As she reached across the table, he held her book to the side, waving it up and down.

“Must be valuable. Maybe I’ll sell it. All your secrets in here?”

He’d even half-chuckled, thinking she seemed so cross it might be that time of the month. It was just a book. He’d leaned away to the right, ensuring it was out of her reach, and made out he would open the cover and read the contents.

“Noo,” she had said, far too loud. Two girls at the next table had looked over toward them.

“It’s personal. Records. A diary. Sort of. Please.”

Her palm unfurled toward him. “Give it to me.”

She appeared distressed and he instantly regretted the joke. Without hesitation, he returned the book to her hand, and realized he didn’t know her well enough. He hadn’t taken her to be a person who was easily upset. Right now though, she appeared on the verge of tears.

“Sorry.” He hoped his apology demonstrated his regret. “Must be important records."

“No, not important. Just a balance sheet of sorts. It’s just personal.”

She placed the balance sheet of sorts inside her bag and pulled the zipper closed. The awkwardness of how she balanced the tote on her lap for the rest of the meeting told a different story.

Simple records?

Yeah sure, he’d thought even then. The way they used to meet at out-of-way spots should have set off alarm bells. That’s what she did now. Traveled to distant destinations in the city.

Ding-ding William. Pay attention.

She’d claimed, when he’d asked her, that she enjoyed soaking up the atmosphere of new places and observing people from different walks of life.

He understood that, as a writer. A little extreme, he had thought.

When thinking about obscure meeting places, the first time he’d seen her with the book was a real ding-ding moment. Well, it was in hindsight. Not long after he began helping her, she’d organized a work session at a greasy spoon. The place was down an alley and up two flights of darkened stairs where he didn’t even order for fear he risked food poisoning.

She had been waiting for him outside on the street, and he was across from her when the accident happened. Only a few yards away, hell had broken loose. He scoured his memory, pulling at the threads of the event. How important were those five minutes? With everything he now knew, very, with a capital V.

His initial thought upon seeing the arguing couple so near Orelia was that she might be in danger. The man’s appearance matched their surroundings, rundown and beaten-up. His girlfriend or wife, who didn’t look much better, cried and begged him to “please stop.” She added asshole and fuck off enough times to those words, William presumed she wasn’t such a sweet, innocent thing. Still, nothing justified his behavior.

“You’re a bitch,” the creep said, grabbing hold of the woman’s arm and twisting. “I told you if you texted that dirty cheat again, you’d pay with fucking skin.”