Poppy
One Day To Impact
It’s baking hot. Her face is cooking, even under her sun hat. Her sandals are blistering her feet.
She’d been so excited at the prospect of touring the ancient Greek, then Roman, city, once home to around two hundred and fifty thousand people.
On top of her list was seeing the iconic facade of the Library of Celsus, along with the Great Theatre where the apostle Saint Paul preached, plus the terrace houses, and the House of the Virgin Mary on nearby Mount Koressos, where Mary, mother of Jesus, is said to have spent her final years.
Also on her list were the nearby Basilica of Saint John and the charming villages along the way known for their wines and olive oil, leather goods, and Turkish delight.
Instead, she’s still reeling from the raw shock of her bizarre interaction with Lillith, and the images on Carter’s phone.
It swallows her deeper into confusion. She still can’t slot the pieces together into any kind of coherent picture.
All she wants is to flee the ship in Santorini first thing tomorrow morning, and get on a plane.
Lillith remained on the Orchid today. Poppy thought Avi would, too. But she glimpses him every now and then between the shadows of the ancient ruins. He’s still following her. And he’s letting her know it.
She stops under an old fig tree to sip water. The heat feels physical, pressing against her skin. The air shimmers with it. And it vibrates with the loud, incessant, metallic whir of cicadas.
As she swallows the last of her water, she notices Dr. Marsh sitting alone on a bench in the shade of an ancient olive tree.
She makes a decision. First she checks for signs of Avi. She doesn’t see him. Poppy goes up to the bench.
“Dr. Marsh. Do you mind if I sit?”
He glances up. He looks rough.
“Of course not.”
She takes a seat and fiddles with her empty water bottle, buying herself a few seconds to hopefully make her questions seem organic.
But he speaks first. “Are you enjoying the cruise?”
“Yes,” she lies. “And you?”
He nods.
She hesitates. “Thanks for signing my books. I’m Poppy. I came with—”
“Eight hardbacks.” He smiles tiredly. “I remember. I’m honored. Truly.”
Bolstered a little, she says, “It was a fabulous talk. Especially the part about Vincent Kapoor and his accomplices, Aline-Claire Lavoie and Sanjay Lohar. I—I’ve always been fascinated by characters like Aline-Claire, which is of course why I bought In His Grip—that gray area about whether she was a victim who was coerced and manipulated into complicity.
Like, at what point did these women begin to realize they were actually lying to themselves—where exactly did their moral erosion begin? ”
“Human psychology is indeed endlessly fascinating. The ancient Greeks certainly had a good handle on the vagaries of the human mind.”
She inhales and breathes out slowly to steady her voice.
“I can’t wait to read what revelation you will make in your current work in progress. About Vincent Kapoor,” she says.
He nods.
She clears her throat. “You mentioned you were tying up some lose research ends while on the ship? Have—have you found the missing links you were searching for on this trip?”
He faces her. His eyes hold hers. She senses a shift in his energy.
Before he can answer, she adds, “I hope you don’t mind my asking. I was just so curious. I really can’t wait to read the book.” She fans her hand in front of her face. “Fan girl and all.”
“It’s fine. Yes. I actually do have it wrapped up. I’m writing the final chapters basically as we speak.”
Her heart kicks. “So you got the missing pieces?”
He sighs, as though exhausted from his endeavors, or life, or perhaps it’s her.
“I certainly did. And then some. The book will be a perfect swan song for this old FBI agent, I think.” He smiles.
Her heart hammers. The images Carter showed her swim into her mind.
“Could his accomplices maybe still be alive?”
“You mean Sanjay?”
“I . . . I’m sort of wondering if—I mean, if it’s at all possible. I mean—are you certain she died? Are you one hundred percent convinced it was her body that they identified after the train derailment in Pakistan?”
“She?”
“Aline-Claire—Veronique.”
His gaze lasers hers. Again, his energy shifts, darkens. A breeze stirs the leaves of the olive tree, and all the cicadas suddenly fall silent. It’s as though a cloud crossed the sun—yet the sky is clear.
“What makes you ask?”
She thinks of the tiny gold serpent she spied on a chain at the throat of “Veronique” in the old newspaper image that Carter showed her—almost identical to the one gifted to Lillith.
The sight of it electrified Poppy—shocked her to the core.
She thinks of the photo of the man in the suit on the bridge over a canal in Amsterdam.
Carter was right. That man is on the ship.
It’s Hendrick.
“Just wondering.”
Dr. Marsh glances in the direction of the ruins. For a moment he watches his daughter and his grandson. He faces Poppy. “Did I see that you were traveling with someone, Poppy?”
“My boss. Lillith McGregor.”
He nods again, moistening his lips, as though still deciding how to answer her.
“Do you know Lillith?” she asks.
“I certainly know of her. Her husband was infamous. Angus McGregor’s media legacy lingers. Not in exactly positive ways, in my opinion.”
“Dr. Marsh”—she leans forward—“do you mind telling me exactly what happened to Aline-Claire? I’ve read that she was on a train, traveling through Pakistan.
And there was an explosion on the tracks, sabotage, which led to a derailment.
And she was in a compartment that went down the embankment into a river, and she was pronounced dead on the scene—found among the bodies of the many other victims. But how did the authorities know for certain it was her?
From her passport? I mean, she and Vincent traveled on so many different passports stolen from travelers along the Hippie Trail, what if—”
“You know what, Poppy, I’m going to ask that you wait for the book.
Given the revelatory and sensitive nature of my recent discoveries, my publisher and agent and I have just signed a mutual nondisclosure agreement.
Plus an embargo. I’m actually no longer at liberty to talk about it until the release. Neither are they.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I . . . of course. I—”
“I should leave you to it.” He rises. “Enjoy the rest of the day in Turkey. Perhaps I’ll see you back on board.” He ambles off toward Carter and his mother.
She stares after him. Pulse racing. Brain wheeling. It couldn’t be—could it?
She knows Lillith’s history fairly intimately from working on her memoir.
She knows that Lillith Ravenscroft was born in Mauritius to a British father and French mother.
She was a single child. She studied at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, like many Mauritians did at the time.
She started working as a news photographer in South Africa during the Apartheid era.
She took some politically risky shots. Her photos were banned.
So she contracted to overseas papers, selling her photos around the world, making a huge name for herself in places like the UK, France, Germany, Australia, the US.
She was injured and lost her eye after an encounter with an IED on a dirt road through the jungle in Mozambique.
But what if it’s a lie? All of it?
What if her limp and scars are really from a shattered glass door in Quebec? And it earned her a settlement that helped her get to Kashmir. What if she lost her eye in that Pakistan train derailment? What if they identified the wrong body?
And now that Vincent has been released, she’s met up with him on this cruise.
No. It’s not possible. Or is it?
And if it is—what in sweet heaven’s name does she want with Poppy?