The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

moved them to her lap.
    ‘They’re just jealous.’ Elodie giggled, pulled out a tiny camera, and snapped a few random photos like a giddy tourist.
    ‘I’m trying to be inconspicuous,’ Jane reminded her waspishly, kicking at her under the table.
    ‘Can I get you something?’ a British-accented voice asked them, and both girls jumped. A waitress was standing by their table, wearing faded jeans and a fitted white tee that emphasized her generous bust. Most important, she had wavy, shoulder-length dark-gold hair, an elegantly square jaw, and dark eyes like two deep pools.
    Holy . . .
Jane kicked Elodie under the table again, harder this time. Elodie winced, but rose to the occasion. ‘We’ll both take pints of Guinness and fish-and-chips, please.’
    Annette pursed her lips in concern. ‘Kitchen’s closed another half-hour,’ she told them carelessly, her voice the liquid-gold sister of Malcolm’s deep rumble. ‘I can get you sandwiches, or you can just start with the pints and wait if you like.’
    ‘We’ll do that,’ Jane agreed, feeling strangely out of her own body. Although she had used her own natural, American-English accent to talk to Elodie, she faintly remembered that ‘Ella’ was supposed to sound foreign – in fact, she was supposed to sound just like Elodie.
Shape up,
she snapped at herself, correcting the sound of the words in her mind. ‘We’ll wait, I mean,’ she clarified when she realized that both Elodie and Annette were giving her confused stares. ‘With just the beers, is fine.’
    Annette nodded crisply and moved off, although Jane caught her glancing curiously over her shoulder at their table.
    ‘We sound like sisters all of a sudden,’ Elodie whispered sardonically.
    ‘Um,’ Jane replied wittily, still watching Annette out of the corner of her eye. The girl had an athletic squareness to her, but her movement wasn’t especially easy or graceful. She reminded Jane of an overgrown puppy still trying to get used to the new length of her limbs.
    ‘It’s a good idea,’ she went on. ‘No one has ever been able to figure out where I’m from.’
    ‘That was the idea,’ Jane confirmed. Annette was behind the bar, carefully pulling the Guinness tap over a tilted glass. ‘El, I have no idea what to do next.’
I didn’t actually think I’d find her,
she realized uncomfortably. Even at her most optimistic, her search had been so far-fetched that she hadn’t been able to really imagine this moment. Everything had been hypothetical, but now she was just a few yards from a very, very real Annette.
    Elodie rolled her eyes in a manner that Jane felt was unnecessarily exaggerated. ‘Well, you could lurk in the shadows and stalk the girl until either she notices and freaks out, or your clock strikes midnight, Cinder-Ella.’ Jane stuck out her tongue. ‘Thank God you didn’t try to do this alone.’
    Jane opened her mouth to argue, but Annette was coming back. And she had to admit, Elodie was absolutely right. Without the prior knowledge she had used as an ‘in’ with Laura Helding, or the casual confidence she had got from André’s obvious attraction to her, she felt completely out of her depth.
    It’s not that I’m not personable, either,
she sulked privately as Elodie effortlessly began chatting with Annette.
People like me plenty. I just don’t really know where to start with a total stranger I have so much secret history with.
But Elodie evidently did, because Annette – or Anne Locksley, as she introduced herself – seemed willing to chat. She was even willing to pose for more of Elodie’s obnoxious tourist photos: she obligingly leaned her head first near Jane’s, then Elodie’s as the camera changed hands, and smiled generically.
    ‘“Anne” is a great name,’ Jane jumped in while Elodie was fussing to get the camera back in its little case. ‘I love those really classic ones. Is it a family name?’
    Annette
(Anne!)
seemed to almost-but-not-quite flinch. The moment was so quick that Jane nearly missed it, but a glance over at Elodie’s concerned frown confirmed that she had seen the girl’s reaction, too. ‘Anne’ was already back to her casual self, though. ‘Don’t really know,’ she admitted.
    ‘Well, it’s pretty,’ Jane offered awkwardly. Anne flashed a smile before whisking herself back to the bar.
    ‘Nice,’ Elodie whispered ironically.
    ‘Well what am I supposed to do?’ Jane whispered back. ‘Show up out of the blue and ask