Page 1 of Thin Ice

Chapter one

Elias

Ireached out to shake hands with Nolan Mercer, NHL veteran and my latest principal.

It was a practiced hand. He used it to greet opponents after every game. I'd spent my working life reading people who didn't want to be read, and Nolan Mercer's hand told me two things at once.

The first was that he kept his weight off the left side, barely. He eased a few extra pounds onto the right, something only another athlete would catch. It was probably his left hip. He was thirty-four, and his body had started collecting on past debts.

The second thing was his hand: warm, firm, and unhurried in mine, lingering past the professional register. It was distinctive enough that I immediately wanted to feel it again. That's not a thing about a principal you want to know on day one.

"Mr. Ward," he said. "They tell me you drew the short straw."

"Elias is fine."

"Elias." His mouth curved up in slight amusement. He'd probably gotten the strong-silent routine from hundreds of security guys. "Nolan. Can I get you something? I've got an espresso machine that cost more than my first car and gets used about twice a year. You'd be doing it a favor."

"Water's fine."

He crossed to the kitchen. It was a south-facing condo in the Colchester, a grand old landmark in St. Louis's Central West End. The windows looked out on the faded grandeur of the Chase Park Plaza and the ornate dome of the St. Louis Cathedral. It was a carefully renovated unit with floorboards the color of rye.

The furniture all worked, carefully selected by a designer. People who choose their own things get it a little wrong somewhere. At first glance, nothing in Nolan's place was wrong, and it reflected nothing about him.

What I didn't see was hockey. No jersey on the wall, stick in a display case, or photos of him on the ice. Nothing told me it was the home of one of the city's premier athletes.

There were almost no photographs at all. One sat on a shelf in the hall, an older man and woman, perhaps his parents. The man was thin and gaunt. Otherwise, the walls held large abstract art as faceless as the furniture.

My gaze settled on the one chair that broke the pattern, the piece the designer didn't touch. It was a leather recliner, turned toward the window. On a side table were a paperback and a wireless phone charger. A pocketknife lay next to it. Down one shelf was a tablet computer. I'd found the one square yard where the man actually lived.

Behind me, Doyle cleared his throat. He'd walked me up and stayed for the handoff. He was the St. Louis Steamers' head of security, lured away from the police force with a more lucrative contract.

"I'll leave you two to it," he said. "Nolan, if anything feels off, Elias is your guy now, through the playoff run. That's standard. Half the league does the same."

Nolan filled a glass at the tap. "Standard doesn't mean necessary."

He knew that a bodyguard hired for the hockey postseason was standard. What he didn't know was the rest of it.

Sixteen days ago a man named Ray Halloran had died in his sleep in a retirement home outside Raleigh. He'd worked as equipment manager for thirty years with the team that traded for Nolan in his second season.

In the last six months of the cancer that killed him, Halloran grew increasingly frantic about reaching Nolan Mercer. He left voicemails at the front office and sent two certified letters care of the Steamers. Nolan didn't know his name was in a file about a thirteen-year-old death. It hadn't been called a murder—yet.

The Guardians handled protection. We didn't run investigations. We'd worked alongside them, staying in our lane and letting the badges do their work. This was the first time the firm had taken a job that was both, and I was chosen to execute it.

I drifted to the windows to view the street below. It was quiet, partially shaded by trees, heavy with late May foliage. A man in scrubs walked along the sidewalk from the direction of the hospitals. It was likely a shift change with the coming dusk.

A family—mother, father, and teenage son—strolled on the opposite side, the son in a Steamers jersey. The father looked up. It wasn't a glance at the building. It was deliberate. He was looking at a specific window, and he focused on me.

The boy caught his father's elbow, and the man turned away. I stood there trying to decide whether I'd seen anything at all.

"It's a good building," Nolan said from close behind me.

I turned.

Up close, he was leaner than in his photos, face a little drawn. He was six-one and long in the arms, an elite athlete's build.

Nolan's nose was sat a half-degree off true, likely a souvenir of an old injury. Gray dusted his temples. His eyes were green, flecked with brown, and they were on me.

"Walkable. I can get a coffee without driving. My teammates don't have that out in the 'burbs."