Gabby closes her eyes at the wordlove. ‘I was going to tell him how I felt, once upon a time. I’d just got back from a trip to Greece. I was dating someone at the time. On paper, we were a perfect match, but Greece broke me. Everywhere I looked, I was surrounded by people who had found their soulmate. I looked at my boyfriendand realised he wasn’t the person I wanted to be the other half of. It was Otis. It always had been.’
Gabby’s forehead creases at the pain of hearing these words out loud. I suspect this is one of the few times she has ever said them openly.
‘Why didn’t you tell him?’ I ask.
‘I intended to. I had it all planned out. The day I landed, we met at this pizzeria we were obsessed with. Then, right as I was building up the courage to tell Otis how I felt, he told me he’d met someone.’
‘Alexa?’
‘Alexa,’ Gabby confirms.
‘Oh, Gabby, I’m so sorry.’
She shrugs in an ‘It is what it is’ way, but one look at her face says how much the past hurts her present.
‘As soon as I met Alexa, I knew I didn’t stand a chance,’ Gabby says. ‘I mean, you’ve seen photos of her, haven’t you? She’s stunning.’
‘Looks aren’t everything.’
‘I know, but there’s something about Alexa I could never compete with. She’s beautiful, inside and out. Well, she is most of the time.’
‘What does that mean?’
Gabby sighs and rubs her temples. ‘I don’t know. The last few days have confused me, then yesterday when I opened her diary and… look, it’s probably nothing. I don’t even know why I’m here, to be honest. I just needed to… I don’t know. Sense check what I found.’
‘What is it? What have you found?’
Gabby drops her hands and looks at me. There’s a haunted sadness to her that I’ve not seen before, not even when she was recounting her own heartbreak.
‘It’s in Alexa’s diary,’ she says. ‘Janine, I think she might have been cheating on Otis.’
CHAPTER 27
When I don’t respond straightaway, Gabby reaches for the diary. ‘Forget it, I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Wait,’ I say, clutching it tight. ‘I just need a second, that’s all. In the space of a few days, I’ve gone from thinking Alexa and Otis were struggling but in love, to finding out she’s been hiding money, and now this.’
Gabby deflates. ‘It’s a lot, isn’t it?’
‘More than I bargained for when I said I’d help,’ I joke feebly, handing the diary back to her. ‘Show me what you’ve found.’
Gabby hesitates, but then she starts flicking through the diary.
‘As you know, Alexa never embraced technology,’ she begins. ‘She insisted on using a paper diary. Otis is the opposite, so they were forever double booking. It was a running joke between them, even if it was annoying to be on the other end of. I learned that whenever Otis and I made plans, I had to tell Alexa to put it in her diary, too, so she didn’t sign him up for something at the same time.’
I bet she loved that, I can’t help but think.
‘The police came to the house again yesterday,’ Gabby continues. ‘They asked about Alexa’s schedule. Appointments she attended, regular plans she had, people she met.’
‘I’m guessing that’s when Otis showed them her diary?’
‘But that’s the thing, Janine. Otis never mentioned Alexa’s diary.’
I can’t hide the fact that hearing this makes me gulp. ‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t dare ask,’ Gabby confesses.
‘Did you tell the police about it?’