He took out his pocket watch, checked the face, and put it back without reading the gold hands.

“She’s desperate, Sarah,” he added.

Footsteps sounded on the stone tiles behind us.

My mother walked out onto the terrace holding a printed hotel map and a pair of reading glasses.

“They sorted out the room assignment,” she said, setting the map down next to my coffee cup.

“Derek just pulled into the lower parking level.”

Two hours later, Derek sat across from me in a low leather armchair in the hotel lounge, his right foot tapping a quick, nonstop rhythm on the carpet.

He wore a navy suit jacket with no tie, his collar open, showing a pale neck.