I could see it in the way he walked.

Nine years of careful armor, undone in a single morning by a phone call and a name.

I had spent much of the drive to Colfax bracing myself to meet the old Arthur, the one I had left, and I had rehearsed how I would keep my footing against his sharpness, how I would not let him take over, how I would protect Maya and myself from the machinery of a man who managed everything.

I need not have bothered.