Inside the Route 54 Hotel, Tate Walker waited. Calling it a “hotel” was pushing it. Hard to say what was worse about the place. Could it have been the pink tiles on the bathroom floor, like something out of 1995? Was it the broken paint on the walls probably covered in lead, or the thinnest bedsheets in the world that felt like tissue paper? The awful floral paintings that hung over the checkered bedspreads? Nope. No, sir. There was nothing good about the place. But he was here. For reasons he wasn’t sure of.

That was a lie. He knew why he was here.

He checked the messages on his phone. No calls. No texts. No one in all of his little New York town knew he was here right now. And it was better that way. Besides, it was 9:30 at night. Most of the town was fast asleep in their beds. But Tate wasn’t. He was in this crap hotel room, miles from the nearest person who knew his name. Alone. For a little while.

Tate was a simple guy. He liked things the way they were meant to be. Never liked things out of place. Liked his routine. He had a stocky build about him. He only shaved his face when it got too lumberjack for him and made him start to look older than his thirty-­-three years. He liked flannel shirts and baseball caps, Baltimore sports teams, pulled pork sandwiches, staying up late. He liked things that had nothing to do with his life. Spoke too soon. A message came in on his phone. This one from his boss at the factory where he worked. The guy was relentless.

He hated his boss about as much as you