It wasn't about a door.
I set the guitar on the bed beside me and looked at the ceiling.
You should, Geoff had said. Like it was simple. Like the only thing standing between me and the life I wanted was the decision to want it out loud.
Maybe he wasn't wrong, either.
Maybe the worst thing Clayton had ever done wasn't the words themselves.
Maybe it was teaching me to say them first.
6
TOMMY
The Palmetto Rose had been expecting me like I'd been booking suites there all my life.
The car from the airstrip had pulled up in front of the place a little after midnight, and a woman behind the front desk—dark curls, bright eyes, name tag that saidSasha—had slid a key card across the counter before I'd opened my mouth.
"Mr. Dane. Welcome. We've got you in the Magnolia Suite. Top floor, end of the hall. Anything you need tonight, dial nine."
"You knew I was coming."
"We knew."
"How?"
"We just did."
I'd looked at her. She'd looked back. Whatever the answer to that was, she wasn't going to say more, and I'd been awake for about twenty hours and not in the mood to chase it.
"Appreciate it," I'd said.
"Sleep well, Mr. Dane."
The driver had carried my duffel up. He was a polite kid in a black suit who'd told me at the door of the suite that I'd get atext in the morning.Take your time. Sleep in. Somebody'll be in touch.
Sleep in.
Now that was a phrase.
People had this idea about military guys—that we were all up at zero-four-thirty hut-hut-hutting through pushups in the dark like our drill sergeant from twenty years ago was watching from a corner of the room. Some of us were. God, bless them. I'd never been one of them.
Left to my own devices, Tommy Dane would sleep until nine in the morning every day of the week. Maybe not sleep. But doze. The slow kind. The kind where you drifted in and out and let the morning happen around you while you decided whether you wanted to participate.
I'd showered. I'd looked at the bed—king-sized, four posts, sheets so white they hurt—and I'd fallen into it like a tree.
I'd been asleep about six hours when somebody started knocking.
It wasn't a knock-knock. It wasn'thousekeeping, Mr. Dane. It was arap-rap-rap, three even knocks at exactly the right cadence, the kind of knock that saidopen this fucking door right nowin a voice the knocker hadn't actually had to use. Cop knock. Government knock. The knock of a man who'd been to a school where they taught you how to knock.
I came up out of bed clean. Pistol from under the pillow into my right hand, hand behind my back. Bare feet on the carpet. Boxer briefs and nothing else. I padded to the door.
Through the peephole: a man in a charcoal suit. Late thirties. Squared shoulders. The haircut was the haircut. He had that government face I'd seen in a dozen field offices over the years—the neutral expression of a guy who'd been trained out of having one.
I was reaching for the knob when the voice came through the door.
"FBI, Mr. Dane."
