Page 113 of Between Hello and Goodbye

“Wow,” I said when he broke away. “What was I saying?”

The elevator doors opened, and Asher put his arm in front of them, motioning for me to go first. “We’ll talk at dinner.”

He hadn’t been kidding about borrowing Silas’s town car; a driver opened the door to the sleek black sedan and took us to my favorite Italian place near the Bell Harbor Center.

At a table for two in front of the glittering water, Asher ordered champagne and tugged at his collar again, as if the suit were too tight. We lifted our glasses in a toast and then he set his right back down again, sloshing bubbly on the tablecloth.

“I can’t do this.”

My heart skipped a dozen beats. “You can’t…what?”

“Shit, no, I’m sorry.” Asher waved his hands. “Jesus, I’m already fucking this up. I was going to do this whole thing with dessert, but I’m not going to make it to dessert. I have to do it now.”

He reached into his jacket pocket at the same instant his cell phone rang. The timing was so uncanny, it was as if he anticipated someone was going to call him at that exact moment.

He frowned and pulled his phone from his pocket. “It’s my captain,” he said. “Sorry, Faith, I should get this.” He hitanswer, his expression wary. “What’s up, Cap?” He listened and his frown deepened. “No, I’m at a restaurant, why?” A pause, and I saw fear spark in his eyes. “No, you can tell me right the fuck now.”

The air around us suddenly dropped twenty degrees. My skin broke out in gooseflesh, and every muscle in my body tensed as the blood drained from Asher’s face, leaving him a ghastly pale white. He sucked in a breath and then another, struggling to breathe. With his free hand, he gripped the edge of the table, arm stiff and knuckles white.

“What?” he croaked.

I reached across the table to him. “Asher…?”

“No, he’s not,” he said into the phone. “No, he’s not…Nalani…? No.No.Stop fucking with me, Cap,” he said, his voice rising, hard with anger but fraying at the end with outright terror.

People at other tables were starting to turn. My heart was thundering.

“Asher, what is it? What’s happening?”

Asher’s eyes met mine, and I nearly let out a cry at the horrified shock painted over his features. He stared at me,throughme, and then nodded stiffly, sucking in a slow breath.

“Okay, Cap,” he said, suddenly flat. Toneless. “I understand. I’ll be right there.”

He pulled the phone away with shaking hands and carefully set it on the table, as if it were made of glass.

“Asher…?”

He took another gasping inhale, and when he spoke, his voice was nothing like I’d ever heard. Airless and strangled.

“They’re gone. Both of them.”

“Both?” I could hardly speak over my own pounding pulse. “Who? Not…”

“Nalani and Morgan. Morgan is dead.” Asher looked at me helplessly. “My brother is dead.”