And witnesses were extra important because she had forgotten her phone back at the house.
Deacon held open the silver swinging door and let her pass. She chose a booth near the fire exit in case she needed a quick escape. Not that she had any hope of outrunning him.
A waitress shoved a menu at Vivienne, then fluttered her lashes at Deacon and placed the second menu in his hands. “Can I get you something to drink, handsome?”
“I’ll have water, please, Mary Beth.”
The girl startled at his casual use of her name. “Do we know each other?” With a slight shake of his head, he pointed at the shiny name tag on the girl’s striped uniform. “I always forget I’m wearing this stupid thing,” she giggled.
“I hate to interrupt”—Vivienne kept her eyes on the laminated menu—“but I’d like some water too.”
The waitress said she’d be right back and sauntered to the kitchen.
“Okay, handsome,” she teased, “you owe me an explanation.” Everything on the menu looked amazing. “And a burger. And fries. And maybe even dessert.”
Deacon slid his menu to the end of the table and told her to order whatever she wanted—something he would probably regret saying.
The waitress came back carrying two ice waters in tall, plastic cups. She plopped them on the table, fished straws from her faded apron, and flipped open her notepad. “What can I get ya?”
“I’ll take a cheeseburger and a large fry,” Vivienne said. “And maybe some cheese sticks. And some nachos.”
Deacon raised his brows over his wide eyes but kept quiet.
“Are you finished?” the waitress asked with a smirk.
“Until dessert.” Vivienne was starving, and no one was going to make her feel bad about eating.
The waitress turned to Deacon and started flirting again. By the time he ordered, he had a napkin with the girl’s phone number on it.
“That’s all you’re getting?” Vivienne asked when the girl finally left. “A chocolate milkshake?”
“I had lunch earlier.”
“Then why did you insist on bringing me to eat?”
“Because I wouldn’t have been able to hear myself think over the racket your stomach was making.”
She shrugged. He wasn’t wrong. “All right. Let’s do this. How do you—?”
“Before you start firing questions my way, let me start at the beginning. When I’ve finished, you can interrogate me all you’d like.”
“I usually throw in a little torture when I interrogate people.”
“I might enjoy that,” he said with a wicked smile.
Her stomach took a break from growling to do that annoying firefly thing again.
The smile faded from his lips. “What do you know about your parents?”
Her parents? What did they have to do with this?
Vivienne didn’t remember much about her mom because Christine Dunn had always been working. She freed a napkin from the dispenser and spread it across her lap. “I never knew my dad, but my mom’s name was Christine.”
“And the rest of your family?”
“I had a brother named William and a sister named Anne. They all passed away when I was six.” She tore the napkin into tiny pieces then brushed them to the floor. She grabbed another napkin.
“I’m very sorry to hear that.” He sighed. “Your parents were special.”
“They were special?” That could mean a million different things.
“Yes. And so are you.”
“As flattering as it is to be called special, I’m pretty sure you have the wrong girl.” The second napkin met the same fate as the first.
He leaned back and crossed his arms. “I have the right girl.”
“How am I special?” Vivienne was the average of the average; there was nothing outstanding or remarkable about her. While she had done well in school, her good grades had been preceded by long hours of study and hard work. She wasn’t athletic, nor was she the last one picked for teams in gym class. People had called her cute before, but never beautiful.
Vivienne was painfully ordinary.
“Do you remember your episode? The one that sent you to the hospital?”
“You saw the video, didn’t you?” she groaned, dropping her head into her hands. Someone had recorded her stumbling down the hall like a drunk past the entire JV soccer team, tripping over a backpack, and ramming head-first into a locker.
Her foster sister had created a remix from it.
“Video? Vivienne, I was there.”
Was he saying he attended her high school?
“I’ve been keeping tabs on you for a while,” he explained.
The fine hairs at the nape of her neck tingled, and her arms started to itch. “So you’ve been stalking me…” Of course he was a stalker. He knew her name. He knew where she went to school—where she lived. He had broken into her house. He had been waiting for her in her—
“I prefer the term guardian angel.” His lips lifted into a mocking smile.
She kicked him beneath the table. “Not. Funny.”
“It was a joke,” he laughed, rubbing his shin. “I’m not a stalker. I was simply keeping a close watch for any indication that you were unwell.”
That made him a good guy, right? Some of the itchiness subsided. “How did you know I was going to have an episode before it happened?”
“Your parents had the same experience.”
“So you’re saying that whatever is wrong with me is hereditary.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said, rolling his eyes. “People like you and I possess a rare genetic mutation that activates around our eighteenth birthday. Your episode was caused by this gene activating.”
The waitress chose that moment to interrupt. Vivienne would have told her to go away, except she was carrying a tray of delicious, greasy goodness. After arranging the plastic baskets in front of Vivienne and giving Deacon his milkshake, she hurried off to get the table of teens that had just walked in.
Burgers. Whoever created them deserved some sort of medal. Seriously. So good. She thought of Deacon’s claim as she chewed. It could be true, she supposed. It didn’t really make sense, but that didn’t mean it was a lie. She grabbed a cheese stick and dipped it in marinara sauce.
Across the table, Deacon took a long sip of his whipped-cream-crowned shake.
If his claim was true, then she didn’t have to worry about her health. “Why didn’t the doctors know about my…condition?” Was that the right word?
“They weren’t doing the right tests.”
“And the specialist in Virginia?” she asked, crunching a nacho covered in guac. Deacon’s shoulders stiffened, and his eyes narrowed. She’d definitely hit a nerve. “Would he—or she”—because women could be murderers too—“have done the right tests?”
A nod. “And the moment your test came back positive, they would’ve given you something to end your life.”
He was serious. Whether it was true or not, Deacon believed what he was saying.
“Why would anyone want to kill me over a mutated gene?” She grabbed a fry and swirled it in ketchup.