“I’m not here to negotiate, Dr. Cross. This meeting is a courtesy, and an extraordinary one at that. I assumed someone like you preferred not to be walked over. That was obviously my mistake.” She stood up and I followed suit. “Frankly, I’m surprised. I’ve been told you were a bright man and a patriot.”

“A patriot in a very difficult position right now, Madam President.”

Vance didn’t address me after that. The last thing I heard her say was to the agent on the other side of the door as she left.

“Show Dr. Cross out. We’re done here.”

Part Four

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE

Chapter 78

THE MURDER MYSTERY was turning out to be more like a plague, spreading and infecting anyone who touched it, killing them.

Adam Petoskey sat up suddenly on the couch, all five foot four of him. His heart was kicking at the inside of his chest. Something besides a terrifying nightmare had just woken him, though there had been plenty of those lately too.

What was it?

What now?

His apartment was dark except for the TV. He’d been watching The Daily Show when he dropped off, finding solace in the droll humor of Jon Stewart.

Now there was an infomercial on, people laughing and screaming about some weight-loss thing. Maybe that’s what woke him.

Paranoia was his roommate these days, and one hairy bitch to be cooped up with too. He hadn’t left the apartment in a week. Literally a week. The phones were unplugged, the shades were drawn at all times, and garbage was piling up by the back door—ever since he’d nailed it shut on that first night when he couldn’t sleep a wink.

There were things Adam Petoskey knew—things he wished to hell he didn’t know.

Working for Tony Nicholson and his girlfriend, Mara, cooking the books and looking the other way, had been shitty enough. Not working for him, not hearing a word from him, as it turned out, was even worse.

Like tonight, just to use a handy example. He stood up off the couch, still a little shaky.

Halfway to the kitchen, he stopped. For the hundredth time that week, he felt almost sure someone was behind him.

And then, before he could even turn around— someone was.

A strong arm looped across his throat and pulled hard, until his feet nearly left the floor. Duct tape was pressed over his mouth. He heard it rip in the back and felt it stick and tighten.

“Don’t fight, Mr. Petoskey. You fight—you lose—you die.”

A hard finger pressed into the spot between his shoulder blades and moved him toward the bedroom door. “Let’s go. This way, my friend.”

Petoskey’s brain squirmed. He was a numbers man, after all. He could run equations and probabilities like a machine, and right now, everything he knew told him to do as this guy said. It was even a strange kind of relief, following someone’s orders after seven days of solitude in this hellhole.