He rolled his shoulders. "I'm a spook, Diane. A ghost. I don't exist in the system. At least, not where anyone normal can find the records. Because no one is supposed to know that I exist. So… I don't."
She frowned. His words echoed like they meant more than he was saying. She rubbed the back of his hand. "Explain. I don't understand," she said.
"If I died today, no one who knew would report it, and no one who didn't know would ever find out," he said carefully. "That's the way my life has to be. The only way I can do what I do is if no one knows I exist. I wasn't supposed to tell you, Diane. Wasn't supposed to show you. But I promised you before I left, remember? I told you that I had to tell you something important?"
She nodded, her stomach tingling, and not in the nice way, at the me
