Page 25 of Isle of Beauty

I look everywhere for a note, something that tells me she didn’t just leave me like a burglar in the night.

There must be an explanation. Maybe her roommate forgot her keys and she was needed home. Maybe she went to get us coffee and pastries like in the movies.

Wait, isn’t that my role? And fuck, how would she come in? How do they always come back to the apartment without the keys?

FOCUS, Fucker !

I jump in the shower because there isn’t much I can do right now. I dry and dress quickly and carelessly then call my chauffeur. I need to get to her place as fast as I can.

I pass a flower shop and get an outrageously expensive bouquet. I barely register what it looks like, just that it has jasmine flowers in it and that made me think of her. Her smell was all over the house yesterday when I woke up but today it was fainter.

She hasn’t slept in my bed.

I need to see her and I know where she lives. I’m addicted already and need my fucking fix.

“Where are we going this morning, Sir?”

When we reach the address I gave him, I’m a ball of nerves. My palms are sweaty, my heart races.

I ring her door bell. No answer. I try again, and again; all in vain for ten more minutes.

My brain still hasn’t registered the information but my heart already knows.

I’m in denial.

Fuck, what are the stages of grief? Is denial first?

I know Lana an her cousin are leaving London for a long time but I never heard Lana talk about moving today. I’m searching my memories but can’t find any.

She can’t be gone, I picked her up from here yesterday.

And what the fuck am I talking about? Grief? I have known this woman for forty-eight hours.

I need to get a grip. And a coffee. A fucking strong quadruple shot.

A woman in her fifties opens the door of the building and I enter with her. I quickly realise we’re both going to the fifth floor. Her floor. The ride to the elevator is tense, its walls closing in on me in a claustrophobic fever dream.

I walk slower, following the woman who looks at me as if I’m going to harm her. I must look unhinged. When I see the lady pull a set of keys and enter Lana’s flat, my heart somersaults and I follow her inside, pushing the door to see Lana.

“Sir, you can’t be here. I’m going to call the police!”

I don’t give a shit. I’m struck in place. There’s nothing in the apartment. It’s as though I dreamed this entire weekend and the woman in my bed moaning my name.

There’s no trace of her, no note, nothing. The flat looks like any other that tourists rent out for a few nights. It looks untouched and dead.

I’m not going to find her. Even if I own a security business, a powerful firm that can find pretty much anything on anyone, she just escaped me. The only woman I opened up to, gone.

I’m alone.

Again.

TEN

PIERCE

WHO THE FUCK IS LANA MAYERS?

FIVE DAYS AFTER LANA LEFT

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