“I didn’t know he was yours,” she manages. “I—I saw he was stalking us. I—” She doesn’t want to admit that she feared he was after revenge for her poisoning Paz. “I thought he was working with Arrabella. I saw them together—meeting.”
Lillith nods, reaches for her glass, sips water. “Yes. Arrabella was interfering.” She gives a mirthless laugh as she sets her glass down. “She’s no good for my Patrick. I needed him to see that on his own. So I asked Avi to help with her.”
“What do you mean ‘help with her’?”
“Listen, I’m running out of time, Poppy. I think you know that, on some level.”
“I—I saw the meds.”
“I have a very rapidly progressing form of ALS. I have perhaps six months at best before I’ll need advanced care—or worse. I’m preparing for my death. You also saw the book on my nightstand?”
Poppy swallows and nods.
“I have made a clear plan to wrap up the loose ends of my life. Having someone assist me with my memoir is a part of that. But”—she pauses, choosing her words carefully—“some rather unexpected events on the ship have forced me to bring my schedule rather sharply forward.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“The clock’s ticking—that’s the gist of it. And there are some things I want to tell you, Poppy. But first I must ask you a few questions. It’s important that you answer truthfully. Can you do that for me? Can you be honest?”
Or what?
The Tan Man will be summoned with a whistle?
Is this some kind of test? Give one wrong answer and I vanish from the cruise, just another missing-tourist statistic?
Or is this still a reckoning? For murdering Paz.
“Can you, Poppy?” Lillith’s features sharpen.
Poppy glances again at Avi. She nods, buying time.
“Tell me more about Africa.”
Her jaw drops. “What?”
“I want to know the truth about Africa.”
Walls slam up. Her heart begins to race. She should never have opened up about that. It was a stupid knee-jerk response to Arrabella’s snide dig about high-end cruises. The Africa stuff had just spilled out because it’s something Poppy knew. Of course she’s never been on any of those cruises. She made it all up. But shehaslived on a big rusty ship that was moored off the coasts of Liberia, Congo, Zaire. The SSMercy Grace—a floating hospital run by a global charity where her mum—a nurse—and her dad—a doctor—volunteered for years.
She was homeschooled on theMercy Grace. Poppy helped in the clinics aboard the vessel. She ran barefoot through remote dusty villages, playing with children whose languages she didn’t understand but whose laughter she shared.
“I’m not sure what more I can tell,” she says blandly.
“You said the Africa cruise was your favorite?”
She avoids eye contact. “Yes.”
“Are you being honest?”
Her eyes sting. Her throat tightens.
The old combat journalist in Lillith has surfaced. She was once renowned for her probing questions, her sharp eye, for getting things out of people no one else could.
Poppy draws in a breath as a powerful sensation punches through her. Lillith—this whole trip—is splitting her wide open. Her carefully buried past is oozing out through the cracks, and it’s spilling all over the place, and she can’t seem to stop it. And it frightens her.
“Why am I here?” she blurts.
“I need you to answer my questions first.”
