Please Forgive Me

by Melissa Hill

  ‘I’d certainly like to at least try. I know one thing for sure, if I was Helena I’d want to be given the opportunity to read them. And it breaks my heart to think that he still doesn’t know that she hasn’t seen them.’

  ‘My, you really are an old softie, aren’t you?’

  She shrugged. ‘Not really. I just think that sometimes people deserve a second chance.’

  ‘Hmm, sounds like there’s more to this than meets the eye.’ Marcy replied, giving her a sideways glance.

  Leonie coloured. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked warily, her insides jumping.

  ‘Well I hope you’re not doing a ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ and have gone and fallen for this guy, have you? Fancy words are one thing but sweetheart you don’t know the first thing about –’

  ‘No, it’s nothing like that!’ Leonie laughed with some relief. ‘I don’t know, I just think that maybe I owe it to these people to try and get the letters back to them, especially when I know they’re so personal. I think it’s important to at least try.’

  The problem was that Leonie really didn’t know how to even start going about this.

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t be me, but I think it’s very honourable of you to take it upon yourself to do that for a couple of strangers.’

  Yet for some reason Leonie didn’t quite see it like that. Since she’d read those letters and had that small glimpse of the couple’s relationship, they no longer felt like strangers to her. Especially Nathan. How could she not try and intervene in this situation especially when he’d been trying so hard (in more ways that one) to reach the woman he loved? Maybe she was a bit of softie like Marcy said, or maybe she was just downright inquisitive, but either way she felt like she had to do something.

  So what next? She’d tried finding a forwarding address for Helena Abbott, and there was no return address for Nathan. So how else could she go about this?

  Leonie sighed, deciding that now wasn’t really the time to think about it, as there was still plenty of cleaning up to do after the craziness of yesterday.

  ‘And speaking of strangers,’ Marcy said then, ‘I’m not happy about giving out customer information to anyone who asks for it. So while I’d like to help, I think your friend Alex will just have to trace her secret admirer some other way.’

  Leonie knew by her boss’s firm tone that there was no point in arguing, so while she fretted for most of the day about not being able to help Alex when she called, it seemed there was no need, as by the end of her shift that evening there had been no sign of the other girl at all.

  Maybe she’d found out who sent them since?

  Leonie hoped so, and as she said goodbye to Marcy and made her way home, she wondered if there was something about the Green Street house, what with all the mysteries that were happening there lately! First those unopened letters and then Alex and her anonymous flowers.

  And speak of the devil….

  She’d only just turned onto her street when she saw Alex approaching in the other direction.

  ‘Hey there!’ the other girl greeted warmly. ‘I was hoping I might bump into you this evening actually. Turns out there was no need for me to call and see you today.’

  ‘So you found out who sent the flowers?’

  ‘Yep,’ she replied, explaining further. Then she rolled her eyes. ‘I’m such an idiot, I should have guessed, as it’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do,’ she said fondly. Leonie couldn’t help but wonder why this was such a good thing when she was actually allergic to flowers. ‘We’ve only been together a couple of months and he didn’t know about my hay fever’ Alex explained as if reading her thoughts, ‘but thanks for taking them back and thanks too for offering to help. I appreciate it.’

  ‘No problem. I’m glad you didn’t need it in the end.’

  ‘Me too,’ Alex laughed. Then she looked at her watch. ‘So hey, have you had dinner yet? I’m just heading out for a bite to eat, so if you’d like to join me…?’

  Leonie was delighted. ‘No I haven’t eaten and yes, that would be brilliant.’

  Not to mention that she had nothing planned for that evening other than a ready-meal and a night in front of the telly. She hadn’t really ventured out anywhere in the evenings since she got here, so it would be nice to do something different, and especially nice to get to know Alex even more.

  ‘Great, fancy grabbing some seafood then?’ Alex asked. ‘I know a great place a couple of blocks from here, a million miles away from that tourist crap you get down by Fishermans Wharf. They do the best clam chowder.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ A bowl of steaming, creamy seafood chowder served in a bowl made entirely from crusty sourdough sounded absolutely perfect. Boudin’s sourdough bread was a San Francisco institution, and Leonie was already a convert of what was a huge favourite with city natives and tourists alike. And something to warm the cockles would be nice! When she’d left the house in short-sleeves that morning the sky was clear and the sun was beaming down, a sharp contrast to the chilly Pacific fog that had since enveloped the city.

  ‘Mark Twain was spot on, you know,’ she said shivering and rubbing her arms as she and Alex headed off down the street.

  ‘‘The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco’ right?’ Alex quoted with a wry smile. ‘He sure got that right. Don’t worry you’ll get used to it, just never forget to bring a sweater,’ she advised, eyeing Leonie’s goose-pimpled arms. ‘Anyway, what’s the big deal, I thought it was always cold in Ireland?’

  ‘It is, but at least the weather doesn’t mess with your head like this!’

  Leonie was relieved when eventually at the bottom of the hill towards the wharf, they reached a small, innocuous looking seafood place that looked much more sedate than the glitzy tourist-themed restaurants further along the pier. They went inside and almost immediately one of the waiters greeted Alex. ‘Well, well, well – if it isn’t Miss Today by the Bay!’

  ‘Hey Dan, long time no see,’ she replied easily, taking a seat at a vacant table by the window.

  ‘You know, I was only saying to Phil the other day that we hadn’t seen you in here for a while,’ he said, coming across to the table. ‘We were afraid all this TV success had gone to your head. I loved that bear story, by the way. Do you guys make that stuff up, or what?’

  ‘You’re hilarious – you know that?’ Alex replied archly.

  ‘And when are you going do something about that oil scoop I gave you? If you’re not careful someone else will steal it from right under your nose...’

  ‘I’m working on it Dan,’ Alex said, in a tone that implied anything but.

  Introductions were quickly made, and Leonie learned that Dan and his partner Phil owned and ran The Crab Shack.

  Dan cocked his head at Alex. ‘I’d be careful around this one if I were you,’ he warned Leonie jokingly, but there was a fondness in his voice that made her suspect this kind of teasing was par for the course. ‘She might look cute on the outside but underneath lies a heart of pure steel.’

  ‘Do you mind?’ Alex cried, feigning annoyance. ‘Leonie’s new here and I told her I’d show her the best seafood place in town. Do you want me to take her to Joe’s instead?’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Dan put his hands up in surrender. ‘I’ll leave you guys to it then. Leonie, great to meet you, and you’re welcome here anytime.

  ‘Thanks, nice to meet you too.’ He seemed lovely and despite their banter Alex seemed very fond of him also.

  ‘Don’t mind him, he can be full of it but he’s good fun,’ the other girl said when Dan had taken their order. ‘I’ve been coming here for years and I meant what I said, just wait until you taste Phil’s chowder. It’s out of this world I promise you.’

  Alex hadn’t been exaggerating. The food arrived soon after, and Leonie lifted off the top of the sourdough bread bowl and dipped the crust into the creamy seafood mixture before discovering that it tasted just as good as it looked; much better than the stuff she’d been getting from st
reet sellers up to now.

  ‘I don’t mean to be nosy but what did Dan mean by that oil story he wanted you to do?’ she asked and Alex rolled her eyes. ‘OK, I guess I should tell you, Dan and Phil are conspiracy theorists. You name it… aliens, fake moon landings, dodgy presidential elections…’ She shook her head. ‘Hell, they even spend their summer vacations down in Roswell.’

  Leonie smiled indulgently. ‘And what kind of piece did he want you to do?’

  ‘Well you know this whole oil crisis thing that’s going on now? According to Dan and Phil it’s all just another government smokescreen to keep us afraid and in line and there’s no shortage at all – just lots of stuff that hasn’t been tapped yet. And they want me to uncover this so-called ‘conspiracy’ and broadcast it to the whole world. As if,’ she said, taking a chunk out of her sourdough. ‘But even if I did want to do it, my producer wouldn’t touch it.’

  Leonie loved hearing this kind of thing. Only in America, and all that. ‘So is there any truth in it?’

  ‘Probably,’ Alex replied matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve heard there’s something like a trillion barrels in the Rockies.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure. Anyway, better change the subject,’ she murmured, lowering her voice as Dan approached again. If he hears me talking to you about this, he’ll never leave it alone and we could be here till midnight!’

  ‘No problem.’ Although in truth, Leonie wouldn’t mind hearing some more about those conspiracy theories. That kind of thing was right up her street, wasn’t it?

  ‘So hey, I’m sorry for being so full-on yesterday – about the whole flowers thing, I mean.’ Alex said then.

  ‘That’s no problem. I’m glad you didn’t need my help in the end – not that I don’t think I could have helped much anyway as my boss won’t give out customer information,’ she added apologetically. ‘And it turns out the order came in through the internet.’

  Alex shrugged. ‘That would have been more than enough to figure it out.’

  ‘Really? How? There was no name or address on the order …’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. We could still have traced it thorough the IP address.’

  At Leonie’s blank look, she went on. ‘It’s kind like a unique computer address? It’ll tell you where the sender is located, or at least, where his computer is located. And if you know that much then you have a very good chance of tracking the person down.’

  Leonie was amazed. ‘You can actually do that? Find someone through their computer, I mean?’

  ‘Hey I’m an investigative reporter, I do this kind of thing all the time,’ Alex said, with a knowing smile. ‘Seriously, it’s no big deal,’ she continued, scooping up some more chowder. ‘You can pretty much find anyone, once you know where to look.’

  Really? Well in that case … Leonie thought, immediately spotting the opportunity. ‘Alex?’ she began, ‘I think I might have favour of my own to ask.’

  Chapter 9

  ‘You read somebody else’s mail? You know that’s a felony, right?’

  ‘So I heard,’ Leonie replied. Bloody hell, they were all so conscientious around here, weren’t they?

  It was later that evening and after they’d finished having dinner, they went back to Green St where Leonie showed Alex the letters. Earlier, she’d told her she could do with her help in trying to locate someone, seeing as she seemed to be a bit of an expert on that kind of thing.

  Apparently well up for a challenge, Alex instantly agreed and while Leonie didn’t quite tell her the whole story, (about opening and reading the older letters), she did tell her about the one she’d opened by mistake.

  But now, with the pile of Nathan’s letters laid out on the table and two of them open, she really had no choice but to come clean with Alex about what she’d done.

  ‘I was hoping to find a return address for him, so I could return them to sender but then I sort of got sidetracked… Honestly, when I read the first letter, I couldn’t bring myself to stop.’

  ‘So how many have you read?’ Alex asked, sifting through the envelopes.

  ‘Just two, and I couldn’t help it,’ she reiterated again. ‘I suppose I was intrigued by the fact that she and Nathan lived here in this apartment. And of course that he seems so desperate for forgiveness.’

  ‘It’s a bit of mystery for sure,’ Alex said, ‘although I’m not convinced that opening the letters was such a good idea.’

  ‘As I said I needed to try and find an address…’ Now she was almost sorry she’d taken Alex into her confidence, especially as she’d been certain the other girl would be just as intrigued as she (and to a lesser extent Marcy) already were about this. Not to mention the fact that Alex had lived in close proximity to the couple in question, so surely she would be able to shed light on a couple of things? ‘So what do you think I should do with them?’ she asked then.

  Alex shrugged, evidently not sharing Leonie’s sense of urgency. ‘Nothing you can do, I guess. Although wait, have you checked the postmark?’ she asked, peering at the front of one of the envelopes.

  ‘I’ve already tried that and look, it tells us nothing other than the letters originate in California. There’s no specific town or area mentioned but at the same time it looks a bit…official, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It is kind of weird,’ Alex went on, studying the postmark. ‘Looks like it could be some kind of crest … federal maybe?’

  Leonie’s eyes widened with amazement. ‘You mean from the FBI?’

  Alex laughed. ‘Oh boy, TV sure has a lot to answer for! No, no, federal simply means it could have something to do with a central government department rather than a state one.’

  ‘Oh.’ Leonie felt very gauche indeed. But then again what would she know about the different types of US government?

  ‘Even so, that still doesn’t give us a whole lot to go on in terms of where they’re coming from.’

  ‘Exactly. Which is why I had to try opening up another one, to see if there was anything else that would help identify this.’ Leonie felt a strong need to justify herself. ‘I mean think about it. All these letters and none of them have been opened. The guy is probably going out of his mind wondering why she hasn’t responded.’

  ‘Yet he doesn’t include a return address...’ Alex seemed to be thinking it over.

  ‘I know. That seemed strange to me too at first, but perhaps not when you’re writing informally to someone who already knows where you live?’

  ‘I guess. Beautiful handwriting though, isn’t it? Kind of …artistic, almost?’

  ‘Like calligraphy, I thought.’ The elegant handwriting also fit the mental picture of Nathan that Leonie had built up. The man had taken a lot of time over these letters, and it looked like he’d written them with an expensive ink pen instead of your standard ballpoint.

  ‘Hmm,’ Now Alex was scanning the contents of the first letter Leonie had read. ‘Please forgive me,’ she said, repeating his words out loud. ‘Something’s definitely up there. I wonder what he did?’

  Leonie shrugged. ‘I wish I knew, and chances are we’ll never find out, but seeing as it’s all so personal, I really thought I should at least try and let him know that Helena Abbott doesn’t live here anymore.’

  ‘Kinda hard to do when he doesn’t leave any contact details though, isn’t it?’ Alex sat back on her haunches. ‘OK, well if you really want to find these people, have you thought about maybe doing a search for either one on the internet?’

  ‘God, I never thought of that,’ Leonie admitted, feeling like a right eejit.

  It was the obvious thing to do, wasn’t it? And definitely more preferable than just opening up people’s post and poking around inside?

  ‘Well, wait here,’ Alex said, getting up. ‘I’ll just pop downstairs and get my laptop. I bet Google will have these two located in no time.’

  ‘That’d be brilliant,’ Leonie enthused, feeling much more positive about getting somewhere now that Alex was on the case and they c
ould buzz ideas off one another.

  A few minutes later her neighbour returned with her laptop, and the two of them sat side by side on the sofa in front of it.

  ‘OK, let’s try her first,’ Alex said, keying in Helena’s name and almost instantly, pages upon pages of Helena Abbotts appeared.

  Leonie groaned. ‘Oh God, where do we even start?’

  ‘Not so fast, just give me a second.’ Alex narrowed the scope of the search by adding the words ‘San Francisco’.

  ‘But there’s still loads,’ Leonie said, crestfallen when another long list appeared.

  ‘Well, at least it’s a start,’ Alex pointed out, scrolling through the hits. There were a couple of entries they could discount immediately, like those related to high school sports results, or social networking sites, as they knew from the letters that Helena couldn’t be a teenager. But even so, there were still a hell of a lot of Helena Abbott’s listed in the San Francisco area.

  ‘Let’s try and narrow it down some more. What else do we know about her from the letters, besides the fact that she was in a relationship with this Nathan guy?’

  ‘Well,’ Leonie thought back. ‘They lived here at this apartment, and she loved sitting over there by the window and looking out at the bridge…’

  Alex looked up from the computer screen. ‘I’m talking about useful information, Leonie,’ she said wryly. ‘Was there anything mentioned about what she did for a living, maybe somewhere she worked…’

  ‘Oh, she’s into photography,’ Leonie recalled then. ‘Although I’m not sure if it’s as a job, or a just a hobby, the letters didn’t say. It’s how she and Nathan first met,’ she told her.

  ‘Hmm, doesn’t really give me that much to go on …’ Her brow furrowing, Alex typed something else into the computer. ‘Nope, nothing at all here in relation to any Helena Abbott about photography. And I’ve already tried searching using this address and it’s given me squat too. Chances are they leased the apartment same as you and me, so wouldn’t be listed as owners.’ Her fingers raced over the keyboard once again.