I don’t blame my brothers a bit for being mad, and nobody asked me if I wanted a “special day.”

The nurse who spent the night left and another one came to take her place. Her name is Jill. She has a thousand braids with a thousand beads in them. She’s young. Her sneakers have flashing lights around the bottoms, and she said that if I played my cards right, she might get me some like them. My older brother said she was cool, and I think so, too.

I got a present. It’s a new iPad Mini. My brothers tried to hog it.

The doctor came. He’s nicer than Dr. Lambert, but not as nice as Dr. O’Neal.

Dr. O’Neal’s mom died when she was little. That’s what made her want to become a doctor. She doesn’t have a husband or kids. I asked her how come, and she said she’s been too busy trying to make people well. What that really means is that she hasn’t found the right man to marry. I’m sure glad she doesn’t want to marry Dr. Lambert. Gross.

One time she told me she needs my help to cure a lot of people with the same cancer as me. I told her I hoped I didn’t let her down. She gave me a fist bump, and then an extra long hug.

I’ll know when she comes because I can see the whole front yard through the window in my bedroom. But the only people out there now are the TV people. They’re sitting in their vans because of the rain.

If Dr. O’Neal is the surprise for my special day, she hasn’t got here yet.

Chapter 31

6:32 a.m.

Rye woke up, unwound himself from Brynn, and eased out of bed. He went directly to the window and looked out. “Brynn.”

She didn’t stir.

“Brynn.”

“Hmm?”

“The police car’s gone.”

She sat up and pushed hair off her face. Any other time, he would have paused to admire how adorable she looked, but he was hastily pulling on his clothes. “He’s gone,” he repeated. “Maybe it was just some poor underpaid cop sleeping through his shift. Get dressed. I’ll get coffee.”

He pulled on his jacket, then leaned down and gave her a quick kiss.

“Milk, no sugar,” she called after him.

None of the vending machines on the seventh floor dispensed coffee, so he took the main elevator down. It emptied him into the jam-packed lobby. Travelers initially held up by the fog had been further delayed by the successive bands of torrential rain.

People were sleeping on any surface they could stake claim to, some sitting with their backs to the wall, heads drooping. A young mother, looking frazzled and at wits’ end, was trying to shush her mewling infant.

The dawn was gray, and with almost an hour to go until sunrise, the lobby remained in semi-darkness, making it difficult for Rye to avoid the prone forms on the floor. He made it to the adjacent dining room without stepping on anyone. Kitchen staff were setting up the breakfast buffet. He was relieved to see that the coffee bar was already in service.

He was filling a disposable cup from an urn when a young man shuffled up beside him. Rye’s glance caught him in mid-yawn. His clothes were rumpled. He was unshaven and bleary-eyed. Which was why Rye was surprised when he perked up upon seeing him and said, “Mr. Dewitt, good morning.”

Rye now recognized him as the harried clerk who had checked him in yesterday. He hadn’t thought the young man would remember him. “Morning.” Not wanting to engage, Rye concentrated on filling a second cup from the dribbling spigot.

“Did your rifle turn up?”

Rifle? What was he talking about? Rye couldn’t fathom. But the guy had addressed him by Dash’s name, so he hadn’t mistaken him for someone else. Rye played along. “Uh, yeah.”

“Wasn’t stolen, then?”

“No, I’d left it. At my in-laws’ house.”

“Glad to hear it. We don’t like property to go missing off our parking lot.”

“No worry. All good.”

Rye, mind churning, moved aside to place lids over the two cups of coffee. The young man took his place at the urn. He said, “The policeman must’ve been relieved to hear that. These days, any lost weapon is cause for alarm.”

“Got that right.”

“I’m sure that’s why he didn’t want to wait for morning to talk to you. Gotta commend his diligence. What time was it last night when he went up to your room?”

“I don’t remember exactly.”

“Around one, one-thirty, wasn’t it?”

“In that neighborhood.”

The clerk’s unwitting revelations were starting to take the shape of a disturbing scenario. Rye carried on conversationally, so it wouldn’t sound like fishing. “Surprised me that he came up to the room unannounced.”

“Really? He said you were expecting him. He’d just forgotten your room number.” Looking worried now, the young man said, “I hope you weren’t already in bed.”

“No. I was up.” Rye gave him a quick grin and raised a coffee cup in each hand. “Getting cold. Have a good one.”

“You’re only booked for one night. Checking out today?”

“Immediately.”

This time, Rye didn’t carefully pick his way across the littered lobby. He walked quickly and with purpose, chucking the two cups of coffee into the trash can at the elevator. He and Brynn wouldn’t have time to drink them.

6:44 a.m.

The slamming door brought Brynn running from the bathroom. She took one look at Rye and asked, “What?”

“You ready?”

“Boots.”

He pulled his flight bag from the floor of the closet and tossed it onto the side of the bed. “Someone—a cop—told the desk clerk a story about Mr. Dewitt’s missing rifle. I think—”

“Who’s Mr. Dewitt?” Responding to the haste with which he was gathering up his belongings from the bedside table and dumping them into the duffel, she crammed her feet into her boots.

“Dash. Somebody smart got his name and used it to track us here. Doesn’t sound like Wilson and Rawlins. They would have knocked and announced themselves.”

“So the policeman—”

“Was probably working for the other faction, keeping an eye out for us.”

Boots on, she yanked her coat from a hanger in the closet. “Where is he now?”

“Don’t know. But I’m not waiting around to ask.” He shouldered his flight bag, went to the door, and put his hand on the knob. But there he paused, reached for her hand, and pressed Wes’s key ring into it. “Listen. I don’t know what we might encounter on our way out. But whatever happens, you get away from here. Drive like a bat out of hell. Understand?”

“Do you think—”

“I don’t know, but if I’m detained, for any reason, in any way, you run to Wes’s car and head for Tennessee.”

“I can’t leave you.”

“You can. You will. You’ve got to get to Violet. If you don’t, everything we’ve been through won’t count for shit. You’ve got to make it, Brynn.”

A protest was forming on her lips. He stopped it with a quick but potent kiss, then repeated, “You’ve got to make it.”

Gazing into his eyes, she nodded with full understanding.

He checked the peephole, then opened the door, and, pulling her along behind him, turned to his left.

He ran smack into Goliad. Rather, into the bore of Goliad’s pistol.

6:47 a.m.

The man had to have been hiding in the recess between the door of their room and the one next to it. He was alone. Rye asked, “Where’s your buddy? The one who kept vigil?”

“I sent him on his way, figuring you wouldn’t come out as long as he was there.”

“Smart.” Then, in as droll a tone as Rye could muster, he said, “You had just as well put the gun away. You’re not going to shoot me.”

“I’d be doing the world a huge favor.”

Rye chuckled. “Couldn’t agree with you more. But you don’t know which one of us has what you came after.”

That gave Goliad pause.

Rye cocked his eyebrow. “See? You shoot one of us and grab the other, you may be grabbing the wrong one. In which case, you’ve got a body that you have to take time to search, while whichever one of us you didn’t shoot is raising a hue and cry. In a hotel overflowing with potential witnesses. Security cameras all over the place.”

Rye shook his head. “Outcome of that scenario is capture and life in prison for you. It’s the same dilemma you faced in the cabin, except that this is more problematic. You don’t have your sidekick, and there are seven stories between you and escape. No, Goliad, you’re too smart and careful to do something dumb like that.

“You would be identified within minutes. In no time, your connection to the Hunts would be discovered, and then you’d really be screwed in any number of ways, and I can think of a dozen without even trying very hard. But the first of them is that killing me won’t guarantee that you’ll obtain the life-extending elixir for the senator, which is what they sent you to do, and I don’t think they would forgive a fuckup of that scope.”

Rye eyed him steadily. Goliad’s obsidian eyes didn’t blink. Rye said, “The real reason I know that you won’t shoot either of us? If you were going to, you would have by now.”