The Bride Wore Size 12

“Of course not,” Cooper says. “You asked me not to. And I’d never do anything you asked me not to do. ”

I snort sarcastically at this. “Right.” Fischer Hall is straight ahead. I can see the large blue-and-gold New York College flag hanging above the front door, snapping in the fresh breeze. Home will always be where Cooper is, but Fischer Hall is a close second. I increase my pace. “Just wondering, you sound a little far away.”

“Only physically, baby,” he says. “My heart’s always with you. I’ll be home in time for dinner . . . which I assume will be finger sandwiches.”

I try to summon up a laugh at his joke, but I’m feeling a little dispirited because Hamad truly does appear to be following me.

Of course he is. He works in Fischer Hall too. I’m overreacting.

“Ha,” I say. “Okay, great. See you then.”

“Heather,” Cooper says. “Call Canavan over at the Sixth Precinct. Tell him everything you just told me. He may have his hands tied because of the State Department, but I think you should keep him in the loop.”

“Right,” I say. I’ve begun to walk so rapidly, anxious to get away from my shadow, that I’ve reached Washington Square West—at the exact same time, I notice, as Hamad. He’s finished his pretzel and has raised his sunglasses so he can glare at me, much like the way he’d glared at Sarah the other day in the office . . . like he’d very much like to draw his sidearm and shoot.

We both stand at the edge of the park. There’s a line of taxicabs and buses that we must allow to go roaring past before we can cross the street to Fischer Hall. While we wait, Hamad stares at me in a manner I can only describe as extremely hostile, his dark eyes like twin black bullet holes.

“So I’ll see you when you get home,” I say into the phone to Cooper, my gaze still on Hamad.

“Wait,” Cooper says. “You’re calling Canavan now, right?”

“I sure am. Just like you’re not tailing my mom. Bye now.” I turn off my phone before Cooper can say another word. I don’t need to be distracted by my boyfriend’s sexy voice as I’m about to be killed on the street by the bodyguard of the son of a foreign dictator.

“Hello,” I say pleasantly to Hamad as I slip my phone back into my purse. “Have a nice lunch?”

Hamad doesn’t respond, except to continue to glare at me.

“I saw that you were enjoying a pretzel,” I say. “Those are a New York City specialty. We’re quite well known for our soft pretzels. Did you have mustard on yours? I find the mustard really brings out the salt in a pleasantly tangy way.”

Hamad doesn’t say anything. He merely crumples up the napkin the pretzel vendor had given him with his lunch and tosses it without a word into my face. My face.

Then he steps into the middle of Washington Square West, though the traffic there is still flowing steadily. A taxicab comes screeching to a halt barely a foot before striking him, and the New York cabby—who happens to be Punjabi—leans out his window to scream at Hamad, “Hey! What’s the matter with you? You want to get yourself killed? Wait for the light, you idiot!”

Hamad continues haughtily the rest of the way across the street, not seeming to care that he’s become the focus of attention of so many people, including a number of blue-and-gold-shirted orientation leaders outside of Fischer Hall, attempting to gather their flocks of first-year students in order to take them to various afternoon outings.

I lean down to lift the crumpled napkin he’s thrown in my face.

“Hey,” I call to him, dangling the napkin between my index finger and thumb. “Littering is prohibited in New York City. It’s punishable by a fine of up to two hundred and fifty dollars! So please use a trash receptacle next time.” I walk a few steps to a nearby metal trash can and toss the napkin inside it. “See? It’s not that difficult.”

Before entering Fischer Hall, Hamad hurls me a look of such pure and utter contempt that, for a moment, it’s as if the sun has gone behind the clouds.

A chill goes down my spine that’s not unlike the one I felt in Cam Ripley’s office. Maybe I did make a mistake going to the student union after all.

“Heather?” one of the orientation leaders asks me with concern when the traffic slows down enough for me to cross the street. “Are you all right? Was something going on between you and that guy?”

“Oh, no,” I say breezily. Though truthfully, I don’t feel particularly breezy inside. “We were just fooling around.”

“It didn’t look like he was fooling,” she says.

I smile in what I hope is a reassuring manner and go inside, where there is no sign of Hamad. He probably already took an elevator to the fifteenth floor.

Hamad is from another country that has very different customs than ours, I tell myself. Maybe in Qalif it’s an insult for a woman to comment on a man’s condiment preferences.

Or maybe Hamad is a cold-blooded killer and wanted to let me know in no uncertain terms that I’m his next victim.

Either way, it probably isn’t such a bad idea to make that call to Detective Canavan, like Cooper suggested, and mention the incident.

It’s busy in the lobby, as it always is after lunch. The residents who’ve slept in are finally up and around, and their more ambitious peers are on to their afternoon activities, as are (unfortunately) their parents.

“Everything okay?” I ask Pete as I approach the security desk.

“Depends on who you ask,” he answers with a shrug.

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll see,” he says, and smirks as he bites into the tacos I bought for him (well, I paid for, he ordered) from Choza Taqueria on MacDougal.

My heart sinks. “I’m going to find something waiting for me in my office that I’m not going to like, aren’t I?”

He stops smirking and looks surprised. “No, you’re gonna like it. Almost as much as I like these tacos—which is a lot.”

I’m not certain I believe him. Pete might think I’d like finding my mother in my office, but he’d be very wrong.

“Great,” I say.

But when I walk into my office, what I find is a pleasant surprise. There’s an enormous floral arrangement sitting in a crystal vase on my desk, and it’s not one of those chintzy FTD ones either, all carnations and baby’s breath, but gorgeous hydrangeas, hyacinths, roses, and some blooms I can’t even identify, they’re so foreign and rare. Every single bloom is pure white, the bouquet perfectly arranged to fit the expensive square-shaped vase it’s been delivered in. The flowers fill the office with their exotic scent.