22. CASSANDRA

The rules of the Chase stipulate that I can’t leave the geographic area of Midtown Manhattan for two weeks. Some people might consider that a prize, not a punishment. I mean, it’s home to Broadway and Times Square and a hundred other magnificent places to spend time.

The problem for me right now is that Midtown is also home to a financial district that’s almost as prominent as Lower Manhattan’s, which means my pursuers could be right behind me at any moment. And I’m expected to not deviate too much from my everyday routine, so that they have a fighting chance to identify and – well, I guess the politically correct term would be catch me.

So it hasn’t been easy to keep a low profile.

I’ve avoided Patty’s for the past three days for fear I’m too much of a regular there. And, frankly, because now I associate it with meeting Carson again after all these years. I have to focus on the Chase, not on him. And his beautiful body. And his electric touch.

If only it were as easy to do as it is to say.

So, like any good quarry, I keep moving, never staying in one place for too long. I’ll stop for lunch or a coffee, but after that I’m back on the street.

I’ve spent the better part of this morning wandering the shops of Korea Town. It’s been postcard-perfect so far, the kind of day that’s so quintessentially New York that it could be the backdrop of a Woody Allen movie.

“Good morning,” the girl behind the counter says as I enter a boutique jewelry shop on Madison Avenue. She’s stunning: probably five-foot-ten, easily five inches taller than me. Hair like black satin. It’s funny how place like this only hire the extremely attractive.

“Good morning,” I smile back. As I browse the shop’s wares, I use the mirror behind the girl to monitor the front door and the traffic on the street beyond. Honestly, I’d probably be doing this whether or not I was in the Chase. It’s ingrained in me after so many years working for the Company, one of the comedic euphemisms for the CIA.

I have to admit I’m not entirely comfortable popping in and out of the stores. I’ve familiarized myself with most of the latest Forbes list of richest men in America, but to be perfectly honest, a Korean billionaire could walk right past me and I wouldn’t even know it.

It’s a loose end. I make a note of it, because I don’t like loose ends.

“Something I can help you with?”

The words make me jump, and the girl immediately regrets them.

“Pardon me, I’m so sorry!” she says. “It’s just that you seemed to be looking around everywhere and I thought maybe you needed help.”

I need help, all right. Psychiatric help.

I laugh, even though it’s the last thing on earth I feel like doing.

“My fault,” I say. “My mind is somewhere else.”

It’s amazing how off-kilter I’ve felt since this all started. I mean, I’ve walked through downtown Tripoli wearing brown contact lenses, a black wig and a headscarf, and I felt less exposed than I do right now. I have to keep reminding myself that the contestants don’t know I’m a redhead, so I’m actually not a walking neon “look at me” sign. Well, no more than I normally am, I suppose.

I thank the girl and head back out onto Madison. Summer tourists flock by, taking photos of the Flatiron Building and craning their necks at all the skyscrapers. I turn onto Twenty-Third Street, then again onto Fifth Avenue. There’s a food stand about a block up that makes the best Lebanese food on the Eastern Seaboard, and that’s from someone who’s spent quite a bit of time in Lebanon.

“Sandra!” a swarthy middle-aged man says as I approach. He’s got more hair on his chest than his head, which is glistening under the almost-midday sun.

“Hello, Khalil,” I say. “Kayf hu aleamal?” How’s business?

He beams like he always does when I speak Arabic to him.

“Can’t complain, nobody’d listen anyway, amiright?” he says, hardening the words into a passable Brooklyn accent.

I giggle while he throws together a lamb pita and douses it with his signature sauce, the recipe for which I’ve never managed to get out of him, even under threats of torture.

As always, he refuses my money. I helped him get his brother a visa a few years ago and he hasn’t charged me a penny since. I’ve always assumed he knows I’m not really a business consultant, but he’s never brought it up and neither have I. He’s my kind of guy.

“What’s new, Sandra?” he asks as I take my first bite.

“Actually,” I say through a mouthful of lamb, “I’m going by Cassie now.”

His eyes widen and it’s almost like I can read his mind: he thinks it’s an alias.

“It’s short for Cassandra,” I say. “It’s just the other end of the name.”

“Ah!” He claps his hands together. “Beautiful name for a beautiful lady.”

“You’re too kind, sir.”

I take my food up the street to the plaza at General Worth Square and, amazingly, find an empty table under one of the blue umbrellas. This porcelain skin of mine may be the envy of a lot of women, but it also opens me up to a higher risk of melanoma, especially after all the time I’ve spent in deserts. And freckles. God, whatever I do I can’t escape the freckles.

A glinting relection catches me in the eye just as I reach for the chair, and I feel something pulling it in the opposite direction. I lift a hand to shade my eyes and see who I’m about to give an earful – it’s New York, after all, and a “yo, whaddaya think yer doin’?” is expected in polite company.

The silhouette comes into focus, and my heart thumps like a kick drum as I recognize the curvature of the muscles under the microfiber of his golf shirt.

You have got to be kidding me.

“Carson,” I sputter. “Uh, hi.”

He frowns at me but there’s no anger in his voice, thank God. I was so afraid he’d hate me after the way things ended the other night.

“Hello,” he says evenly. “Fancy meeting you here, and all that.”

“I know, it’s crazy!” I say with way too much enthusiasm. “Uh, what are you doing here?”

“Me?” He seems startled. “Just, uh, walking. Beautiful day for it.”

“Me too. Just walking.”

We stand there, hands still holding the back of the chair, for what seems like an eternity. I feel like I’m swimming in awkwardness. I reaallly want to disengage and run away, but I also want to just stand here and stare at him in his shorts for the rest of my life. Those legs are like a stag’s, all bulges and coiled steel.

Carson is the first one to disengage as his eyes wander above my head.

“Richard!” he says, raising his chin to acknowledge someone behind me. “What’s up?”

I turn to see who he’s talking to and my blood freezes. It’s man in his late 60s, tall and fit, with a pompadour of silver hair. His silk shirt is a pale green, his slacks khaki. He looks like he stepped off the page of a J. Crew catalog. I’ve seen him before, on the pages of Forbes magazine.

His name is Richard Linkletter, and he’s No. 11 on the list of the richest men in America.