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She gets up, making it clear I need to leave, and I suppose she has a point. It’s Friday, and the last thing I want is for Sabrina’s games to mess with my plans for the weekend. Knowing her, she’ll try to stop me from collecting Nash this afternoon, and there’s no way I’m going to let that happen… which means I need to act fast.
“It’s good of you to see me without an appointment,” I say, sitting opposite Ezra. He waves away my comment, leaning back in his leather chair and examining me over the top of his half-moon spectacles.
“How are you, my boy?” he asks, resting his hands on his rounded stomach. His clothes look to me like they’re handmade, but I guess he must lie to his tailor about his size, because the buttons on his waistcoat look fit to burst, and rather than focusing on that, I concentrate on his rosy cheeks and impressive mustache, which is slightly whiter than his gray hair.
“I’ve been better.”
He nods his head. “I’m sure. That email must have come as a dreadful shock.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“I didn’t realize you’d met someone,” he says, raising his eyebrows in an inquiring way.
“Yeah, I have.”
He looks down at his hands, twirling this thumbs over each other. “Did you know about her dismissal?”
“Not until yesterday afternoon… and before you say anything, she wasn’t fired for negligence. She was fired for dating me.”
He frowns. “I’m not sure that would be grounds for dismissal.”
“According to Miss Montgomery it is.”
He sucks in a breath. “I suppose she’s at liberty to make her own rules.”
“So it seems.”
“Does it bother you that Miss Howell kept this from you?”
“Kept what from me?”
“Her dismissal,” he says, like I’m being dumb.
“She didn’t. I went to her place yesterday afternoon, after I’d received your message, and she told me all about it.” There’s no need for me to tell him Zara was leaving. He doesn’t need to know.
“But surely…” he says, looking confused.
“Surely what?”
“She must have known before then.”
“No. Miss Montgomery spoke to her after school yesterday.”
He sits forward, his movements surprising me. “That’s very odd.”
“What is?”
“The timing.” He clicks on his keyboard, squinting at his computer screen, and then turns it around. “Look…”
He’s pointing and I study the screen, immediately seeing the problem.
“Sabrina’s lawyers contacted you at eleven-forty-five yesterday morning?”
“Yes,” he says. “I’d have forwarded their message to you sooner, but I was out of the office until late in the afternoon.”
I don’t care about that. I’m more concerned with how Sabrina knew about Zara’s dismissal before she did.
“What does it mean?” I ask.
