Thin Ice (The Guardians #4)

1. Elias

Chapter one

Elias

Ireached out to shake hands with Nolan Mercer, NHL veteran and my latest principal.

It was a practiced hand. He used it to greet opponents after every game. I'd spent my working life reading people who didn't want to be read, and Nolan Mercer's hand told me two things at once.

The first was that he kept his weight off the left side, barely. He eased a few extra pounds onto the right, something only another athlete would catch. It was probably his left hip. He was thirty-four, and his body had started collecting on past debts.

The second thing was his hand: warm, firm, and unhurried in mine, lingering past the professional register. It was distinctive enough that I immediately wanted to feel it again. That's not a thing about a principal you want to know on day one.

"Mr. Ward," he said. "They tell me you drew the short straw."

"Elias is fine."

"Elias." His mouth curved up in slight amusement. He'd probably gotten the strong-silent routine from hundreds of security guys. "Nolan. Can I get you something? I've got an espresso machine that cost more than my first car and gets used about twice a year. You'd be doing it a favor."

"Water's fine."

He crossed to the kitchen. It was a south-facing condo in the Colchester, a grand old landmark in St. Louis's Central West End.

The windows looked out on the faded grandeur of the Chase Park Plaza and the ornate dome of the St. Louis Cathedral.

It was a carefully renovated unit with floorboards the color of rye.

The furniture all worked, carefully selected by a designer. People who choose their own things get it a little wrong somewhere. At first glance, nothing in Nolan's place was wrong, and it reflected nothing about him.

What I didn't see was hockey. No jersey on the wall, stick in a display case, or photos of him on the ice. Nothing told me it was the home of one of the city's premier athletes.

There were almost no photographs at all. One sat on a shelf in the hall, an older man and woman, perhaps his parents. The man was thin and gaunt. Otherwise, the walls held large abstract art as faceless as the furniture.

My gaze settled on the one chair that broke the pattern, the piece the designer didn't touch.

It was a leather recliner, turned toward the window.

On a side table were a paperback and a wireless phone charger.

A pocketknife lay next to it. Down one shelf was a tablet computer.

I'd found the one square yard where the man actually lived.

Behind me, Doyle cleared his throat. He'd walked me up and stayed for the handoff. He was the St. Louis Steamers' head of security, lured away from the police force with a more lucrative contract.

"I'll leave you two to it," he said. "Nolan, if anything feels off, Elias is your guy now, through the playoff run. That's standard. Half the league does the same."

Nolan filled a glass at the tap. "Standard doesn't mean necessary."

He knew that a bodyguard hired for the hockey postseason was standard. What he didn't know was the rest of it.

Sixteen days ago a man named Ray Halloran had died in his sleep in a retirement home outside Raleigh. He'd worked as equipment manager for thirty years with the team that traded for Nolan in his second season.

In the last six months of the cancer that killed him, Halloran grew increasingly frantic about reaching Nolan Mercer.

He left voicemails at the front office and sent two certified letters care of the Steamers.

Nolan didn't know his name was in a file about a thirteen-year-old death. It hadn't been called a murder—yet.

The Guardians handled protection. We didn't run investigations. We'd worked alongside them, staying in our lane and letting the badges do their work. This was the first time the firm had taken a job that was both, and I was chosen to execute it.

I drifted to the windows to view the street below. It was quiet, partially shaded by trees, heavy with late May foliage. A man in scrubs walked along the sidewalk from the direction of the hospitals. It was likely a shift change with the coming dusk.

A family—mother, father, and teenage son—strolled on the opposite side, the son in a Steamers jersey. The father looked up. It wasn't a glance at the building. It was deliberate. He was looking at a specific window, and he focused on me.

The boy caught his father's elbow, and the man turned away. I stood there trying to decide whether I'd seen anything at all.

"It's a good building," Nolan said from close behind me.

I turned.

Up close, he was leaner than in his photos, face a little drawn. He was six-one and long in the arms, an elite athlete's build.

Nolan's nose was sat a half-degree off true, likely a souvenir of an old injury. Gray dusted his temples. His eyes were green, flecked with brown, and they were on me.

"Walkable. I can get a coffee without driving. My teammates don't have that out in the 'burbs."

"A benefit," I said.

"Look. I don't want to waste your time. You seem like a serious guy, and I'm sure you're good at this. But I've done a lot of runs, and the worst anyone's ever tried on me is a stranger passing a questionable drink. I'll be the easiest client you've ever had."

"No, you won't," I said.

That stopped him for a second. "No?"

"I don't get easy clients. They go to the guy who costs less than me."

He watched me as I spoke. His eyes focused first on my shoulders, then on my long arms. It was an athlete sizing up another athlete, followed by an unmistakable glance lower down. Then I knew.

"What's your sport? That body isn't purely genetics."

"Swimming. A long time ago, and I came up short. Then I taught the science of how bodies move for a while, and now this." It had taken me years to lay it out there calmly and succinctly.

"Good elevator speech," he said. "It's your whole life in a few sentences." He crossed his arms over his chest. "What was swimming to you?"

I never got asked that. When they found out I was a swimmer, people asked what stroke and what distance. They didn't assume there was more.

"It was everything," I started. Then I heard myself and stopped. He wasn't there to interrogate me.

"How about you?" I asked. "You're a long way in. What keeps you hitting the ice day after day?"

"Honestly? The room. You spend twenty years in locker rooms and the hockey's almost beside the point. It's the guys. Showing up for the guys." He offered a small smile. "Sounds like a line, I know, but it's the truth."

"I get it," I said.

"There's a rookie this year. Twenty-two, looks nineteen, still can't believe he's here." He almost laughed. "I keep showing up partly so he's got somebody to copy who isn't an idiot." He paused. "That's off the record."

"Of course." I smiled. "And the body? How's it holding up?"

"I feel great," he said. "Best I've felt in years."

He didn't blink, but then he turned his face to the side, and some of the warmth faded. He turned back and gave me a smile with a grimace underneath.

The light had turned gold in the windows while we talked. Down the block, the cathedral bells tolled the hour.

On the plane, I'd thought the attention a man in Nolan's position drew would help keep him safe. You don't move on one of the most-watched players in the game in the middle of a Cup run. It was a reassuring thought.

Then I saw the dad with his kid across the street, and how he'd picked Nolan's window out of the entire building, and I wasn't reassured at all.

"I'll want a walk-through," I said. "Show me the exits and tell me your morning routine, where you go and who holds the keys. It's boring, but I'll be quick. Also, I need a real number for contact, not the team one."

"Sure," he said, and gave me the number. "Want to do it tonight? I've got tape to get through. You can do your boring stuff around me."

"Tonight's fine."

"Good." He moved to the leather recliner by the window and picked up the tablet. In seconds, I heard the scrape of blades on ice, and my peripheral vision picked up players in motion.

I interrupted him. "Show me the back way out first? Then settle in."

He started to point, then he set the tablet down and stood, with a half-hop, likely the hip again. The hip wasn't in the file. He'd hidden it well. There was more here than I anticipated.

"Come on, I'll show you the back stairs." He led the way down the hall.

The corridor was long and narrow with an ancient runner over the hardwood. Nolan moved easily enough, folding the hip favoring into his stride. It was so smooth you'd have to know to look. I knew, but I let it go.

"Place was built in 1906," he said. "It was one of the first modern apartment buildings. Half of old St. Louis lived here at one point or another." He ran a hand along the wainscoting as he passed.

"I looked at the places the other guys buy. Out west, big lawns and gates, the whole thing." He shrugged. "You could go a week out there and not lay eyes on another person who didn't work for you. I can't do that."

The backdoor was steel, built to be serviceable.

"Here, there's people," Nolan said. "On the other side of the wall. I don't talk to half of them, but I know they're there."

The door led to back stairs that descended to a rear service entrance. I walked it and made my notes. It was enough for one night.

I headed for the door. "Thank you. I'll be back at six," I said. "You won't know I'm here."

"I doubt that." I was turning the handle when he spoke again. "Hey. I figured out where I know you from."

I turned.

"It's been nagging me all night." He folded his arms across his chest again. "Ward. You're the swimmer. You did the butterfly and were going to make the team, and then you got hurt that summer, and that was it." A beat. "I was seventeen. I remember where I was when they ran the story."

"You remember that?"

"I remember thinking that'd be it for me. If I couldn't play hockey, game over." He stopped. "Anyway, small world."

"Small world," I said.