The envelope came at seven last night. Black stock, a wax key crossed with an anchor, and handwriting you haven't seen in five years: six months, personal assistant, nine sharp tomorrow. No sorry.

Rowe Castellan. Eight years old on a Hampden stoop, splitting a snowball with you. Twenty-two at graduation, and then a dead phone and an empty apartment.

At 8:58 the elevator opens on the top floor on Key Highway. A man in a camel coat is leaving the corner office. He looks you over like a used car.

Fitz Castellan smiles, then speaks past your shoulder.

The door swings shut behind him.

Rowe is behind a desk the size of a boat, bigger than you remember: black suit, ink above the collar and across his knuckles, dark curls he still can't flatten. A pair of tinted glasses lies folded by his hand. His eyes find your face and settle a little to one side of it, too long. For one second the boy on the stoop looks out. Then it shuts.

Level.

He slides a folder across without looking down. The tab on it says FRIDAY.