What a lovely person she is.
9
AVERY
PLAYLIST: FORTUNATE SON – CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL
Isit behind the wheel of my lioness, and for just one second, I stare down 5th Avenue until I bark out a laugh.
I open the secret box under my seat, pull the burner from it, and call Rossi.
“And?” he asks. “Did it work?”
“Rossi,” I say sternly, before I crack into another laughter. “Of course, it worked. They’re searching the coordinates right now. They were both tracking me the entire time, and none of them noticed. It was fabulous. Let’s meet at the bench. I got a gift for you.”
“You got it!”
“Rossi,” I say and drive off, letting my lioness roar. “When didn’t I ever get something?”
His laughter resounds through the speaker, and I have to join in.
“Wait till they find that coin.”
“I can’t wait for them to find it. It’ll hopefully make her trust me enough to get them to back off for a while. Did you get anything new about the hat?”
“No. She’s as gone as the wind. But I have all tabs open.”
“She won’t be able to hide forever,” I say. “She will go for that effigy, and she will find it was me, and she will have no other choice but to come for me. Until then, I’ll have our friends from the FBI wrapped around my finger.”
“You better be right.”
“Rossi,” I say. “I’m always right.”
He laughs.
“Of course you are, Princess.”
I grin.
“See you in thirty.”
Half an hour later, I sit down on my bench at Madison Square Garden with a view of the Top of the Empire State Building.
Rossi already sits on his bench, the one next to mine, with a dirty, oversized, beige coat on, worn-down shoes, and overall looks like the average homeless person.
“What a lovely evening,” he tells me. “The air is, for Manhattan, beautifully clear, is it not?”
I grin. So the coast is clear, and the one surveillance camera with a view of our bench blacked out.
“Happy late birthday,” I say, and hand Rossi a silver ornament wrapped in a brown bag
“My birthday is four months away,” he says.
“Whatever,” I say.
He risks a brief glance inside.
“Woman!” he says. “I’m gonna cry. That’s why you wanted to do it!”
