Chapter 7

7

S o far, she was having a glorious stay . She had landed late the previous night, grabbed a taxi, and immediately remembered the lack of politeness that so often characterized her fellow Spaniards. She must have been especially homesick because not only didn't she mind that her taxi driver wanted to take a longer route than necessary to her destination, she almost relished it.

She immediately felt the slower pace of the smaller, more laid-back Mediterranean city. Barcelona was still an international capital, but a place where one could stroll at a calmer pace on occasion.

She had woken up that morning, walked to the Oriol Balaguer bakery that had opened a few blocks from her place in the city, got a croissant, and was now devouring it while bathing in the morning sunshine that graced the rooftop terrace of her small but splendidly lit penthouse apartment.

She couldn't help but feel it was a different city from up there—a slower, more genuine one. You could spy on half your neighbors while they were watering the lemon or olive trees and tending to their urban gardens or simply hanging out the washing. The map of the city was laid at your fingertips. She had views of the Tibidabo and Carmel hills and the Sagrada Família cathedral and never got tired of looking at them.

She had secured the two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment a few years before, seduced by its location at the heart of Eixample and its views. She had made substantial renovations since she bought the place. There were one and a half bathrooms at present and only one decently sized bedroom. She had also opted for an open-concept kitchen that bled into the dining and living room areas and went against most Barcelona floorplan standards.

Several members of her money-savvy family had first questioned the renovations, approving of them only after they saw the final result, and informed her that the intelligent thing to do would be to sell the apartment for a profit and invest in something else, something bigger in a quieter neighborhood. She hadn't listened.

They also suggested she should rent the apartment while she was away, which was most of the year. But she hadn't listened to that either. She kept some of the books and clothes from her youth as well as some family heirlooms there and couldn't bear the idea of a perfect stranger going through her things, through a part of her life, without her even being aware of it. Plus, she liked the option of having the apartment ready when she felt like flying home .

She was nowhere close to solving her lack-of-a-paying-job issue but somehow feeling less stressed about it just because she was there. She'd always been unconventionally minded when it came to following her own path, but also about making and having money. While she took another sip of her tea, she looked at the space around her and felt something close to contentment. She only hoped she'd be able to keep both her place in Barcelona and her house in London considering her lack of money smarts and her professional odds.

"She's fled the country," announced Thompson, making his triumphal entry into the office that morning and holding his brand-new, big-by-any-standards premium phone.

"I'm sorry what?" replied Luke when he realized his boss wasn't making a random announcement but talking to him. Luke had spent the previous two hours trying to piece out who was still one of Agatha's clients. So far, he had two names and neither of them had worked consistently in the last few years.

"The Stringer is no longer in the UK," enunciated Thompson with the same pomp as before.

"Where is she? How did you find out?" Luke spoke with perhaps too much exhilaration. He hadn't gotten his second tea of the morning yet and was trying to compensate for his lack of wakefulness. He was also disappointed in himself. How could someone as generally inept as Thompson have found out that Sol had fled when Luke hadn't realized?

"She's in Barcelona. I follow her on Instagram." Thompson showed the picture of a street-floor tile, depicting four tablets with four circles inside them, on his phone.

Besides Sol's Instagram handle, the only other copy that accompanied the image was the word Home .

Luke was convinced that the senior detective was probably following the Stringer on social media from his own personal account, not even realizing she could notice she was being watched by investigators. But also, how hadn't Luke thought about creating a fake account and keeping an eye on Sol that way too?

He was uncharacteristically unfocused when it came to the case at hand. Fortunately, Thompson was so high on his own discovery, he hadn't realized Luke should have been the one doing the social media monitoring.

Luke couldn't afford any other lapses of concentration if he wanted to keep his job. But even if he knew T&T was going to start downsizing the investigation soon in response to Meshflixx's request for a lower bill, he couldn't quite understand why the streaming giant had hired them in the first place. Why investigate the theft of a script that had already leaked online?

But not only did not Thompson offer any explanation for that, he also ambushed Luke with a most inconvenient request.