The Secret Son

Hours were all they had left. They’d both known that from the beginning.

“Did you have your meeting?” he countered, glancing down into his beer.

He hadn’t answered her question.

Erica waited until he looked up, his beautiful eyes meeting hers, before she nodded.

In his gaze she saw a flash of the same desperate sadness she felt herself.

“When are you leaving?” he asked.

“In the morning. I have a seven o’clock out of JFK.”

“I go in the morning, too.”

Although it made no sense at all, disappointment crashed through her.

“Where?” she asked, telling herself not to be afraid for him.

“Florida.”

A teenage boy was being held hostage by a suspected drug dealer who wanted safe passage to Cuba. The FBI Crisis Negotiation chief had called Jack earlier in the week to speak with him about the situation. They’d still been searching for the boy at that point.

“The hostage-taker’s ready to negotiate?” she murmured.

Jack nodded.

“So why do you have to go?” She cringed, hoping that didn’t sound as bad to Jack’s ears as it had to hers.

“I speak the language, for one thing. The guy’s Latin American.”

“You can’t be the only one.”

He took a sip of his beer, studying the suds. “A few years ago I had a successful negotiation involving him. He’s agreed to talk, under the stipulation that I be the one he speaks to.”

“He’s taken hostages before?”

“No.” Jack shook his head, frowning. “He was a hostage.”

“Oh!” Taken aback, Erica studied him.

And she’d thought she had a tough job.

“So—” he looked across at her, his weathered face solemn “—tonight’s it, then.”

“Yeah.”

His hand was close to hers on the table. Just the smallest movement would bring their fingers together again.

“Maybe we should go upstairs to the dining room or something as a sort of send-off.”

“I’d rather stay right here.” Where they’d spent every minute they’d ever had together.

He sat back, his hand sliding off the table. “I’m glad we had this week,” he said.

“I am, too.” The words were almost a whisper. Her throat hurt with the effort to get them out at all.

How was she going to live the rest of her life without ever seeing him again?

He finished his beer and motioned for another. “Knowing that you’re in the world gives my life a whole new dimension,” he said quietly.

She couldn’t speak, afraid of what might spill forth, afraid of the regrets she’d have to face when she left their world and returned to her own.

“It’s something we can take with us,” he added.

Erica tried to smile. “Thank you for that.”

“Hey.” He leaned forward, his thumb following a path down her cheek. “We have hours yet.” His face was softly lit with a half smile that almost made her cry. “Let’s not lose them.”

Her face, her entire body, responding to the light touch of his thumb, Erica nodded.

“I think pita pizzas are in order.”

It was their favorite of Maggie’s munchies. They’d tried them all.

Erica forced a grin and determined that she’d make the next hours the absolute best they could be.

By the time the pizza arrived, she’d just about managed to pretend that this was like any other night that week—a beginning, instead of the end.

Except for the underlying desperation. Now when they talked, they didn’t hesitate before they jumped into any topic. If they only had this one night, they didn’t have time for deliberation, for careful phrasing or circumspect questions.

Erica couldn’t take her gaze off him, even for a second, frightened of losing the chance to store up one more memory. He seemed to be having the same problem, his eyes more intent—though she wouldn’t have believed that possible—than they’d been all those other nights.

They were drinking faster.

Eating faster.

They were doing everything faster, speeding through years of their lives, trying to squeeze in every single memory.

And then, suddenly, they stopped. The noise in the pub continued around them—the murmur of conversation, intermittent laughter, the clinking of glasses—but Erica and Jack were surrounded by silence.

Emotions engulfed her. Confused her. There was so much, so many feelings. And yet not nearly enough.

“Why do you have to be a hostage negotiator?” she blurted out, terrified for his safety, although it wasn’t her business to be.

Shaking his head, he took a protracted swig of beer. And then he said, “I was married once. A long time ago.”

Erica’s stomach tensed. “You didn’t tell me that.”