The Phoenix

would have to decide what she intended to do with the rest of her life. Whether she would return to The Group, rebuilding bridges after her flagrant rule-breaking with Gabriel, and allow her ‘gifts’ to be used on other, future missions. Or whether avenging her mother’s murder already marked a fitting end to the bizarre chapter in her life that had begun with Mimi’s death and ended with that of Athena Petridis.

Climbing wearily into the car, she turned to Gabriel and asked the unspoken question hovering in the air between them.

‘Will I see you again?’

Reaching into the back seat, he touched her cheek lightly with the back of his hand. It was an unusually intimate gesture for him – loving, even. To Ella’s embarrassment she felt tears welling up in her eyes and a lump forming in the back of her throat.

‘I’m sure you will,’ he said gruffly.

‘When?’

‘I don’t know.’ He forced a smile. ‘That might depend on our friend Mr Redmayne. But soon I hope. Once it’s safe. Take care of yourself, Ella.’

Now, reminiscing in the back of a different car, and safely on US soil once again, the finality of Gabriel’s parting words hit Ella forcefully. In his own repressed, stiff-upper-lip way, he’d been saying goodbye.

Ella hadn’t seen him since that day, and she had no idea where he was.

From the moment she’d landed in Stockholm, none of Gabriel’s cell phones or email addresses worked. He had simply disappeared, like a ghosting lover, melting out of Ella’s life as swiftly and completely as he had first materialized in it. Walking alone through the cobbled streets of Stockholm’s romantic old town, Gamla Stan to the locals, muffled up against the autumn chill, Ella could almost believe that the entire last six months of her life had never happened. That it had all been a crazy, elaborate dream. Without Gabriel, none of it seemed real.

Only her ability to isolate and interpret the signals in her head, now almost second nature, reminded her tangibly that what had happened was no fantasy. Camp Hope and Professor Dixon were as real as she was. Thanks to them, Ella no longer suffered from headaches, or nausea or panic attacks. Now she could tune in or out of private electronic conversations at will, be it eavesdropping a lovers’ texted tiff at a café, or checking the speed of the electronic transfers being sent from her bank. From time to time, as her Swedish improved, she amused herself by tuning in to the police radio and following the dramas of drug busts or immigration raids as they unfolded in real time. Anything to distract her from her conflicted feelings about Athena, or from the total radio silence from Gabriel.

It was about two weeks after she arrived in Stockholm that Bob turned up. Ella found her old friend from San Francisco sitting waiting in the lobby of her hotel, as if it were the most normal thing in the world for him to be there, a smiling, khaki-clad ghost from Christmas past, looking like every American tourist with his fanny pack and camera and his San Francisco Giants baseball cap, worn at a jaunty angle.

‘Hello, stranger.’ He smiled at Ella. ‘I’ve come to take you home.’

According to Bob he’d been contacted out of the blue by ‘a weirdo’, who from his description could only have been Gabriel, and who informed him where Ella was and that she was waiting for a signal that it was safe to return to the States.

‘He never explained why it wouldn’t be safe,’ said Bob, over an enormous plate of meatballs at the Julius’ Café. ‘He never really explained anything, in fact. He just wired me a boat-load of money, like, a lot, and an air ticket, and gave me the address of your hotel. So here I am.’

‘Joanie didn’t mind, you just taking off for Europe to find me?’ Ella asked, trying to picture the conversation between husband and wife. ‘And what about your shifts at the café?’

‘I was owed time off,’ Bob shrugged. ‘And yeah, Joanie thought it was weird. I mean, it is weird. But for the kind of money this nut-job was offering us, what were we gonna do, say “no”? Besides,’ he grinned, depositing the last of the delicious meatballs into his mouth and swallowing greedily before he went on. ‘Joanie’s missed you. We both have. I’m happy to be the guy who busts you out of Jonestown, or whatever kind of a mess it is you’ve been sucked into over here. I don’t suppose you want to tell me what the hell’s been happening since May? Or what this “danger” is that you were in?’

Ella shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

‘Or you’d have to kill me, right?’ said Bob, cheerfully accepting that the conversation was now closed and showing zero inclination to press her. ‘But you’re cool to fly back with me?’

‘Yes,’ said Ella, partly because she was so very happy to see him, and partly because at that moment, she couldn’t think of a reason not to go.

The flight back was long and uneventful. Gabriel had sprung for first-class seats and, to her own surprise, while Bob watched back-to-back movies, Ella fell asleep almost immediately after takeoff and didn’t wake until the cabin lights came back on for the coffee service pre-landing.

Settling back into her apartment and daily life in San Francisco was harder. She didn’t need to find work right away. Helen Martindale, her realtor, had found a temporary renter for Paradise Ranch, which meant Ella had a modest but steady stream of money coming in.

‘I don’t know where you’ve been all this time,’ Helen complained, when Ella finally returned her calls ‘but I’ve had to turn down two huge offers from developers over the summer, wanting to build homes up there. If I’d been able to reach you—’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Ella. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’m not selling, at least not yet. And certainly not to a developer.’

Some decisions, like that one, felt good. Easy. Black and white. Others – like what to do about The Group, and how to spend the rest of her life – were harder. Grayer. Part of her hoped that the decision would be taken out of her hands. That someone from The Group would contact her, either to congratulate her on completing the Petridis mission solo and try to coax her back into the fold, or to berate her for going rogue with Gabriel and banish her from their service for ever. But as the days and weeks passed and nobody called or showed up on her doorstep, it dawned on her that, as far as The Group was concerned, the ball was in Ella’s court.

When the invitation finally arrived in the mail – a stiff, formal card in a crisp white envelope, old fashioned and elegant, like something out of The Great Gatsby – Ella was astonished to receive it. It was from Mark Redmayne himself, inviting her to a ‘private lunch’ at his Hamptons estate, Oakacres, as if there had never been any problem between the two of them. Folded inside the printed card was a handwritten note, in beautiful cursive script.

Dearest Ella, it read. While your attendance is purely voluntary, I do hope you will come. I believe we would both benefit from discussing certain recent events in person. With warm regards, and in gratitude for your service, Redmayne.

There really wasn’t much to think about. Mark Redmayne was the one person who should be able to tell her where Gabriel was, or at the very least to reassure her that he was safe. That alone would make it worth the trip. But beyond that, after all this time, Ella was wildly curious to meet the elusive Mr Redmayne in person, this shadowy figure who seemed to be disliked by so many of his operatives, and yet whose authority almost everyone unquestioningly accepted.

‘Nearly there.’ The driver spoke over his shoulder to Ella, whose drumming fingers and bitten lower lip suggested growing impatience with the journey. ‘You know what Long Islanders are like in the rain. Everybody slows down to a walk.’

At last they turned off in front of a pair of tall, wrought-iron gates, which swung open to allow the car inside. A long, sweeping driveway led up a gentle slope to a classically designed, white clapboard house, vast and sprawling and with spectacular sea views.