traveled anywhere that might bring on one of my crowd-induced panic attacks. Which pretty much ruled out most tourist destinations. It wasn’t until my parents no longer had to worry about me that they were free to travel again, but...”
She paused as if her thoughts were a million miles away, and Niall asked, “But...?”
“Then my mom got sick. Kidney failure. Which meant she was tied to a dialysis schedule that wouldn’t allow her to travel far from home, especially overseas. You can arrange for dialysis someplace other than your home hospital here in the US, but she was also on a waiting list for a transplant. I don’t know if you know how that works, but when you’re on the list they give you a beeper. You have to be at the ready the instant a kidney becomes available, because there’s a very limited time window. Otherwise it goes to someone else, the next blood-and-tissue match on the list.
“And my mom had a somewhat rare blood type, which meant the odds of a match weren’t all that good to begin with. She wasn’t about to risk missing out on a kidney transplant, so they never went anywhere they couldn’t return from at a moment’s notice.”
She sighed softly. “My mom finally got her transplant two years ago. But my parents had been planning for the day they’d finally be free to travel again long before that. They were going to take a spectacular trip to make up for all the trips they hadn’t been able to take over the years, first because of me, then because of my mom’s health. And they were going first class all the way. They’d planned what they would see and do at each port of call, in minute detail.
“They had to wait, somewhat impatiently, to make sure my mom’s body didn’t reject the donated organ, but the trip was all they talked about, especially toward the end, when it was finally going to be a reality. They’d both arranged sabbaticals so they didn’t have to worry about how long they’d be gone—they were professors at the University of Arizona, you see. My father in mathematics, my mother in ancient history,” she explained unnecessarily, although she didn’t know it.
“And...?” Niall prompted when she fell silent.
“And they were on the way to the airport to embark on their grand adventure, when a trucker fell asleep at the wheel. At least...that’s what the police theorized. His truck jackknifed on the I-10 freeway, then flipped over, pinning my parents’ car beneath it.”
Even though Niall already knew all of this, hearing the words from Savannah, hearing the grief in her voice, did something to him, and his brows drew together in a frown. He reached across the table and touched her hand briefly. “I’m so sorry.”
She drew a shaky breath before continuing. “It still hurts,” she said in a tight little voice. “But it’s not as bad as it was at first.”
“I lost my dad some years back,” Niall admitted before he could stop himself. “And yeah, it still hurts. It will always hurt. That old ‘time heals all wounds’ saying is a load of crap. But it does get easier. Trust me on this.”
She smiled mistily at him, and Niall had the sudden, eerie sensation of falling.
* * *
Five tables away—not close enough to hear the conversation, even though they strained their ears—a couple posing as husband and wife covertly watched the other couple. Both wondered what Savannah Whitman was saying to put that steely eyed expression on her companion’s face. And both wondered just who the hell he was, what he was doing with their target and...whether or not they’d need to take him out. Things were going to be tricky enough as it was. They didn’t need some stranger throwing a monkey wrench into the works.
“She was supposed to be on her own,” the woman muttered. “Isn’t that what Spencer told us?”
“Yes.” Just the one word, but it conveyed a wealth of meaning.
“How are we supposed to—”
Her pseudo-husband cut her off. “I’ll think of something. I always do.”
“Yes but—”
“Quiet!” He cast her a quelling glance. “I’m trying to read their lips.” He cursed under his breath. “But the angle is all wrong, damn it! Why did you allow the hostess to seat us in this out-of-the-way table? If we were closer, I might be able to hear what they’re saying or at least read their lips.”
“Why did I—It was you. You were the one who—”
He brought his hand up sharply, and she fell silent. “Let’s go the buffet,” he said, standing abruptly. “Maybe we can maneuver into getting close enough to hear something. At least find out who the hell he is.”
* * *
Niall shook his head and the eerie feeling went away, but he wondered what it meant. He’d never suffered from vertigo before, but then, deep down, he knew it wasn’t vertigo. He just didn’t want acknowledge the real cause. To distract himself he said, “So your parents were killed in an accident. And then...?”
“At first I was in shock. I mean...they weren’t that old. I just didn’t expect it, you know?”
He nodded.
“Not both of them at the same time. But as I was picking out clothes for them to be buried in, it came to me with such cruel irony that they never fulfilled their dream. They’d planned this trip for so long, and then—boom! They never got to take it. They never saw the Egyptian pyramids except in photographs. They never stood on the Acropolis and felt history all around them. They never gazed at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in awe and wonder. All the things they’d promised each other they’d do someday.”
Her voice was little more than a whisper at this point, and Niall sensed she was talking more to herself than to him. She swallowed hard, and he knew she was holding back tears.
“Someday never came for them. Death cheated them out of the someday they’d promised each other. I stood at their graves after the funeral, and I swore I wasn’t going to wait another day. I was going to do all the things I’d dreamed of doing, and I was going to do them now.”
Niall saw it all then, and the relief that rushed through him was out of proportion to what she’d said. But it wasn’t out of proportion to what it meant to him.
“I resigned the very next day. Everyone thought I was overreacting to my parents’ deaths, and would change my mind once I came to my senses. I knew that wasn’t going to happen, but they tried to convince me anyway. They wanted me to postpone my decision until I’d had time to think about it. No amount of thinking was going to make a difference, though. Does that make sense?”
Niall nodded again.
“I gave them a month’s notice, but I agreed to extend it to two because I still had to settle my parents’ estate, sell their house. Stuff like that. And I needed time to arrange some of the trips I wanted to take anyway, so...”
She paused for a moment, then continued. “But I... I couldn’t explain the real reason I’d resigned to the people at work. They didn’t want to listen, and I’m not very good at talking about personal issues with them, anyway, especially my section hea—”
She cut off the rest of what she’d started to say, and Niall filled in the blanks. Section head, by which he knew she meant her immediate supervisor at the internationally famous defense contractor—one
