The Stranger She Chose to Trust

Chapter 3 - What Girlfriend Meant

Mara asked him to place the phone on the table.

He did so reluctantly. Nora picked it up and held it against her stomach, checking the screen with a thumb that would not stay still.

Three missed calls from her sister.

A message from Julian, sent twenty minutes earlier.

COME TO THE OFFICE. WE NEED TO FIX THIS BEFORE YOU GO.

She had gone because he controlled the rota, because he said her final wages would be delayed otherwise, because she had already lost too much sleep calculating what she could afford to lose.

“Were you two in a relationship?” Mara asked quietly, after Julian had been asked to wait by the bar.

“Yes,” Nora said.

Gabriel did not look surprised or disappointed. That steadied her more than sympathy would have.

“We dated for six weeks. I ended it last Friday.”

Julian had told her a breakup required a conversation. Then another. Then a last chance to explain. Every refusal became proof that she was cruel, confused, or listening to the wrong people.

Tonight, in the office, he had taken her phone and stood in front of the door.

“He said we were going to his flat. He said I couldn't keep humiliating him at work.”

“How did you get out?” Gabriel asked.

“A porter knocked. Julian moved away from the door to open it. I slipped past them.”

She remembered the handle catching her waistcoat, the tray crashing behind her, Julian calling her name in the calm voice he used with guests.

“I wasn't trying to cause a scene.”

“You were trying to get out,” Mara said.

Nora nodded, and tears spilled onto her hands.

She expected Gabriel to stand up and threaten Julian. Men in expensive suits did that in stories. They made another man's fear the solution to yours.

Instead, he asked whether she wanted the police called and whether her sister could come.

“Yes. Both.”

Mara stayed beside her while she made the call.

On the other side of the room, Julian began speaking rapidly to a bartender. He pointed toward the booth, then toward the corridor.

Gabriel noticed.

“Please preserve tonight's corridor footage,” he told Mara. “And the duty log. No one needs to decide what happened before we have it.”

Nora looked up.

“The corridor camera?”

Julian had told her it was broken.

Mara's expression changed.

“It was serviced on Monday.”