The heaviness of his soaked jeans slowed him down as he rounded the corner, wheezing from anxiety and suspense. He stared down the sidewalk as far as he could see, wiping away the raindrops sliding through his eyelashes. But that bright lure, her bobbing purple umbrella, had vanished.
* * *
The next day, Trent sat in Dopp’s office, brainstorming strategies to proceed. Next to Arianna’s file on the desk lay a copy of The New York Times. The top of the fold showed a photo of New York’s governor, Warren Vance, ducking into a black car with a grim expression, surrounded by a gaggle of reporters who were thrusting their recorders at him. The headline read, STATE BUDGET NEGOTIATIONS COLLAPSE AMID REVELATIONS OF VANCE’S IMPROPRIETY. Trent picked up the article and read:
ALBANY—New evidence, including e-mail and phone messages retrieved by The New York Times, appears to reveal that Democratic Gov. Warren E. Vance channeled state funds in an attempt to tarnish the reputation of Senate majority leader Chuck R. Windra, the state’s top Republican, who has opposed the governor on multiple issues during preliminary budget discussions. The budget has been tabled indefinitely, pending investigation by the state attorney general.
Trent looked up and rolled his eyes.
“This is why I hate politics. It’s so full of this corrupt crap.” He threw the newspaper back on the desk and it slid toward Dopp, who stopped it with one hand.
“I’ve never liked Vance so much as I do today,” Dopp said.
Trent raised one eyebrow incredulously, then both.
Dopp leaned forward, putting his elbow on the newspaper. “With all of his corrupt crap, Vance has done us a huge favor: He’s bought us time. As long as the budget talks are stalled, we have that much more time to crack Arianna, and then bring her down in a very public way.” Dopp raised his eyebrows, and Trent knew he was thinking of certain lawmakers’ claims that they were a black hole of tax dollars; but if they could loudly bring down a nefarious doctor, they might be granted an extra life during the budget talks.
“I just need to get her to feel close enough to trust me,” Trent said.
They discussed ways to ease her into socializing with him in a way that was more than a workout but less than a date, which she clearly did not want. If Trent suggested that each bring along a friend to a group dinner, it would shake off the romantic vibe. All the better if his “friend” was someone privy to the mission—like Jed—who could vouch for Trent’s strength of character in front of Arianna.
“How else to deepen her trust, but to have someone reassure her?” Dopp said.
“I’ll set it up,” Trent promised.
“On another note, besides finding out where she’s going, I want you to get her to invite you inside her apartment, so you can see if there’s anything unusual going on there.”
“Unusual, you mean, like a home lab? Nobody’s done that for years.”
“It’s still possible. If she is doing something illegal with those embryos, she needs to have a space to do it, and it’s not her clinic—that’s covered. No judge will give us a warrant to search her apartment at this point, so it’s up to you to get her to let you in of her own accord.”
“Which basically means getting her to trust me.”
“Right. It’s like a hammer and a nail; see, right now they’re lined up straight, and now you’ve got to whack it in. Might take a few swings before you get there, but just keep trying.”
But why else would she invite me in, Trent thought, unless she wanted sex—and then what?
Throughout his twenties, while his friends were indulging their sexual appetites, he had prided himself for his restraint, always waiting to sleep with a woman until they were both ready, whether it was two weeks or two months—a behavior that usually impressed women rather than insulted them. Whenever the priest at church would speak of abstinence before marriage, though, Trent would feel a guilty tightness in his abs, knowing it was the one teaching of Catholicism he could not follow, a reflection of his too-weak convictions and too-strong desires. Once he had broken the rule at age eighteen—in his freshman dorm, single bed, first love—he rationalized that it was too late to be abstinent anyway.
I will not use Arianna, he thought. But what if she wants to sleep with me? The possibility of needing to escape gracefully from such an awkward situation intimidated him.
But she won’t, he thought, she doesn’t even want to date me. A pause as the tide in his mind swept over this reassuring voice, carrying it away. What swept back was a conundrum: But if she doesn’t want me, she won’t invite me into her apartment.… So how in the world am I going to get in?
* * *
The frosted martini glass in front of Arianna was nearly empty. She picked it up, swirled the magenta liquid, and then drained it all into her mouth in one tart trail of cranberry vodka.
“That,” she announced to Trent and Jed, setting the glass down, “was the perfect martini. And I’m not even a drinker. What did you guys slip in there to make it so good?”
Across the booth, Trent and Jed exchanged pretend conspiratorial grins. All three leaned back, sated with food and drink, soaking up the ambience of La Lanterna. Live jazz ricocheted off exposed brick walls. In the fireplace, flames crackled and shivered. The restaurant was a Greenwich Village staple of classy nightlife, just one block away from her clinic—the reason Trent said he had invited her to come along.
When he had called the other night, she was scrutinizing the clinic’s records for errors, methodically going over pages of patient information alone in her office. The numbers were blurring on paper like hovering black
