I shake my head and go to check up on Scarlett, who has moved from the balcony to her room, but I stop at the sound of the key turning in the lock.
Gabriel is back, and it has not been long since Mark left. I know immediately that he was close, perhaps inside his car.
He steps inside, his keys dangling loosely from his fingers. He pauses when he sees me, then his shoulders lift slightly, bracing for something.
He drops the keys back on the mantel. “Hi.”
“Hi.” For the first time in a while, I really look at him, study the lines of his face like I used to. He looks tired, the kind of tired that sits deep in the bones rather than only showing on the surface of the skin. There are faint shadows beneath his eyes and a tightness around his mouth that I recognize from the last months.
But at least he’s steady on his feet, his gaze is clear, and when he speaks, his words don’t slur. He wasn’t out there drinking.
“The window’s fixed.” I tilt my head toward the hallway. “The handyman left not too long ago.” I meet his eyes directly and let the corner of my mouth curl just a little.
“Oh.” He clears his throat. “I’m glad he could fix it.”
“Yes,” I reply. “He was quick.”
Gabriel shifts his weight, then adds, “I went for a walk…after my phone call.”
I nod. I don’t ask why he came back so precisely after the handyman was gone. I don’t ask whether he’d been watching the building, waiting for the right moment to return. He was definitely avoiding him, not wanting to listen to talk of the broken window.
For now, it’s enough that he’s here.
For the next two hours, the three of us don’t leave the apartment. Gabriel is on the phone most of that time and when he takes a break from work, we all move around one another without getting in each other’s way, each pretending what happened earlier didn’t.
All the while I wrestle with the urge to tell them what the handyman said to me, wondering if I can really trust them to support my search.
Before Mark rang the bell, I had briefly bonded with Scarlett and she promised to help me, but did she actually mean it?
Either way, I don’t want to do this alone. I need someone else to listen to what Saul the fisherman will tell me, if anything at all. I need to be responsible since I’m going to a different part of town, to meet some stranger.
I wait until 4 p.m. when they are both in one place, Gabriel at the sink, Scarlett pouring a drink from the fridge. When I walk into the kitchen, they both turn to look at me.
“The handyman told me something…about someone that might help us get more information.”
Gabriel looks up from the kitchen sink where he’s been rinsing his mug. The water runs too long before he turns it off. He watches me carefully now, alert. “Who?”
“A fisherman.” I lean against the kitchen island. “Apparently his name is Saul Daniels, and he lives on a boat. He’s familiar with whatever goes on in the sea. He might know something…anything.”
Something flickers across Gabriel’s face. “You want to go and talk to this guy?”
“Of course I do. If he knows something I want to know.”
To my surprise, he sighs and doesn’t fight me. “Okay, when do you want to go?”
“Today. In an hour or two?”
He hesitates, then dries the mug, putting it away. “Okay. We should all go.”
“Yes,” Scarlett adds. “We don’t want you out there with some stranger on a boat. We don’t know anything about this man.”
“No.” The word lands heavier than I intend and they both straighten, surprised. “I mean, I think only Gabriel and I should go.” I throw a glance at Scarlett. “If all three of us show up, he might feel ambushed.”
Understanding dawns on Scarlett’s face, followed by something like relief. “You have a point. That’s fine. I’ll hang out with Coco.”
“Yeah, that would work. We’ll update you once we get back.” I catch Gabriel’s glance, a look that says, I’m not sure if this is a good idea, but I’m doing it anyway.
We leave at six, when the day has begun to tip toward evening.
