‘I’ve got an IQ of 152 and I still end up with at least one a month,’ she muttered. ‘Working out the parking regulations in LA is a full-time job but don’t you go changing the subject. How many times have I tried to get you over to visit? And suddenly you’re available? The timing feels like a bit of a coincidence.’
‘The timing was entirely down to when I could get out of work,’ I said, my voice as tight and brittle as my nerves. ‘So what if Thomas is getting married? It’s been two years, I truly do not care. I am unbothered, moisturized, thriving.’
‘At least one third of that is a lie because you definitely are not moisturized.’
‘Fine, I’m unbothered, deeply dehydrated but still thriving,’ I said with a warning glance. ‘Will that do, or shall we have a chat about your love life next?’
There were three things my sister refused to discuss: her love life (non-existent), her shoe size (massive) and the series finale ofGame of Thrones(she was adamant Daenerys was justified in her actions and that she would have done exactly the same thing, including shag her hot nephew). Before I could press any further, her phone flashed to life in her hand. It was such fantastic timing, I could only assume she’d pressed a secret button that made it ring on cue.
‘My car’s here,’ she said with more than an edge of relief in her voice. ‘Fuck it, come with me. Seattle isn’t that bad.’
‘Apart from how it rains all the time and random people throw fish at you?’ I stood in the middle of her living room with my arms open wide. ‘Why would I risk an unexpected trout attack when I could stay in a real-life version of Barbie’s dream home? Go, save the internet, bring me a nice present from the airport. I’ll see you in two to three days.’
She paused for a moment, looked at me, down at her phone then back at me. ‘It could be four.’
‘Colour me shocked,’ I replied. ‘Now go. Before you miss your flight.’
The indecision on her face settled into reluctant resignation as she pulled me into another hug, full of powdery roses and coconut conditioner, and I only realized how tightly I was holding on to her when she pulled away.
‘You’re sure you’ll be all right?’ she asked, brushing a limp strand of hair out of my eyes. ‘And that you’ll stay out of trouble?’
‘I wouldn’t even know how to get into trouble if I saw any,’ I promised, stumbling over a flash of a memory.
She pressed a kiss against my cheek, slung her handbag over her shoulder and grabbed the handle of the neat aluminium carry-on case that sat by the door, packed, locked and ready to go. ‘Call me any time,’ she said. ‘I mean it – twenty-four-seven. Anything you need, I will fix it.’
‘Suze, I am a perfectly capable thirty-three-year-old woman in an English-speaking country and I’ve already downloaded the American version of the Domino’s app. You’re only going to be gone a few days, calm down.’
I followed her to the door and wrapped myself up in my own arms as she jogged down the stairs to a sleek black car that waited with its engine running. Gran always used to say Suzanne had been rushing to catch up ever since she was born two weeks late. She never stayed in one place long enough for anyone or anything to catch her – people, thoughts or feelings – but I’d never been able to work out exactly what it was she was chasing. She climbed inside the car and waved as it pulled away, disappearing around the corner and down the hill.
And then she was gone.
‘See you when you get back,’ I said, taking one last look at the beautiful pink flowers in the front garden before closing the front door and locking it behind me. ‘Let the holiday commence.’
CHAPTER TWO
Suzanne wasn’t lying when she said the fridge was fully stocked. I’d never seen so much food in one place and a weekly trip to the big Tesco was one of the highlights of my existence, so that was really saying something. It was more of a walk-in wardrobe masquerading as a refrigerator, absolutely rammed with every kind of foodstuff you could possibly imagine, but somehow, still neat, clean and well-organized. Classic Suzanne. There were dedicated drawers full of fruit and veg, stacks of sliced meat for sandwiches, regular hummus, spicy hummus, chocolate hummus? And best of all, six different varieties of cheese. It was my dream come true. No one knew me as well as my sister.
Feeling like a teenager whose parents had gone away and left them alone for the first time, I wandered back out onto the terrace and settled on one of the sunloungers. With a bag of crisps big enough to feed a family of four in one hand and a perfectly chilled bottle of rosé in the other, I waited impatiently for my brain to catch upwith my body. I’d never been a good traveller. I didn’t sleep well in a strange bed and always managed to eat something dodgy and spend half my holiday in the loo. Thomas used to say it was the Chapman curse, that I was so committed to not enjoying myself, my own body revolted against the idea of having a good time like the other women in my family. I suspected it had more to do with him starfishing across every mattress and refusing to eat anything more exotic than a Nando’s but who could say for certain?
‘Enough of him,’ I muttered under my breath. There was no one around to hear but saying it out loud helped the intention stick. There were much better things to think about than Thomas, like being eaten alive by zombie rottweilers or stabbing yourself in the eye with a stick.
Rather than dwell on the past, I concentrated on my immediate future and opened the wine to pour myself a generous measure. Might as well start as I meant to go on.
‘Here’s to getting away from it all,’ I declared, lifting my glass to toast the city before taking a long, cool sip. Perfect, like everything else in this house.
I would be fine on my own. Better than fine. Suzanne would have scheduled every hour of my day, from dawn to dusk. I needed some sun, some fun and about a thousand hours of sleep, not wall-to-wall activities planned out by a perennial overachiever. This trip was supposed to be a chance for me to get away, relax and unwind. Forget about all the things that so badly needed to be forgotten.
‘Which would take a lobotomy, not a holiday,’ I muttered, pouring more wine.
With restless energy buzzing through me, I stood and stretched, glass in hand, and walked down the garden to the end of the terrace. It was so unbearably pretty. My brain was still Swiss cheese but I stared out at the city below, trying to remember everything Suzanne had pointed out to me but failing to spot a single thing.
But there was one thing that was impossible to miss.
The nearly naked man in the garden below, watching me through a pair of binoculars.
‘Oh my God, pervert!’ I yelled, chucking the contents of my glass over the edge of the terrace. ‘I’m calling the police!’
‘I’m not a pervert!’ the man shouted back, setting down his binoculars. ‘I swear, I wasn’t spying on you!’
