Rola said, “Woman with gray hoodie and white Adidas?”
Wilde nodded as they both pin-dropped their location to Hester. Hester in turn pin-dropped Tim’s. From what Wilde could see, it would take Tim approximately fifteen minutes to get to the rendezvous stop. Time to stall. He went over his plan with Rola. Like most decent plans, this one was frighteningly simple. He needed them to think that he and Rola were just talking. He made sure they stayed in places where there were plenty of pedestrians, so whoever was following them couldn’t make a move. He also tried to duck in and out of tree-lined paths, figuring that they probably had someone watching him from long range and it would be hard to see him that way.
“Guy with blue baseball cap and sunglasses who keeps pretending to study his phone,” Rola said.
Wilde nodded.
They headed north past the Delacorte Theater with its horseshoe-shaped seating, home of the famed Shakespeare in the Park and the spectacular stage backdrop of Turtle Pond.
Rola said, “Remember when we saw The Tempest here?”
He did. They’d been in high school then, and a foster-kid foundation had secured tickets for the “underserved” in north Bergen County. He’d sat in that very theater with Rola by his side. They were living in the Brewer house together at the time, and they’d both expected to be somewhat bored—Shakespeare in the Park?—but the production, with that Turtle Pond backdrop, mesmerized them.
“Young woman with the ponytail and North Face backpack.”
“You’re good,” he said.
“So young. She must be new.”
“Could be.”
“Oh, and the businessman with the newspaper. Newspaper. That’s old-school.”
“I missed him, but don’t point him out to me.”
“Sheesh, Wilde, do you think I’m an amateur?”
“No.”
“I’ve been doing this longer than you have.”
“You’re right,” Wilde said. He stopped for a second and looked at the Delacorte Theater. He remembered The Tempest so well. Patrick Stewart of Star Trek fame had played Prospero. Carrie Preston had been Miranda, Bill Irwin and John Pankow had been hilarious as Trinculo and Stephano.
“Did you keep the program?” Wilde asked.
“From The Tempest? You know I did.”
He nodded. Rola saved everything. “I’m really sorry,” Wilde said.
“For what?”
“For not always being there,” he said. “I love you. You’re my sister. You’ll always be my sister.”
“Wilde?”
“What?”
“Are you dying?”
He smiled. It was an odd thing to be thinking about, in the vortex of all this weirdness, but perhaps that was the only time he could be honest with himself. In the quiet, it was easy to push away and bottle up. In a storm of chaos, it was sometimes easier for Wilde to put himself in the eye and see the obvious.
“I know that you love me,” Rola said.
“I know that you know.”
“Still,” she said, “it’s nice to hear. Do you plan on vanishing again?”
“I don’t think so.”
“If you do, send me a text once a week. That’s all I ask. If you don’t, I know you don’t love me.”
They started east toward the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As they did, the crowd increased. They were almost out of the park now. That would leave them on Fifth Avenue and exposed if the police were ready and had a presence there. Wilde doubted that they would be ready, but once on Fifth Avenue, they picked up the pace and zig-zagged through the throngs. They ducked into the Met’s street-level “members only” entrance. Rola bought a membership every year to support the museum. She took her kids a lot. They passed security. As they crossed the corridor, Rola said, “Bye,” and got on the ticket line. Wilde didn’t miss a beat. He hit the stairwell and headed down to the underground parking garage. No one was behind him.
A minute later, Wilde was lying on the back floor of Hester’s limo. Tim pulled out.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled into the garage of Hester’s building. Hester was waiting for them.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. Oren is upstairs in my office. He wants to talk to you.”
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Hester pointed to a chair. “Sit over there, please,” she said to Oren Carmichael. “Wilde, you sit over here next to me.”
Oren Carmichael moved to one side of the long conference table, Hester and Wilde on the other. They were in a glass-enclosed office atop the Manhattan skyline. This office was mostly used for legal depositions, and Hester had made sure that Oren sat where the deponent normally did. Wilde didn’t think this adversarial positioning was by accident.