Page 20 of Thin Ice

"You know it?"

"Heard the name somewhere." I racked my controller. "Fourteen years of training rooms. It all blurs."

He watched me for a few seconds more, then pushed off the door frame.

"Goodnight, Nolan."

"Night."

We had three more weeks together if the Steamers went the distance. Then Elias flew back to Minnesota, and I went back to being the only person who heard my alarm.

There was no version of what happened where kissing him cost nothing. I priced it four ways, and it came out ruinous every time. Still, I'd do it again.

The name Tarn rang inside my head, but I couldn't place it at first. My body answered, freezing up, but my two a.m. brain couldn't piece the puzzle together. Something about a training room and company polos, but it was fuzzy.

Chapter seven

Elias

Nolan's alarm went off at 4:45. It was Maddie Brickner's voice, pitched low through two walls, "Rise and grind, old man," and I lay in the guest room listening to Nolan talk his body into another day.

I knew the sequence. First was the soft double thump of both feet hitting the floor. After a long pause, I heard the mat work, nearly silent except for a slow exhale every thirty seconds. A week ago, those sounds had been data. This morning, a man I'd kissed was lying on his bedroom floor with a lacrosse ball under his hip. It was no longer merely data.

I got up and dressed, padded out to the kitchen, and sat at the island, scrolling on my phone.

The Eastern Conference final had gone to double overtime before Boston put it away. So it was the Minutemen. They played in an old barn full of Cup banners earned before Nolan was born. St. Louis had one.

I exhaled, and my shoulders dropped an inch. The Guardians had a strong presence in Boston. Eamon knew many of the top security contractors by name. Doyle wouldn't be building a detail on unfamiliar ground. I set the phone down when the shower cut off.

When Nolan appeared, he was moving well. Without a word, he loaded the espresso machine, pulled the shot, and slid a cup across the counter.

When I reached for it, he kept his fingers on the saucer so our hands brushed for a half-second. Then he turned back to the machine and started his own.

Neither of us said anything about the gaming room. Neither of us pretended it hadn't happened either.

My phone buzzed against the counter. It was Michael in Seattle, two hours behind but awake anyway.

"Go," I said, and stepped down the hall.

"Tour's cleared. Legal looked at the invitation six ways. It's exactly what it looks like: the founder showing off for a colleague. You go in as Dr. Ward, look at what they show you, and leave. No wandering, probing, or taking photographs. If a door's closed, leave it closed."

"Understood."

"I mean it, Elias. You're a guest with a doctorate, not a warrant." I heard typing. "The timing works. Their front desk offered eleven, and your guy's at the rink from ten. Doyle's people are securing the building."

"He'll be behind more security at morning skate than I could give him standing in the parking lot."

"Solid coverage." A pause. "Anything else for Mac?"

He asked it at the end of every call, the way you'd ask anything else? at a drive-thru.

Down the hall, the espresso machine hissed and cut out.

"No," I said. "Nothing for Mac."

"You can tell him yourself. He just walked in."

A shuffle, the phone changing hands, and a new voice, lower and unhurried.