Page 226

“No,” I say. “It didn’t.”

His breathing stays even, but I can see the effort now, the cost of being awake, of holding this conversation at all. He sees me see it and looks faintly annoyed, which is reassuring in a perverse way.

“You should go,” he says.

“I was just thinking the same about you.”

That gets a brief closing of his eyes, whether from fatigue or irritation I can’t tell. When he opens them again, he looks older. Not weaker exactly. Just less armored. “My doctors say I need to reduce stress.”

“That’s going to be difficult,” I say. “You’re a great source of it.”

“Still here, though.”

“Yes,” I say.

That sits between us. Because it’s the truest thing said in the room. I’m still here.

“I’m leaving the city, just like you wanted,” I say. “And I meant what I said earlier, I was there just to see Maggie, make sure she was okay.”

“You care for her deeply,” he says.

“No, I love her,” I say.

He closes his eyes briefly, then opens them again. “Then I suppose we both have a limited window to disappoint each other.”

That almost earns him a real laugh.

Almost.

Instead I push away from the wall and head for the door.

Behind me, he says, “Price.”

I stop.

When I turn back, his face is unreadable again, but not as cold as before. “You saved my life.”

It isn’t thanks. He would probably rather die twice than phrase it that way.

But it’s close enough to count.

I nod once.

Then I leave him there under the monitors and the dim hospital lights, alive despite himself, while the knowledge of my flight sits in the back of my skull like a clock I can hear from every room.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

DALTON

I don’t sleep the night before the flight.

That should surprise no one, least of all me. By this point, sleeplessness has become less a condition and more a habit with professional credentials. Still, there’s something especially grim about standing in my apartment at four in the morning, folding shirts into a suitcase like I’m a man with a functioning plan rather than a coward trying to call retreat a career move.

Two suits. Three shirts. Scrubs I could replace when I get there if I had to. Toiletries. The file with the hospital paperwork. My passport. My laptop charger. All the small practical things men use to disguise the fact that they are dismantling their lives in increments they can carry.

Maggie calls twice while I’m packing.

I watch the phone light up on the kitchen counter. I don’t answer.