New York City
April 17
Reynard’s man, Caleb Cain, sat on the park bench trying to focus on his tattered copy of The Andromeda Strain and not how much the curly wig itched. He settled the glasses on the prosthetic nose and brushed the muffin crumbs from his scrubs. Doctors rarely wore scrubs outside the hospital for sanitary reasons, but when people saw a guy in a park wearing scrubs, they immediately thought medical professional: the presence reassuring and above suspicion.
Calliope Garland had been playing with her dog for over an hour. The animal was flawlessly obedient and greeted passing strangers with a wag of her stubby tail and her front paws down, ready to play. The dog was friendly. Good to know.
Calliope had done some yoga and some tai chi. She played fetch with the dog and joined some guys tossing a frisbee. She turned cartwheels in the grass, and, Caleb surmised, hunted for a four-leaf-clover while the dog lolled in the shade. She’d seemed oblivious to the leering glances of passersby and was polite but dismissive of anyone brave enough to approach her.
She was currently standing in line at a vendor cart. The suited man behind her in line gestured to the overcast sky and Calliope turned around to make polite small talk. Caleb felt the crawl in his gut. He glanced around, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Pedestrians moved at a steady flow. Traffic inched along. When he returned his gaze to the vendor cart Calliope was paying for a bottled water, but the guy in the suit was gone. Had he gotten in line just to hit on her? Caleb stifled a chuckle. He had certainly gone to greater extremes himself to talk to a beautiful woman than simply following her to a hot dog cart.
He watched Calliope finish her water and give the last few inches to her dog. Then she tossed the bottle in the recycle bin and headed for home. Caleb made a notation of the time and duration of the walk in the back of his novel, waited a few minutes, then took another route to her home to continue his reconnoiter.
As he emerged from the park, Caleb saw the same suited man standing on the corner, scrolling through his phone. A moment later a blacked-out SUV pulled up and the man climbed in the passenger seat. He surmised it was the FBI or some other federal agency. Interesting. Also not surprising. From what Caleb understood of the situation at Gentrify Capital Partners, a lot of people had a reason, billions of reasons, to be interested in Calliope Garland.