Mistress

Chapter 65

I need to kill some time before my next stop, so I find a bar on 15th Street and nurse a beer and watch CNN on the screen above the bartender. The sound is muted, but the closed-captioning is telling me that the Russians have detained a person they’re calling a spy from the neighboring republic of Georgia and are lodging an official protest. The Russians and Georgians had an armed conflict back in 2008, and the fear, apparently, is that fires are rekindling.

I generally favor peace over war as a rule, but if another armed conflict broke out over there, maybe the Russians would call back the guys who are chasing me with machine guns. A guy can dream.

At midnight, I make the short walk to the intersection of 15th Street and Caroline Street. Anne Brennan lives on the ground floor of the three-story brick condo building there, and the lights are on, so I assume she’s awake.

I take a good look around first. I don’t think anyone’s tracking me right now, but they might be watching Anne, hoping to find me. I could be walking into a spiderweb.

But I have no way of knowing. I don’t see anyone in the parked cars along 15th Street, and the people strolling along the streets seem to be moving on to other destinations. None of them are wearing signs that say SURVEILLANCE or BAD GUYS, so I have that going for me, but the truth is, if someone is watching Anne Brennan’s house right now, I have no way of knowing about it. And I have to talk to Anne in person. So I have to take the risk.

But I don’t have to be stupid about it. I head back down Caroline Street, away from Anne’s place, and do a wide circle until I’m the next street over and walking through an alley up to the rear of Anne’s building. The whole thing is a twenty-minute exercise, but it’s worth the peace of mind.

Though Anne lives on the ground floor, there’s a ten-foot fence bordering the back of the property, which I could probably climb if I really wanted to. But I don’t really want to. So I dial her number on one of the many prepaid phones I have.

“I’m in the alley behind your place,” I say. “Can I come in for a minute? Don’t turn on any lights near the back of the house that aren’t already on. Don’t draw attention.”

Not five minutes later, she opens the back door and hustles back to the gate to let me in. She seems more nervous than I am. But she looks a lot cuter. She’s wearing a pair of sandals and an oversize button-down pajama top that reaches her knees.

Coming in from the rear of her condo, I see her bedroom for the first time and my heart does a little skip. Her kitchen is small but spotless and orderly. She leads me into the living room, where the intruders attacked her the other night.

She sits on a folded leg on the couch and looks at me with those wide chocolate eyes. Wearing that tent of a pajama top, she looks like a teenager rather than someone in her early thirties. She also looks to be a nervous wreck, for which I can hardly blame her.

“I’ll be brief,” I say. I take her hand, which she willingly permits. “Anne, I want you to leave town. I want you to take a vacation. The airfare and hotel are on me. I can afford it, so don’t argue.”

“Why do you want-”

“Because I’m not going to let this go, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. I still don’t really know what’s going on, but I know it’s something very big and explosive. I can’t protect you, Anne.”

She thinks for a moment, then places her free hand over mine. “And who’s protecting you?” she asks.

“I’ll be fine,” I say with a confidence I absolutely do not possess. “A reporter has some tools at his disposal.”

She almost smiles as she looks me over, appraising me. “That’s not very convincing, Ben. You’re not safe, are you?”

“I’m not safe if I sit still, either. I don’t have a choice. You do, Anne. You’re not involved in this. Your only crime is being Diana’s friend.”

She looks down at our joined hands. I wonder what it means to her. I wonder what it means to me. I catch a scent of lavender and feel myself, against all good judgment, drawing closer to her on the couch.

Then she draws closer to me.

We draw closer to each other.

This isn’t going the way I’d planned.