Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Arriving home in low city was a shock that Hallie hadn’t expected.
She had found time to exchange messages with Rosalia and knew that her roommate was expecting her, and also that Rosalia had invited people over for a meal.
As much as Hallie would have loved a quiet evening, settled on her old, familiar sofa or armchair, she was no longer living alone, and a large part of her was delighted that her roommate had other people to spend time with.
Rosalia was not built for a solitary life.
Hallie was beginning to realise she didn’t much like a solitary life, either, even though she had been almost forced to live one since her mother had severed her from the Talbot blood family.
The remainder of the Talbot vine had more or less shunned her, and members of the other vines in the city did not want to get involved with Talbot family business, or risk crossing Wilona.
And that was even without the additional black mark of Hallie’s profession - skip tracers were not well liked.
As well as knowing she was going back to a space with other people in it, the place Hallie was going to now was also new to her.
Rather than the home she’d made for herself, under the railway line that ran through low city, she headed to the house that Rosalia had found just before Hallie had started travelling.
The new place was a large house with three bedrooms on the upper floor, as well as an attic and a basement, not far from the bakery which Rosalia ran.
Rosalia had moved all of their belongings from the space under the railway to the new house in the time that Hallie had been away.
They’d exchanged a series of messages about it, Hallie feeling guilty that her roommate had been left to do all the work, even though Rosalia insisted she didn’t mind.
So there was nothing left in the old house, nothing for Hallie to go back to.
She hadn’t found time to make a decision about what to do with it.
Not yet. All her possessions were in the bag she had with her and inside the house she was heading towards.
One of the junior investigators, Dudon Sharpe, had been assigned to drive her back and seemed perfectly happy with the assignment.
He was mostly silent on the drive, which had suited Hallie.
Her mind was still struggling with the time difference as well as the other changes that waited for her.
It was just coming into evening as they made their way through low city, and while she could see the evidence of that all around, her body was not convinced, telling her that it was time to sleep.
He pulled the car to a halt on the road outside the house and would have helped Hallie carry her bag and the box of spices up to the front door, but Hallie waved him away, wanting a moment alone to adjust to the newness before she had to deal with more people.
Where Girard might have ignored her, stayed with her until he was sure she was comfortable, the younger man accepted her request and got back into the car, driving off.
Returning to high city, Hallie assumed. Although he had mostly been quiet, she’d caught him looking around with wide eyes, trying to take everything in as they crossed through midtown and then into low city.
He’d seemed to regard the trip as its own adventure and she couldn’t help wonder just what kind of mischief he and Jasper might get up to when they were sent into low city trying to track down the supply of the sour sweets she’d identified.
That wasn’t her problem, though, and an issue for the next day in any event.
Right now, she had a new house in front of her.
A new place to stay. A new home? That didn’t quite fit in her mind.
As she stood outside the front gate, the dull grey daylight slowly yielding to night, Hallie saw that there had been significant changes since she had last seen the house.
The wrecked car that had taken up a large part of the small front garden was gone, as were the weeds and hip-high plants that had choked the path.
The front garden was now level, with a wide path of paving stones bordered by potted plants that Hallie’s nose told her were mostly herbs that Rosalia would be able to use in her cooking.
The house itself still looked past its prime, the paint on the green front door peeling.
But every window was clean, and someone had cleared the plants out of the gutters.
The roof looked intact, too. Hallie wondered what other changes her roommate and best friend had made in the two and a bit weeks since she’d last been in low city.
Even knowing that she’d be coming back to the house and not the space under the railway that she’d left, Hallie found she couldn’t move from the spot on the pavement.
She knew the house in front of her was where she was going to live now, but, like the word home, it didn’t feel right.
She’d had the uncomfortable realisation that she’d outgrown the space under the railway.
But looking at the house, she knew that this was Rosalia’s dream, not hers.
Rosalia’s space. And Hallie had no doubt that her best friend would thrive here.
With a twist in her stomach, Hallie wondered if she would ever find somewhere that felt like home, like hers.
And then shook herself. She’d spent a lot of time in strange rooms over the past two weeks, trying to track Findo Trask across the globe.
And she’d never left her home country before.
Perhaps this unsettled feeling was just a result of the travel she’d longed for.
She’d always focused on what new things she might find and experience and not what coming back would feel like.
Low city was her home. The house in front of her with its garden space was more than most people in low city could lay claim to, and she got to share it with her best friend. It was more than enough.
Even so, she still found she couldn’t move, standing just outside the small wooden gate that led into the front garden.
There were lights on inside the house and Hallie could hear the faint murmur of music and conversation and see the shadows of people moving behind the curtains drawn across the front windows.
Rosalia’s guests were inside. That somehow made it even more difficult for Hallie to move.
She was about to force herself forward when the door of the house opened and Rosalia appeared, smiling as she came outside, along the path, opening the gate so she could give Hallie a hug.
Rosalia was warm, bubbling over with laughter, her hair scented with the expensive shampoo she liked, mixed with the scent of fresh bread and cinnamon.
As well as cooking for her guests, Rosalia had been baking.
It was wonderfully familiar and felt like home, Hallie realised. Normal things.
“You’re back. I’m so happy to see you. It feels like it’s been ages.
Come on in, come in, we were just about to eat.
I can’t wait for you to see what it’s like inside.
I feel like I’ve barely sat down since you left, but it’s been amazing.
” Rosalia paused for breath and gave Hallie another hug for good measure.
The happy babble and Rosalia’s warmth cut through the rest of Hallie’s hesitation and she hefted her bag onto one shoulder, picking up the large box of herbs and spices that had made it unscathed halfway across the world, and followed Rosalia inside.
Inside the house the smell of fresh baked bread was stronger along with the rich scent of roasted meat, roast vegetables and a sharp and savoury scent of what Hallie thought might be a tomato-based soup, overlaid with the waxy trace of floor cleaner.
The bubble of conversation and music was louder now.
The music was some kind of strings, lively but not overpowering.
The small entrance way had been painted a fresh, bright white, and now had a row of hooks on the wall ready and waiting with a rubber mat on the floor underneath the coats for boots. There were several coats and boots already in place.
“Do you want to wash up before coming inside?” Rosalia asked.
“Actually, let me give you this,” Hallie said, handing over the box. “A gift. We were in Minamaan and they had the most amazing spice stall.”
Looking intrigued, Rosalia headed for the back of the house and the large kitchen that Hallie was sure had been one of the main selling points for the house.
Hallie dropped her bag and shed her coat and boots, leaving them in the entrance hall and following Rosalia, her thick socks making no sound on the polished wooden floor.
The kitchen had also been transformed. The broken units had been mended, all the doors put back on their hinges or replaced, then painted a pale yellow colour that Hallie thought suited her roommate very well.
The scarred worktop had been sanded down and then oiled so that it gleamed faintly.
The oven, which had been rusting, had been scrubbed along with the hob.
There was a loaf of fresh bread on the counter next to a large pot of what Hallie thought might be the tomato soup she had smelled.
The dusty, dark corner of the room had been swept out and now held the table and chairs that had been in the home under the railway bridge.
That little bit of familiarity helped anchor Hallie even as Rosalia put the box down on the table and opened it, exclaiming in delight.
“Spices. Oh, my goodness. Saints, there are so many.” Rosalia began unpacking the box, carefully unwrapping each vial, removing the stopper and breathing in the scent before she moved onto the next one. She rattled off names and descriptions and recipes faster than Hallie could keep track of.