She asked that we switch to a corner table. Of course, she did. Women like Yvonne always wanted their backs to the wall. I watched her from the lobby, my coat still buttoned, my hands perfectly still. Sixty-six days of waiting had taught me that. Stillness was the only weapon I had left.
I had practiced this walk across a hundred hotel lobbies in my mind. Chin level. Pulse steady. The kind of calm that looks like confidence but is really just fury compressed into something useful. She saw me, and her face did the thing faces do when fear tries to look like nothing.
I sat down. The waiter appeared. I ordered for both of us—black coffee, no sugar —because I already knew how she took it. I knew a great many things about Yvonne that she didn’t know I knew. That was the only advantage I had. I intended to keep it…