She couldn’t believe it. He’d found her. What she had hoped for. What she had dreaded. She felt like sobbing, screaming, flailing about her room, but she sat still and silent, wondering what to do.

When she realized she had no choice, that he would find out no matter what, she reached for her cell phone and punched in the number.

“Alexis, dear,” the man said, “I have been waiting for your call.”

94

I held up two shirts, one blue, one white, not that it mattered. I couldn’t concentrate on anything since I’d left Alex, surely not what I should wear to see a Rembrandt print I hadn’t cared about in the first place.

I’d found her. Alexandra Green. Alexis Verde.

And she had been spying on me.

The idea of it, that this woman I could not stop thinking about, this woman I thought I loved, even now, was someone hired to watch me.

I chose the blue shirt for no reason, my mind only on Alex—who she was and if she was still lying to me. Of course she was; I’d seen it on her face. But about what, exactly? And why hadn’t I recognized the lies before? Because I’d been dazzled by her, blinded. Maybe that was all it was, dazzle, not love.

My mind was spinning, looking for an answer, an explanation. I had to know. I wasn’t ready to give up or let her go.

I got dressed on autopilot, decided that after I saw the Rembrandt, I would go to her apartment, stand outside all day and all night if necessary. I didn’t care how long. I had to convince her to tell me everything, to trust me, even if I could not trust her.

95

Riverview Terrace was a row of six elegant townhouses on a cul-de-sac at the end of East Fifty-Ninth Street, a private drive that ran north from Sutton Square, fronted by a plush, rectangular garden, locked and gated, with spectacular views of the East River and that sculpture in the sky, the Queenboro Bridge—a part of the city I had never seen before. It looked out of another century, and undoubtedly it was. No din of traffic, no cars or buses whizzing by, just the lapping of water and an occasional foghorn.

The iron gate buzzed open, and Baine’s voice, hollow through the intercom, instructed me on how to find his house, describing an intricately carved wooden door.

I imagined a servant would answer, but it was Baine, looking a combination of elegant and relaxed in a navy sweater and slacks, Top-Siders on his feet.

I stepped into a foyer of dark wood and marble floors. “I had no idea this neighborhood even existed,” I said.

“You can pass it a dozen times and not even know it’s here,” Baine said. “It’s totally hidden from the world, which is why I like it.”

Who wouldn’t? I took in the wide curving staircase before me, the oak banister and richly carpeted stairs. “You have a beautiful place.”