Page 23 of The Expat Affair

“Oh, Rayna...”

I hate the pity I hear in my mother’s voice, but mostly I hate how much I care about the answer. Of course I wanted Barry to see that picture. He’s the real reason I posted the damn thing, so he would see that sultry, sexy version of me and feel... what? Sorrow? Remorse? It was a stupid, vengeful move that resulted in three thousand people seeing my nipple.

“Never mind. Donotanswer that.” I muscle my way down the busy street. “How are you? How’s Dad?”

“Oh, you know. Same old, same old. The well has been acting up again, and now they’re saying we’ll probably have to dig a new one. Your father about keeled over when he heard how much that’s going to cost. It’s why he couldn’t say no.”

“Couldn’t say no to what?”

Dad is an electrician, a one-man shop he advertises on the side of his van with an orange cartoon man holding a light bulb, lit up in an orange glow.Ted Dumont, For All Your Electrical Needs. Dad does okay, but St. Francisville isn’t exactly a booming metropolis, and the client pool is the size of a rain puddle.

Mom fills the silence with one of her sighs, and in it, I hear the answer. I lurch to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Mother, you can’t be serious.”

A cluster of Italian teenagers come tumbling out of the pharmacy and ram me from the side, nearly knocking me into the tram tracks. “Scuzi!” one of them shouts as they skitter past, but I don’t acknowledge any of it because I know what my mother is working very hard not to tell me. I know why Dad couldn’t say no.

“Your father said you’d be angry, but sweetie, please don’t blamehim. That PPP money wasn’t nearly enough to keep us afloat, and we’re still digging ourselves out of that hole in a market that isn’t the greatest. Barry’s the only developer in town who’s not slowing down. If anything, he’s busier than ever.”

I grit my teeth, clamping down hard to hold back a scream. Never, not once in our eight-plus years together would it have ever occurred to Barry to hire my father for one of his builds. He always chooses a firm from Baton Rouge, the biggest and the best with a CEO that kisses his ass and steers a whole slew of qualified electricians. There’s only one reason Barry hired my father, and that’s to mess with me.

“I’m not mad at Dad but Barry. No—I’m mad atmyself, because this is why you don’t drunk post. Because alcohol makes you think it’s okay to upload a picture of your nipple for all the world to see, except it wasn’t all the world I was going for. You know that, right? It was one person. One idiot asshole ex who I hoped would see it and say,Whoa.What kind of loser lets a woman like this get away? What kind of dumb fuck am I?”

“Sweetheart, you know how I hate the f-word.”

“And now that picture is out there in a big way, stirring up a shitstorm of epic proportions and constantly bringing me back to what ended up being a seriously traumatic night. All because in a moment of drunken delusion, I was hoping to summon up guilt or remorse or shame when Barry has given me zero indication he’s capable of feeling any of those things. God! I’m so stupid. And petty, too, apparently.”

“Oh, Rayna Jo...” Mom heaves another sigh. “Honey, you’re not stupid. What you are ishuman, so please stop beating yourself up. I hate what that man did to you, but mostly I hate how it’s made you want to put a whole ocean between you and your home. Your father and I miss you so much.”

“I miss you, too.” My throat goes tight around the words.

“And he did see the picture, by the way. His receptionist told your father he’s been impossible ever since.”

I don’t want to love the image of Barry stomping around his office as much as I do, but there it is. The one bright spot in a couple of really shitty days.

The ground under my sneakers begins to vibrate, the tram scattering tourists as it comes clanging down the center of the street. I shoulder my way through the crowd, trying to beat it to the stop on the next bridge.

“Mom, I gotta run. This is my tram. Give Dad my love, okay? And tell him I said congrats on the big job. Love to you both!”

We hang up, and I drop my phone into my bag.

I bulldoze my way through the tourists to the bridge just in time. The tram doors slide open, burping out a thick cluster of tourists, their faces flushed with cold and excitement. They push past me with bright cheeks and windblown hair.

I collapse onto an empty seat by the window and let the tram carry me away from the noise and the crowd, still breathing hard as I stare at the scenery flashing by on the other side of the glass. The tunnel of ancient gingerbread buildings gives way to the Leidseplein with its street artists and terraces, the Bulldog with its striped awnings and neon signs, the Municipal Theater of orange and white brick that dominates a whole corner. The familiar sights bring me back a little, and I tell myself to let itgo. Barry saw the picture of the nipple he’ll never touch again as long as he lives, and I have bigger problems to worry about than a manipulative ex.

Like dead Tinder dates, for example. Like killer diamond thieves.

I’m digging in my bag when my fingers make contact with something foreign at the bottom. Something white and round and smooth and definitely not mine. I pull it out, hold it in a palm. It looks suspiciously like an AirTag.

Except it’s not. The Find My app on my phone showsRayna’s Luggageexactly where it should be, in the suitcase I shoved under my bed on the P.C. Hooftstraat. According to the app, no other devices are near me.

If not an AirTag, then what?

I flip the thing over, study it from both sides. There’s no Apple logo, no logo on it at all. I inspect the smooth metal rim, turning it every which way, but there’s nothing there, either, no words or writing to identify it, but I know instinctively it’s some kind of tracker.

Fear rises in my belly, and I slap my bag onto the empty seat beside me and sort through the contents. I take everything out, feeling in the side pockets and poking through every compartment in my makeup bag and wallet. I turn my bag upside down and give it a good shake, until nothing falls out but crumbs. The tracker in my hand is the only one like it in my things.

A fluke? A random stalker following me through the Leidsestraat?

---