Please Forgive Me by Melissa Hill Page B

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 could 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.
    ‘Do you know who actually does own this place?’
    Alex shrugged. ‘I have no idea. I’ve always dealt with an agency, and once the rent stays reasonable and the landlord stays out of the way, I can’t say I’ve ever really thought about who it