I woke up alone, in a bed that wasn’t my own, as I had for months. The smell of stale cigarette smoke had long ago settled into the furnishings around me, and into my nose, a subtle, constant irritation. I blinked, looking at the thin slits of light that made their way through the blinds into my room. It was a small room, though it was probably not any smaller than my last.
It felt smaller, though.
I drew a deep breath, sucking in the cool mid-morning air. The red clock on the dresser at the foot of my bed told me it was 10:56 a.m. I pushed my face back into the pillow. The rough, buzz-cut sides of my head scraped against the pillowcase. I still wasn’t used to that feeling of having a mohawk. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I’d been living in Cedar City, Utah, for months, and between the hair, the glasses and the new wardrobe, no one yet had realized that I was the top slot on the FBI’s most wanted list.
I fumbled at the nightstand and grabbed my glasses. I’d stolen them from a hipster in Denver, Colorado, and popped the lenses out. I’d had the lenses replaced with non-prescription ones in Las Vegas, right before I picked Cedar City as the place I was going to hide out. It had been an easy decision, picking Cedar City. I’d just looked at a map, recalled all the places I’d been in my law enforcement career, and found one that I had zero ties to.
