Chapter 1 - THE GIRL AT GATE 47
“Please, mister. My mommy won’t wake up.”
Gabriel Valmont looked down at the little girl holding his hand.
She wore a red dress and a matching bow. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she wasn’t screaming. Somehow, that frightened him more.
Behind him, the agent at Gate 47 called the final boarding group for Geneva.
“Where’s your mom?”
The girl pulled him toward a row of black seats.
His suitcase caught against his heel. He left it standing in the middle of the terminal.
Then he saw the woman.
Cream dress. Brown hair. Head tilted against the seat.
“Claire?”
Five years disappeared in a heartbeat.
He dropped to his knees.
“Claire. Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
He touched her shoulder, gently at first, then harder. Her skin felt cold.
“Call airport medical!” he shouted.
A man nearby raised his phone.
The little girl grabbed Gabriel’s sleeve.
“Before she stopped talking, she said your name.”
He turned.
“What?”
“Gabriel.” Her voice shook. “She said, ‘Find Gabriel.’”
The woman who had vanished from his life five years ago had sent a child to find him.
A child with pale blue eyes almost exactly like his.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Léa.”
“Okay, Léa. Help is coming.”
A pair of paramedics arrived with a yellow stretcher. One knelt beside Claire while the other asked questions Gabriel couldn’t answer.
Had she taken medication?
Did she have a heart condition?
How long had she been unconscious?
“I don’t know,” he said, hating every word.
They lifted Claire. Her purse slipped off her lap, spilling a boarding pass, a small bottle of tablets, and a folded photograph.
Léa snatched the picture before anyone stepped on it.
Gabriel saw enough.
Himself, younger, standing beside Claire on a windy beach.
He remembered taking that trip.
He remembered thinking he would marry her.
“How did you know it was me?” he asked.
Léa held the photograph against her chest.
“Mommy said you looked different now. But your eyes would be the same.”
The paramedic wheeled Claire toward the exit.
Gabriel reached for Léa’s hand.
A gate agent called after him. “Sir! Your flight!”
“Let it go.”
His phone began vibrating.
His mother.
A message appeared beneath her name.
DO NOT GO WITH THAT WOMAN.
Gabriel stopped walking.
May you like
Then he looked across the terminal.
Someone was watching them.
