River
The restaurant was crowded. Too crowded infact.
I scanned the room automatically. Left to right. Cataloguing
Then I stopped.
I spotted her before the hostess reached me. She was already seated.
Oliver’s file had described her in a dull language of background reports. But the woman sitting at the center of the room looked nothing like the report.
She wasn’t buried into her phone, nor was she checking the time every few seconds. A single glass of water rested untouched in front of her while her gaze wandered through the restaurant—not nervously, but deliberately.
Most people waiting for someone like me rehearsed conversations in their head or searched the room every time the door opened.
She did neither of that.
“Good evening, Mr. Cassian.”
The air hostess looked ver
