Page 27 of The Expat Affair
As much as I appreciate the detective’s check-in, I don’t love the thought of holding on to the next tracker long enough for my stalker to grab me on the way to the police station. The idea terrifies me, even more so when I think how close that asshole had to get in order to drop a tracker in my bag.
I dodge shoppers as I pound out a reply.All quiet for now. Will keep you posted.
I slip the phone in my pocket, adding a new item to my to-do list: research trackers so that next time—and it seems like Detective Boomsma assumes there will be a next time—I know how to disarm the little fucker.
I’m almost home when I pause in front of the Chanel store, eyeing a thick cluster of bodies across the street. At least a dozen of them, parked between Ferragamo and the Mont Blanc store, and not a single shopping bag among them. Weird, since this is the P.C. Hooftstraat, the poshest of Amsterdam’s shopping streets, where stores like to line people up on the street while they wait for entry.
But these people aren’t lingering behind a red velvet rope. They’re not standing by a storefront but next to a plain brown door.
Mydoor.
Damn reporters. I duck behind a group of tourists before they see me. With that nipple picture still making the rounds on social media and the threads doxing me by name, I suppose it was only a matter of time before they found me.
Dutch reporters, I can tell by their height and their clothing. Dark, slim-cut denim and coats made for Holland’s sea climate, thick and waterproof. Sturdy shoes for walking on ancient cobblestones. Windswept hair and foreheads that have never seen a spot of Botox.
One of them, an older blonde with glasses and cheeks ruddy from the cold, peels off from the group. She marches to the brown door and leans in to read the names by the bells. Five floors, five apartments, five names written in neat block letters. She turns back to the group and shakes her head.
As one, the group tips their heads back and look up the face of the building—and I think back to a picture further down on my Instagram, a grinning me with my arms spread wide, standing before the same brick facade, the same brown door. I follow their gazes to the very top, to the window just under a hoisting hook strong enough to haul up a piano. Behind that window is a drafty, cramped living room, with beige walls and creaky floors and a narrow hallway that leads to the back of the building and my tiny beige room.
Not that any of them would know from the bell that I live here. I rent my room from Ingrid. It’s her name next to the buttons.
Down here on the ground, the crowd is regrouping. I’m too far away to hear what they’re saying, and I may not understand Dutch, but I understand facial expressions and body language.They’re discussing their next moves, spitballing ideas, negotiating who does what.
Shit. Now what? Do I keep walking? Find a café quiet enough to make my phone calls and wait these people out? Or do I put my head down and muscle my way to the door? By the looks of things, these people are not leaving anytime soon.
And then it happens. The decision is made for me. The blonde turns my way. Our eyes meet across the sea of shoppers and a row of parked bikes. Hers widen in surprise.
“Rayna!” she shouts.
One by one, their heads turn. People start peeling away from the crowd, slowly at first, skirting around each other and oncoming traffic in the street, falling over each other in a race to get to me. They barrel across the street, a red rover line of bodies racing my way, whipping iPhones from pockets and aiming them at my face. Peppering me with questions in English.
What was your relationship with Xander van der Vos? Wereyouhis girlfriend?
Where’s the necklace, Rayna? Did you take it?
Did Xander mention theCullinansto you? Did he tell you where they are?
What about all the other missing diamonds? How many were in his safe?
Where are the diamonds, Rayna?
The shoppers heardiamonds, and they perk, but I’m more focused on Detective Boomsma’s words, ringing in my head:If someone wants that necklace as badly as the killer did, where do you think they’ll look first?
Xander had a safe, it was cleaned out, and now these reporters have connected me to the missing diamonds.
I duck my head, letting my hair fall across my face. “Excuse me, please. Let me through.”
My politeness gets me exactly nowhere. The reporters release another onslaught of questions, a claustrophobic mob of bodies thatare so much bigger than mine. Holland is the land of giants, and these journalists are too tall, and there are far too many of them for me to just barrel through. I stare at their chests, their jostling elbows and thrusted microphones, their mouths as they bite off a string of razor-edged questions.
What do you hear from police, Rayna?
Do you think they’ll make an arrest soon?
Are you a diamond thief? A murderer?
What do you say to the people on X calling you the Tinder Terminator?
If the moniker hadn’t come on the tail of words likethiefandmurderer, I might have laughed. Tinder Terminator. Give me a break. I hold up a hand and bark, “No comment.”
