"Samantha Moon?" he asked.
"What an amazing guess," I said.
He looked at my hat.
He said, "Not as amazing as you might think. It's hard to miss that thing."
I usually avoid shaking hands. People tend to recoil when they touch my cold flesh. But Stuart held out his and I reluctantly shook it. Although he flinched slightly, he didn't make an issue out of it, which I was grateful for. As we shook, I also got a strong psychic hit from him. Something bad had happened to him. No. Something bad had happened to someone close to him. And recently. I looked at his other hand. He was wearing a wedding band.
Something bad has happened to his wife.
"Would you like a coffee?" I asked. "Since we're at the third largest Starbucks in the world."
He looked around us. His bald head shimmered in the sun.
"You weren't kidding. A place this big, you'd think the coffee was damned good."
"Not just good," I corrected. "This is Starbucks. Their coffee is magical."
"It sure as hell can make five bucks disappear. Seven bucks if you get all that foo-foo crap."
"Foo-foo crap?"
"You know, whipped cream and syrup and something called java chips."
"Oh, the yummy foo-foo crap."
He grinned and sat opposite me. He was a small man and slender. His bald head was oddly appealing to me. It was perfectly proportioned. No deep ridges or odd grooves. The skin was lightly tan and even. I thought I might just be looking at the world's most perfect bald head. I wanted to touch it. Bad.
He pointed to my hat.
"So do you always wear such a big hat?" he asked.
I generally deflect personal questions, especially any questions that relate to my...condition.
I said, "It helps with my phone reception."
He looked at me blankly for a second or two, then broke into a smile. "Ah, it looks like a satellite dish, I get it. Funny."
I asked if he wanted some magical coffee and he declined, claiming it was too late in the day to drink coffee. I used that as my excuse, too, although it was only a half-truth. Six years ago, it would have been too late in the day for coffee, but now coffee only made me sick.
"So tell me about your wife," I said. "It's why you're here, isn't it?"
He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes narrowed. His pupils shrank.
"Yes, but how did you know about my wife?" he asked.
"Women's intuition."
He studied me some more, then finally shrugged. He sat forward again and rested his small hands loosely on the table in front of him.
"My wife was killed about a month ago."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"So am I," he said.
He told me about it. She had died in a local plane crash. She, and nine others. The plane had flown into the side of the San Bernardino Mountains not too far from here. No survivors. I recalled reading about it on the internet, but the story had not been followed up on in the news, and I had no idea why the plane crashed or where the investigators were in their investigation. It had been a big story that turned quickly into a non-story. I smelled a cover-up.
I don't think I had ever known anyone who had lost someone in a plane crash. I recalled Stuart's words from a few minutes earlier: She was killed. Not: She was in an accident.
"I'm sorry," I said again when he was finished.
He nodded. Talking about his wife dying in a plane crash had sombered him. Had I known him a little better, I would have reached out and took his hand. As it was, all I could offer were some sympathetic noises and the occasional sorry. Both seemed inadequate.
We were silent for a few more seconds and when the time seemed appropriate, I said, "You don't think the crash was an accident."
"No."
"You think someone killed her."
"I know someone killed her. She was murdered. And so was everyone else on board."
* * *
An elderly couple sat next to us with their books of crossword and sudoku puzzles. Both sipped quietly from tall cups of coffee. In Starbucks speak, tall cups were, of course, small cups.
I studied Stuart. I wasn't sure what to think about him. My sixth sense didn't know what to make of him either. He seemed sane enough, although terribly grief-stricken. The grief-stricken part was what worried me. Grief-stricken always trumped sane.
With the elderly couple nearby, Stuart and I automatically lowered our voices and moved a little closer.
I asked, "Why do you think she was murdered?"
"She had received multiple death threats prior to the plane crash, she and everyone else on board."
Okay, sanity was gaining. But I had questions. Serious questions.
"Why would someone threaten your wife's life, and the others on board?"
"They were going to testify in court. She, and five or six other witnesses."
Stuart unconsciously reached for something that wasn't there. As it was, his fingers closed on empty air. I suspected I knew what they were reaching for: something alcoholic and strong. Unfortunately, we were at a Starbucks, and as far as I knew, they didn't serve any whiskeyaccinos. At least not yet.
"At the time of the crash, she was with the other witnesses?"
"Yes," he said. "They were being flown to a safe house at the Marine base in Camp Pendleton. At the time, of course, I hadn't known where the government was flying her to. I do now."
"Who was she going to testify against?"
Stuart looked at me hesitantly. I sensed I knew the source of his hesitancy. He was about to involve me in something extremely dangerous. He wasn't sure if he should. Here I was, a cute gal wearing an urban sombrero, and no doubt he didn't want to put me in harm's way.
"You can tell me," I said. "I'm a helluva secret keeper."
He shook his head.
"Maybe I should just let this go," he said.
"Maybe," I said. "But I'm a big girl."
"These people are extremely dangerous and, as you can see, can strike anywhere."
"You caught the 'big girl' part, right?"
"It's going to take more than being a big girl, Samantha. It's going to take an army, I'm afraid."
"Call me Sam. And there's very little that I fear."
He squinted, studying me, and as he did so his perfect bald head caught some of the setting sun. There's beauty everywhere, I thought, even in baldness.
"You're really not afraid, are you?" he asked.
"Nope."
"You should be."
"I'm afraid of a lot of things, but men with big guns aren't one of them. My kids' math homework, well, that's another story."