“So you think I was right and whoever controlled me just now might have done so for a similar reason?”
He nodded.
Inez peered into her glass again, and then raised her eyes and said, “That would suggest that this last time I was controlled because I either saw or was about to see something that might lead us to Marguerite.”
Thomas nodded and sat back in his seat, irritation on his face as he said, “But this time we don’t have any idea what.”
“No,” she agreed and then added, “But it tells us we might be on the right track now.”
“Yes, it does,” he said with surprise and smiled at her.
“So, let’s try to put together what we do know,” Inez suggested and reached into her purse to pull out a notepad and pen. Setting the pad on the tabletop, she pushed the button to eject the pen nib and wrote at the top of the first page, “Things we know.”
She glanced up at Thomas. “We know she drove to London with Tiny and stayed at the Dorchester.”
Thomas sat forward as she wrote that down and added, “And we know Notte rented two suites of two rooms, requesting three have twin beds.”
Inez nodded as she wrote that down, commenting, “That has kind of bothered me since I heard it.”
“I know. You said,” Thomas murmured, sounding distracted.
Inez glanced up with surprise, but he was looking thoughtful, obviously considering what the next point should be. Shrugging to herself, she glanced down to the notepad, muttering, “I didn’t realize I’d mentioned it to you.”
“What?”
Inez raised her head again surprised to see the frozen look on his face, but told him, “I said I hadn’t thought I’d mentioned it to you.”
Thomas sat forward, leaning on the table as he said, “We talked about it in the café.”
Inez was silent, her mind now chasing the memory of such a conversation, but there was no memory to be found. In fact, she just had some vague recollection that they’d chatted amicably but couldn’t say what about. When she told him that now, Thomas sat back again, his expression thoughtful.
“Why would our conversation be removed from my memory?” she asked uncertainly.
“Maybe we were getting too close to figuring something out,” Thomas said slowly.
That seemed a good possibility, Inez supposed. “What did we say?”
“You said that even though there were only five tickets to York, the two suites of two rooms with the request that at least three of them have twin beds suggested there were seven people in London. We tried to figure out who they were, but don’t know enough and came up three short.”
“Who were the four we came up with?” Inez asked and then said, “Marguerite, Tiny, and Christian and his father?”
“Yes, but we couldn’t come up with anyone else and then you got up to go find the ladies’ room.”
“I was probably still thinking about it then.”
“Yes,” Thomas agreed and then said, “I think Bastien mentioned Christian having a couple of cousins with him in California. They might have been among the group.”
Inez reached for her drink to take a sip as she considered this, and grimaced as the flat, tepid beer filled her mouth.
“Bad huh?” Thomas asked with sympathy. “Mine has gone warm too.” He glanced around and then grimaced. “The waitress probably won’t return so long as our glasses are full. I’ll go up to the bar and get us a couple more drinks. Keep thinking about this and try to come up with what you might have thought of the first time. They can take away the memory of figuring it out, but not the reasoning skills that got you there and you have excellent reasoning skills,” he added encouragingly, then patted her hand and stood to move to the bar.
Inez smiled faintly as she watched him go. He always knew the right thing to say. And she enjoyed just looking at the man, she acknowledged, her eyes dropping over his tapered back to his derrière in the tight jeans.
A little sigh slid from her lips as she wished that they had time just to be together. She’d really rather be back at the hotel Dorchester making love with him than here trying to sort out what had been stolen from her memory.
Unfortunately, until they found Marguerite, they didn’t have the time for what she wanted, Inez reminded herself and set her thoughts on the matter of who the others in Marguerite’s party might have been. Bastien had said that there had been only five tickets to York, so the party had dropped in number. She doubted Marguerite and Tiny had left the group, they were the ones who were supposed to find the mother. Christian would have been one too, and probably his father, but since she had no idea who the others might have been, she had no idea who had left the party.