Page 3 of Thin Ice

"I looked at the places the other guys buy. Out west, big lawns and gates, the whole thing." He shrugged. "You could go a week out there and not lay eyes on another person who didn't work for you. I can't do that."

The backdoor was steel, built to be serviceable.

"Here, there's people," Nolan said. "On the other side of the wall. I don't talk to half of them, but I know they're there."

The door led to back stairs that descended to a rear service entrance. I walked it and made my notes. It was enough for one night.

I headed for the door. "Thank you. I'll be back at six," I said. "You won't know I'm here."

"I doubt that." I was turning the handle when he spoke again. "Hey. I figured out where I know you from."

I turned.

"It's been nagging me all night." He folded his arms across his chest again. "Ward. You're the swimmer. You did the butterfly and were going to make the team, and then you got hurt that summer, and that was it." A beat. "I was seventeen. I remember where I was when they ran the story."

"You remember that?"

"I remember thinking that'd be it for me. If I couldn't play hockey, game over." He stopped. "Anyway, small world."

"Small world," I said.

Chapter two

Nolan

The alarm went off at 4:45—Maddie Brickner's voice, recorded into my phone eight months ago at a dinner where I'd made the mistake of leaving my phone unsupervised. "Rise and grind, old man." I killed it before she got to the part where she calls me old man a second time. I'd been meaning to change it back since October.

There was a man asleep in my guest room. For three and a half years, the mornings had been mine. There was nobody below me but a retired bond trader who golfed. Nobody listened during the forty minutes it took to coax my body into functioning. Now, a bodyguard was down the hall with nothing to do but listen. My entire routine needed to be silent.

The heating pad had been running under me all night. I rolled onto my right side, brought my knees up, and pushed off the mattress with my top arm until I was sitting on the edge with both feet flat. My left hip complained. It was one of those mornings.

The little weather station on the windowsill showed a barometric pressure of 29.71 and falling. That explained the hip. A storm was building somewhere west, and that meant the joint would be a half-step worse by afternoon. Outside, a thick, damp heat had settled into the Central West End overnight.

I climbed down onto the mat beside the bed in stages—hand to the nightstand first for balance, then leading with my good side, letting the bum hip come last. Lying flat on the mat, I pulled my knees to my chest, one at a time, easing the joint into movement. I had a roller for my quads and the long muscle down the outside of the thigh that did half the hip's job these days. Next was a lacrosse ball under the glute, rolling my weight onto it slowly against the floor.

A percussion gun sat on the nightstand, but I left it there. Any other morning I'd have run it along the flexor, but the thing sounded like an outboard motor. The sound would carry straight down the hall. I used my hand instead, leaning into the ball.

I'd learned to make the maintenance invisible. Trainers, teammates, and the entire city needed me to be the guy who played back-to-back games on a bad wheel and never made it a story. A bodyguard in the guest room was too close, a set of eyes that could see what I kept to myself. His job was to stand where I pointed; mine was to make him forget I was worth watching.

I worked up against the dresser and stood, testing the hip before I trusted it with weight. The catch was there, deep. I breathed into it, waiting it out until it settled back down into a dull ache I could walk on.

I took the long way around the coffee table to reach the kitchen. The short way meant planting on the left and pivoting over it. My hip didn't pivot anymore—not when cold. The long way let me turn wide, lead with the good side, and never load the joint sideways. Four extra steps.

The espresso machine was half-loaded when I heard water running in the guest bath. Then it stopped, followed by footsteps.

The team had sent a body to watch me during a deep run the way they sent a town car. The playoffs made the city stupid and the front office cautious. I needed to be no trouble and get in the car when the car came. It was two weeks, three if we went the distance. Then he'd be gone and the condo would go back to being only mine.

He walked up the hall on the balls of his feet, no shuffling. It wasn't the heavy-footed business of a man who'd just been sleeping. He moved like he'd been up for hours and would be up for hours more.

"Good morning," he said, as if he were greeting someone he'd known much longer than one night. He stopped at the end of the island, barefoot, wearing a charcoal t-shirt, while his hair was still arguing with the pillow.

The team usually sent men gone soft in a hard shape. They were ex-cops, ex-military, ex-something and thick through the middle, built to fill a doorway. Elias Ward filled it his own way.

He was tall, taller than me, and long. His shoulders were wide, creating that swimmer's V-shape. He still moved like an athlete. For a second, I saw him doing the butterfly, arms spread, water trailing off his shoulders.

"Morning," I said, and pulled the shot.

"Is that for me?"