Chapter 7: The Laundromat

Maren waited in the lobby until the pastry table was nearly empty.

At six Jonah Pell came through the glass doors with his coat over his arm and walked out into the rain.

He did not look back.

She gave him half a block, then followed.

He turned left at the corner, then right, then ducked into a laundromat with a flickering sign and a wall of dryers.

It was empty, except for one old man asleep in a plastic chair under the television.

Jonah set his coat on a folding table and stood very still with his back to her.

"You can come in," he said. "The cameras here died last year."

Maren pushed the door shut behind her.

She stayed by the door with her hand on the knob. It was the only exit.

"Who told you," she said.

"Nobody told me."

"You said, don't read me. You said it like you knew."

He turned around.

Up close under the buzzing lights he looked as if he had not slept in a week.

"I know what you can do," Jonah said. "I can't tell you how I know. Not yet."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

"I heard you on the stairs." She kept her voice flat. "You count down before you open a door."

Something moved in his face and was gone.

"Habit," he said.

"I've heard that voice counting before."

He did not ask where.

He stood there, and she watched the answer go through him and settle, and she saw that he was not surprised.

"All right," Jonah said, very quietly. "Ask me what you want to ask."

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