Thirty seconds later, I come back out. “All clear, ma’am.”
“I know it’s fucking all clear. Wait,” she snaps as I go to follow her, “you’re not coming in with me.”
“I promise I’ll sit at another table.”
She inhales. Looks up at me. Clearly sees I’m serious.
She exhales slowly. “Whatever. I’m not buying you lunch, though.” She turns and walks into the building.
Sighing, I follow her in.
She joins a pretty blonde I recognize from the file as Gracie sitting at a table by the window. Twenty seconds later, Gracie looks across at me, her lips curving up. Aurelia looks at me too, and they both wave. I look away, scowling as they laugh.
They then pointedly ignore me for the next ninety minutes.
It’s a busy restaurant, fully booked and with no spare tables, so I take a stool up at the bar and order a small pizza,which I eat while I keep one eye on my surroundings. I’m mostly out of earshot of the girls, but from time to time snippets of their conversation drift over to me.
At one point, I hear Dominic’s name mentioned. I glance over at them. I can’t quite hear what they’re saying now, but I can lip-read a little. “Tomorrow,” Aurelia’s saying. Gracie says something, and Aurelia replies with something that looks like, “Tarapunga.” It’s Maori for seagull, but it’s also the name of a café on the waterfront.
Shit. Is she going to meet him? Goddammit. She’s going to mention the flowers. How am I going to deal with that?
When they finally finish lunch, they pay and head outside. I follow and stand a few feet away while they exchange a hug.
Gracie gives me an amused look. “He watches you like a hawk,” she says, not bothering to lower her voice.
“I know. I can feel his eyes boring into me like lasers.”
Gracie looks me up and down. “He’s kinda cute,” she murmurs.
Aurelia glances at me. I slide my hands into my trouser pockets and hunch my shoulders, embarrassed.
“Yeah,” she says, “if you like bears that are more grizzly than teddy.”
Gracie giggles. “All right, sweetie. Catcha later. And let me know how it goes with Dom.”
“Will do.” Aurelia waves as she walks away. Then she turns to me.
“You’re meeting your ex?” I query. “Tomorrow?”
“For lunch, yeah.”
“I don’t suppose I can talk you out of that?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
Marcus has given me some background to their breakup. He didn’t like Dominic Blackthorne, who’s a financial advisor in the city. He said that toward the end of their relationship,Dominic would often cut Aurelia off in mid-sentence or correct what she was saying, and apparently he began laying down the law and telling her that he didn’t like her seeing certain friends. Marcus won’t like her seeing him, especially considering we haven’t yet discovered the identity of her stalker.
But I can’t tell Aurelia that. So instead I say, “Makes no difference to me, ma’am.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m going back to the office now. I’ll meet you there.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She walks away, back to the green Range Rover.
I get back in my car. She’s already heading off into the traffic, so I quickly start the Skoda and follow her.
In less than a minute, it’s clear that she’s not going back to the office.
