Chapter 28

28

" R emind me again why I'm driving you to Hertfordshire?" Sol asked.

"I need your help getting introduced to Agatha," Luke said.

"She knows you from the Pilates studio." Sol's eyes were fixed on the motorway. "She remembers everyone who pops in even for just one class."

"She knows my surveillance persona: Greg Knight, banking lawyer and well-being enthusiast," Luke explained. He thought he saw Sol grinning. "But I need her to meet private investigator Luke Contadino and to ask her a few questions. You need that as well if you want to be cleared from this whole Meshflixx fiasco."

When Luke called Sol that morning, he'd hoped her flight would be scheduled in the evening and that she'd be ready to forgive him—or at least to put her disappointment in him temporarily aside.

He'd also asked her to accompany him to Harpenden since Agatha was finally back in the country. She'd gone directly to her vacation home in the quaint Hertfordshire small town.

Instead of wanting to take the train there though, Sol had offered to drive. Luke couldn't understand who would prefer to drive anywhere when there were public transportation options available, but he'd readily accepted. He didn't feel in a position to contradict Sol much.

Convincing Sol to come with him hadn't required much persuasion on his part, especially since it seemed that Sol's plans for the day had changed. He had the feeling she welcomed the distraction. If you could call that bizarre situation a distraction.

Luke was supposed to be at the office that morning. But he'd called P faking a terrible flu-like illness, and the germophobe in his manager had pleaded with Luke to stay home. Only Divya knew where he really was, and she'd helped him prepare for his chat with the elusive TV agent.

But before getting to Agatha's vacation home in Harpenden, Sol and Luke still had more than a half-hour drive, and he thought he could try and clarify a few more specifics about the stringer's story.

"Please don't take this the wrong way, but why are you no longer working at the same publication you used to a few days ago?" he asked, trying to tie up all the loose ends pointing to her.

"Why did I get fired, you mean?"

"Yes."

"For a moment there, you sounded more West Coast American than British in your indirect way of formulating that question." She smirked, and he couldn't help but feel he should have confessed his real profession to her earlier. She seemed to be taking it well enough. "I was laid off with another ten percent of the staff at my previous company. They got rid of senior-level writers and editors based in the US and the UK. We were making more money than junior peers or people based in other, cheaper countries. If you've been reading the news, it's been no picnic for journalists these last few months, not that it ever was."

"Don't get me wrong," he proceeded cautiously. But dreading the idea of being called an American for a second time, no matter from what coast, he opted for directness instead. "But how can you afford the car?"

"This car?" she asked. It was a dual-motor long-range electric vehicle with a driver assistance system that she wasn't currently using.

Luke knew the vehicle cost well above what he earned in a whole year.

"It was a gift from my parents," Sol said, as if she were talking about a bouquet of flowers or a toaster. "My dad thought that, after so many years driving in LA, I would miss having a car. He didn't consider that I may have a hard time adapting, with you folks driving on the wrong side of the road and all… But it's become convenient every time I need to escape central London. If I remember to take roundabouts counterclockwise."

"Clockwise, you mean," Luke corrected her.

"Whatever, opposite of how it should be," she said, eyes still on the road.

"Do you realize that money makes you look suspicious?" He ignored her remark about his home country driving on the left-hand side.

"What money?" she asked. She sounded almost clueless.

"All of it," he said. "You lead a somewhat posh lifestyle."

"Posh?! Everyone at Josie's is well-off!" It was as if the mere idea of being associated with poshness offended her. "Have you seen what she charges for a semi-private Pilates class? Why is my money more questionable?"

"Because of your profession and because you're single, I guess." He hoped she wouldn't take that as his opinion. He was trying to put himself in his managers' minds, and that never led anywhere progressive.

"Twice divorced," Sol said, and Luke was surprised. He hadn't found a trace of one ex-husband, let alone two, when researching her. "My money came from my family business though."

"The Spanish products export company?"

"I guess I have no secrets." She sighed. "My parents sold part of it years ago before they retired and gave me an amount so I could live comfortably and still do what I like. They manage most of the money for me because they're supposed to be better at it."

"Sorry about the indiscretion," he said.

"No problem. It's not like you haven't been secretly following me for weeks."

"And for your information, you still do have secrets," he said. "I had no idea about the two ex-husbands."

"Let's keep it that way then." A trace of a grin spread on her face as she remained focused on her driving.

···

When they arrived at Agatha's place in Harpenden, they were faced with a handsomely proportioned Victorian home and an equally spacious garden surrounding it. A couple of big vans were parked up front. Sol parked on the street and they both headed toward the house.

Luke knocked on the front door since there was no doorbell. The door was ajar, and they could hear loud voices and a lot of noise coming from inside.

"She must have started with the renovation," offered Sol. "Agatha talked about swiping this place off the market a few months ago in class, but she mentioned it was a total teardown."

Luke knocked again and peeked inside the house when no one answered. He didn't think it would have been possible to hear the knocks with all the racket.

"Hello?" he said, not quite loud enough. He'd grown up surrounded by a family of yellers and had always been too subtle to imitate them.

"Hi! Agatha!" Fortunately, Sol didn't seem to share his qualms.

"Uh, hellooo!" they heard someone calling from the upstairs floor. "I'll be there in a second!"

Sol and Luke waited outside. They hadn't been officially invited indoors and their visit wasn't exactly social.

"Darling, you came!" Agatha received them with a smile when she made her way downstairs and saw Sol at the door. "And you brought even more people from class," she added, referring to Luke. If Agatha felt curious at the sight of the two of them together, she said nothing about it.

"I did," Sol said hesitantly. Luke realized Agatha had probably invited Sol over earlier, and—judging by Sol's people-avoidance tendencies and dislike of small talk—she'd managed to evade the awkward visit until that moment.

"The place is a mess," said Agatha, frowning. The TV agent wore dusty denim dungarees and was wiping her hands with a wet towel. "Carpets everywhere, including in one of the upstairs bathrooms—and the stairs, of course! A washing machine in the family room! Stucco on the sitting room ceiling! The house is from the 1870s, yet you'd say the previous owners wanted to cover or remove each one of its historical elements."

Most of Josie's students tended to be oblivious to how they sounded. Luke didn't think Agatha had considered that the previous owners might not have had the funds for an extensive overhaul like she obviously did.

"You should have seen my London place when I got it," Sol said. "The renovation was a nightmare. The American in me wanted to tear all the walls down, and the architect I worked with kept telling me it wasn't possible. I had purchased a grade-II-listed historical building and there were regulations! I hated her the whole time, but in the end, she did a great job."

"I wonder if it's the same excruciatingly obstinate architect I'm dealing with here," said Agatha with an eye roll. "But I'm such a bad host. Do you want some tea?"

Both Luke and Sol politely declined.

"Thank heavens," Agatha said. "The kitchen is in full disarray. It looked straight out of the seventies, but not in a good way. It had to go."

"Listen, Agatha," Sol finally said. "Unfortunately, this isn't a social visit."

Agatha's shoulders seemed to relax. "Darling, I feel a bit relieved. I thought you wanted to see the house, and right now it would be too much of a hazard. And I don't want the contractors even more distracted. But I can show you the garden and you can tell me all about this non-social surprise visit of yours."

"I guess I should start by telling you that Greg is not whom we were led to believe," said Sol as Agatha guided them around the house and toward a well-kept herb garden.

If the indoors were in the process of being rebuilt, the outdoors looked immaculate, at least to Luke's untrained urban eye.

Once Luke's true identity and profession were disclosed, and after a few vehement exclamations from Agatha, Sol and Luke managed to tell the fascinated TV agent what Luke's purpose had been at Josie's and that The Privateers leaked script had been stolen at the Pilates studio.

"So the Voyeur article wasn't all smoke and overinflated gossip? I missed even more than I thought I had that day!" Agatha said.

"What do you mean?" asked Luke. That group never managed to stop surprising him. They never reacted the way he'd expected.

"The evening of February 23, of course. It was one of Josie's most inspirational Pilates mat group classes, the first and most challenging session to date in her ongoing program to have everyone in perfect beach-body condition by May. And there was a theft at the studio!" Her eyes sparkled. "Now I feel even more upset about losing out on the whole thing."

"I don't understand," said Luke. "What exactly did you lose out on?"

"Well, the whole thing, darling! I'm a regular at Josie's every Thursday at half past five in the afternoon, but that day I had a meeting with a former client. He wanted to see if I'd take him again," she said, implying that nothing was further from her desires. "He kept insisting and wouldn't let me leave! We were at the Rotunda Bar of the Four Seasons for what was supposed to be a cup of tea and a finger sandwich. But he wouldn't let me go for two hours and a half! I couldn't make it to Josie's that day. After that, everyone kept talking about how life-changing the session had been—for weeks! I was so upset."

"Of course you were!" Sol's Mediterranean warmth had taken hold of her while she held her hands to her face in dismay. Luke almost rolled his eyes; she could be so dramatic sometimes. "It was Josie's best, most challenging class to date. And you know that's a tall order. I absolutely loved it!"

"So you weren't at the studio the night of the theft?" asked Luke.

"I wasn't," said Agatha. "But Josie felt so bad for me and since I had actually enrolled and I'm there always, she had a recording of the class and sent it to me. So I was able to take the class after. It's not the same as doing it with her in the room."

"No, it's not," agreed Sol. Either the Spaniard was truly affected by Agatha missing one class at Josie's, or she was a genius at pretending she knew how to emote. "She always makes sure we hold the right position the whole time. And she knows if you are giving it your all."

"She does! Isn't she marvelous?" asked Agatha.

"Josie sent you a recording of the class?" Luke tried to get the interview back on track. For a city as stereotypically exercise-shy and non-fitness-prone as London, Josie sure had found some zealous acolytes there.

"Yes, isn't she a darling?" Agatha replied.

"Could you send me the recording?" requested Luke.

"Oh, I would if I could. You should better ask Josie, I'm afraid. She sent me a link with the recording. I did the class religiously, and now the link has disappeared in the immensity of my inbox with so many other things…"

"I see." Luke tried not to sound too disappointed. "There's one last thing I'd like to ask you, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way."

"Oh, she won't," Sol said. Luke frowned and narrowed his eyes at her. Didn't they agree he'd be the one talking once Agatha knew who he was? But if Sol understood his gesture, she ignored it. "Agatha has very thick skin," she added.

"That I do," said Agatha. "Too many years in showbusiness."

"I see. I wanted to ask you about Sara Daniels."

"Oh, she's an excellent Pilates practitioner, but I haven't seen her at the studio since this whole unfortunate event took place and the script was leaked," said Agatha. "I hope she doesn't neglect her training for too long."

"I'm sure it's just temporary," Sol joined in again . "She's always been one of our best pupils, and she always can tell her right from her left, which is something I can't say I do. It's a plus in any group class."

"Right," said Luke, unsure how the subject had veered so far from his original question about Sara. "I meant that you were Sara's agent."

"Hers and her sister Bryana's, yes. I signed them when they first moved to Hollywood. I worked in Los Angeles for most of my career," Agatha explained.

Luke nodded. "But then they got hired by Meshflixx and changed representation. That couldn't have made you happy."

"On the contrary! I was so pleased." Agatha's words were gentle and overly cheerful, which Luke could only assume was the result of her exposure to too many friendly Californians when she worked abroad.

"You were pleased?" Luke asked doubtfully. "Wouldn't you have preferred to keep them as clients when they finally got hired by a big streaming service and were about to earn a lot of money?"

"Little secret, darling," said Agatha, leaning in. "Some of the streaming services are famously stingy. I'm sure Sara and Bryana got a decent offer, but nothing like if they'd been hired to develop a show fifteen years ago by an American network TV channel, with the prospects of then selling the show internationally and getting syndication residuals on top of that."

"Was that why you didn't want them as clients anymore? Because they weren't going to be earning that much money?"

"No, darling. Who needs more money?" Luke felt he could give her a few names. His would certainly be at the top of the list. "For the past decade, I've been trying not to work that much. Some of my longtime clients are set on keeping me semi-busy, but I mostly managed to keep them at bay when I moved back to London from Los Angeles. All I really want to do is travel, finish this house, and keep being a regular at Josie's."

Luke found himself speechless for a minute. Of all the scenarios he'd contemplated regarding Agatha's possible involvement in the Meshflixx case, not having the least interest in making more money hadn't been one of them.

"So Luke, darling, not much of a Pilates person are we, after all?" Agatha asked. "That's such a pity. You were showing such promise by the end."

"No he wasn't," Sol said dryly.

"No he wasn't." Agatha chuckled. "But I'm always looking forward to new additions to our small group of fitness disciples."

···

Sol insisted on driving back to town after their talk to Agatha. And Luke was ecstatic to return to the London motherboard swiftly. He'd never gotten the allure of the countryside.

They didn't talk much on their way back. Luke was musing over the chat with the television agent, and he had the feeling Sol had her own things to muse about. There seemed to be a sort of unspoken understanding between the two of them to put everything else aside and work together to clear Sol's name. Or at least, that was how Luke saw Sol's lack of resentment at his deception.

She left him a five-minute walk away from his place on Seven Sisters Road by Finsbury Park. He called Divya when he got out of Sol's car.

"Tell me the TV agent did it!" Divya answered.

"I'm afraid it looks like she didn't," Luke told her. "She says she wasn't even there the day of the theft. Remember how I always thought there was something almost dodgy about her?"

"Yes," said Divya.

"Well, she was decidedly hiding something: that she wants to retire but doesn't want to admit it even to herself. Or to her remaining clients."

Divya made a thoughtful noise. "Retirement is tough, mate."

As soon as Sol dropped Luke off, she found herself thinking about him and her feelings about his lie. And she was reminded of how her brain worked sometimes.

She'd always been able to do her most unrestrained reflecting while walking or driving. Something about the need to reach a destination while being alert to the rules of the road, incoming traffic, and pedestrians kept a portion of her mind occupied but freed another one to bring her unconscious worries to the surface.

And even though the night before she had gone to bed set on forgetting Luke, she hadn't been able to keep her resolution for even a day. She'd answered his plea for help the moment he'd called her.

She could delude herself into believing she'd done it solely for selfish reasons—she'd be the case's main suspect unless they could prove otherwise. She could also pretend she'd said yes because she had nothing better to do that day after her trip's postponement. Both things were true, but they didn't show the whole picture.

That candid chat with herself behind the wheel made her realize that things were a bit more complicated. She seemed to still like Luke.

She was very aware of the fact that he'd lied to her, and that alone should be grounds for absolute extraction of his presence from her mind.

And yet.

She hadn't cared about his profession at all in Barcelona. She'd been more interested in how hot he was. She'd been awfully frustrated when he'd left her apartment after they kissed but, in perspective, it had been the right thing for him to do since she didn't know who he was. He'd tried talking to her after that kiss, but she'd basically thrown him out. I realize I never told you what I do for a living. It's a long conversation. Would love to tell you about it when you're back in London, he'd texted her the following day, and she'd been annoyed by that too.

He had still lied to her, and she was allowed to keep him in purgatory for as long as she deemed suitable, of course. But she could also dabble with the idea of forgiving him someday. She permitted herself to like Luke—but as a friend and only that.

She'd been so happy for the last few months after putting together all the broken pieces in her heart and her mind. There was no one worth risking being hurt again. Plus, she had far more pressing business: finding a new job and making sure her name was nowhere near the whole Privateers mess.

The chat with herself had tired Sol. Fortunately, she'd just arrived home.

She enjoyed the last hour of the warm-ish afternoon by having an Ippodo Ummon matcha tea in her small back garden and reading a Scotland-set Alyssa Cole novel she'd just started. She was sure she'd feel better after.

She would start the active job search process after that, even if she wasn't really looking forward to it. She thought of her conversation with Laia the day she was fired. She'd told her friend she didn't know if she had the energy to keep having fun as a journalist. Would it be such a terrible idea if she found a different profession to have fun with?