"Is it treatable?" Frankie leaned forward, her face anxious.
"Usually if an aneurysm is identified, it is repaired with microsurgery and removed. But obviously we need to run more tests." He looked back at Gabriel. "I would like you to book into hospital so that we can get to the bottom of this. Find out what's responsible for these repeated leaks."
Not what, Gabriel thought. Who.
The neurologist seemed concerned by his silence. "Mr. Blackstone-"
"It will have to wait."
"Wait?"
"Yes. I'll be in touch with your office at a later date." Gabriel pushed his chair backward and started to get to his feet.
"This is highly unwise." Dibbles had lost his cheerful smile.
"I understand. But right now is not a good time."
Dibbles looked at Frankie. "Mrs. Whittington, I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is that Mr. Blackstone submit himself for observation."
Frankie got to her feet as well. "I'll talk to him, Dr. Dibbles. I promise we'll be in touch very soon."
The expression on Dibbles's face made Gabriel wonder if he was going to try to restrain them physically. Maybe the man had some kind of silent alarm under his desk that, at a touch, could summon an army of brawny nurses with straitjackets and needles at the ready.
But then Dibbles sighed. Folding his plump hands deliberately, he said in an emotionless voice, "I cannot force you to commit yourself to this hospital, Mr. Blackstone. However, please know that the next attack could be a full-blown stroke. It can lead to paralysis."
He paused, rearranged his hands.
"Or death."
"Cheers." Gabriel clinked his glass against Frankie's a little too emphatically.
He brought the glass to his mouth and drank deeply. It was a full-blooded Cabernet and the tannin burned his tongue. Drowning his sorrows in alcohol was probably not the wisest course of action, but he was beyond caring. Frankie was sitting in one of the leather club chairs in his apartment. She looked shattered.
He didn't even want to think what he looked like. He was now consciously avoiding mirrors. Whenever he looked into the mirror, his grandfather's face stared out at him. His grandfather on his deathbed. But it wasn't merely the fact that the sight of his own face was a real downer-ashen skin, bloodshot eyes-he was also afraid of seeing a shadow fall across the door behind him, a flaccid hand beckoning. He didn't know what was worse: the mind attacks or the hallucinations.
"How are you feeling?"
"Not bad." He had a splitting headache, but these days he always had a splitting headache. It was starting to feel normal. And the pain from the headache was as nothing compared to a full-blown mind attack.
As if reading his thoughts, Frankie said, "Why hasn't Minnaloushe launched another attack? The last one was two days ago."
"Maybe she's tired. Maybe she needs a rest period herself in order to juice up." He shrugged, took another sip of wine. "Who knows? But launching an attack probably takes something out of her as well."
"God, I hope so." Frankie's voice was savage. "I hope it's really painful for her. The bitch."
Gabriel winced at the word. Strange how he wanted to protest Frankie's use of the epithet. Which was pretty damn pathetic no matter how you looked at it. Minnaloushe was hell-bent on destroying him and here he was feeling squeamish when Frankie called her names.
But he had to be honest. The idea that Minnaloushe was a murderer still felt wholly unreal to him.
He remembered what she had looked like the night of her birthday. A figure from a religious painting. One of those beautiful women with slender wrists and radiant eyes, who inhabited the canvases of the old masters. A worshipful Mary Magdalene or a righteous Judith. Her skin bathed in light, shadows in her hair and at the corners of her mouth.
He was grieving, he suddenly realized. Grieving for lost innocence. But he was being foolish. He couldn't afford the luxury of grieving. If he didn't toughen his mind where Minnaloushe was concerned, it would be the end of him. She was sure to exploit his every weakness, and for his own sake, he had better shape up. For his own sake and for Morrighan's. She might be in danger from her sister as well.
Which brought him to the most important question: How to protect Morrighan?
He had a horrible feeling that Morrighan was in imminent peril and in need of his protection. If the danger had been physical, he would have backed her against Minnaloushe any time. Physically she was by far the stronger and the more agile of the two. But the danger wasn't physical. It was more insidious. And here he was, his brain leaking like a punctured tube, in pretty poor shape to assume the role of shining knight on a white horse.
Morrighan. How to warn her? How to protect her?
Frankie picked up the bottle of wine and filled her glass again. Gabriel waved the bottle away when she offered it to him. He was on to his third glass already.
"Frankie…"
"Yes?"
"I'm very grateful for everything you've done so far. But I want you to go home now. And I want you to stay as far away from me as you can."
"What are you talking about?" Frankie was scowling.
"I mean it. I'm bad news. You know what happened to Isidore. I don't want the same thing to happen to you."
"Oh, shut up, Gabriel." Frankie didn't even bother to raise her voice. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be in this mess. So just shut up."
"Frankie, I really think-"
"I refuse to discuss it any longer." Frankie set her mouth firmly. Her expression was mutinous. "Back off."
He backed off. For now.
"Let's make dinner." Frankie got to her feet. "And then we can talk about what to do next."
While Frankie boiled water for the pasta, Gabriel took tomatoes, salad leaves and parsley from the fridge. Placing the vegetables on a chopping board, he removed a gleaming knife from the knife stand. Global. The best. He had picked out this knife set in Diver -timenti kitchen shop in Knightsbridge only a few months ago. An old girlfriend of his had been with him at the time. But he couldn't remember her name. Kathy? Carol? He tried to concentrate, but his head was splitting.
The heft of the knife fit comfortably in his hand. The blade was razor sharp. Chop. Chop. It sliced easily through the stalks of parsley.
His head was really hurting. He squinted at the chopping board. Chop. Chop. His fingers were pressing down on the parsley stalks, and for a moment the thought entered his mind that the tips of his fingers looked like vegetables as well. Like pale, smooth mushroom caps. Button mushrooms. The thought was funny, somehow, and a little giggle escaped his lips.
"Gabriel? Are you OK?"
"Sure." He didn't look up from the chopping board. The movement of the knife slicing through the green stalks underneath his fingers was mesmeric. Chop. Chop. White and green. White for his fingers. Green for the parsley. Chop. Chop. The knife edged closer to the tips of his fingers. Maybe red and green would be a better color combination than white and green. Red like blood.
Chop. Chop. He stared at the gleaming knife, at the blade edging closer and closer to his ringers. Just as the blade of that hunting knife had edged closer and closer to Melissa Cartwright's throat. Red like blood. Red like blood…
"Gabriel!"
Frankie's scream broke through the daze. The next moment she had wrenched the knife from his grasp and her hands were on his shoulders and she was shaking him.
"What the hell are you doing?"
For a moment he stared at her speechless. Then he started to cry. He leaned against the kitchen cabinets and threw his head back and wept with open mouth and open eyes.
Frankie did not try to hush him. She simply waited. Only when the last shuddering sob had left his mouth did she speak.