Page 142 of Two Kinds of Stranger

To a company that chartered private jets.

Logan knew that if things went south, he had to end it. Only way to be sure that Flynn and his crew wouldn’t come looking for him, was to make them believe he was already dead. That leap from the bridge was never going to be fatal, not for someone who knew how to dive, not for someone who had conditioned his body, for years, to survive in cold water without going into shock.

He’d come home to the apartment in the early hours of that morning, told Grace he had cut his arm in a fall, and that things had gone badly in his meeting with that difficult and dangerous client. They had to get out of the city.

Grace had already packed a bag, like he’d told her to.

They flew first to Barbados and spent a few weeks there. Now, in their second week in South Africa, Logan had hired this small yacht so they could be alone.

He enjoyed the solitude of the ocean.

He heard Grace padding toward him. He turned round and looked up from his seat, shielding his eyes from the sun.

‘Here you go,’ she said, and handed him a glass of whiskey with ice.

‘Nikka Yoichi,’ she said, ‘your favorite.’

‘Where did you get this?’ he asked, taking a drink.

‘I ordered it from the hotel. I paid a little more than you normally would. They had to order it from Cape Town. I figured you’d enjoy it out here. It might help you relax.’

‘Thank you,’ said Logan, and took another sip.

He relaxed his shoulders, closed his eyes and breathed in and out, feeling the gentle rocking of the ocean against the boat.

He was the luckiest man alive, he thought.

He had the woman he loved. He had money. And no one was ever going to find him. He had faked his own death. No one comes looking for a dead man.

This would be the start of a new life. A peaceful one.

A life where he would never feel alone.

He thought back to that day when they’d met on the subway. She had looked so beautiful wearing that floral print dress, and her bright green cardigan. The soles worn thin on her Converse. He wondered what would have happened if he had not spoken to her that day, if she had not tried to save that passenger’s noodles from falling onto the subway car floor. How different his life would have been.

‘What are you smiling about, handsome?’ asked Grace.

‘I was just thinking about the day I first laid eyes on you in the subway car. You looked so cute in that dress, and that cardigan.’

He drained the last of the Nikka Yoichi. The salt in the air had altered the taste, somehow enriching the flavors.

‘Oh, I wasn’t wearing that, was I?’

He opened his eyes and saw her walking past him. As she did, her fingers traced the scar on his arm from the shrapnel kicked up by Bloch’s magnum. He saw her touching the scar, but he couldn’t feel it. He guessed there was some nerve damage there.

Grace sat down in the seat opposite him. Damn, she was beautiful.

‘Oh, you definitely were. I’ll never forget it.’

‘I think you’re not remembering correctly, darling. When we first saw each other, I was wearing blue jeans and a tight little white tee. It was summer and it was hot.’

Logan’s smile faded.

‘What are you talking about? I saw you on the train in November. You saved that woman’s noodles, remember?’

‘That was much later, darling. You’d been following me for months by then.’

‘What?’