26‘Does anyone want coffee? I brought a thermos.’
Dr Morell—Rick hadn’t quite got the hang of thinking about her without the appellation—pulled a silver flask and a couple of plastic cups from her pack. How practical.
‘Oh, baby,’ Gabriela answered. ‘How did you know? I haven’t got nearly enough caffeine in my system and the withdrawals are killing me!’
Rick didn’t think he could handle anything right now. The smell had smacked him full in the face as soon as they’d walked off the narrow path from street to beach. It was the same putrid odour that had permeated the house in Sutherland, stolen through the houses and streets of Bellbird, and waited for him with lingering malevolence in the little clearing behind Malaik’s house.
‘Drink.’ Lael pushed a bottle of water into his hands.
It ta
