Inez nodded, collected her purse and stood. “Where to now?”
Thomas grimaced and admitted, “Well, the only thing I can think to do is keep walking around with an eye out to spotting Aunt Marguerite. York isn’t that big a city, at least its center isn’t large, and it doesn’t appear too busy at night. Maybe we’ll get lucky and spot her. In the meantime, we’ll try to think of places to look for her. We might check the book stores tomorrow evening. It’s too late tonight, but we’ll have to check the hours and see if they’re open later than five o’clock.”
“They might be,” Inez said as they walked to the stairs. “This is a high-tourist area, so they might stay open later to cater to tourists.”
“Well, if we come across the store, we can check their hours,” Thomas said as he followed her down the stairs. “But for tonight, we’ll just walk around and try to come up with ways to find her. I’d suggest checking anywhere they might have archives, but those definitely won’t be open at this hour. I suspect Tiny would have to do those kind of searches.”
“Which makes Marguerite rather de trop,” she said wryly.
“Yes,” Thomas agreed. “And she wouldn’t like that. I’m sure she’d have found some way to go with him, either going during daylight or finding a way to get in at night.”
Inez nodded as she stepped off the bottom step. She took two steps forward and then stopped and glanced around.
“What is it?” Thomas asked, stepping off the last step and moving to her side.
“I was just wondering where the ladies’ room is,” she answered with a grimace.
“You have to go again?” Thomas asked with surprise before he quite realized that if she had, she should know where they were.
“Again? I haven’t been since we left the hotel,” Inez said on a laugh. “Oh, there it is. I’ll be right back.”
Thomas stared after her with bewilderment, watching until she disappeared through the door labeled toilets. Turning away then, he moved to the counter and peered absently at the goodies in the glass display, but his mind was with Inez.
Again? I haven’t been since we left the hotel, she’d said, but she’d excused herself to find the ladies’ room earlier.
“Women.”
Thomas glanced up from the display to find himself peering at Mr. Ginger-hair who had taken such note of Inez earlier.
The fellow grinned and shrugged as he nodded toward the door to the bathrooms. “They’re forever in the bathroom, aren’t they?” he said wryly and then asked, “Did you want something to go?”
Thomas stared at the man, but rather than answer, he slipped into his mind. It was a quagmire of dissatisfaction with his job, his life and his love life, but Thomas eventually plucked out the memory of Inez coming below earlier and his showing her where the bathrooms were. He also picked up a couple of rather x-rated thoughts the guy had enjoyed at the time about following her in there and—
“I’m ready.”
Thomas quickly withdrew his mind and glanced to the side to find Inez there, smiling at him brightly.
“Shall we go?”
Thomas nodded and gestured for her to lead the way, taking the time to cast a scowl at Mr. Ginger-hair before following her. He waited until they were outside and walking again before saying, “Inez?”
“Yes?” She glanced at him quizzically.
He hesitated and then said, “Tell me what happened from the time we entered the coffee shop until we left, please.”
“Tell you what happened?” she echoed with surprise.
“Yes. I know it sounds an odd request, but it might be important.”
Inez stared at him with bewilderment for a minute and then apparently decided to humor him and shrugged. “Okay…well…we walked in, went up to the counter, you suggested I tell you what I wanted and leave you to order while I went to find a table. There were no free tables on the main floor, so I went upstairs, spotted two, picked one by the windows and sat down. You came up a minute later with our order. We drank, ate, and talked, and then came down to leave. I went to the ladies’ room, joined you at the counter, and we left.” She raised an eyebrow. “Now, tell me why I just said all that.”
Thomas glanced away to hide his troubled expression. He couldn’t read her mind to tell if she was lying, but there was no reason to. She had absolutely no recall of the first trip she’d made to find the ladies’ room. A trip that should have been successful because he knew the coffee shop guy had pointed it out to her and had seen in his memory that she’d gone through the door marked toilets, but apparently something—someone, he corrected himself grimly, an immortal, had stopped her from going to the bathroom because she’d still had to go on the way out.