She was not quite ready to admit that she had not seen Miranda at the airport. She thought it unlikely that she had, but a small part of her still believed (or at least tried to believe) that she had indeed spotted her and the woman had managed to disappear. It was that same part of her that had the distinct sense she had been tailed in Manhattan and someone was watching her. And so she wanted to learn if there was any way that Ani could check the passenger manifests of the flights that morning into Fiumicino and see if there was a traveler with that name on a plane. She also wanted to ask Ani this: if it was Miranda, why would she be here? It couldn’t be a coincidence. It had to mean that the woman had followed her to Rome.
She tried to recall details of Miranda’s face from her visit to Alex’s hotel suite—her eyes, her lips, the way she was wearing her hair—piecing them together with the person she had glimpsed that morning in the passport queue. The truth was, she had already been well beyond blitzed by the time she had met Miranda in Dubai. How accurate was her memory, really? And now she had just accosted some poor, innocent woman who simply had a passing resemblance to the individual she’d met one time in circumstances that were (as they frequently were in her life) clouded by alcohol. Meanwhile, it was possible that the actual woman had eluded her and gotten away.
“Late last month,” she began, “I spent the night in Dubai with a man I had met on an airplane earlier that day. I was in his hotel room. After I left the next morning to catch my flight to Paris, someone murdered him. And that woman I was trying to talk to in baggage…she reminded me of someone who had come to his hotel room the night before.”
Marco raised an eyebrow: “She spent the night, too, so it was the three of you?”
“No. Not at all. She just came by for a drink. Then she left.”
“What’s her name?” he asked.
“I don’t know her last name. But she said in Dubai that her first name was Miranda.”
“And you attacked a passenger this morning because you thought it was her?”
“I didn’t attack anyone. That woman with the pepper spray overreacted and attacked me.”
Marco and Tommaso exchanged a glance, and instantly she felt judged. Tommaso looked at something on his laptop. “I will rephrase,” said Marco. “And so you approached a passenger this morning because you thought it was her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was trying to stop her.”
“Stop her from what?” Marco inquired.
“From getting away. She—”
Marco put one hand up, palm flat, quieting her. “Please,” he said firmly. Then he leaned forward and clasped his hands together on the table. “Please, let’s start again. If you don’t mind, let’s go back to the beginning. To Dubai.”
“Do I need to call the American embassy? Do I need a lawyer?”
“Why? We’re not arresting you. The woman who you…approached…isn’t even here. She’s probably left by now. She’s probably begun her vacation here in Italy.”
“She left?”
“Yes.”
Again Cassie felt a surge, as if she had just pressed her foot down hard on the treadle that powered her angst. The fact the woman had fled meant something. Wouldn’t a normal person have stayed? “Can you find her?”
“I doubt it.”
“Will you try? Maybe use the security camera footage and the witness descriptions? You must have both.”
“Her back was to the camera in that section. It’s not as well lit as we’d like. And she was wearing a beautiful hat and sunglasses. We can’t even say for sure what color her hair was.”
“It was blond.”
“Fine. You think it was blond.”
“And you have witnesses. God, you have that nut ball with the pepper spray!” she said, and she heard a quiver in her voice. She knew that sound: it was exhaustion and frustration mixing rather toxically together. She considered adding, illegal pepper spray, because pepper spray—especially one disguised as a lipstick—wasn’t allowed in a carry-on bag.
“We do,” he answered. “And they—including the American with the pepper spray—can describe you beautifully. And, yes, they can describe the way you threw yourself on the lady.”
“I didn’t throw myself on her.”
Again the two men glanced at each other. She realized that while they weren’t going to arrest her, neither were they going to help her.
“Can we go back to Dubai?” Marco asked. “Tell us about that night.”
“I think I should just go.”
“We want to understand what happened.”
“Then call the U.S. embassy or let me call them. I’m too tired to talk to you right now without someone from the embassy with me.”
“It will take at least an hour—maybe more—for them to get here. And that assumes someone is available. I’m sure you don’t want to wait that long.”
“Then I’m just going to leave, thank you very much. You said you’re not arresting me.”
“No.” There was a long beat, and then Marco lifted from the table a photocopy of her passport and waved it almost dismissively. “But we know exactly who you are, Ms. Bowden. Interpol knows exactly who you are.”
“Then why did you waste my time asking me about Dubai?” she snapped. “I’m exhausted, and I was just attacked!”
“When people are exhausted, they are often the most cooperative. The most talkative.”
“So, what’s next? Waterboarding?”
He shrugged. “Your country does that. Not mine.”
“I’m leaving.”
“As you wish,” he said. He asked her for the name of the hotel where she was staying and her cell phone number, which he wrote down on the copy of her passport. Tommaso typed it into the laptop.
“How long will you be in Rome?” he asked.
“Until tomorrow. Late morning.”
“Flight two-ten to JFK, right?”
“Right.”
He nodded a little smugly. “I know your airline’s schedule well. I know most airlines’ schedules well.” Then he stood and Tommaso stood, and so she rose from her chair as well. “We’ll call you today if we need to talk to you again. But Ms. Bowden?”
“Yes?”
“Please, for your own sake, don’t attack—pardon me, approach—strange women while you’re here.” He was smiling, but there was a cloying, ominous lilt to his voice, and she felt his words were more threat than advice.
23
Airports fascinated Elena because of the way everyone was wired when they were there. Everyone was amped. There were the passengers who were nervous and tense, stressed because they were worried—and this was the anxiety spectrum—about their connections or they were white-knuckle flyers or they were on high alert for the heat and light and the eardrum-shattering thunder from a terrorist bomb. There were the more frequent flyers who were fretting about connections or upgrades, and those who were annoyed by the inconveniences of clear plastic three-one-one bags and metal detectors and having to step from their wingtips and sneakers. (Her own frustration? She was always piqued by the idiots who put their filthy shoes in the bins with their coats and bags. She cringed when she’d have to layer a cashmere sweater into a plastic tray that a moment ago had been cheek-to-cheek with soles that regularly stood before urinals.)
Elena had slipped the straw hat back into her duffel even before she had exited baggage. She considered ducking into the ladies’ room and pulling on a different wig, but she knew that Bowden wasn’t going to be leaving the airport anytime soon. There was nothing more to worry about.
The irony that the flight attendant had spotted her in passport control in Rome was not lost on her. Viktor was certain to say something. He might do more than that. Far more. And yet the possibility of running into Bowden was what had led her to fly out of Newark instead of JFK in the first place.