The cab jerks to a stop outside the office, and Oli fishes around in her bag for her wallet. ‘More stuffy than cosy.’ She hands over her credit card.

There’s an awkward pause.

‘Anyway, I better let you go,’ Dean says eventually. ‘I love you. Call me later.’

‘Love you too.’

The cab drives off. The weight of Isabelle’s notebooks makes her bag strap dig painfully into her shoulder. Her gaze drifts to the office, then over to Breakers. Food first.

‘It’s not an olive branch, but it does have a lot of vitamins in it.’ She places a bottle of juice on the desk in front of Cooper and hands him a paper bag bulging with freshly baked muffins.

He peeks inside. ‘For me?’

‘One for you, one for me.’

‘So, we’re good?’ He fiddles with his watch. His shirt. The cuff of his jacket.

‘We’re good,’ she confirms. ‘Let’s break bread. Or apple muffin.’ She tears off a piece with her teeth.

‘You eat a lot,’ Cooper says tentatively. ‘I completely forgot to eat all day yesterday without you around to remind me.’

Their eyes lock, and Oli bursts out laughing. She drinks her coffee, more relaxed than she’s felt in days.

‘People are going crazy over your voice on the podcast,’ he says. ‘There’s a Facebook group dedicated to it and everything. Twelve fan emails so far. One marriage proposal.’

‘I don’t want to know,’ she says, shaking her head. She gestures at the wall. ‘I wrote up a script for episode two based on your outline.’

He looks pleased. ‘Can I see?’

‘Sure.’ She gets her computer from her bag, loads her email and sends it to him. ‘In your inbox.’

‘Got it,’ he says, dark eyes darting around as his fingers fly across the keyboard.

He plays her the grabs he’s edited from his conversation with Mitchell Stanley yesterday, then proudly reveals an interview he recorded with Amber Halcon, one of the other party guests. The one Oli couldn’t track down. As Oli listens, she can see how it will all weave together—the news snippets, her script. It’s the same way her mind locks down the pieces of her stories before she starts to write. ‘It’s going to be good,’ she says, eyes gleaming.

‘I know.’ Cooper is unable to keep the excitement from his voice.

She tells him about her meeting with Bowman.

‘I had to stop myself from texting you to ask how it went,’ Cooper admits. ‘I even put my phone in a drawer so I wouldn’t be tempted. What did you think overall?’

Oli laces her fingers and pushes her hands away from her body until her knuckles crack. ‘He seems pretty sure about Alex’s guilt. But he did say if we turn anything up about the girls selling pornography to let him know.’