She stared at him in astonishment. This man was insane. He believed her father was dead. He thought her brother had never even existed. And now he was trying to convince her that she wasn’t from Pakistan.
“You’re insane.” The words left her mouth before she could consider them.
He lifted his dark eyebrows at her. “You think so?”
She nodded her head definitively.
“It doesn’t matter. Your assignment is finished. You can head back to New York now.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
Her words made him stop. He looked up at her abruptly. “What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I have no identification. No credit card. No cash. I can’t go anywhere. I can’t do anything.”
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a padded envelope. He handed it to her. “Everything you need is inside.”
“Are you telling me that I had no identification on purpose?”
“It keeps us all safe. But your job is done. Now you need to head home.”
“And what about the guy in the black trench coat?”
His gaze sharpened on her. “What guy in a trench coat?”
“The one that followed me and my friend as we left the Willis Tower. The one who chased us down an alleyway and stopped our taxi in an attempt to get to me. He said we had a meeting at eleven o’clock today at my hotel.”
“He was lying.”
“Well, yeah, I figured that out. I’m not a complete idiot. But…who is he? And why was he chasing me?”
“He wanted the sketchbook.”
“Why?”
“You don’t need to know the answers to those questions. It’s actually better if you don’t.”
“That way they can’t get it out of me even if they torture me, right?” Anna laughed because she was joking, but she sobered when he didn’t even crack a smile.
“Never joke about torture.” His eyes were chilling as he looked at her. “I’ve got to go. Head home.”
“But I don’t even know where home is.”
“Everything you need is in the packet. Goodbye.” With that, he spun around and the next moment, he was gone as he blended into the crowd along the path.