Pavel nods.
The next afternoon,I’m jittery as I send Mark a message.
Coffee break at two?
He replies in the affirmative a few minutes later, and at two o’clock on the dot, we’re sitting at a table in the small café tucked beside the building lobby. He’s fidgety, tapping his fingers on his cup, eyes never quite meeting mine. I try to keep the conversation casual, letting it sit under the guise of a superior checking in, so he can settle into the illusion of comfort.
Mark is tall and slim, with a head of dark, curly hair he keeps pushing away from his glasses. He’s young, maybe a year or two out of college, just a few years younger than me.
“I heard you were working late yesterday,” I say, carefully watching his reaction. “Your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed, you know. You stay later than most of the paralegals. Don’t work yourself too hard; the job can suck your soul dry, if you let it.”
Mark brushes the ever-present curl from his forehead, his cheeks slightly pink at the praise. Or maybe it’s embarrassment? Guilt? “Yeah, I had to finish the Owens file. But it’s okay. I like the work, and I like keeping busy.”
The Owens file was closed out the day before.
I sip my coffee, masking my nerves, as Mark and I continue to chat. Mark talks fast, but I also know that’s just who he is. He’s always in a hurry, so that isn’t necessarily a sign of guilt. I wonder if I’m going to get anything out of him today. Is he even capable of being the mole? Or are we looking in the wrong direction?
“So how are you feeling?”
Mark’s question jerks me out of my spiraling anxieties. “Sorry?”
“How are you feeling?” he repeats. I tilt my head, wondering what kind of answer the paralegal is looking for.
“You know, the doctor’s appointments for—” He mimes pregnancy with a rounding gesture of his hands over his stomach. My own stomach flips.
“Oh, you’ve noticed?” I ask nonchalantly.
He shrugs and sips at his coffee. “I noticed your appointments on your calendar.”
“Oh, got it.”
Mark is the mole, and he’s talking to Andrey!The last piece of the puzzle slips into place.
I never put where I was going on the calendar. I didn’t want to tip Dmitri off, and I had yet to tell anyone in the office about the pregnancy. There is no way Mark would know about those appointments. He had to have followed me.
I make the excuse that I have to speak to someone in compliance and head back to the office.
I call Pavel.
“Did you get anything?”
“He knows things he shouldn’t. I think we’re on the right path.”
A terrible realization settles in.
I’ve just signed the man’s death warrant.
27
DMITRI
Brakes squeal from a delivery truck as traffic inches along between lights. Multiple languages whirl around me. There’s laughter from a guy talking too loudly on his phone. A tourist stops in the middle of the sidewalk to take a picture, busy New Yorkers moving around him, but not without dirty looks and annoyed mutters.
A jackhammer and a siren clash in the distance. A horn honks, and the skeletal branches of the trees rattle in the stiff breeze. Lights flash from a fancy hot dog cart, people huddled in coats, scarves, and hats, as they wait in line, their breath coming out in puffs of white smoke.
The night air is thin and electric. My thoughts are static, scattering like the neon shards reflected in the puddles at my feet that will turn to treacherous ice by morning.
The proof feels cold and heavy in my chest. As Pavel waits by the open door of the SUV, Clara is beside me, her gaze sharp and unreadable, her arms folded, jaw set. I know that look; she’s been thinking, calculating. About what, though, I don’t know.
