It wasn’t the library as Carly had told her mother, but she would still be with Ada. It was good enough. There wouldn’t be any harm in going. He probably wouldn’t even see them. Definitely if they were careful. It wasn’t wrong to go. What do you need? You came in for some reason?

“Want to go to Town Center?” Carly asked.

Ada started an eyeroll for an answer. It was a long walk.

Carly slid her hand into her pockets to keep them from being awkward. It turned out that sometimes it only took one to play the normal game. She felt the folded money rake the side of her finger. “I’ll buy us Starbucks and new comics.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Owen slid into the padded booth he’d been escorted to by the black-clad hostess. The table was a glossy expanse of dark wood that would have adequately seated six. The glass-globed candle burning at the far end was still a stretch away, even for a man with a seven-foot wingspan. The setup would be elbow-room overload for a party of four, an embarrassment of riches in dining real estate for two. But it was the only kind of table they had here, a subliminal suggestion at the outset that you’d already been pampered before they’d served you a single thing.

The whole place was a bit dim and romantic for an appointment like this. A Waffle House would have served Jonathan better. Safer. Owen would have stood out more. But he figured that Jonathan hadn’t thought it all the way through. Jonathan wanted to impress him. With what? His good taste in slick suburban quick-eats?

Another restaurant ninja materialized at his side. “Hello. I’m Courtney and I’ll be taking care of you this afternoon. Can I start you off with one of our craft cocktails or a glass of wine from our Reserve Select collection?”

“Black coffee is fine, thank you. I’m meeting someone.”

“Of course.”

She disappeared without so much as a rustle. The place had the acoustics of a sponge.

Owen took out his phone and sent a text to Jonathan: I’m here. You’re late. He set the phone faceup on the table and waited. He wouldn’t have made it to ten if he’d bothered to count. The silenced phone lit up and shimmied in a fit of vibration. He ignored it.

Courtney reappeared with a glass of ice water. She stopped midway to setting it down as the phone burred like a drill on the table. “Do you need to get that?”

“No.” The call went dead, then almost immediately rang its angry droning again against the wooden continent between them. He looked at the hovering glass of water and back into Courtney’s questioning eyes.

Across her face he read the confusion of a young person who couldn’t comprehend not responding to an electronic summons.