The lobby is as bland as the exterior—mostly neutral, with those awful punctuations of standard hotel lobby maroon. In a small, clean, open dining room off to my right, a few guests sip coffee and read newspapers, and I can only hope all of them are completely skipping the financial section. I head over to the front desk, steeling myself.

The man behind the counter is named Gregory—not Greg, a fact about which he will be clear if you slip up—and his attitude does not match his May I Help You? name tag. Still, I can’t say I blame him, what with how insistent I’m being.

“Young lady,” he says, after we’ve already gone back and forth a few times. “I’ve told you, there’s no one here by that name.”

“Old man,” I say, even though Gregory is maybe only a decade or so older than me. But he can try it again with this young lady shit. “I know there is.”

Isn’t there? I keep my head held up, determined not to falter. I picture the numbers in my head. I know what they meant.

“Ma’am,” a man’s voice says from behind me, and it is not a nice-sounding ma’am. It’s sort of a you’re-about-to-be-arrested ma’am, and for a second all the numbers fly out of my brain. I see those two a’s like a pair of handcuffs, that apostrophe transformed into a chain.

Well, so be it. I’m in the news already.

I turn to face the voice.

“Yikes,” I say without thinking, my head tipping back to look at the massive man standing in front of me. He’s wearing a black suit, a dark tie, the same as the men on television who surrounded Reid. But unlike those men on television, he’s significantly older, maybe in his late fifties. He is cue-ball bald, but he has the thickest gray mustache I’ve ever seen in my life. I am almost certain he carries handcuffs.

“Ma’am,” he says again, as though to remind me. “I’m going to need you to step away from this counter.”

“I’m looking for a guest here. His name is Re—”

“If you could come with me,” he cuts me off, turning on his heel and walking toward the lobby’s elevators. I follow him, but don’t resist the impulse to give Gregory a pretty smug look.

When I catch up, he’s already pressed the button for the elevator.

“Is this witness protection?” I say.

He looks at me out of the side of his eyes. “Yes,” he says dully. “It’s this one hotel. The Witness Protection Hotel. For all the witnesses. Ever.”

“You’re funny,” I say. “But I’m not getting on this elevator unless I see some identification.”

God! I am so good at this. I wish Agent Tirmizi were here.