Chapter 8: The Guest Room

Beck Rylander lived on the fourteenth floor of a lakefront tower, in an apartment with almost no furniture.

A grey couch. A kitchen table. A bookshelf holding trophies turned to face the wall.

Lena stood in the doorway with her one bag.

"The guest room's down the hall," Beck said. "Clean sheets. A lock on the inside."

"I don't need a lock."

"Then you'll have one anyway."

He dropped his keys in a dish and went into the kitchen.

She noticed that he was holding his right hand against his chest.

"What happened to your hand?"

"Nothing."

"You walked up Pine Street holding it like that."

"I blocked a slap shot at the morning skate. It's fine."

"It's swollen to twice the size."

He tried to turn on the tap with his left hand and knocked a glass into the sink.

Lena crossed the kitchen and took his wrist without asking.

"Sit."

"Sadler."

"Sit down, Rylander."

He sat on the couch.

She found a first aid kit under the sink and a bag of frozen peas in the freezer.

She knelt in front of him and turned his hand over.

Three knuckles had split, and the skin around them was dark purple.

"You're an idiot," she said. "You could've broken it."

"I would have felt it."

"You felt this?"

"Yes."

"And you still got in the truck and drove across town."

"Somebody was putting you out of your grandmother's house," Beck said.

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