My vision cleared. I was on a stretcher, being carried towards an ambulance. Someone leaned in, and I instinctively shrank back.
‘It’s OK. It’s me, Reagan,’ he said, as he walked along beside me. ‘I can’t believe I almost lost you back there, before I’d had a chance to get to know you.’
‘Gabriel?’
‘The Gardaí are looking for his body.’
Once inside the ambulance, I saw Ella there too, attached to a drip, her bare feet and bandage filthy. ‘You should be in hospital,’ I said.
She held out her hand and I realised she was clutching something. ‘Here.’ She dropped Bryony’s necklace in my open palm – the necklace I’d worn every day since I lost her. ‘It was in the car park.’
I felt its warmth in my palm and tears prickled my eyes. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘And not just for this.’
Ella’s eyelids were drooping. ‘I had to find you,’ she whispered. ‘You’re my sister.’
*
I wasn’t there to see Greg greet Ella later that day. Once I’d been checked over, I’d discharged myself, despite the doctor suggesting I stayed in overnight. I knew Ella would want to be alone with her husband. She’d insisted on paying for my room at the hotel until I’d sorted myself out, so I’d headed there.
She was being kept in for another night for observation, until they knew her lungs were clear, and she gave me her key-card, insisting I borrowed some clothes from her hotel room. If I’m honest, they weren’t really me – too much like the clothes Jake used to want me to wear, but I found a plain T-shirt and some jeans that fitted once I’d rolled up the hems. I would wear them tomorrow. For now, a towelling robe would do.
After I’d showered, I lowered myself onto the bed, my body crying out with pain. I was covered in bruises, the worst on my face, but they were all superficial. I would eventually look like me again.
I’d lost my phone, but Reagan’s email was etched on my mind, and I kept thinking of his arms around me on the cliff top – the first time he’d held me since I was a baby – and how, just for a moment, I hadn’t wanted to move. I would contact him again in a few days, and see where it took us.
I thought about Alfie. I’d lost his number too, but it was for the best. I wasn’t ready for a healthy relationship. Maybe one day I’d go to that pub in Sligo and search him out. I smiled to myself, remembering him hosting the quiz night, and how much I’d laughed.
My eyes grew heavy and I drifted into a dreamless sleep, waking at six the following morning. It was the best night’s sleep I’d had in years.
I left my room just before ten. I’d ordered a taxi to take me back to the hospital, but as I tried to exit the hotel, a figure blocked my way, and my heart leapt into my throat.
‘Colleen?’
I looked into the man’s face. ‘Oh God, Alfie.’ He looked happy to see me, though I could see concern on his face, as he studied me. Applying some of Ella’s foundation to my bruises clearly hadn’t worked. I found myself taking him in – his tousled sandy hair and black-rimmed glasses. How much his smile made me want to smile back. But now wasn’t the time. ‘You scared the shite out of me,’ I said, pushing past him, heart still thumping.
‘Hang on.’ He followed me out and laid a gentle hand on my arm. ‘I heard about what happened. I’m so sorry.’
I stopped. ‘It’s fine,’ I said, not trusting myself to look at him again.
‘If you ever want to talk …’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Alfie. Maybe.’ I shook him off and continued towards the taxi, feeling his eyes on my back.
‘Call me!’
‘I’ve lost my phone and your number,’ I called back.
He raced after me, and I waited while he borrowed a pen from a woman loading the boot of her car with suitcases and scribbled his number on an old receipt. He handed it to me and I took it without a word, and carried on walking towards my taxi, glancing over my shoulder once, to fix his image in my mind.
‘Call me,’ he repeated.
‘Sure,’ I said, and realised I was smiling.
*
It wasn’t until I got back to the hospital that I understood how Jake had known we were at the farmhouse.
‘Greg told him,’ said Ella, as I sat by her bed munching crisps, hungry for the first time in ages. Greg was nowhere to be seen, and I could tell he was giving me a wide berth.
‘But how did he know where to find Jake?’
‘He’d looked him up before we even came here,’ she said. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she had colour in her cheeks. I guessed the medication had finally left her system, and she’d told me her lungs were fine, that she could go home. ‘He contacted him at the hospital where he works before he left Ireland, and told him where you were staying.’
‘Jesus.’ I dropped a handful of crisps back into the bag.
‘You have to remember you told us you loved him.’ She looked apologetic. ‘And Greg had his doubts about you – you know that.’
I sighed. ‘So Greg told Jake I was staying at the hotel?’
‘Yes.’
My mind spun. ‘And Jake saw Gabriel there and followed him to the farmhouse?’
‘It looks that way.’ A shadow crossed her face. ‘Thank God he did,’ she said, with feeling. ‘Your dad’s been here all night, wanting to talk to you,’ she said. ‘I’d never have got to you without his help, you know.’
‘How did you even know where to look for me?’
‘It was something you said in the basement. You mentioned that place, and how you nearly died there once, and that guy – the one you bumped into and slept with – had saved your life by offering you drugs.’ She gave me a look of disbelief. ‘I mean, that’s so messed up,’ she said. ‘It made me wonder if … you know, he was the guy, and I just … I don’t know how I knew, but I had this feeling …’ She shook her head, her smile a little awkward. ‘I’m not saying it was sisterly telepathy, or anything like that.’
‘Oh, I think you are,’ I said, in a teasing voice I almost didn’t recognise as my own. ‘But whatever it was, thank you.’
‘And Reagan?’ Ella hesitated. ‘You really should talk to him.’
‘I know.’ I nodded. ‘I think I’m ready now.’