She should have seen him coming.
That was the part that bothered her afterward, walking fast through the grey zone with the cold air cutting through her jacket and the specific residue of annoyance that came from being caught off guard by something she should have anticipated. She had clocked his people in the booth. She had gone out the back. She had taken three different routes to the gym over the past week and varied her timing and done everything that her working knowledge of not being found suggested she should do.
She had not accounted for him coming personally.
It was eleven-forty-five when she came out of The Meridian's back exit, gym bag over one shoulder, backpack over the other, the night cold and clear and the alley behind the club empty in the way alleys behind clubs at thi
