Chapter 12: Four Hundred and Twelve

The woman behind the counter came around it, locked the front door and said, in English, "You are the one who orders the same."

"I'm Gwendolyn."

"Of course you are. Your sister told me you would come."

"She booked an apartment at this address."

"There is no apartment," said the baker. "She needed an address for the airline, and I needed someone to eat my custard tarts in winter."

"When was she here?"

"The month after her grandfather's funeral. She sat at that table by the window and wrote with a pen for four weeks."

She wiped her hands on her apron.

"She said a woman with her face would come with her phone, and order whatever the first customer ordered."

"Did she say why?"

"She said you would understand when you read it."

She bent behind the register and came up with a flat laminated card, the size of a placemat.

The corners had gone soft from handling.

I held out my hand.

Cordelia's phone rang in my back pocket.

The screen said A. HARCASTLE, which is how she saved a man she did not trust.

I answered, because Cordelia would have.

"Gwendolyn, dear," said Ambrose. "Is Lisbon lovely in October?"

"How did you know I was in Lisbon?"

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