Baby It's Cold Outside by Kerry Barrett Page B

upstairs.’
    Oh it was good to have a phone again and be back in the real world. I sat on my bed, keeping one eye on the window because it had started snowing again and that made me nervous. I logged into the Wi-Fi and synced my contacts on to Leona’s phone, then added my email accounts and watched as dozens appeared in my inbox. There were lots about the wedding, from the registration office in Inverness saying the registrar couldn’t reach us, from the photographer saying the same, and the catering suppliers. I fired off emails saying what a shame, I understood, we were making alternative arrangements and I trusted they would return my deposit.
    In my work inbox was an email from a friend, Stacey, who I’d worked with in London. She’d transferred to our New York office, where she was flying high. Her email was full of chat about the Manhattan dating scene and her seemingly never-ending search for the perfect apartment. I paused, tapping the phone against my chin.
    As a family lawyer for an international firm I had a good idea of how US law worked. I knew that unlike in the UK not just anyone could look up a birth certificate. Except we could – employees of my firm had access to databases that normal people didn’t. Our credentials had been approved in most of the states, I thought. And we definitely had an office in Boston so we were bound to have been approved for there. I couldn’t do it from here. At work we used a proxy server but it wouldn’t work from my phone on Mum’s Wi-Fi. But Stacey could do it. It was Sunday morning in the States but if Stace was at her computer I knew she wouldn’t mind having a quick look for me. It didn’t take long to run a search.
    I typed out an email explaining the bare bones of our situation but claiming it was happening to a friend. I knew if I’d said it was Jamie who’d had a kid turn up on his doorstep, she’d ring and I couldn’t bear to talk about it. Not yet. I asked Stacey to track down Parker’s birth certificate – I didn’t know his exact birthday but I knew roughly, and where he was born. And with Tansy’s name too it shouldn’t be too hard. Then I asked her to email it to me when she’d found it. Straightaway a message pinged back saying she was on it. Good old Stace.
    I settled back against the pillows and rang Chloe. When she answered, cautiously because obviously I had a new number that she didn’t recognise, I smiled just hearing her voice.
    â€˜It’s me,’ I said.
    â€˜Aaaaaaargh!’ Chloe shrieked. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been phoning and phoning but you never answer. And then someone said you’d been in the avalanche and I was so worried. I thought you were dead. And because Rob’s in the police and he knows people, I got him to check, so I knew you weren’t dead, but I was still worried…’
    As she paused for breath I saw my chance.
    â€˜I lost my phone,’ I said. ‘In the avalanche.’
    â€˜Oh my god,’ Chloe said. ‘So it was true? Are you okay?’
    â€˜I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I’ve sprained my wrist and banged my head, and my legs are aching like I’ve done a particularly full-on spin class, but I’m fine. It was bloody scary though.’ I told her all about being caught up in the snowfall.
    â€˜Rob said you helped people get out,’ Chloe said.
    â€˜Harry helped too,’ I said. ‘There were three people trapped.’ Again I felt the strange mix of pride and fear that talking about the avalanche always gave me.
    â€˜People are saying you’ve got a photographic memory,’ Chloe said with a chuckle. ‘That you remembered exactly where the people were.’
    â€˜It wasn’t quite like that,’ I admitted, knowing she’d know what I meant. Chloe was fully up to speed with my family’s talents.
    â€˜So what’s happening with