Page 190 of Nothing More

Melissa pulled up short, as she departed, and Tenny and Reese stepped around her to get to the table. “Update?” Tenny asked, in passing.

“We’ll brief you,” Devin said. “You go on, love, and we’ll make sure they get the full story.”

Raven caught the way Melissa rolled her eyes overloveon her way out.

Tenny slid into the place Melissa had vacated and Reese sat down next to Devin.

“Anything?” she asked, before their bums had fully touched down.

“No,” Tenny said, and reached for her abandoned plate.

“That’s your sister’s,” Devin said.

“She’s not going to eat it.Dad. You gonna put us in timeout?”

Ignoring the whole exchange, Reese met her gaze and said, “We found evidence that people had been passing through most of the abandoned buildings.”

“Footprints in the dust, graffiti, condom wrappers, that sort of thing,” Tenny said around a mouthful of eggs. “But without film footage, it adds up to fuck-all. What did Dixon want?”

Devin filled in the details, quick and low. Raven was no slouch with an explanation, but she was happy in this instance to allow Devin to play commanding officer; the boys were more used to his concise, military-style delivery.

“Brilliant,” Tenny deadpanned. “Your boy’s fucked, then.”

She pinched his arm, hard.

“Or would be,” he amended smoothly, “if he didn’t have us.”

It wasn’t much in the way of comfort, but was seismic coming from the likes of Tenny. She’d take it.

Her phone rang.

And then Tenny’s.

“That’ll be one of the adults,” Devin said.

Raven’s stomach clenched painfully when she saw Maverick’s name flash on her screen. She caught a glimpse of Tenny’s screen as he pulled the phone from his pocket: Ghost.

Of the two, she’d much rather talk to Maverick, and hastily answered her own incoming call.

“Good morning, Maverick.”

“Morning,” he returned, as though this was a simple social call. But then his tone turned wry when he said, “What do you need: a lawyer, or a cleanup crew?”

Despite the circumstances, she felt a smile threaten. “Neither, as of yet. Well. Perhaps a bit of forgiveness for stealing away in the night.”

Beside her, a tinny, indistinct, but very angry voice was emanating from Tenny’s phone, who made apsshsound through his teeth and said, “Don’t have a heart attack about it.”

She pressed her free hand over her opposite ear and leaned as far away from Tenny as the booth’s confines allowed, just in time to hear Maverick sigh. She thought it sounded fond – or at least still wry, which was better than whatever was happening on the Tennessee to New York connection one foot to her left.

“It’s not like I wasn’t warned ahead of time what it’s like to work with your family,” he said. “I’ll leave the lecturing to Ghost.”

“He’s already got that well in-hand.”

Beside her: “Look, what were we supposed to do? Just sit on our hands and – no – no, why would I – oh, that’d be brilliant–”

Reese looked vaguely ill, and made a reach for the phone across the table that prompted Tenny to slide out of the booth and walk back toward the restrooms.

Maverick sighed, and grew serious. “You haven’t found him yet, have you?”