The first thing Ella saw was light. Not blinding, or constant, but low, flickering, a sort of warm glow that faded in and out, on and off, like the dying embers of a fire.
For a moment she wondered whether this was heaven. But then she heard his voice and realized categorically that it wasn’t. If there was such a thing as an afterlife for the virtuous, there was no way on earth that he would be in it.
‘Ella? Can you hear me? Ella!’
The touch of his hand made her start. So the voice wasn’t in her head this time. He was actually here. With an effort she opened her eyes.
‘You.’
‘No need to sound so pleased to see me.’
Gabriel’s face looked darker than she remembered it, more tanned, as if he’d just returned from a vacation. When he smiled, as he did now, he was still provokingly handsome. Christine Marshall’s ‘Ryan Gosling’ comment floated back into Ella’s mind.
Camp Hope.
Christine.
Lunch with Gabriel at that adobe farmhouse down the coast.
How long ago all that felt now.
‘I’m not pleased to see you,’ Ella said sullenly, turning her face away. She wasn’t sure why she was angry with him. Some lingering distrust, perhaps, but mingled with other, deeper, more troublesome feelings that she didn’t want to think about.
Looking around her she took in her surroundings. The bare white walls and clinical smell suggested she was in a hospital, although her wooden bed with its expensive linens said otherwise, as did the stunning vase of peonies propped on the small rococo table beside her bed. A single window set high in the wall was the source of the golden light, but provided no clues as to her whereabouts. From Ella’s prone position all she could see was an evening sky, and even that was half hidden through slatted blinds.
‘Where are we?’
‘At a private clinic in Genoa,’ Gabriel replied. He was still smiling, apparently unoffended by Ella’s standoffishness. ‘You realize you’re lucky to be alive? The lifeboatmen who pulled you out of the water took almost a full minute to get you breathing again.’
‘And you?’ Ella looked up at him, realizing belatedly that his hand was still over hers. ‘How did you find me? Did you bring me here? I don’t remember anything.’
‘That’s not important,’ he replied, with typical arrogance. ‘I told you not to go back to Makis. I told you you would be in danger. What were you thinking?’
‘I was thinking that without Mak we had no leads to Athena. None!’ Ella shot back angrily. ‘I was thinking that Persephone might give me a way back in.’
‘So what happened?’ Gabriel asked.
Ella blushed and looked away. ‘I overheard him on the phone to Cameron McKinley. He knows who I am. Who my parents were.’
Gabriel withdrew his hand. Clutching his head he let out a long, low groan.
‘I know,’ Ella said meekly. ‘It’s bad.’
‘You actually heard him use the word Praeger?’ Gabriel asked, still too depressed to look up.
‘Yes,’ said Ella. ‘On the speedboat on my way out to the Argo. He knows I’m William and Rachel’s daughter. I don’t think he knows anything about … you know … my gifts. But he knows I’m connected with The Group. If I’d boarded that yacht, he would have killed me.’
‘No question,’ said Gabriel.
‘So I jumped. I didn’t know what else to do.’
Gabriel stood up and started pacing. Ella assumed he was working on a plan, what to do next. But when he turned back to face her, he surprised her.
‘Did you sleep with Makis Alexiadis?’ he asked Ella bluntly.
‘No! Never.’
‘Were you planning to? When you joined him on the yacht?’