And all the clothes werebrand-new.
Brand-new clothes were for special occasions or were work scrubs because they had to buy them new from the official hospital uniform supplier. Buying brand-new clothes for herself was frivolous and wasteful when the clothes at Savers or Goodwill were just as good. She didn’t know where the secondhand shops were in Paris, but she bet they were closer to her FlyBNB rented room than to Augustine’s grand hotel.
And this place wasgrand.
The living room set—a whole separate living room with a couch, chairs, a desk, and TV—was upholstered in dusty blue and pale gold, and there were columns on the walls and vases of pastel-toned roses. The bed in the bedroom was dressed in brighter pinks and greens and looked like springtime in Paris. The wall behind the bed was mirrored, which she thought was for kink until she saw the cityscape with the Eiffel Tower reflected in the glowing sunlight.
Dree had never stayed in a hotel until she’d met Francis. When she was a kid, her parents only took them to family baptisms, weddings, and funerals, and they’d slept on the floors of aunt’s and uncle’s living rooms. When she’d moved to Phoenix, she’d stayed in a convent with her high school principal’s friends for the night before she moved into her apartment.
After she finished putting the clothes on hangers and placing the shoes neatly in the closet because she didn’t want to disrespect how expensive they were, she found Augustine asleep across the bed. His legs were hanging off the edge like he’d been sitting on the side when fatigue had overcome him and flopped forward on his face. One of his shoes was untied but still on his foot.
Oh, the poor guy. She’d probably worn him out last night. Civilians weren’t used to working forty-eight-hour shifts like medical personnel.
She eased his other shoe off of him. Because she was a nurse, she knew just how to leverage his enormous body to roll him farther onto the bed so his legs weren’t hanging off.
When she finished, she flipped the satin comforter over him.
Augustine snuggled deeper into the bed and resumed breathing easily.
Well, it looked like she had a few hours to herself.
She gently closed the door to the bedroom and sat on the couch in the living room. She could watch French TV, but she was kind of afraid of how rusty her college French was.
Or, she could try to put her life back in order.
The first thing she had to do was turn on her phone.
If she turned it on, Francis would be able to call her through that TalkBook app.
If he did, Dree decided she would just decline the call. There was a red dot there, and she could just push the red dot. Just because a phone rang didn’t mean she had to take the call.
With that settled, Dree fished her charging cord out of her bag, plugged in her phone, and steeled herself while it powered up. The hotel’s Wi-Fi password was written on a little card on the desk, so she typed it in and gained access.
Fifty-three missed calls.
Fifty-three voicemails.
She could scroll through her recent call notifications if she wanted to. Just because she saw the names didn’t mean she had to call them back.
Predictably, most of the recent calls were from Francis Senft.
A chill gathered on the nape of her neck, and she felt a little sick to her stomach.
Her sister Mandi had called three times.
Fifteen calls were from other friends. Some asked where she was and if she was okay. Ten of them said that Francis had called trying to find her and he’d told them that Dree had left money with them to give to him. He was demanding they give him the money, and the numbers were anywhere from a thousand to ten thousand dollars. Several of them asked if they should give him the money, and she could pay them back later? Four said that they already had given him the money and would she please Venmo or PayPal them the money ASAP.
She texted them all that she had left town and was safe. She also told them all that Francis had stolen everything from her and was probably trying to get money out of them, but she had no idea why. She told the few that had already ponied up that she would pay them back as soon as she could.
Okay, Dree probably needed to call Mandi and tell her where she was and what was going on. She also needed to explain why there was no money in Victor’s autism-therapy account.
Dree wanted to crawl under the bed in shame, but instead, she used a direct-messenger app to call her sister. Her phone still wasn’t hooked up to the cellular networks in France.
Mandi answered her call right away, even though it had to be mid-morning in Phoenix. “Hello? Dree? Holy Mary, Mother of God, are you all right?”
Dree spoke softly so Augustine wouldn’t hear her, even though the door was closed and he was probably still asleep. “Hey, Mandi. I’m fine. Some really weird stuff happened the last couple of days, but I’m in Paris.”
“Oh, my God. Youdidgo to Paris.”
