Our next stop was, in fact, Paekakariki, a seaside village with a long, sandy beach, a multitude of art studios, and a café where we ate lunch before hitting the road again. We reached New Zealand’s capital at two o’clock.
After spending so much time in rural settings, it was a bit jarring to enter a distinctly urban environment, but Wellington, as Angelo had intimated, was not New York. Though its suburbs crept outward in a far-reaching sprawl, the city proper was amazingly compact, nestled snugly between steep, heavily forested hills and a massive bay known, appropriately, as Wellington Harbor.
There weren’t many tall buildings, and even the tallest didn’t come close to scraping the sky. Wellingtonians lived as well as worked in the center of town, where modern glass-and-steel office blocks rubbed shoulders with Victorian holdouts housing an eclectic collection of cafés, restaurants, bookstores, and funky boutiques. The sidewalks and bike paths were crowded with so many young people that we could have been driving through a college campus.
Cameron, who knew the city well, identified various places of interest along the way, the most striking of which was the Beehive, a bristling, dome-shaped edifice that housed New Zealand’s parliament. I didn’t care for the Beehive, but I was drawn to Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand, which brightened the waterfront with its colors, its curves, and its angles. Te Papa, I thought, had been designed by someone who knew how to throw a good party.
“What does Te Papa mean?” I asked while we waited in front of the museum for a traffic light to change.
“It’s short for Te Papa Tongarewa,” Cameron replied. “It’s a Maori phrase, of course, and an extremely literal translation would be . . .” He took a deep breath before reciting, “ ‘Our well-loved repository and showcase of treasured things and people that spring from Mother Earth here in New Zealand.’ ”
“Wow,” I said, impressed. “I can see why they use the Maori phrase. They’d have a hard time cramming the English version onto a bumper sticker.” The traffic light turned green and we pulled away from the museum. “I assume we’re going straight to the condo.”
“Faulty assumption,” said Cameron. “We’re not in Ohakune anymore, Lori. It makes more sense to leave the car at the hotel and walk than it does to waste time hunting for a parking space near the condo.”
Approximately two seconds later, he handed his car keys to a valet while a bellman placed our bags on a luggage cart. We’d arrived at our second Copthorne Hotel.
The Wellington branch of the Copthorne chain occupied a prime chunk of waterfront real estate directly across the street from a marina and a stone’s throw away from Te Papa. The ten-story building had clean, contemporary lines inside and out. My room had been decorated by a minimalist with a passion for soft lighting, silky textures, and practical details. Walking into it was like entering a well-designed cocoon, and its miniscule balcony afforded me fabulous views of the city as well as the bay.
Donna had evidently chosen the hotel for its strategic location as well as its amenities, because the address Renee had given us belonged to a nondescript, eight-story box of a building less than two blocks away from the Copthorne. I would have preferred living in one of the pastel-colored Victorian gems we passed on our way to the condo, but the lovingly restored little houses probably required more upkeep than part-time residents like the Velesuonnos were willing to give them.
We let ourselves into the nondescript box’s lobby and Cameron pressed the buzzer labeled VELESUONNO. A moment later a voice crackled through the intercom. The voice belonged to a woman who spoke with an accent, but unfortunately, she sounded more like a Finn than a Kiwi.
“Who is it, please?” she asked.
“Lori Shepherd and Cameron Mackenzie,” I replied, speaking slowly and distinctly. “Angelo and Renee sent us.”
“Oh.” A long pause ensued before the voice added hesitantly, “Come up. We’re at the top floor.”
The inner door clicked and we walked through another lobby to board an elevator, which took us to a small, windowless foyer on the eighth floor, where a woman stood, waiting for us.
She definitely wasn’t Bree Pym. Bree was petite, but this woman was downright tiny. She was also a lot older than Bree—in her late thirties rather than her late teens. Her disheveled, pale blond hair framed a weather-beaten and deeply tanned face, and she was dressed like a latter-day hippie, in embroidered jeans, an embroidered denim waistcoat, and a frilly white cotton blouse that fell almost to her knees. A tiny book bound in red paper hung from a gold cord around her neck.
“Kati Malinen,” she said, shaking our hands.
Though Kati smiled enchantingly as Cameron and I introduced ourselves, I detected a hint of nervousness in her blue eyes.
“We’re not kicking you out of the condo,” I assured her.
“And we’re not here to inspect it,” Cameron hastened to add.
Kati’s nervousness gave way to polite perplexity. “Why are you here, then?”