Ellie dragged herself into the elevator of her apartment building. Emptiness and exhaustion battled for her attention and her shoulders slumped beneath the weight. She’d been out by car, going to Dad’s golf club, his Brighton box on the beach, a hotel he occasionally stayed at when he wanted some personal time. Nobody knew anything.
Then, she’d taken to the streets of Melbourne on foot, visiting every coffee shop, bookshop, and bar he liked. At one of the bookshops she’d seen a man at the back of the store in a designer suit with short cropped grey hair and her heart flipped, but then he turned. Not Dad. She’d hurried from the bookshop before she made a fool of herself by falling apart.
Now, as the elevator doors began to close, a man squeezed between them. Mid-twenties with curly blonde
