Page 65 of Thin Ice

He didn't reach for his shoes. He knew he couldn't win the argument.

"Phone on," he said. "Loud, not silent. If you see one thing, don't stop to confirm it. Turn around, call me, and walk toward people. Give me the instructions back."

"Turn around, call you, and walk toward people."

"I mean it, Nolan."

"You aren't my first bodyguard."

"I know."

On the way back, Maryland Avenue was just starting to come to life. A man was hosing down the block, and there was another under the new awning, talking on his phone. He had a gym bag, wearing sneakers and a quarter-zip. It was medical-campus camouflage.

I was half a block past him before I realized he was following. I'd seen his face and there was nothing particularly unique about it. He was like an AI-generated image of a normal guy.

My stride stayed steady, and I didn't look back. If I would, he'd know I clocked him. When I turned onto Euclid, my heart pounded in my chest.

I reached into my pocket and gripped my phone, hearing Elias's voice—Turn around, call me, and walk toward people.

He peeled off three blocks from home, turning down an alley. It's probably nothing, don't make it a thing, you'll know it if it's real

Elias took one look at me when I walked through the door and set his coffee down.

"What?" he asked.

"Coffee place on Maryland. There was a guy with a gym bag. Couldn't be more average, and it was probably nothing. Followed me a few blocks and then turned off."

"You didn't call."

"No."

He didn't push me. "Michael sent something while you were out. I was going to sit on it till you'd had coffee." He turned the phone toward me. "You don't get the coffee."

It wasn't a document or a text. It was a photograph. Somebody in St. Louis had painted their garage door—the entire garage—Steamers blue, with GAME 7 across it in letters five feet tall. Underneath, in smaller letters, it read: MERCER WILL YOU SIGN MY BABY? A woman held a baby in the photograph. The baby looked unimpressed.

"Michael wants to know," Elias said, "if this is a normal thing your city does, or if he should alert someone." I looked at it for a second longer, then something in my chest let go, and I laughed long and hard.

Elias joined me, and I saw tears in the corners of his eyes.

When I finally calmed down, I said, "Game Seven in two days."

Chapter seventeen

Elias

Nolan did his floor work by the recliner with Boston's top line running silent on the big screen. I sat on the sofa with a cup of coffee going cold. We'd reached an arrangement since Nolan discovered the folder—case talk, logistics, and politeness with occasional texture.

He told me most things, while I told him everything. What we didn't do was cross the physical gap between us.

Outside, blue lights burned in windows up and down the block, and the cathedral bells rang the nine p.m. hour. We had two more nights before Game Seven.

"Jamie asked me at free skate today what overtime in a Game Seven feels like," Nolan said from the floor, working the roller down the outside of his thigh. "I told him nobody knows. Anybody who's played one blacked it out."

"Is that true?"

"Mostly." He switched sides, the good hip taking the work. "Wes played a Game Seven of a Cup Final in his rookie season, the year before he landed in St. Louis."

"Does he remember it?"