Page 13 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

“A little. She’d been working on it in the background for a while. We were in Morocco a few years ago, and she got into it. We did some planning, but nothing all that detailed. I’m not sure what Mariah has now.”

“I can still hear you,” Mariah said from the back.

“We don’t care,” Henry called back. “Jump in any time.”

Henry continued, “I think her main fascination is—was—with Parsi cafés. Are you familiar?”

His voice was resonant enough that she wondered if he’d done on-screen reporting himself. “I’m not,” she said.

“The Parsis arrived in India a long time ago, around the seventh century. They were fleeing persecution, and they needed to find a new place to live, so they went to northern India.”

“Say more?”

“I don’t know a huge amount about the history, but the cafés were big in the 1920s and ’30s.

” He changed lanes. “The food is a mix between Persian and Indian. The cafés are known for a kind of art deco look, and the buns they make. It was my idea to start with Dishoom in London because it’s a modern take, but they’re based on the old cafés in Mumbai. ”

All the talk of food made her stomach growl. Loudly. She clapped a hand over it, appalled. “Sorry.”

“I’m always starving when I land. They have good room service at this hotel.”

“Thanks.” She glanced at her phone, wondered if there were messages. She hadn’t turned it back on in order to avoid charges.

Henry said, “There’s Wi-Fi in the car.”

“Cool.” She powered it on, pleased when she was prompted to connect to Wi-Fi. A long line of texts scrolled over her screen, some from her kids, and her friend Amber, and also Spence. Several from him, which twisted a rope of anxiety in her gut.

Or maybe she was just hungry.

She didn’t want to hear from Spence and maybe could pretend she didn’t get his messages.

Instead, she started with Jenna, who’d texted eleven times over the course of the previous day, which wasn’t even slightly unusual.

Most of it was just chat, staying in touch.

The last was Text me when you get there or I’ll be worried. G’night!

She texted back, Here, safe. On the way to my hotel. ttys

She answered the others, then opened Spence’s. Call me when you can. Trouble with Tim .

Rolling her eyes, she put the phone in her bag. Nope. Maybe she wouldn’t answer him at all for the entire trip. How freeing would that be?

Very. But she knew she wouldn’t stick to it. He deserved her attention when it came to the kids.

“Bad news?”

“Did I sigh? Just an annoying ex.”

He smoothly joined traffic on a busy throughway. “Block him. Or her.”

“My ex-husband. He’s in charge of my kids while I’m gone, so that’s not all that workable.”

“There’s always email,” he said mildly.

Veronica nodded, but she knew she wouldn’t tell him to email her. What if there was an emergency?

Watching traffic whiz by, she realized she felt ever so slightly nauseated at the way the cars moved on the opposite side of the road than she was used to, and took a breath, and looked away, focusing on his hands on the steering wheel. A thick scar ribboned from his little finger around his wrist.

“I almost lost my hand,” he said, noticing. He lifted his pinky.

“Let me guess. You were lost in the jungle and ran into a bandit with a machete?”

He let go of a small, low chuckle. “No.”

“Axe?”

“Fell out of the back of a truck.”

Veronica tsked. “That is not a very good story.”

He glanced at her. “Maybe you could help me make one up.”

She looked back. Was he flirting a little bit? She’d been so lost in her head that she’d kind of forgotten what that might be like.

Maybe she’d been flirting first. “I bet I could come up with something good.”

“Writer?”

“No. A reader.”

“Yeah? Me, too. What do you like?”

“Everything, honestly,” she said. “Nothing too gruesome in mysteries or horror, but most of the rest. Fiction, though, almost completely. Do you read novels?”

“Sure. I also read a lot of history.” He pointed to a thick paperback in the well between the seats. “That’s my current.”

She pulled it out curiously. The pages were worn, and a rubber band held it together. A History of the Mughal Empire. “Not sure I know who the Mughals are,” she said. “I’m thinking ... Genghis Khan?”

He glanced at her. “Not bad. He was one of the originals, though they don’t really like to claim him. He was a bit of a monster.”

“I’ll have to check this out,” she said.

“Especially for the India leg of the trip.”

“Thanks.”

They left the highway and wound through busy streets, past a long park and rows of tall apartments, and slowed on a street full of shops that served quick food and offered phones, other minor tech products, and cheap clothes.

It reminded her of the area near the main campus in Boulder. “Is there a university nearby?”

“Not sure. The British Museum is around the corner, but I don’t really know the neighborhood otherwise.”

Mariah came to life in the back seat, rising like a zombie and with about that much grooming.

Her hair was wild, and mascara had smeared under her eyes.

“There’s something over there somewhere.

” She caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror and used a licked finger to try and rub some of the mascara away. It wasn’t successful.

“Here we are, guys.”

“Guys?” Mariah echoed.

“I didn’t say ladies .” He turned on the hazard lights and jumped out, waving at an annoyed driver behind him.

Veronica hurried around to the back to take the bags, while Mariah tumbled out, pulling her hoodie over her hair.

She cried out when she landed and Veronica left the bags to steady her. “You good?”

“Yeah.” She accepted an embrace from Henry, who wrapped her up in a bear hug, kissing her head. The big, ready affection made Veronica like him more.

As she started toward the door with the bags, one in each hand, he said, “At least let me get one of them to the door.”

“We’ll see you for dinner tonight?” Mariah asked.

“Tomorrow. I’ve got some work to do.”

“You’re working for me, aren’t you?”

“Something else came up. Lucrative.”

“Huh. Must be a woman.”

He shrugged, leaving the bag in the doorway and waving himself away.

Veronica looked across the street to the ornate hotel, which her brain suddenly told her was the Fitzroy, some tidbit of knowledge squirreled away in her research. “Are we in the Bloomsbury neighborhood?”

“Um ...” Mariah looked around. “Maybe?”

A shiver moved down her arms at the coincidence. Or synchronicity, as her friend Amber would have said. Veronica had never been one much for woo-woo things, but this was hard to ignore.

Somewhere in this stretch of city blocks, Elsie Turner had lived and loved. Veronica could hardly wait to walk in her footsteps.