CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Jennings
We’re at the Liberty Bell when Nan starts to tire. She doesn’t say anything but I see it. Most of the time she’s so bloody energetic you’ve got to make sure she doesn’t zoom off without you. But she assures me she’s fine, so we carry on. She’s been going full tilt all week, I’m sure she’s looking forward to relaxing at Aunt Poppy’s.
Daisy’s fidgety. She got a call as we were touring Independence Hall. She stepped outside to take it and I didn’t see her again until we’d finished that location and were crossing Chestnut Street.
We have a final group dinner tonight. It promises to be as tedious as the others we’ve had this week, though Daisy’s promised tonight’s has proper silverware, so at least there’s that. I’d prefer having her to myself tonight, but as the guide she’s obligated to attend the farewell dinner.
I’ll take her for drinks afterwards. She can order that ridiculous champagne cocktail and tell me she’s a sure thing. I laugh. How the hell was that only a week ago?
I need to find out how soon she can pack up and join me in London. I can arrange to have all her shit crated and shipped over if she’s attached to it. I’d be content with tossing her on the plane with whatever she’s got with her, but women are fussy creatures.
I get an email with her employment file from Rhys as the tour is wrapping up. The local guide, Gary, has led us to Franklin Square, which is our final stop. We’ve gathered at a fountain in the center of the park while Gary gives a brief history of the location, the group listening intently through their headsets. Daisy’s stepped some fifteen or twenty feet away to take another call.
I’m half listening to Gary as he talks about the extensive renovation required to make the fountain operational again after it fell into disrepair in the nineteen seventies. He’s a great guide, engaging and comfortable with public speaking. He’s reading the group’s interest level and tailoring his approach at each stop. Confident in what he’s doing.
Unlike Daisy.
I need to ask Aunt Poppy who’s in charge of training for this division when I see her tomorrow. Something is off here. Corners are being cut somewhere. Daisy’s a sharp girl and charming on a one-to-one basis—but she’s lacking in presentation skills and tour knowledge. It’s troublesome that we’d not provide more training before putting her on a tour by herself. I should have paid more attention to it this week, but fuck it if I wasn’t distracted by her.
We don’t normally employ guides this young, either. Not unless they’re exceptional. Not for a tour like this, one filled with a majority of older guests. The younger, less experienced guides would normally start on the adventure tours. Ones with high activity and a younger crowd.
Daisy ends her call and takes over for Gary as he says his goodbyes. She’s reminding the group of the route back to the hotel and the meeting time for dinner. Pointing out gift shops and a carousel in the park. Places to get coffee or a light lunch. She seems fairly enthusiastic about Philadelphia. Comfortable, maybe? Or relieved her job this week is nearly done?
I open the email with a tap of my thumb. There’s a file attached with Daisy’s name on it and a note from Rhys that I skim through.
A home address placing her in Naperville, Illinois. Date of birth placing her at twenty-six. A hire date of… five years ago?
She’s been working for Sutton Travel for five years?
How?
Didn’t she say this was a new job for her? That she started after her design job went bust? Isn’t that what she said? I glance at her speaking to the group. She doesn’t have her notebook today. It’s the first time I’ve seen her without it.
I run a hand over the back of my neck to relieve the building tension as I pace. A new tour, she said, which I knew was a lie the moment it left her mouth. This tour has been on the schedule for years. A new tour for her, perhaps?
How in the hell did she get hired at twenty-one, though?
I turn my attention back to the email from Rhys.
Exemplary employee, it says. Consistently high ratings from tour guests. Requests for repeat bookings with her specifically as their guide.
In all honesty—that doesn’t sound accurate. And I’m sleeping with her. I read on with growing trepidation. She started as an intern, Rhys notes. A position that didn’t exist, but she sent a presentation to the head of the division making a case for herself. Created her own unpaid internship and convinced the company to hire her. She spent a summer shadowing the best tour guides we have. The division head was so impressed with her she had a job offer waiting when she finished college.
That explains the timing. In part. It explains how someone her age is five years in, but what about the rest of it? Who puts in that much effort to land a job they’re not passionate about? It doesn’t add up to the Daisy I’ve just spent a week with.
Then something else catches my eye.
Arizona State.
She graduated from Arizona State. With a degree in hospitality. Not urban planning. And I’m not too fucking British to know it doesn’t snow in Arizona. It’s the goddamned desert.
Snow, she said. Frost. Ice. One of those things. She left early for class to allot time for the weather. Slipped and ripped open her trousers.
Disgusted, I stop reading and slip the mobile into my pocket.
She’s laughing at something Mrs. Delaine is saying. Behind her, the wind catches one of the jets of water in the fountain and the drops of water spread through the air like tiny crystals.
She’s beautiful. A beautiful, deceitful little liar.
Or possibly crazy.
Who lies like that? For what purpose? Was this all a joke to her? Am I a joke to her? Or was it a lie that started in a hotel bar that she decided to keep running with? Or something she regularly does to amuse herself?
Who in the bloody hell is this girl? What’s true and what’s a lie? She can’t have gone to university in both the snow and the desert. She can’t have majored in both urban planning and hospitality. She can’t have worked as both a tour guide and a designer during the same time periods.
I knew she was lying about something. I knew something was off, but I ignored my better judgement. Thought perhaps it was something small or silly like a history of getting sacked or possibly an arrest for public drunkenness during uni. That sort of thing.
Small lies, not a complete misrepresentation of who she is.
She catches me staring at her and winks. She goddamned winks at me. I nod once in response and I can feel my jaw ticking from the strain of keeping my response to a simple nod. I need time to think before I talk to her.