London by Carina Axelsson Read Free Book Online

was away on a business trip.) I let her know that I was down at the Embankment with Ellie, and that although I’d be home later, I had dinner plans.
    I looked at my watch. Only a few more hours until we met. We hadn’t seen each other in months…although we’d been Skyping a lot. But Skype was…Skype. What would it be like to see him in the flesh? And smell him and hear his voice whisper in my ear? I was really excited about spending time with him…but I was nervous too. We’d had our ups and downs lately because of the distance between us. Would we be able to put everything behind us when we stood face-to-face? Tonight…
    Halley barked suddenly, pulling me out of my daydream. Her little tail wagged furiously.
    I shook my head—I needed to focus. “You’re right, Halley, it’s time to get cracking. Come on,” I said. I turned and started walking in the direction of the Houses of Parliament, close to where Gavin had been found last Sunday morning.
    It may have been late June, but you wouldn’t have known it from the weather. The early sun that had burned through the morning mist while I was sitting with Tallulah in our little garden house had disappeared by the time she’d left, replaced by dark-gray clouds that still hadn’t lifted. I tightened my leopard-print scarf around my throat and turned up the collar of my trench coat as a strong summer breeze blew up from the Thames.
    The wide river swirled beside Halley and me, carrying a varied assortment of boats, large and small, on its undulating currents. However, I tried to concentrate on my footing. I looked carefully for any large holes in the paved and cobbled surfaces, but there was nothing deep enough to have made Gavin’s shoes wet, let alone the bottom half of his trousers. So how had that happened? Where had he been before or during the attack?
    I stopped to examine the view, pulling the photo out of my notebook to compare it to what I could see. The photo really did seem to have been taken somewhere very nearby. Perhaps farther down the river? I slipped it back into my notebook.
    I continued to stand—with Halley at the end of her leash sniffing something on the ground—and watched as, across the river, the London Eye slowly turned. A pair of slim hands suddenly closed over my eyes. At the same time, a voice I knew well said, “You’re easy to sneak up on! Guess who?”
    It was Ellie, and she was laughing. “You get more zoned out than Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock !”
    â€œVery funny,” I said, smiling as I turned to hug her.
    I hadn’t seen Ellie in weeks—she’d been traveling the globe, going from one modeling job to the next while I’d been studying for my GCSEs.
    â€œIt feels so good to be back home!” Her long, honey-blond hair was tied in a knot on top of her head, and her skin was glowing from the run she’d just finished. Even sweaty and without makeup, she was stunning. Her long limbs were sheathed in navy and gray Gore-Tex. I couldn’t tell you why or how, but Ellie even made running gear look like something we should all be wearing. And that’s why she’s a supermodel , I thought.
    I quickly looked down at my scruffy Converse and thought of the fair number of Halley’s white hairs that had woven their way into the fibers of my well-worn (okay, maybe “tattered” would be a more accurate description) pink pullover. I wasn’t going to win any awards from the British Fashion Council, but even I had to admit that the model “off-duty, civilian” look had rubbed off on me a tiny bit. The jeans and leopard-print scarf I was wearing were more fashionable than anything I’d ever worn in my preceding sixteen years of life.
    After a month of traveling nonstop, Ellie was finally in London for a couple of weeks’ work and rest before her next slew of bookings took her around the world again.