I met Langdon and we went for a long stroll around Central Park. The still weather had left slopes of white snow piled in the corners and on the bare tree branches. Our breath collected in icy clouds in front of us, although the sky was clear blue above, just a few clouds drifting in from the east.

“I dunno,” Langdon said, glancing around the park. “I don’t think he could pull it off if he tried.”

“Because your board controls enough stock to prevent him getting a controlling interest.”

“Too right,” he said.

“But what if he can get to somebody on your board of directors? What if that’s the real reason he dragged you out here, offered you that phony deal, so an operative of his can get out there and lock down the deal without you being around to figure it out and stop it before it’s too late… because you’re out here looking at me?”

Langdon took another long look at me, still uncertain what or who he was looking at. “And you know nothing about this?”

I couldn’t blame him for being skeptical. But I also knew that, as much as any of us could be trusted, I trusted myself more than either of them. If Langdon didn’t trust me, that told me something about his innocence, about his trustworthiness.

And I liked what it was telling me.

Langdon asked, “Who’d he send? Not that wife of his, ‘at’s for sure.”

“Because she’s still here in New York?”

“Because she’s just twenty yards or so behind us, hiding behind a maple tree.”

I didn’t look back; I didn’t have to. “I feel like she’s been shadowing me, tell you the truth.”

“You still have some doubt about that?”

“For a while I thought it was just coincidence. Her husband does work right around the corner, and I work with him—”

“And she thinks you’re sleeping with him.”

That one didn’t take long to figure out. “Yeah, she does. Now I suppose she thinks I’m sleeping with you.”

He smiled. “You are. Suppose she tells the bossman, Sheryl? How d’you think he’ll take it?”

Well, considering he sent me to sleep with you as part of a campaign of corporate sabotage…

But I could hardly say that! Instead, I clung to the few shreds of the truth that were still within my reach. “I don’t think he’ll mind,” I said with a sigh.

“You sound disappointed.”

“No, Langdon, not at all, I… I’m really glad that we got together the way we did, you and I. It’s just… I’m getting nervous about all this, people following us around, stocks and shell companies. I studied fashion design, not corporate espionage.”

He shrugged. “Maybe you’re a natural.”

We walked on a bit, a question still clinging to the back of my brain. “So, you met Lori Alister, right, John’s first wife?”

“I did,” Langdon said, “Quite a while back, ‘bout a decade I think, in Brisbane. John was in town for some hornswoggle or anothah. J.A. mention that?”

“And he said she was quite taken with you.” I was watching his reactions, trying to read his expression. But it was calm as always, wry, unfazed. Between him and John, I was beginning to feel like the only one in New York with a temper. Then I remembered everybody else I’d met since my arrival. I went on, “But you and she never, um… y’know, were taken… by each other… or took each other?”

“Did I sleep with J.A.’s Sheila? Nah, no way. I don’t do that kinda thing. Sheryl, I’m hurt that you’d think it of me, dahlin’.”

“Well, I’m not saying you’d do it now,” I tried to explain, “but it’s possible you might have done it then, when you were younger and, how would you say it, randier?”

“That’s more a Brit word, Sheryl, but I take yer meanin’. No hahm, no fahl.”

“And it would give John reason to come after you now, if he likes his revenge served cold, as it were. Even if you never did but he thinks you did—”

“Never did, luv, but I can’t tell ya what ol’ J.A. reckons, that’s for sure.”

“Unbelievable!” Langdon and I turned, the familiar voice not the one I was expecting. Instead, Flynn was there, arms slack at his sides, freckled face getting redder fast. “How many billionaires are you banging at a time?”

“Take it easy, pal.”

“I’m not your pal, you limey dick!”

Langdon twitched. “Limey? Now that’s going a bit far, mate.”

“You know she’s fucking my boss… well, my former boss, before she got me fired!”

I said, “You did that to yourself, Flynn, and now you’re only making things worse.”

“Worse? Worse? How can it get any worse? I’m getting thrown out of my apartment because of you, Sheryl! I’m gonna freeze to death out on the streets because of you!”

“Let me help out, mate.” Langdon pulled out his wallet. “S’rough to be in the cold during the holidays, innit?” He pulled out a few hundred-dollar bills, then a few more. “Let’s make it an even thousand. That’ll get you a train ticket to someplace nice’n warm. Where’re the folks, Flynn?”

“Don’t talk to me like you know me, Hang-dong!” Even while addressing Langdon, Flynn continued to glare at me. “I don’t think with my crotch like some of us here.”

“I hadn’t realized you could think at all,” I quipped.

“Time to piss off, mate.”

“Time for you to suck my dick!” Flynn threw a wild punch at Langdon, but he missed far and wide. Langdon sprang into action, his laser-quick punch smacking with a loud crack into Flynn’s nose. Flynn snapped back with a grunt and his legs gave out as he dropped like a sack of dead cats to the concrete walkway at our feet.

My heart was racing. The moment had come and gone with such terrible swiftness. I fell into Langdon’s arms and looked down at Flynn, quivering on the concrete with blood pouring out of his nose.

“You think he’s okay?”

Langdon looked down at Flynn and pulled out his smartphone. “Better safe than sorry.” Into the phone, Langdon went on, “Oye, I’ve got guy bleeding out in Central Pahk, near the zoo… Did I see what happened? I was what happened!”

***

Langdon’s power and money helped move us quickly through the interview process down at the police station. But his celebrity added another kind of complication. Every one of those beleaguered police officers was eager to avoid anything that made their already difficult job harder. On the other hand, if Langdon was guilty, or could be made to appear guilty, then careers could be made, promotions secured. Good men and women though they were, I knew that any of them would throw Langdon under the bus for their own benefit. And me, if anybody gave a damn about me one way or another.

For them, the most important thing I could be was a witness, but none of them seemed to hold out much hope that I’d say anything to contradict Langdon’s story or implicate him in what had happened with Flynn.

I was interviewed over and over again, once by a gruff-voiced detective reeking of bourbon and cigars, once by a chubby female officer meant to calm me and gain my trust and confidence. But much to their frustration, I gave them the same story every time.

The truth.

Finally they brought in a third officer, who sighed and reported that Langdon had confessed to attacking Flynn first, in a fit of rage. If I went on denying it, he said, I’d be charged with conspiracy, aiding and abetting, accessory to attempted murder, what seemed like half-a-dozen other charges.

My blood ran chill, and my mouth was dry despite the many paper cups full of water I’d been offered throughout the interrogation. Then my bladder began to pound, and I realized that after keeping me waiting hour after hour they were now trying an even more devious tactic.

I knew they were lying about Langdon. I could easily imagine them trying the same tactic on him, telling him I’d described him as being responsible to save my own neck and that he’d better fess up while he still could. But I knew he’d see right through that, and I could almost feel him mentally reaching out to me, telling me not to fall for any of their ruses.

After another few hours I was released without charges. I asked the female officer about Langdon’s status, but she shook her head. “Hard to say, hon. If that boy dies, your Mr. Cane could be looking at manslaughter, up to twenty years—”

“Oh no,” I couldn’t help but mutter.

“They’ll consider him a flight risk, too.”

“A—? But he’s famous. He’s not going to be able to hide out anywhere.”

“Depends on how famous the court decides he is. He’s got a lot of money, and he’s an Australian citizen. I don’t even know if we could extradite him back here for trial.”

I let the bad news sink in as phones rang and conversations muttered around us. “So what does that mean? Will a judge set bail? My God, Langdon’s gotta sit in here until he can post bail?”

“Far as I know, hon. Anything you can do to help out there?”

“Me? I can barely pay my rent!”

“But your man has money, doesn’t he? Can’t you contact his people back home, make some arrangements?”

I gave it a little thought. “He’s probably made that call already.”

“I’m sure he has.” I turned around to see the face that went with the familiar voice. John Alister was glaring down at me, lips pulled tight over those bleached teeth, his eyes glowing with his anger and frustration. “Sheryl, what the hell is going on here?”

“Mr. Alister, I… I’m so sorry. It all happened so fast. There was nothing I could do about it.”

“What happened, exactly? I hear Flynn McGinnis is wrapped up in it? Your little office dalliance?”

“It wasn’t a dalliance,” I said. “We never… dallied, not once. Anyway, he stumbled across us in the park, got all upset. But it wasn’t Langdon’s fault, like I told the police. Langdon was as cool as he could be, patient, relaxed, even tried to help Flynn out, give him money. But once Flynn threw a punch… wham! It was over. I tried to keep things from escalating, Mr. Alister, we both did.”

He looked around the busy station bullpen, full of phones ringing and computer keyboards clacking. He turned and I followed, as usual. “I don’t blame you exactly, Sheryl; obviously there are some things you couldn’t be expected to anticipate or control.”

“Well, yes, thank you for saying so.”

“But that doesn’t mean you didn’t buy me a shitload of trouble, or that you’re not going to have to help pay for it.”

We walked down the hall, my stomach turning. I felt like he was leading me somewhere from which there’d be no escape, to my destiny, my fate, and it would be nothing I’d hoped or dreamed, and everything I’d come to dread.

“How do you mean, Mr. Alister?”

“First of all, I can’t do business with Langdon Cane. That should be obvious even to you.” I didn’t like the dig, but I knew I couldn’t do much about it. I pretty much just had to stand there and take that one, and probably others in its wake.

“And you’re going to have to go public.”

“Go… go public?”

“Sheryl, you’re the reason for the fight! One of my employees is in a forced coma in New York Presbyterian. Cane and I were going to do business; now we can’t. Somebody’s going to have to explain all that and take the brunt.”

“Take the brunt? You mean… I’m going to be fired?”

John huffed. “No, Sheryl, certainly not.” He led me to the registration desk and we turned to face the double glass doors and the crowd of reporters gathered on the steps just beyond. “But you won’t come out of it unscarred.”

He led me through the doors, and the reporters exploded with questions, cameras flashing, video cameras leaning in, mics poking up out of the crowd, fists holding zip drives.

John held his hands out to quiet them, and they dribbled to a silence before the great man on those mighty stone steps as a red cardinal fluttered by overhead.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the failing New York press corps…” They chuckled, and I was renewed and warmed by the confidence of standing beside such a man. But at the same time I worried about what his own needs would inspire him to say next, and what price I’d have to pay. “What can I say about what’s happened here? There’s been a tragic turn of events, and one of my former employees lies fighting for his very life. From what I’ve heard, from what the only eyewitness has said, my own personal assistant, it was a single blow.”

“That’s true,” I said, “it was.” John glared at me, and I backed down, clearing my throat and retreating, ducking down and turning away.

John went on, “This was no extended beating, as many seem to assume. I knew this young man, Flynn McGinnis. He worked for my own company on the very floor my offices are on. He was… is… a troubled young man with a lot of misguided energy. I had to release him from service to my company not long ago, in fact, something that no doubt played a part in his hasty, angry, and misguided actions in Central Park. But I hardly think Mr. Langdon Cane, my friend and colleague, should be held accountable for this young fellow’s hair-trigger temper or eggshell skull. Langdon thought, I believe, that Miss Sheryl Francis here was in some jeopardy, and he did what he apparently felt he had to do to protect her. Personally, I’d have done the same thing. And if Mr. Cane requires any legal or financial aid from me, he only has to ask for it.”

The reporters threw up a frothing sea of questions, and John pointed out a man close to his own age, maybe a bit older, with gray hair and a gravel voice. “Jerry Mancuso, the failing New York Times…” Everybody chuckled, and John nodded.

“How’re the kids, Jerry?”

“Good, Mr. Alister, thank you for asking. May I direct a question at Miss Francis?” John glanced at me, and I knew he was calling me up to the plate. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do or say, but I knew I was being tested and that I couldn’t afford to fail. “Miss Francis, what was your relationship to Mr. McGinnis? There are rumors of an office romance?”

“Any rumors to that effect are completely false,” I said. “Any romantic connection between me and Flynn McGinnis was completely imagined on his part.”

“But you did go out in the past, isn’t that true?”

“We shared an afternoon in Central Park several months ago, without knowing how prescient that would turn out to be.” The reporters chuckled, and I couldn’t help notice John smiling at me through the corner of his mouth.

“Follow up—”

But I was quick to say, “You already followed up, Jerry.” After a stunned—and I must say, impressive—moment, I pierced the tension to say, “But if your colleagues don’t mind, I suppose it’s okay with me.”

They chuckled and nodded, and Jerry Mancuso said, “What, if any, is your personal relationship to Langdon Cane?” The reporters went silent, all eyes falling on me.

I looked around and thought about it, feeling the moment stretching out in front of me. “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I am not a public servant. I have not run for any office, and I do not hold any office. So my personal business will remain just that… personal.”

The reporters threw up another cloud of questions, hovering above us all and clapping like a thundercloud. John pointed somebody else out, and the chubby brunette said, “Leslie Greene, the not-failing New York Herald.” More chuckles rose up to greet the running gag. “There are also rumors about an affair between you and John Alister—”

The happy mood shattered as the other reporters muttered and mumbled and shook their heads. I said, “Let me state for the record that those rumors are absolutely false. In the year or so I’ve worked with John Alister, I have never known him to be less than faithful to his wife.”

And it was true, strictly speaking. Anything else was just ugly guesswork, even if those guesses were becoming increasingly easy to make.

The other reporters raised their hands, and instead of waiting for John to pick one, I pointed out a lovely African American woman.

“April Carlson, the amazingly successful Wall Street Journal…” We all laughed again before she asked me, “You’ve attested to Mr. Cane’s innocence. If Mr. McGinnis dies of his wounds, will you stand by Mr. Cane in court?”

“Of course I will,” I answered without a single moment’s thought, not bothering to glance at John as he looked at me with new understanding, new admiration, but also a new kind of resolve I didn’t quite understand—and didn’t want to understand.

There would be more than time enough for that, and it was coming sooner than I thought.