Page 81 of Hate You to Love You

I keep my voice low, trying to calm him. ‘It’s okay.’

‘No. It’s not going to be okay. Did Claudia tell you about the sponsors?’

‘No,’ I say.

‘The only reason this festival goes ahead each year is because of the sponsors that help fund it. And the big draw card for them this time was the fact that ticket sales were guaranteed with Claudia Leighton appearing during the opening ceremony. I assured them, time and time again, that this would be her big return to the public eye. And now I’ve messed it up.’

‘But it’s not your fault,’ I say.

‘How is it not my fault? It’s my job to get my authors to their events.’ Elliot’s voice begins to break. ‘I mess everything up.’

Elliot leans against the wall, slowly sliding down towards the ground. I kneel down, placing my hand on his.

‘Hey,’ I say calmly. ‘You haven’t messed anything up.’

‘Tell that to the sponsors when they find out their investment was for nothing.’

‘Hey!’ I repeat, tightening my gentle grip of his hand. ‘You’re Elliot Simpson. And you were chosen as Claudia’s publicist because you’re brilliant at what you do.’

Elliot draws his gaze up towards me. There’s a desperation in his face, and he looks at me as if I’m an anchor keeping him steady on a stormy sea.

‘What are we going to do?’ he asks.

‘We still have an hour, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then we’re going to find Claudia.’

chapter thirty-eight

Elliot and I run out onto the Royal Mile. A car honks at us as we stop in the middle of the street.

‘The concierge has confirmed that she got in the car I booked. She’s definitely not at the hotel,’ Elliot remarks, stuffing his phone back in his pocket.

I spin around, hoping by some miracle that Claudia is one of the people on the street passing us. Every minute we don’t find her is a minute closer to the start of the festival. I look all around me, trying to think of where to search for Claudia, when a wave of realisation hits me.

‘Wait!’ I shout suddenly. ‘She told me that this tour was about confronting the past, and we have the key to it—’

‘The notebook!’ he exclaims.

‘Exactly,’ I say excitedly. ‘Wherever she’s gone, there’s a good chance it’s mentioned in there. Only… I don’t have it on me.’

‘Come on, Carlos,’ Elliot says. ‘You must remember something.’

‘There’s Arthur’s Seat… She had a few polaroids of the trail and view stuck in there.’ My mind begins to run through all the key locations in the notebook. Although there wasn’t much to go on. Because just as it was with the tour, her entries got cut short. ‘And there was one place that had a map torn out… It was mentioned in These Days too,’ I say, trying to recall where the ending took place. If the book was a way to process her grief, it couldn’t be a coincidence.

‘Where?’

It hits me. ‘Portobello Beach.’

Elliot grabs me gently by the shoulders. ‘All right, I’ll check out Arthur’s Seat and you head down to Portobello,’ he says. ‘But what if we don’t find her?’ His face creases with worry.

‘We’ll deal with that when it comes. Are you ready?’

He nods. ‘I’m ready.’

We tear away from each other, towards opposite sides of the city, with only forty minutes left to find Claudia and get back to the hall.