“Do you?”
“I listened to the lecture, Halo. Distance is time. Normalcy is a shield.” She takes the cash. “I’ll be back in twenty.”
She opens the door.
“Wait.”
I reach out. Grab her wrist. It’s instinct. The urge to keep her close. To lock her in the van, where I can protect her.
She looks at my hand on her wrist. Then up at my face.
“I’m coming back,” she says softly.
“I know.”
I let go.
She slips out. The door slides shut.
I sit in the driver’s seat, hand on my weapon, watching the mirrors.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Every second she’s gone is an eternity. My brain runs scenarios. Someone recognizes her. A cop walks in. She sees a TV and panics.
Fifteen minutes.
A police cruiser rolls past the mouth of the alley. I sink lower in the seat. My hand tightens on the Glock. The cruiser keeps going.
Eighteen minutes.
The door of the store opens. Cassie steps out. She’s carrying two plastic bags and is wearing a beanie pulled low over her red hair and oversized sunglasses.
She looks like a hipster. Or a student.
She slides the door open and jumps in. Breathless.
“Success,” she says. She dumps the bags on the floorboard.
“Any issues?”
“The cashier thought I was hungover. Told me to drink Gatorade.”
I breathe out. “Good.”
“I got you a present.” She pulls a black hoodie and a Phillies baseball cap from the bag. “Local camouflage.”
I strip off the tactical shirt right there in the cab. Put on the hoodie. Pull the cap low.
I look in the rearview. The operator is gone. I look like a construction worker off shift. Or a dad on a beer run.
“Better,” she says. She’s watching me. Her eyes linger on the scars on my chest before I zip the hoodie.
“Let’s go,” I say.
The Loews Hotel is grand, historic, and busy. A medical conference is in town. The lobby is swarming with doctors and pharma reps.
