In the last fifteen minutes the grandmotherly lady had left for the restroom two more times, and Tessa felt bad for her. The woman looked pale and queasy, so Tessa wasn’t surprised when, once again, only a few minutes after taking her seat, she asked Tessa if she wouldn’t mind to watch her bags just one last time. “Is there anything I can do for you?” Tessa asked.
The woman shook her head. “That’s so kind of you to ask. Just the bags, dear. I think perhaps something I ate isn’t agreeing with me. I’m not used to this flying business, you know. I’ll be back in just a few minutes.” Then she looked warily out the window toward the runway. “You don’t think they might start boarding the plane?”
Tessa saw that the gate agent was faithfully earning her pay by reading a novel with a windblown, shirtless hunk on the cover.
“Doesn’t look like it. I promise I’ll come get you if they do.”
“You are a dear. Thank you.”
Then, the woman ambled toward the restroom again, and Tessa stared out the window at the wide-bellied planes asleep on the tarmac.
A moment later, when Tessa’s phone rang and she saw that it was from an unknown number, she thought it was probably one of Patrick’s FBI friends. So, he’s too scared to call me himself. Ha. She took a moment to recall some of the choice phrases she’d overheard Uncle Ralph use a few times, and then answered the call. “Who is this?”
“Hello, Raven.” At first she thought it was Patrick, since he was the only one who ever called her Raven, but the voice wasn’t right.
“This is you, right?” the voice said.
Oh, oh, yes.
That voice.
The cute guy from the tattoo studio.
Tessa was flustered. Wasn’t even thinking. “Riker? How’d you get my number?”
“Your permission form. You wrote it down for me.”
Hello, Tessa! Sometimes you are so dense!
“So,” he said. “Whatcha doing?”
She slumped back in the slick plastic airport chair. “Nothing.
You?”
“Just hanging.” He took his time before continuing. “Trying to figure out a puzzle.”
“Still didn’t get it, huh?”
“No, no, not the bank robber one. A different one.”
“Which one is that?”
“A black-haired one. A sly little smile one. A raven-inked one.”
A thrill scampered through her. “Yeah, well, I’ve heard that kind is pretty tough to figure out.” “Good, I like a challenge.”
She twisted in the chair to try and get comfortable, but it wasn’t humanly possible. “So what do you know so far? Any pieces filled in?”
“I think I need to do a little more research first. Gather some more information…” He let his voice trail off and then he added,
“Maybe look over the board again.”
She wasn’t quite sure she liked the way he phrased that. But maybe she did. She didn’t hang up.
“I’m heading to a club tonight,” he said. “Why don’t you come help me with my puzzle?”
She looked around the airport. “I don’t think I can make it.”
“Oh, blowing me off, huh?”
“No, it’s not like that.” It was exciting, so exciting to have a guy, an older guy, interested in her. “Trust me. If I could come, I would.”
Riker took a couple of moments before responding. And when he finally spoke, it sounded to Tessa like he was reading: “Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.”
Oh man.
“‘The Raven,’” she said. “By Poe. You looked it up.”
“Yeah. Like I said, I’m trying to solve a puzzle.”
“So is that your favorite line?”
“Maybe. I’d have to spend a little more time with the ebony bird to know. There’s another line I like too. Hang on… Here:
‘And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me-filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.’ I like that phrase: ‘fantastic terrors never felt before.’”
“Yeah.”
“What about you? What’s your favorite line?”
Tessa didn’t even have to think about it. She’d first read the poem soon after her mother’s death. “Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow…” He waited. “Is that the end? It doesn’t sound like the end of the line.”
End of the line, huh?
“For a long time it seemed like it was.” Tessa watched the grandmotherly lady emerge from the restroom and start returning cautiously to her seat. “We’ll have to see.”
We do what we have to do.
Surcease from sorrow.
Riker interrupted her thoughts. “Hey, c’mon, hang out with me.
I want to see how your tattoo is doing.”
Man, she could tell this guy was totally into her. “Well…” she said. This grandma lady trusts you. That couple next door in Denver you catsit for, they trust you-even the other kids at school trust you when you edit their stuff… Everyone trusts you.
Except Patrick. Nope. Not him. Not at all.
A flurry of soft warnings blew through Tessa’s mind, but she ignored them. “Maybe I could meet you after all. But not tonight.
Now. This afternoon.”
“Righteous. Where are you?”
Make up something. Don’t tell him. Take a shuttle. “The Hyatt, the one over by the airport. I’ll meet you in the lobby. Half an hour.” The elderly woman was about ten feet away. Tessa wished she didn’t have to use that cane.
“The Hyatt by the airport,” Riker said. “But I need a little time.
Let’s make it 3:45. I should be able to be there by then.”
“Oh, and bring me some more of that soap stuff for my tattoo.”
“I’ll bring you a whole bottle.”
“OK, I’ll see you there.”
“I’m looking forward to it, Raven.”
“Me too.” She cradled the phone in her hand for a long, sweet moment before finally snapping it shut and turning the ringer off. “Thank you, dear,” said the second-grade-teacher-woman as she lowered herself into her chair.
“You’re welcome.” Tessa reached down for her satchel and discreetly slid her cell phone into the woman’s purse. Just in case Patrick decided to monitor her again.
Then Tessa picked up her satchel and headed back through security to the curbside pickup area for hotel shuttles.
74
