He said, ‘Although, maybe in a way I’m explaining my observations. It’s kind of a critique of religion. I mean, we spent all this time and money and lives fighting fundamentalism on the other side of the world, but then so much of our own culture is beholden to superstition.’

‘How far through are you?’

Vincent said, ‘Far enough I think I can see it all coming together. I don’t plan anything, I just write and see where the story takes me. I’m trying to give a sense that they’ll figure things out, but I don’t think it’s going to wrap up happy.’ Then without thinking he said, ‘Clean endings are bullshit. I think someone else is going to die.’

Erin said, ‘Let me know if you want a proofreader.’

They valeted the car at the hotel and took the elevator to Erin’s room. Vincent thought this would be a good time for her to invite him in, maybe have a beer on the balcony. But all she said was, ‘You better do your bodyguard thing.’

She gave Vincent the swipe card, and he went in ahead of her and cleared the rooms. On the coffee table was a vase of flowers and a card that he hadn’t seen earlier. She’d left the sliding glass door open, and the table and chairs out there were positioned in shade, and he could picture himself with his feet on the rail and nursing a Corona, maybe a couple more of them in an ice bucket on the table.

He lingered on the view for a few seconds and said, ‘I think your balcony might be the best place in town right now.’

It struck a good balance, Vincent thought—suggestive, without telling her outright he could do with a drink. Then something inside him recalibrated sharply, and he remembered that gun-related conflict is pretty traumatic for normal people, and she was probably looking forward to being alone, and in any case he was her employee, so he shouldn’t have said anything.

Erin was at the coffee table, reading the card. She said, ‘It’s from my publisher. They’re all thinking of me, apparently. Do you think it’s sympathy for Dad being murdered, or for threatening to cancel my book?’

He knew her publisher was called Freedom Press, and he wanted to say something neat that captured the irony of curtailing her freedom but at the same time didn’t sound trite, but now he was running out of time and he wasn’t sure he had it …

He said, ‘I think it’s just murder sympathy. Anything else, you’d send more flowers, back it up with chocolate.’