He’d had this idea in the abstract plenty of times: cops looking for him. He’d composed scripts to answer any number of questions they might have. He wanted to be ready if they ever came asking. If, though, was the fear, and each day that passed—nearly four years’ worth of them now—was the hope. More days, more hope. But his memory had an unkind habit of now and then pushing back on the progress he’d made into that confidence.

It had been better lately, with Donna and Carly and all this pretend normal that he played at every day to pass the time. The setup he’d made with them—the house, the routine, and the job he didn’t really need—was more than the sum of its convenient parts. It was nice. They were nice. But still, when his memory kicked up the things that it occasionally did—sounds, images—her blood dried dull on the cuff of my shirt, like coffee or chocolate—

“John.” A woman’s voice called him back into the moment.

He looked at the lady beside him and wasn’t certain he’d ever known her name to forget it.

She touched his arm. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Why would it be nothing?”

Her eyebrows stayed concerned, but her mouth twitched into what was supposed to be a reassuring smile. “I mean, I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” John said. “Thanks,” he added, and felt stupid for it.

“Go ahead, John. It’s fine. We’ll finish up later.”

John looked back to see which of the men had said it. Though he’d heard the words, he’d lost the voice in the hum of all the possibilities clamoring in his head. But everyone was nodding at him in a just-said-something kind of way, even whatsername sitting next to him. All in agreement, all of one mind, every one of them eager to let the guy with the cops in his office go on in and collect his disaster while they all sat there and watched it happen through the glass.

There was nothing for him to do but go. Even the doors out of the office suite were on the far side of the conversation. He’d have to walk past the policemen just to leave.

Inevitability is gravity’s cousin. It is its own force of nature, one that pulls both the ready and the unwilling along, not toward the earth, but toward consequence. And it can stand in, quite nicely, for a paralyzing lack of resolve. John’s starved lungs dragged in a huge openmouthed breath, and he got out of the chair on autopilot, vaulting the fear in his guts.