him again.
“It means a lot to me—you have no idea—to talk to you, Quinn. You might not believe me, but I’ve kept up with you—your accomplishments, your activities—over the years. The pride I’ve felt…But I made your mother a promise. She didn’t want me in your life. It’s what she thought was best. Just know, it’s not your fault, okay. I love you, but don’t call again.”
And that had been that.
She’d used his name when she applied for UNID, trying to distance herself from her mother’s legacy—because that was her mother, a legend at UNID. But aside from that little rebellion, the phone call was the only time she’d connected with her father. Until last month, and the video she’d found. She’d reached out right away to make this meeting happen. He just didn’t know it was her.
Ten minutes ’til seven, Quinn drew her hair closer in over her face and held up the data-pad to hide more. If her mother saw her here on the same day he showed up, she was as good as dead. She’d be demoted to overseeing the interns. Her mother might have given up the directorship at UNID a few years back in favor of fieldwork, but she still had the pull to get anything she wanted done at the agency.
Quinn crossed her legs, then shifted in her seat again. It was almost time. The hair on the back of her neck prickled, and the sound of a woman’s heels clicking against the pavement came from behind her. The bench Quinn sat on had been meticulously chosen for its vantage point. She saw the patio clearly, obscured by the trellis that lined the café’s patio. Also, the back side of the bench was against a large line of shrubbery that separated the café from the sporting goods store next door.
Her mother clicked past her, single-minded in her goal to reach the café by her routine time, and Quinn let out a sigh of relief. A moment later the waiter had set her at her usual table and handed her the menu, which Karyn didn’t need, but it was important to follow protocol.
Quinn watched her mother gracefully stir the cup of tea that had followed right behind the host. Karyn Lehi was a beautiful woman still in the prime of her life. Quinn just wanted her to be happy. Once upon a time, this man must have made her happy. Surely, he could again.
Her dad would be here any moment. She’d told him seven as well, but she might have used UNID servers to hack into his phone and data-pad to alter his clock by five minutes. She couldn’t have said, “meet me at 7:05” because that didn’t sound weird and suspicious or anything. But she’d wanted her mother to already be seated and relaxed instead of them just bumping into each other on the street.
Yes, it was misappropriation of government resources. Sometimes shady things served a higher purpose, right?
Quinn sat forward on the edge of her seat. He turned the corner. There was her dad, even more handsome than in the pictures she’d seen. She totally understood what her mom had seen in him. The silver at his temples didn’t detract from his still-youthful demeanor. He was tall—taller than she’d expected—and leanly muscular. He must also be used to keeping a rigorous workout routine. He was wearing a suit that fit him nicely. Of course, he thought he was meeting a potential business partner, so he’d want to make a good impression.
She bit her lip, barely able to contain her excitement and anxiety. What would happen? Would they sit down like old friends? Ignore each other? She hoped it wasn’t the latter. The host escorted him in. To the table right next to her mom. Her mom concentrated on her data-pad. She wasn’t looking, and her dad just nodded to the host to accept the menu. He hadn’t looked either.
Notice each other!
Crap. A server rolled in a trolley of scones and jams. He parked it right in front of her line of vision against the trellis.
Dammit! Quinn jumped up, slid her data-pad into the bag slung over her shoulder, and scooted along the edge of the shrubbery, trying to get a better view. Were they talking yet? Had they noticed?
“What are you doing?”
Quinn nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Julian!”
He was only two feet away. How had he gotten so close without her hearing him? She was usually much more aware of her surroundings.
“Why are you looking so sneaky?” he asked.
A cup rattled from the direction of the patio.
“Shh!” she said, glancing over his shoulder. She was more exposed here. If they looked this way, she’d be super noticeable.
“Lehi, did you really just shush me?” he said incredulously.
There was nothing for it. She grabbed him by the lapel of his coat and yanked, backing quickly into the shrubs behind them. They squeezed through a small opening between the two tall boxwoods, just wide enough to fit one regular sized person and one obnoxiously large person.