24. CASSANDRA

My heartbeat is galloping as I speed walk across the park toward Twenty-Third Street Station and the subway that will get me the hell out of here.

I had no choice. If I hadn’t, and if Richard Linkletter had handed me a little brass key, the Chase would have been over and there would be less than a million in my Cayman account. Nowhere near enough.

I don’t want to think about the other part.

I feel like I’m on a black ops mission and I just avoided the enemy fire sparking overhead. Lying is second nature to me, but I’ve never been in a situation where the consequences were – well, so real.

Misinformation is standard operating procedure during a mission, because once the operation was over, everything resets. That’s not the case here.

Everything I do now has real-world consequences. I just told Carson we’re dating, and I have no idea how he feels about that. I have no idea how I feel about it. I don’t even know what it means.

He didn’t contradict me, which is encouraging. But what if now he thinks he should call me? I can’t have a boyfriend during the Chase!

Can I?

I slow my pace as I reach the stairwell off the street down into the subway station. People rush past like ants on a hill, everyone going about their own business, close in body only. Their minds, like mine, are on other things.

Probably not the same kind of things as mine, obviously. They’re wondering what to make for dinner. I’m wondering how to avoid capture. And how to avoid a sixty-year-old stranger taking my virginity.

The train hisses to a stop and I hop on board. As it pulls away, I scan the car for anything out of the ordinary. An Armani suit, for example, or a platinum Rolex. It’s possible that my pursuers have dressed down for the occasion, but it’s been my experience that it’s hard to cover up the scent of money. It leaves a mark.

Only a handful of people are sharing the ride with me at this time of day: a pair of teen boys with their skateboards; an elderly Asian woman with three shopping bags; a tall Sudanese man eating a platform hot dog.

No male billionaires here, unless Sudanese billionaires have a thing for cheap red frankfurters that taste like a mustard-covered salt lick.

As I settle into the molded plastic seat, my phone vibrates. I turned the ringer off the minute the Chase started, just as a precaution; I don’t want any unnecessary attention drawn to me over the next two weeks. My training taught me that staying invisible means taking away anything that might cause someone to look in my direction.

I groan as I see the caller ID: it’s Tricia. We haven’t spoken since the day Carson and I met in the ice cream shop. She’s called before but I haven’t picked up. Better not blow her off again or she’ll get suspicious. And in all honesty, I owe her a call. We’re supposed to be business partners, after all.

I squeeze my eyes shut and hit the answer button.

“Hey, Trish,” I say. “Sorry I never got back to you. It’s been a crazy week.”

“You are so dead to me,” she huffs. “I’m actually thinking of adopting you just so I can disown you.”

“Oh, I’m fine, how are you?”

“Don’t try to be funny. You never called me to tell me about your date with Carson! What kind of bitch goes out with a rich demi-god and doesn’t call her best friend right after?”

Apparently, that’s what BFFs are supposed to do. I wouldn’t know, I’m new to this whole thing. I’ve never had a close friend like Tricia. I was always too busy studying, or training, or working. Or killing.

All the things my father wanted me to do.

“I’m waiting,” she says with practiced coldness in her voice. She obviously prepared for this.

“A stupid one?” I offer.

“A stupid one!”

I chuckle in spite of myself. She’s got a way of pulling me out of my head and turning me in a direction that I never would have seen. It’s one of the reasons I love her so much.

“Sorry, sorry, a million times sorry,” I plead. “Can you forgive me?”

“That depends on the details. Hand ‘em over.”

“There’s not much to tell,” I lie. “We toured the Museum of Modern Art and had dinner.”

I leave out the extracurricular activity in the coatroom. Partly because I don’t want to talk about it, partly because it always makes my nipples pop. I’ve been thinking about it every night in bed. Masturbation is a wonderful sleep aid.

“And?”

“And I went home.”

“You didn’t sleep with him?”

“No.”

The line goes silent for a full five seconds.

“Tricia?”

“Now I wish I did adopt you,” she says. “Then I could have you committed, because you are fucking crazy!”

“Hey, now…”

“Honey, you had the opportunity to make Carson Freakin’ Drake your first, and you didn’t take advantage of it! Believe me, any thirty-year-old straight guy who looks like him knows his way around a woman’s body. He has got that roadmap memorized.”

Does he ever.

Tricia thinks she’s helping, but all she’s done is remind me that there’s no way Carson can be my first. If I can just manage to hold things off for a couple weeks, though, maybe something can happen.

Please, God, let it happen.

“Look, it just wasn’t the right time,” I say.

Boy, is that ever the understatement of the year.

She clucks her tongue. “There’s no such thing as the right time when it comes to your first, Sandra.”

“Cassie.”

“What?”

“I decided I want to go by Cassie now.”

“Seriously? One date with Carson Drake and you want to change your name? And yet it ‘wasn’t the right time?’”

I sigh. This conversation is going south faster than a flock of Canada geese.

“Tricia, to be honest, I don’t even know how he feels about me. I mean, we spent a few minutes together that morning and then had dinner.”

“That’s why I’ve been calling you!”

I see the stop for Fifty-Seventh Street Station coming up, so I head to the door and grab the stabilizer bar. My plan is to walk the couple of blocks to Central Park and lose myself in it for the afternoon.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Look, Tricia, I have to go.”

“Listen to me, bitch – and I don’t say that lightly: if you hang up right now, I will break up with you for six months. Do you understand me?”

I roll my eyes as I step out of the car onto the platform.

“All right, all right, what is so fucking important?”

“Carson Drake has been in the shop every day since you two met up that morning!”

I stop in my tracks and the two teens run right into my back, knocking me forward. They dash up the stairs without even looking back. Part of me wants to yell after them, but I’m too stunned.

“I thought that might get your attention,” Tricia says smugly.

“Has he – has he asked about me?”

“Not specifically, but he’s talked to me each time. I didn’t pry, even though I should have, because my soon-to-be-former best friend doesn’t feel the need to tell me anything.”

“Thank you for that, Trish. Things between us are – complicated.”

“Well you better un-complicate them quick, girl, or I might just try to boat that fish myself. A prize like that starts swimming around, I can’t be blamed if I decide to drop a line in the water.”

I grin and shake my head.

“Give me two weeks. That’s all I ask.”

“Two weeks and that’s all. After that, I make no promises.”

“All right,” I say, pausing at the stairs that lead up to the street. “And I really am sorry. I promise I’ll be in tomorrow. We need to talk business, anyway.”

“Fine. I’ll try not to be mad at you by then. Peace out.”

As I slide my phone closed and drop it in my purse, I glance at my reflection in a polished steel panel on the wall. Hair’s okay, make-up still good. I glance down to my blouse.

My nipples are standing at attention like soldiers.

Sigh.