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Automatically, Alli took it, it was so close to her face that she thought Bea might just push it into her mouth if she didn’t.

“You’ll get on better if you try to be a bit friendlier,” Bea said.

“I don’t want to get on better,” Alli said. “I want to get the hell out of here.”

Bea regarded her for a moment, then shrugged. “Alright then, it’s your funeral.” And she turned back to the others as Julia started to complain about no more sugar and Marcus lifted another batch of cookies from the oven.

For a second, the scent of her lingered. Alli took a bite of the cookie. It was good. Really good.

Chapter Twelve

After three increasingly worried texts from Liz, Bea finally had the chance to call her late in the afternoon. The light was growing orange as she snuck into one of the side rooms downstairs and placed the call.

No one had specifically told her that she wasn’t allowed to have her phone, but she didn’t want to be seen with it, just in case.

“Finally,” Liz said when she picked up the phone.

“Finally?”

“I was starting to think that I’d sent you to some kind of cult or something and they’d kidnapped you and taken away your phone. And then you were going to ignore all my messages until I finally persuaded a documentary team to take on the story and we’d hunt you down on an abandoned farm complex somewhere in East Anglia.”

“Liz?”

“Yes?”

“Have you been watching a lot of TV?”

There was a pause. “A bit.”

“Alright, maybe you could get Den to bring you some library books or something instead?”

Another pause. “Alright, that’s probably a good idea. So how is everything?”

Bea had debated with herself just how much to tell Liz and inthe end had decided that there was no point worrying her while she was laid up. She could tell the whole truth at some later point when Liz was feeling better.

“It’s great,” she said with a smile in her voice. “Small class size, just a couple of sessions a day, not a problem at all.”

“And the accommodations?” Liz asked. “I was worried about that. I mean, I didn’t want to be away from Den for so long, but the potential client-base made it worth it, rather than the money.”

Bea needed to skirt the issue of money. “The accommodations are… spartan. But that’s fine. It’s the way they should be, helps to focus the mind and all that.”

“Right, right, obviously,” Liz said. “And, well, at least there’s some money, that should make up for it.”

Bea couldn’t talk about the money. Not when she was getting paid less than half of what had been promised to her. Okay, so accommodation and food were included. But still. This couldn’t be a sustainable job, not for long. Unless, of course, she got a raise before the next session. Assuming there’d be a next session.

Could she work here that long?

It was all so new, she was just getting used to it, wasn’t she?

Maybe it would all turn out alright.

“What about the clients?” Liz was asking.

“Oh yeah, they’re fine, no problems.”

Fine. They were baking biscuits and completely lovely together, which, given the fact that they were all supposedly angry people, was somewhat of a surprise. Still, she shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, should she? Everyone seemed to be getting along nicely. Well, other than the usual suspect.

“Really? There’s usually at least one troublemaker at these things,” laughed Liz.