He put the glass on the coffee table in front of him, shaking his head, then listened briefly to check that Hailey was still busily engaged with the boys.
“It’s a mess. Essentially, she met a guy online, a student at Uppsala University. She claimed she was a student in Geneva, and they developed some sort of virtual relationship. Then Hailey and Jonas, her friend, hacked into Gibson’s computer or something . . .”
“Who is Gibson?”
“The guy who lived below us.”
“Cycling guy?”
“That’s the one. Anyway, they hacked his network. Gibson duly obliged by asking Debbie if Hailey had accidentally hacked it. Then Hailey claimed someone had followed her and that someone had broken into her room. Next thing, she disappears, leaving a note implying it wasn’t safe for her to stay. But it was all a ploy—she wasn’t being followed, she’d secretly bought new clothes to change her image, had her hair cut the day she was leaving.”
“She looks so much older all of a sudden.”
Finn nodded, accepting the point. “Jonas and I tracked her down to Uppsala. I went to the boyfriend’s house early this morning, and here we are.”
“Boyfriend? You mean she was sleeping with this guy?” He looked at her as if to ask if he needed to answer that question, then she said, “How old was he?”
“I’m not sure—nineteen, twenty—but remember, he was completely convinced by her story. I felt sorry for the guy.”
“That’s a very male response.”
“Yeah, I didn’t feel sorry for him because he’s a guy. I felt sorry for him because he’s the one who was deceived.” The sentence hung there heavily, bearing too much meaning, particularly for Finn.
Adrienne stared at him, her gaze piercing, and deceit was apparently on her mind, too, because she said, “What’s going on, Finn? It’s not like you to help, even to be involved. I can’t even understand why they would ask you to help.”
“Yeah, well, that was your fault. The police weren’t interested, figuring correctly that Hailey was just a runaway, and because you’ve apparently told them on many occasions that you think I’m a spy, they came to me.”
She looked momentarily embarrassed, but she regrouped and said, “And you found her, so they did the right thing. But why . . . why did you get involved?”
The truth was, he couldn’t quite remember. The business with Gibson had made his involvement imperative, but he’d committed himself well before that. Had it been the mystery alone, or the opportunity to cast himself in a different light for Adrienne? Or perhaps, at some subconscious level, he’d spotted his chance to rediscover the person he’d once been.
“I don’t know. I got back and Grasset told me you’d gone.” She grimaced, acknowledging that he shouldn’t have found out like that. “Just as well he did tell me, because there was no note.”
“But I did leave a note, on your desk.”
His mind reeled. Had they been into the apartment while he was away? And if they had, why had they been so unprofessional as to take the note with them?
He recovered his composure quickly. “I don’t understand. Maybe I knocked it onto the floor when I put my laptop case down—I didn’t see it, and I’ve hardly been in the study since.” He waited a second and said, “What did it say?”
She shook her head, reminding him what she’d already said, that they weren’t doing this now.
“So you got back to the empty apartment . . .”
“I called you twice, left a message.” Another frown. “And within ten minutes, Debbie was at the door and told me about Hailey being missing. I didn’t want to help at first—all that business about me being a spy.”
“I’m surprised you helped at all, because . . . you don’t really care about other people very much, not unless they’ve been dead for a very long time.”
“That’s true. Or at least, it has been true. And even when I decided to help, I think it was more the challenge than anything else. I don’t know Ethan and Debbie, not really, and I don’t know Hailey.”
“Do you know me?”
“I thought we weren’t doing this now?”
“True.”
“Jesus, Adrienne. I don’t know what your reasons for leaving were, but if it’s something to do with me being cold and out of reach then you’d be wrong to read too much into this business. I helped to find Hailey, now I’m taking her home and then I intend to get back to my book.” Again, he was lying through omission, not wanting to tell her that there was one other piece of business to be dealt with first. “I’d like you to come back, to see if we can sort this out, but that’s your choice.”
“It’s not that simple. I need some time to think.”
“Take as long as you need.”