We kept moving, crossing 5th Avenue, passing Barney’s, turning again down Madison Avenue. We kept up the same very fast pace, panting openly now but not slowing except to step around someone or wait to cross a street. Rather than head directly south to our hotel, Peter lead us in a circle around it, diving at the last minute into a nearby Starbucks, waiting in line and ordering decaf mochas. I couldn’t think what to order, and he didn’t ask what I wanted. It was a good place to watch for anyone following, only having a few windows on one side. We stood in the lee of one of these while we waited for our coffees, our eyes darting from corner to corner.
The man didn’t appear. We’d lost him—or someone else had taken his place. Someone we wouldn’t recognize even if they were standing in line behind us. In addition to looking outside, I nervously watched the other customers as they came in, waited and went out. I couldn’t help it. But nobody paid the slightest notice to us, and once our order was called and we walked outside, no one made a move to follow.
■ ■ ■
Back in our hotel room, Peter walked to the window and shut the curtains, keeping out of sight as he did so. Office buildings stood across the street with blinds hiding most of the rooms, no doubt empty now that the workday was over. I sat down on the end of the bed, and he paced in front of me. Our coffees sat untouched on the desk.
“They found us here,” I said, rather blankly. “I don’t even know who ‘they’ are, and they found us in New York.”
He glanced at me, stopped pacing and came to sit beside me.
“It looks that way,” he said. “How—and why, and who—is what I’d give a lot to know.”
“Marianne said not to use my credit cards. And I did—I booked the hotel on my Visa.”
“Then they’ll already know we’re staying here,” he replied evenly. “Though it may have been something else that caught their notice. We’ve been asking questions about her past. Maybe this just means we’re on the right track.”
“That’d be good,” I said without much feeling.
My exhaustion had returned at a new and furious pitch—it pinched between my shoulder blades, weighed down my neck, ached in my lower back and throbbed in my feet. My eyes stung on the inside, the nerves themselves seeming to twitch in pain. With a sudden sense of vertigo, I found myself putting my head between my knees and moaning.
“Hey, are you OK?” Peter asked apprehensively, his voice sounding oddly tinny and far away. His hand rubbed my back.
“I got dizzy,” I gasped, taking deep, shaky breaths from the edge of the bed. “And… I may need to throw up.”
As soon as I said it, I knew it was true—and not only did I need to throw up, I needed to throw up immediately. I stood and moved quickly if unsteadily to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet in time. There wasn’t much to empty; what there was came up fast and left me feeling faint and clammy but as if it didn’t need to happen again. Peter had followed me into the bathroom, hovering anxiously behind me at first, then kneeling to pull back my tangled hair, which had fallen down around my face.
“Ughh,” I said, flushing and putting my head down on my arm, resting across the seat.
Peter stood and stepped away. I heard the tap running, and then felt my hair lifted and a cold, damp washcloth placed gently on the back of my neck.
“Mmh… feels nice,” I murmured.
“Do you still feel dizzy?”
“Um…”
I waited another minute, then slowly raised my head, allowing the cloth to fall into my hand. The room wasn’t spinning any longer. I just felt very weak and tired.
“No,” was all I said.
“Can you drink some water?” He held out a plastic bottle with the top off.
I took it and sipped tentatively, drinking about a third of the bottle before I handed it back. It seemed like it was going to stay down, but you never know.
“Let’s get you to bed.”
If it had been up to me, I almost certainly would have curled up right there on the bathroom floor, maybe pulling a couple of towels down as bedding. Thanks to Peter’s urging, I pushed myself into a sitting position, and with his help managed to stand up and walk to the bed. He pulled the covers back, sat me down, pulled off my shoes, then my jeans, then my shirt and bra. His hands moved with a gentle confidence that was very soothing. As soon as I was undressed down to my underwear, I curled up in a ball with my head on the pillow, and he covered me with blankets and turned off all lights but the lamp on his nightstand.
The last thing I remembered before sleep rushed over me was a soft kiss on the top of my head.
■ ■ ■
The next afternoon, we sat on the edge of a concrete planter, looking up at the United Nations headquarters. Today’s sky was azure blue instead of gray, artistically brushed with windswept white clouds. The view across the East River offered low humps of islands basking below the Queensboro Bridge, skyscrapers on the opposite shore. Troops of schoolchildren marched past hand-in-hand, impelled along by teachers and parent chaperones, alternating with large tour groups of various nationalities.
When we’d arrived just before nine, the plaza had been mostly empty, the ticket lines moving quickly. Now, just after noon, the press of people seemed to be growing by the minute. It was chaotic and reassuring at the same time. If there was someone watching us from the crowd, we had plenty of insulation and cover.
On top of that, I had a vague sense of satisfaction in the idea that anyone following us was probably having a very boring day.
I’d slept deeply until about four in the morning, waking suddenly and alertly. My body still very firmly believed it was seven and time to get up, in spite of the darkness outside and the undeniable numbers on the digital clock. I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face and drank two bottles of water. Feeling much refreshed, I slid back into bed and stared up at the ceiling for a while.
Once it became clear that I was unassailably wide awake, I found a granola bar in my purse and ate it, then played with the settings on my phone while my mind wandered. I wondered how late Peter had stayed up the previous night. I wondered if the hotel was being watched right now. If so, I wondered who was watching us.
The same man from the park yesterday? Would he only be assigned to the night shift now that we’d “made” him? I considered how that worked. Were criminals like law enforcement agencies, with set schedules and rotations? Guido on stalking duty, six to ten, relieved by Spike, ten to two?
Assuming it was a criminal or criminals, of course. Maybe it was just the one guy we already saw—Marianne’s employer, say. Or boyfriend. That was somewhat less terrifying than the idea of a criminal network complete with real-time digital flags on my credit cards and flight reservations. It was still impossible to imagine how my cousin could be mixed up with crime, much less a sinister and resourceful group of criminals.
She’d never been arrested for anything, as far as I knew. She wasn’t the type of teenager to get into shoplifting for kicks. She was a good student, driven to succeed in school, never making trouble for my parents or leading me into drinking or drugs. Honestly, part of the shock of this whole thing was that she was one of the last people I’d ever have imagined getting into serious trouble.
But how much did I really know about her life? Once she left California for New York, we’d remained close in terms of affection, but not in close contact. Even our emails and phone calls got a lot more infrequent once she quit the journalism program. Not long after that she moved into the loft with Mike and the rest of them, which had always been a bitter pill for me to swallow. I’d been so horrified at what I saw, I didn’t say anything about the situation to my parents, knowing they’d feel even worse than I did.
Her involvement with the loft crowd, even before I knew the extremes that Mike Sorenson had gone to, had really shaken my perception of her, to the point that I hadn’t wanted to admit to myself how shocked, offended, disturbed I felt. How betrayed.
I’d held it in, told no one about it—and experienced intense relief when she told me she was living in New York. My high opinion of her was once again vindicated. I didn’t have to feel uneasy and sickened and disappointed by her choices.
But the truth was, I didn’t really know anything about her choices. I still had no idea why she’d lived at the loft, or chosen to stay there more than a year. She’d never explained or excused that, other than her flippant adventure comment, which I discounted. Nobody purposefully put themselves through months of squalor and abuse just for a thrill. Which meant that whether or not I liked the idea, I had to accept the fact that the Marianne I wanted her to be and the real Marianne might be very different people.
There was always the possibility that whoever was behind all of this was actually not a criminal—was some kind of law enforcement. I didn’t think it was likely, though. Admittedly my experience with and knowledge of the CIA and FBI were entirely limited to fiction, but I couldn’t see them assigning someone to tail us through Central Park. Why would they need to? If those agencies wanted to track either Peter or me, they most certainly had all the resources they needed and then some to do so without sending some guy in a suit out to watch our movements in Central Park. At least, I imagined they did. I also imagined they might be better at covert surveillance.
At some point I drifted off again, waking up to Peter closing the bathroom door. It was six thirty, a much more reasonable hour to start the day. I’d come to learn that no matter what the time zone or day of the week, Peter woke up at six thirty. He couldn’t explain why, he just had an internal alarm set for that time which never once failed to go off.
I was also coming to learn that he was extremely passive about suggesting fun activities for us. Unless work, food, dog care, exercise or some other impetus was involved—such as investigating my cousin’s past—he tended to stick to his routines, and on trips would be fine with aimlessly wandering until we stumbled across something we wanted to do.
This would have been irritating beyond belief, except that he was always absolutely on board with the suggestions I made, and would, if presented with multiple options, give his opinion about which one was the better choice. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to do interesting things. He just wasn’t interested in thinking them up or deciding on them in advance.
It was a new experience for me to be the activity director of a relationship—any relationship. I resented it at first, but soon began to value how easygoing he was. I could see how, if it had spread to other parts of his life like work or day-to-day tasks, being his partner would be like parenting a sluggish pre-teen—but it never went beyond activity planning. My awareness of this did, however, make me understand a little more how his ex-wife must have felt, managing a younger and less grounded version of this man.
All that to say that I suggested we walk to the UN on Tuesday morning, grabbing a quick breakfast of bagels and coffee on the way, and Peter unreservedly agreed.
“How are you feeling?” he’d asked, when he saw that I was awake.
“Much, much better,” I said, reaching out for a hug. He smelled wonderful—clean and familiar. “I’m sorry to have been such a pain.”
“You were exhausted,” he said simply. “Combine that with the surreal experience of being followed in park, it’s understandable that you’d be upset. I didn’t feel too great, either.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Not at first—it took me a while to relax. I took a shower and watched a movie on my iPad. I must’ve fallen asleep before it ended.”
“Any new conclusions about the… situation?”
“Nothing very brilliant. I’m still not convinced they traced us here using your credit card. Something about that just doesn’t feel right.”
“Why do you think Marianne said not to use them, if it didn’t matter?”
“I don’t know—maybe someone involved could trace you that way, for the same reason she took your phone. I vote that we don’t charge anything on them again or use any of your accounts, just to be safe. Truth be told, though, at this point how they found us doesn’t really matter as much as why. Someone does know we’re here, and seems to be highly interested in what we’re doing,” he kept his eyes on our interlinked hands—“…or better yet, who we’re meeting.”
He raised his eyes to mine.
“Marianne,” I said slowly. “They’re hoping we’ll lead them to Marianne.”
Peter nodded.
“That’s the conclusion I came to. Of course we don’t know, but…”
“But it’s the likeliest reason for keeping us under tabs,” I finished.
It made sense. Too much sense. If not for my safety—or not just for my safety, why else would Marianne send me into hiding, directing me to avoid police and stay off the grid?
To make sure that she couldn’t be found through me.
Or… the thought made my stomach ripple anxiously… so they couldn’t use me to get to her.
One way or another, they’d found me. Someone had. They knew we were in New York, and almost certainly knew we were at this hotel. The milk was soaking into the floorboards, and I found I had no desire to cry over it. It was too late to stay buried in Half Moon Bay, my head under the covers. Right or wrong, we’d stepped out and into their line of sight.
We couldn’t change that now. All we could do was move forward. Going home wouldn’t help. Maybe we could lose them on the way, maybe they wouldn’t keep watching if they saw where we’d gone, maybe they’d keep me under observation until I died of old age or until Marianne made contact, whichever came first. We couldn’t know.
And maybe they’d take matters into their own hands—rather than waiting for me to contact Marianne, decide to use me as bait, or something equally disturbing. Even as I considered the idea, part of my mind rejected it as far-fetched.
It was the same rational part that thought being tailed by a guy in a suit was far-fetched. Or meeting a stranger who felt like your soul mate from the first sound of their voice.
That part was losing ground fast.
I’d chosen door number three: to try to find out what Marianne had done, to discover anything I could about the bomb that she’d set off in my life. I’d known—or had a vague, uneasy sense that I didn’t remotely know and didn’t want to know—the risks involved. Whether or not we’d been prepared for it, and I definitely hadn’t been, this was the consequence of that choice. Peter had made the same choice—to do this with me.
So there it was.
The anxiety in my stomach gave another frantic twinge, and then subsided to a low-level throb. A throb I’d been living with for two weeks. Would be host to for the foreseeable future.
There was no going back.
■ ■ ■
I’d enjoyed seeing the UN, walking slowly through the exhibits in the Visitor Centre, seeing the chambers where the delegates did their work. It was soothing and inspiring. Coming together as a global community of people, rising above imaginary borders and national identities. The ideals it represented were so much nobler than ordinary human aspirations, the problems it struggled to solve so much bigger than mine.
For a while, in that bright high-security building, I could almost forget that shadowy figures lurked in our periphery, plotting who knew what for motives unknown.
For a while.
We sat outside people watching until hunger drove us to find lunch. Peter had a knack for leading us to good restaurants, without resorting to Yelp—though inevitably, if I checked later, the place he chose had high ratings. He’d worked in food service for most of his life, one way or another; whether it was an innate skill or learned from years of experience, anyone eating out with Peter benefitted, as long as you were willing to trust him. This was another reason why I didn’t mind his dislike of planning things. He might not take the lead on the activity choice, but he’d make sure we ate regularly and well.
Today’s chosen spot didn’t look especially prepossessi
ng from the outside, but offered the best Chinese food I’d ever had. It was crowded when we arrived, no doubt with eager Yelpers, so we were good and hungry by the time we were seated. While we worked our way through a platter of the house special shrimp dish and rice, we—or rather, I—planned our afternoon. After considering and rejecting museums, since it was too nice a day to be indoors, and tourist sites, since they’d be overrun and we’d both seen the major ones anyway, I pulled out my phone and started scrolling through a list of top things to do in New York.
“What sounds good to you?” I insisted, not yet having realized the futility of this question.
Peter took a large bite, chewed and swallowed.
“Being with you. Not being at work.”
Frustrating and gratifying at the same time. I caught sight of a name I recognized.
“What about the High Line? I’ve never been there.”
“The park? I haven’t either.”
“Does it sound good?” I asked, slightly desperate now.
“Sure. Is that what you want to do?”
“Yes,” I said.
A train ride across town and a few blocks on foot later, we spent the rest of the day walking the High Line, a narrow, winding greenbelt converted from an old elevated railway line, from 34th Street all the way down to the other end at Gansevoort Street. From there we joined the Hudson River Greenway and continued south along the Hudson River, through the Park and down through Rockefeller Park. Now and then we stopped and looked at the view. We bought expensive organic ice cream bars from a hairy hipster and ate them on a bench. We shared stories about the last time we were each in New York, and about other trips we’d taken and places we’d seen. Neither of us had been to Canada, but we’d both been to Mexico. Finally we turned, making our way to the 9/11 Memorial, where we stood at the edge of the fountain marking the original North Tower.
“A nice walk,” Peter said, his eyes on the names of the fallen engraved in front of us.
“Very nice,” I agreed, thinking it was good that we both liked walking. We’d come more than five miles, not counting the walk this morning.
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