She nodded and said, ‘I hope it isn’t him.’
‘I know.’ He paused for a second or two. ‘Get some sleep. I’m getting the early train to Vienna so I’ll see you in a couple of days.’
‘Okay.’ A third siren grew sickeningly louder and she began to get nervous, wondering how bad the explosion had been.
Lucas looked to the lobby doors. ‘Must be a fire.’ He stood up and said, ‘Ella, don’t worry about this evening, and don’t worry about Simon. You’re right, I don’t know him.’
She offered him a lackluster smile. It couldn’t be Simon. She did know him, and even without that lifetime of accumulated knowledge, the way he’d idolized her dad, doted on Ben, she couldn’t believe the person who’d taken her so protectively under his wing this summer had conspired to kill them.
And yet. And yet there was a single discordant note sounding through her thoughts. She tried to dismiss it but she wanted to get back to London to make sure, check that she hadn’t simply overlooked it.
The folder he’d given her was still in her hotel room, a strange menagerie of companies, their profiles full of arcane language, some of them based in remote and exotic locations, but nowhere among them could she remember seeing the name of Larsen Grohl. She was trying to think of a reason why he might not have included it, but she could think of only one, and she was afraid.
Chapter Sixteen
She had no idea she was being followed. He’d be able to follow her right up to the door, push her inside. It had always amazed him, the number of targets who, whether through innocence, ignorance or complacency, behaved like there was nothing for them to be afraid of.
Ella reached her room, but even as she took out her key and slid it into the lock, she didn’t think to look behind her. She became aware of him for the first time as he stepped through the doorway with her.
Startled, she jumped backwards, too late, and said, ‘Jesus fucking Christ, Lucas—you scared the shit out of me!’ She gathered her thoughts a little and said, ‘You said a couple of days. And why didn’t you call first?’ The momentum was building again. ‘And Jesus, what’s with creeping up behind me like that?’
He closed the door and looked around the room. She could have had a suite, a whole floor, but here she was in a regular double. He liked that; it reminded him of who she was, who he’d first met, and almost made him regret why he was here.
‘If I’d been sent here to kill you—simple, you’d be dead. And you better start thinking about that, about being aware, taking extra precautions.’
Her anger sank back like a little child’s as she said, ‘You think I’m in . . .’ He put his hand up, fighting to control his own anger.
‘You’re a player now! You killed Bruno Brodsky! You don’t do things like that and go back to being sweet little Ella Hatto. You’re a player and you need security. You get that? Your old life is over!’
She sat down on the edge of the bed. For a moment, he thought she was about to tell him that her old life had ended back in Italy but instead, her voice sounding small, she said, ‘I had to kill him. I’m sorry.’
Lucas felt like the apology was aimed directly at him, rather than being the remorse of a passion murderer; she’d already become colder than that, like someone following a set of instructions in the avenger’s handbook with no sense of the implications.
‘You had to kill him? What about the three other people who died? What about the two-year-old boy in the hospital who now has no mother or grandmother? You had to kill them too?’ She looked shocked and began to say something but he preempted her. ‘Please, you’re not that stupid. You blow up a building, people die.’ She started to weep, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for her. He’d seen her cry before and it had left him pained, embarrassed because she’d been brought down by a love and loss he couldn’t have imagined. Now, though, she was crying for herself, and he suspected that those deaths in Budapest meant even less to her than they did to him.
Maybe a lot less, because at least they left him questioning his own part in bringing them about. If he’d killed Bruno for her, he’d have saved the others, one unjust death instead of four. That was a false logic, though. He could see that. The only way he could have avoided any of it was never to have helped her in the first place.
She looked up at him and said, ‘What will happen now?’
He wasn’t sure what she was asking about but he wanted to get on with the business at hand. ‘Dan’s checking out Larsen Grohl. Once he has something he’ll come and see you. I’ve paid him a retainer to see this through but if you want to use his services after that—and I do recommend him—you’ll have to discuss a financial arrangement. That’s everything.’