As Long As She Lives (full published version!)

Chapter 16

Of course Dr Gnudsen re-asserted his order for Cait to avoid the news. Worse, he called Riley in to discuss how Riley could help her above and beyond staying the night to wake her when the monitor went off. If she'd felt like a child when Riley had confiscated the remote, she was going to have to get used to it. Gnudsen had given Riley a notebook to record the date and time of each nightmare, how difficult it was to wake her, how long she took to recover – physically and emotionally – any extreme mood swings and anything which he thought triggered them. So much for not being surveilled from inside her home.

And Riley didn't trust her not to violate Gnudsen's ban. The only way she could convince him that she didn't need him to stay home to entertain her was to take up the offer to work at the restaurant. Her back tired too easily and her skills were too rusty for her to be much help with anything other than prep, but it won her a fast friend in Emilie's new apprentice who got a chance to help out on the line and do the work he'd thought an apprentice chef would be doing.

It wasn't long before the knife skills Cait had established as a teenager returned and she found satisfaction in spending the morning working through boxfuls of vegetables until she had whittled every one into uniform shapes. The work was detailed enough, and the knives sharp enough, to absorb her mind, and Emilie and her staff worked too hard, for too many hours each day to spend time paying attention to international affairs. No-one had mentioned Umoja.

The physical work was also helping her sleep better. By the Friday after her meltdown at Graggy's, she was sleeping for longer before Riley was woken by the sleep monitor and the nightmares themselves were becoming less intense. Her mind still slipped into thoughts about bloodshed in Umoja but Steve hadn't lost faith that Henri would be captured and Julien would regain control, so she focused on being healthy and strong for her day in court – whenever that would be.

As Cait was leaving the restaurant on Friday afternoon, James had handed her a white cardboard cake box and said "For dessert tonight." He'd winked before he'd given her his usual forehead kiss goodbye but Cait hadn't thought anything special of it. When she opened the box in her kitchen, she was glad he wasn't there to see her blush. She and Riley had decided it would be too difficult and too much pressure to try to explain their developing relationship to the family, but it seemed James thought it was simple. He had made them one of his famous Valentine Pavlovas – a delicate pink meringue flavoured with rosewater and decorated with rose petals and dabs of gold leaf. To be sure his meaning was clear, he'd placed a thin rectangle of white chocolate on the meringue and piped a message in dark chocolate: We approve – Eva and James.

"Subtlety is not your strong point, is it James?"

Still giggling to herself ten minutes later when the doorbell rang, she half expected it to be James wanting to see a reaction. It wouldn't be Riley – he had a key and he'd come through the garage. Peeking through the spy-hole, her stomach flip-flopped as she recognised Sean's friend Andy. Surely her mother hadn't given him her address too? She opened the door yet felt no compunction about speaking to him through the security wire. "Hello?"

"Hi. I don't know if you remember me. I'm Andy Sorin – Kevin's Dad? We met at Daisy's birthday party?"

Kevin's Dad? Journalist. "I remember."

"I got your address from Noah's Dad – he drove your car home from the party that day? I hope you don't mind."

If he was going to smile and be disingenuous, she could match it. "That's fine. How can I help you?"

"I know this must be a hard time for you, but I was hoping you might want a chance to tell your story."

"My story?"