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“Champagne?”
A young man paused in front of her, his tray filled with crystal flutes. “Thank you so much,” said Meed, picking up a glass. It was exactly what she needed. The server smiled and moved away. Meed took a small sip and surveyed the room.
In a far corner of the gallery, the man with perfect teeth was chatting with an elegantly dressed couple in front of a huge canvas. He was about the same distance from her now that he had been when she first saw him on Kamenev’s balcony. Even then, her intuition had told her that he had a dark soul. Now she knew just how dark.
The artwork the owner was showing off was bare white, except for a few oddly placed orange triangles near the center. To Meed, it appeared that he might have misjudged the couple’s interest, because they quickly excused themselves and moved toward a grouping of more conservative works. For an awkward moment, the owner was left alone, sipping his red wine. Meed moved in quickly, placing her shoulder just inches from his as she faced the spare abstract on the wall.
“Derivative of Malevich, don’t you think?” said Meed.
The owner turned and took a moment to appraise Meed’s profile. Then he glanced from side to side and leaned toward her in a playful whisper, his lips almost touching her ear.
“I thought the same,” he said. “But the artist draws a crowd.”
“Well,” said Meed, staring at the canvas, “it’s too big for my apartment anyway.”
“You live in Chicago?” asked the owner.
Not a pickup line, exactly. Just an opening move. Smooth, thought Meed. She expected nothing less. She took another slow sip from her glass.
“New York,” she said. “Just visiting.”
“Gregor Mason,” said the owner, turning to extend his hand.
Meed turned toward him and returned his grip with a delicate squeeze of her fingers. When she looked into his face, her mind flashed on a review of his handiwork around the world. Terror. Destruction. Death.
“Belinda,” said Meed. “Belinda Carlisle.”
The owner’s eyes crinkled. “Wait,” he said. “Belinda Carlisle? As in…?”
“The Go-Go’s,” said Meed with a wry smile, as if she’d made this explanation a thousand times before. “Yes. Blame my parents. Big fans.” Meed leaned in toward him, taking in a whiff of his smokey cologne. “But trust me—I can’t sing a note.”
Mason smiled. Those teeth. Almost blinding. Meed let the guide sheet slip from her hand. It floated to the floor near her host’s feet.
“Oh,no!” said Meed, looking down in playful alarm. “Now I won’t know what anything costs!”
“Allow me,” said the owner with a gracious smile. Meed knew he was charmed.
And that made him careless.
As he bent forward, Meed slipped her hand into her pocket. She put the toe of her shoe on the paper so that it took her host an extra half second to tug it free. In that interval, Meed dropped a tiny tablet into his wineglass, where it instantly dissolved.
“We need to get you a new one,” he said as he straightened up, frowning at the scuff mark in the corner of his pricey matte paper. “Annika!” he called out. She was standing near a metal sculpture on the other side of the room. At the sound of her name, she turned and headed over.
“Sorry,” said Meed. “Would you mind?” She handed her host her glass and pointed toward the ladies’ room. “Too much bubbly.”
“Of course,” he said with a slight bow. Meed headed for the restroom, waited for the crowd to obscure the owner’s view, then detoured into the back hallway that led to the kitchen. A catering van was backed up to the open door. Meed slipped out into the loading zone and headed through a narrow alley to a side street. In minutes, she was too far away to hear the screams. She knew that by now, the gallery owner would be vomiting blood all over his expensive floor.
She only wished she could have been there to see it.
CHAPTER 45
“HEY THERE!YOU!You… arestunning!”
As Meed crossed the street a few blocks from the gallery, a frat boy in a Bulls T-shirt was hanging out the window of an Uber. She could hear the slurring in his voice. He was a harmless mess, just cocky and drunk and acting out for his buddies in the back seat. Meed stared straight ahead and kept up her pace as she reached the curb and headed down a side street.
She wanted to avoid crowds, but she needed the fresh air. And time to think. Her heart was still racing. She knew that her gallery mission had been dangerous, that it might attract attention in all the wrong places. Just like her encounter with Rishi. But she was tired of being afraid, tired of doing nothing. She’d spent more than ten years in hiding, pretending to be somebody she wasn’t. More than a decade on her own, just watching the evil in the world grow, knowing where a lot of it was being sown. Mostly she felt helpless against it. But now she had to take action—justhadto. No matter how risky it was for her. If they were coming for her, she had decided, let them come.
Meed tried to focus her mind on Dr. Savage. Her work with him was nearly done, she told herself. And then everything would change. At least that’s what she was counting on. He was her secret weapon. He just didn’t know it yet.
