Page 22 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

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 sayladies.” 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.

Chapter Eleven

Mariah had not expected it to be so hard to come back to the hotel where she’d stayed with her mom several years before, way before the pandemic. The place smelled the same, both fresh and softly mildewy. They took the elevator down to the check-in desk and a very elegant young woman greeted them. “Veronica, will you?” Mariah said, handing over her phone with the reservation and a credit card.

“Of course.”

Mariah sat down on the velvet couch, trying to ignore the little cold spot just to her left. She didn’t have the energy to deal with a presence at the moment. There were probably a lot in such an old building.

The drag of her hangover clouded everything, and her very blood ached with the weight of the trip and the sitting in one position and cinnamon vodka. She wanted to pop a painkiller, but until she’d had a shower and something to eat, that seemed like a bad idea.

Veronica looked a little worse for wear, too, her clothes wrinkled, her hair losing the smoothness of her blowout, but she handled everything like a mom. Mariah was glad. The two of them rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and opened the doors to a corner suite with two bedrooms, a tiny kitchen, and a small living area overlooking Russell Square. Outside, rain had started to fall, blurring the scene.

“Oh, look,” Veronica said from the window. “A red phone booth!”

“I think they left them there for tourists. There are a few around the city so people can take pictures.”

“I’ll have to do that.” She turned. “Let’s get you settled. Do you need to eat? I can run out to the café across the street, or look for a grocery store.”

“Ugh, no.” Mariah felt her irritability rising, a thin red buzz just beneath her skin, and took a breath. “I need food faster than that. Let’s just order room service for now, and then you can go to the store. I think there’s a Waitrose a few blocks away. Or there was.” She sank down into the chair by the window, feeling depression creep in.

The Waitrose was there when Mariah and her mom had stayed here in 2018. Mariah had done well in the PyeongChang Olympics, but had injured her shoulder badly enough that she’d needed to give it a full-on rest.

Rachel whisked her off to Europe. They’d explored London, eating everywhere because that was what you did with Rachel, and they met Henry in Morocco. Mariah had hoped their romance would reignite there—she always wanted them to get back together—but it didn’t happen. They were friends. Would stay friends.

Rachel had slipped into a new relationship with a food editor, but Henry stuck around in Mariah’s life. He showed up at competitions sometimes, and she had a zillion great action shots of her career that he’d taken. He was the only man in her life who could even remotely have been called a father figure, and she was glad he was on this trip.

“What do you want from room service?” Veronica asked. She’d already pulled up a menu on her tablet.