Page 90 of All These Beautiful Strangers
“Or is it possible your mom was thinking about divorce?” Greyson asked. “Maybe she wanted to get all her ducks in a row before going through with it?”
I bit my lip. I couldn’t help but remember what Eugenia had told me—how unhappy my mother had been, how withdrawn. And what Claire had said: Alistair Calloway isn’t a man you just leave. The last time I had seen my parents together, they were fighting. My mother had screamed at my father not to touch her. What if my mother had told my father she wanted a divorce, or what if my father had found out somehow that my mother was planning to leave him? What if that was the reason for their fight?
I picked up the landline on Greyson’s desk and started dialing.
“What are you doing?” Greyson asked.
I held up a hand to silence him. The phone was ringing on the other end.
“Hindsberg and Thornton Investigations,” a woman’s voice said. “How may I help you?”
I opened my mouth to say something and then froze. I hung up the phone.
“What was that?” Greyson asked.
“I think I need to go see him,” I said.
“Peter Hindsberg?” Greyson asked. “What are you going to say?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I have to find out exactly what he was doing for my mother.”
“All right,” Greyson said. “I’ll drive you.”
The offices of Hindsberg & Thornton Investigations were in an unkempt office complex across the street from a Rite Aid. Inside, the reception area was empty. I went up to the middle-aged woman sitting behind the front desk with Greyson close behind me.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked. I could tell from her voice that she was the same woman who had answered the phone earlier when I called.
“I’m here to see Peter Hindsberg,” I said.
“He’s not in.”
“Well, when will he be back?” I asked.
“A week from Monday,” the woman said. She glanced back at her computer screen. I could see in the reflection in her glasses that she was playing solitaire. “He just left for Jamaica. Family cruise.”
This. Was. Not. Happening.
“Well, I really need to speak to him,” I said. “It’s important.”
The woman glanced back up at me. “Are you a client?”
“Yes,” I said. “I need to talk to him about my case. It’s urgent.”
“Name?” the woman asked, her fingers poised over her keyboard. I realized then that she was going to look me up in the system, and that she would quickly see I wasn’t there.
“What I meant is, I’m a new client,” I said. “I need to find someone, and when I spoke to Mr. Hindsberg over the phone the other week, he said he could help me. Maybe I could just get his cell number?”
“Mr. Thornton is handling all of Mr. Hindsberg’s caseload while he’s on vacation,” the woman said. “If it’s really urgent, I could see if he has a few minutes to meet with you.”
“Sure,” I said, glancing behind me at the empty waiting room. “Yeah, that would be great. Thank you.”
“One moment,” the woman said. She pushed back her chair and stood and disappeared down the short hall behind her.
“What are you doing?” Greyson whispered.
“I need you to distract her,” I whispered back.
“Distract her?”
