“Mimi, I know this Barnes guy is all that—”
“I never said—”
“I heard what you were saying between the words.”
Amelia sighs. Yes, Barnes is handsome and cool, rugged yet refined—so okay, maybe he is all that—but it’s beside the point.
“Your perspective is thrown off because he’s sweet-talking you. You need to be careful.”
“Jessie, if you think any man can sweet-talk me after what I’ve been through, you’re crazy. I’m nowhere near ready to date yet.”
“Uh, Mimi? I meant be careful because I’m not sure he’s on the up-and-up about your ring. But if—”
“I know what you meant. I was joking! Obviously!”
“Obviously.”
Amelia imagines Jessie’s wry smile.
“And he is on the up-and-up about the ring,” she adds.
“I hope so, because I was telling Billy about this, and he did some sniffing around, and the good news is that Barnes really is an NYPD missing persons detective.”
“Of course he is.” Though Amelia, too, had done some searching online last night, just to be certain. “What’s the bad news?”
“It doesn’t mean he wasn’t working with Lily Tucker, or whoever she is, to scam you. There are plenty of dirty cops around.”
“Barnes isn’t one of them.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m always right.”
“That’s my line. So listen, Billy also googled a description of your ring. You know what pops up first? That ad you placed looking for your parents, with a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward. I bet Brandy tried to look up the ring’s value because she needed money, stumbled across your ad, and realized it was worth a lot more than any pawnshop would give her. So she came to you posing as a client.”
“But why the little girl who was abandoned in Connecticut in 1990?”
“Because she knew being a foundling would strike a chord with you, just like it did between you and me. Instant bond. Instant trust.”
“No, I know, but why that particular foundling?”
“Probably random.”
“I don’t think so. Hang on. I’m going to send you something.” She lowers her phone, finds two photos she snapped, and texts them to Jessie’s phone. As she explains her hunch, her friend gasps.
“If you’re right, Mimi, then you need to report this.”
“I will,” she assures her friend.
But not until she’s told Stockton Barnes.
Gypsy rolls over in bed and opens her eyes.
The suite’s bedroom is cast in shadow now. A fat pigeon waddles on the sill outside the window. Beyond, storm clouds hang low along the geometric skyline.
Why had she been so homesick for New York City when she’d first arrived in Cuba thirty years ago? It’s nothing but gray—buildings, weather, the damned bird, even the modern suite’s décor.
She’d give anything to be back in Baracoa, where architecture, wildlife, and natural landscape are drenched in vibrant color.
A fingertip trails along her shoulder like a spider, and she flinches.
“Good morning.”
She turns her head. His face is inches from hers.
“It’s afternoon.”
He glances at his watch. He’d pretended to love it, because it was a gift from her. It’s a Breitling. Old-school, to replace his smart watch. Distractions are dangerous.
“So? We don’t have to be anyplace.” He yawns, stretches for the remote on the nightstand, and turns on the television.
Donald Trump, the president elect, is standing at a podium, talking.
“He’s the devil.”
Gypsy sighs. “No, he isn’t.”
“Trust me. I’ve met him.”
“So have I.” And I’ve met the devil, too, and he wasn’t Donald Trump.
She points at the TV. “He’s King Cyrus. Winning the election was a preordained miracle. Biblical prophecy told us that God would anoint him to subdue nations, and—I’ve already explained this to you. Signs are everywhere. Only the chosen ones recognize them.”
“Quoting your father again?”
“My father has nothing to do with this. You’ve read Isaiah 45.” She gestures at the television. “He’s the forty-fifth president. A sign. Judgment Day is coming. But we don’t need to hear Cyrus rant. Turn it off.”
“I’ll just turn the channel.”
“I said turn it off.” She snatches the remote from him, aims, and the screen goes black.
“Hey!” He reaches for it, and she throws it across the room. Grinning as if it’s a game, he reaches for her instead.
She evades him, sitting up and pulling on her robe. “You already had your pleasure, my friend. Time for business.”
“I’d say we both had our pleasure.”
“Well, you know what they say. All play and no work makes Jack a dull—”
“I’m not Jack, and that’s not what they say. It’s all work and no play.”
“That’s not what I say. And you should know by now that what I say, goes.”
He sits up, stoops to snatch his black tee shirt from the floor, and yanks it over his head, then catches her staring at him. He goes still, uncertainty in his eyes, the shirt cowled around his neck.
“Sometimes I wonder just how committed you are,” she says.
“To you? One hundred percent! You know that I—”
“To me, and to our destiny. We’ve got important work to do, and I wonder if you—”
“I’m with you, baby. All the way. You know that.”
She knots the robe around her waist and walks to the window. From here, she can see the Park Avenue penthouse where Perry once lived with his wife and daughters. There are potted trees on the little terrace now, a valiant, verdant patch in the bleak cityscape.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary . . .
Gypsy hasn’t thought of her in years—the little old lady who’d lived in a small house across from her Bronx high school. Her name might have been Mary, or maybe it was just what everyone called her. Mary, Mary—out there rain or shine, tending her doormat-sized flower patch. Chrysanthemums grew there in the fall, and crocuses in the spring . . .
Gypsy winces, pushing away the memory of a boy who’d once said her eyes were the same shade.
“I need you to find someone,” she says, her back still to the man in the bed.
“Someone else?”
“Yes. Her name is Margaret Costello.”
“Isn’t she—”
“Yes. She is.”
“But that was a long time ago. I thought we were—”
“If you’re not willing, I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself.”
“You sure about that?”
“I’m sure about everything I do.” She turns to regard him through narrowed eyes, irked to see his phone in his hand.
He’s always checking the damned thing, even in mid conversation. She’s told him how she feels about that, and he’s reminded her that technology is crucial to their plan.
He’s right, of course. From surveillance software to online records, everything they need is quite literally at their fingertips. It’s quite remarkable.