CHAPTER NINE
9:15 p.m.
Ocean City, Maryland
“Not looking too good there,” Luke said.
The elevator was all carpeting and glass walls. A long double line of buttons ran along a metal panel. He caught sight of his reflection in the concave security mirror in an upper corner. It was a strange, distorted, funhouse view of him, totally at odds with the reflection on the glass walls. The normal glass showed a tall man in early middle-age, very fit, deep crow’s feet around the eyes and the beginnings of gray in his short blond hair. His eyes seemed ancient.
Staring into them, he could suddenly see himself as an old, old man, lonely and afraid. He was alone in this world—more alone than he had ever been. It had somehow taken him two full years to realize that. His wife was dead. His parents we
