“Maybe, but you’re not. I doubt they have any interest in what you or Jonas did. But Hailey, don’t ever ask me about any of this again, because I won’t answer you.”
As if he were a nagging parent, she gave a grudging “Okay!” And that was it, though she didn’t fall asleep, she rested her head against the side of the seat again and looked out of the window for most of the journey. Only occasionally, as if to demonstrate that she wasn’t sulking, she’d point to something or other and say, “Beautiful church,” or, “The snow’s almost gone off some of the upper slopes.” She seemed disinclined for any further conversation than that.
It suited Finn, too, and he also looked out of the window for much of the journey. There had been rain, because he could see puddles here and there on roads and in fields, but the spring-like weather he’d left behind a couple of days ago was back in control, very few clouds in the sky, the landscape sun-drenched.
It created a false sense that he was returning to an idyll, but one that was now in danger. An idyllic country, perhaps, and his life had been as ordered as the place he’d chosen to live, but there had been little idyllic about it in retrospect.
It wasn’t even the way he’d lived, the way he’d slowly starved his relationship of oxygen. The clue to the real problem was in the way he’d left the money in that numbered account, untouched for all these years. Because at some level, he had always expected his past to finally catch up with him.
Maybe that was the sole reason for him starting to open up this last week. Adrienne leaving him, Hailey disappearing—both counted for nothing against the cathartic realization that he no longer had to look over his shoulder. The thing that he’d secretly dreaded all this time was something he no longer needed to dread, it was now something he had to tackle head-on.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hailey’s nerves became more visible the closer they got to home, and by the time they were in the taxi from the station, she looked fragile enough that she might shatter if touched. She didn’t speak, and nor did he.
When they got out of the cab, she looked up at her apartment and said, “Oh well, here goes.”
“It’ll be fine.”
He looked up at the apartment himself, expecting to see one of them standing there looking out, but the windows were reflecting sky and he could see no movement beyond them.
They took the elevator, and when it opened on her floor he put his hand on the button to hold the door open.
She looked at him, nervous, as she said, “Aren’t you coming with me?”
“You don’t need me there.”
“I guess not. So . . . Well, thanks, for everything.” She looked ready to hug him but thought better of it, perhaps taking her cue from his body language. She picked up her backpack and walked along the corridor.
As she reached the door, she looked back at him and crossed her fingers, then pressed the buzzer. He was certain she had a key of her own, and he thought it summed up the momentous shift in her life this last week, that she temporarily felt unable to enter her parents’ apartment uninvited.
He heard the door open and let his finger move from the button. The elevator doors closed and he went back to his own apartment. It felt too empty, more so than when he’d arrived back from Béziers. He wondered if Adrienne would press the buzzer when she came back—if she came back.
Thinking of her, he went into the study, and there, sure enough, he found her note where it had fallen on the floor. He opened it but it told him nothing new, only that she needed some time away, to think through what she wanted—in fact, reading it, Finn was glad he hadn’t found it at the time because he wasn’t sure he would have understood from it that she’d left him.
He did a quick search of the apartment while his laptop booted up, looking for telltale signs that anyone had been in there while he was away. Then he went back to the laptop and plugged in the memory stick. He took a new notebook and started scribbling down the information he’d glanced at the previous night.
He should have scanned the computer first, he knew that, searching for key-logging software or any other spyware. Of course, six years on, he might not have known what to look for or how to find it, but that wasn’t why he didn’t look. At some bloody-minded level, he wanted them to know that he was on to them.
He’d filled a couple of pages with notes when the buzzer sounded. He got up and went to the door, dreading that it was Debbie or Ethan coming to thank him, realizing now that he should have gone with Hailey to their apartment and got this done and out of the way.
But when he opened the door, it was Hailey standing there. It was unexpected, but part of the same problem, and he was ready to tell her that they needed to get some things straight, that their relationship might have changed, but not to the extent where he could be disturbed whenever she felt like it.
Within a moment he’d abandoned those thoughts, seeing how pale she looked, as if she might be in danger of fainting.