“Auntie Catherine.” There might have been a plaintive call me from the hall as the door shut behind her. Charlie chose to ignore it. “We need to talk.”

“Please, he’s twenty-six and this is not the first time he’s offered his services to a woman traveling alone. Although,” she added thoughtfully, braiding her hair, silver bracelets chiming, “it’s the first time he didn’t expect to be compensated for his effort.”

“We don’t need to talk about that.”

“Pity. It was worth commenting on.” End of the braid tied off, Auntie Catherine locked a serious gaze on Charlie’s face. “Go ahead, child. Talk.”

“He’s twenty-six?” Okay. That wasn’t what she’d intended to say.

“It’s not about age, Charlotte, it’s about power imbalance.”

“Imbalance? What power did the boy-toy have?”

“Oh, we were talking about Kevin? My mistake.” She leaned in toward the mirror, licked her fingertip and ran it over her eyebrows, then turned back to Charlie. “Never underestimate the power of abs so defined you can open a Corona on them. Now then, get to the point. I’m due in the spa in forty minutes.”

“You may want to cancel because that asteroid you Saw . . . NASA won’t be able to stop it.”

“And why would that be a reason to cancel my spa appointment?”

“Oh, I don’t know . . .” Charlie picked the box of mixed nuts off the dresser and frowned at the exposed flashing lights. “Asteroid? Impact? Extinction event?”

“That seems like an excellent reason to get a massage.” Auntie Catherine plucked the nuts from Charlie’s hand and put them back on the sensors. “You told me they’d have years to come up with a solution. What happened?”

“It turns out that as an astrophysicist, I’m a great musician.” The bathroom was definitely big enough for a tiger and she could see the Bellagio fountain from the window. Of the room. Not the bathroom. Although there was a television by the toilet. Having paced out the dimensions of the room, Charlie flipped the duvet back into place before dropping onto the rumpled bed. “There’s a heavy metal asteroid blocking the rock you Saw—an asteroid heavy in metals, not a head-banging asteroid. Although there will be some head banging . . .”

One silver brow rose. “Charlotte.”

“Right. Because the asteroid that’s going to impact has been blocked from sensors and telescopes and science stuff, it’s gotten too close. We’ve got a maximum of six months before the blocking asteroid has moved far enough out of the way that the falling asteroid is spotted and all over the news. And, news flash, no one I talked to thinks we’ll get the whole six. All told, twenty-two months to impact.”