Zane told himself he would not come back.
He repeated the promise several times while staring at the ceiling of the small hotel room he had rented two blocks away. The words sounded logical when he said them in his mind. Last night had been a mistake, a collapse of control brought on by exhaustion and grief. It had been a moment of weakness that any rational man would recognize and correct the following day.
Morning arrived slowly through the thin curtains. Pale gray light filtered into the room and spread across the floorboards. Zane watched it without moving. The ache that had followed him since the night before had not softened with sleep.
It had deepened.
He lay there listening to the faint sounds of the city waking up. Somewhere outside a delivery truck rolled down the street. A car door slammed. Footsteps passed on the sidewalk below the window.
None of it distracted him.
