Poppy
Seven Hours To Impact
As she opens the door, she feels the welcome coolness of the air-conditioned interior. The light inside is soft and diffuse—calming—because she left the shades drawn.
She steps inside, locks the door firmly behind her, and then attaches the security chain for double measure. She peers into the door peephole and checks the hallway.
No one outside. No one has followed her.
She has survived Turkey. All she needs now is to hunker down in her locked room and wait things out until Roshaan comes to fetch her early tomorrow morning to board the tender for Santorini.
She’s already booked a flight from Santorini to Athens.
Followed by a connection to Heathrow. She’s almost home free.
Relief softens her limbs—she can breathe for a moment.
Poppy heads for the bar, aiming for a fat gin.
A drink will calm her nerves enough to try to think all these pieces of this puzzle through.
Unfortunately she’ll have to miss the Moonlight & Mentalism Soiree.
That’s another thing she’s been excited for since the start of the trip, but it’s a minor loss in the scope of things. Triage—that’s what’s important now.
She reaches for the Hendrick’s, but as her fingers close around the bottle, she senses something. A presence in the room. A feeling of being watched. Hairs prickle down the back of her neck, and a chill crawls over her shoulders.
She swallows and glances in the mirror between the bar shelves. Reflected behind her, in front of the shaded windows, silhouetted by the late-afternoon glow of sun outside, is the outline of someone in a chair.
Poppy goes dead still.
“Hello, Poppy.”
Emotion slams through her. Slowly, she turns.
Avi Galev sits quietly, calmly, on a chair. Watching her.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he says in his heavily accented English.
She drops the bottle and lunges for the door.
“Don’t,” he barks as she fumbles with the security chain. “Don’t even think about it. You won’t make it two steps down that corridor.”
She’s suddenly unable to move even if she wanted to—a trigger has been pulled, and Poppy is falling, spiraling, whirling all the way back to a time she was Helen, and she’d come home from work, and Paz would be sitting in a dark room, drunk, awaiting her return.
And she’d be too scared to speak, because any tiny thing she said would become an excuse for Paz to backhand her, knock her to the ground, kick her in the ribs, bruise her in all the places that wouldn’t show in public.
Tears well into her eyes. Her lip begins to tremble.
“What do you want with me?” Her voice comes out weak, tiny.
“We need to talk,” he says.
She still can’t move. Her hand is still on the chain. Her brain still scrambles for ways to flee, but her body stops her dead.
“Look at me, Poppy.”
She struggles to turn slowly and face him.
He has a knife. It’s a flick-knife. He’s flipping it in his hand, and the blade glints as it catches the refracted light coming through the shades.
“How did you get in?” she asks.
“Roshaan helped me. Let’s just say she owes me.”
She stares at the blade.
“Are you ready to talk?” he asks.
Tears sheen down her cheeks, and she nods meekly.
“Okay, let’s go.” He surges to his feet, dwarfing even her spacious suite.
“Go where? I . . . I thought you wanted to talk?”
“Not me. Lillith. She wants to talk. It’s time. Come—she’s waiting for you.”