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“Was your visitor a guest of the hotel?” he asks, taking a seat at his desk, his fingers poised over his keyboard.

I grimace.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I’m about to admit to a member of Kat’s staff that I spent the night with a stranger I brought back to the family hotel and know next to nothing about.

She’s going to kill me!

“April. Her name is April,” I say, praying he doesn’t ask me for a surname.

He types into his terminal.

“Not a guest,” he says, turning his head to look at me. Nothing but professionalism showing on his face.

“We came back at around three AM,” I say, pulling up a chair and dropping into it next to him.

He pulls up the lobby feed, finding the time I gave him and letting the feed run. Sure enough April and I appear. We’re laughing, my arm around her, her hand resting on my chest, as she looks up at me. My stomach clenches at the sight of us.

“That’s her,” I say, watching as we disappear off-screen.

It was two minutes after this, we were in the lift. Me pressing April against the wall, our hands roaming freely. We barely reached the suite before tearing each other’s clothes off.

Shit!I scan the monitors, letting out a sigh of relief. No lift cameras.

Kat really would kill me!

Bert skips the feed until April reappears. He lets the feed run, and I stare at the woman who has left me sleeping upstairs. Her clothes are in place, her hair scraped back, her face clear of any makeup. She walks confidently out of the front door without a backward glance.

I check the time stamp. Five AM.

My heart sinks. April is long gone.

“Is everything all right, sir?” Bert asks. “Did the lady steal anything? If she did, I can call the police.”

I give him a weak smile. “No, April didn’t steal anything,” I tell him.

My eyes move back to the screen, and the picture Bert has frozen. I stare at April’s image.

Not anything you can see that is…

CHAPTER 4

APRIL

My hand shakes as I re-read the letter.

This can’t be right.

I heard about the development, but our building is occupied, with several businesses running out of it. I look at the date.

Shit!

This is dated over a week ago. The bloody post office.

I glance at the clock. I have half an hour before my first students are due to arrive. Pulling on my jacket, I head out of the front door and into Mable’s Cafe next door. Several ladies are already there, drinking tea and eating cake. They look over and grin.

“Morning, Ms April. Oh, dear ladies, it looks like we’ve been caught,” Alice says, grinning.

She’s a white-haired lady in her early eighties and one of my regulars.