He glanced over at Cork, and then back to Zahra. “Based on what Cork here has told me about her plane, I don’t see why the two of us can’t get it back in the air by morning.” He waved. “Goodnight,
George waved back and looked at his daughter. Both were dumbfounded. “Remind me to come back here again when all this is over.”
Zahra nodded. “Same here. This place is…”
“Unusual?”
She laughed. “I was going to say, unbelievable, but yes,
Just as Vincenzo had said, the key to the front door was under the front doormat. Zahra still couldn’t fathom the trust the people here had in one another, let alone with complete strangers. Based what she had seen from the aircraft earlier, Levanzo was a very small island. It couldn’t have more than three or four hundred year-round inhabitants. Were all of them as welcoming as Stefano and Vincenzo? Even the port guard had been kind and understanding.
George did the honors and keyed open the front door. The quaint cottage was impeccably well-maintained. Everything inside was modern, though, not brand-new. The decor was a nice mix of colors, mostly those of the sea. Zahra counted four shades of blue in the kitchen alone. It had been built into the right-hand corner of the great room, just inside the door. The central living space was a high-ceilinged, twenty-by-twenty square with a spiral staircase in the corner that looked like it led up to a loft. But that’s not what Zahra was focused on. She was lost in the view the living room’s balcony offered of the Mediterranean.
“Wow.”
George saw it too. Both father and daughter were instantly transported to another world. Together, they just stood there and allowed the cool, calming breeze to caress their achy, exhausted bodies through the already open French doors. Zahra had no idea what it would cost to stay here for even one night, but whatever it was, it was worth every single penny.
She reached out and took her father’s hand and squeezed it. “We definitely need to come back.”
Zahra hadn’t slept that well in months, and to be honest, she felt terrible about it. Somewhere in Egypt, her brother and Grant were being held captive by a band of lunatics who were trying to reproduce the Biblical plague — a plague, as it were, that was created by ancestors of the group behind it all.
As much as she’d like to distance herself from these people, Zahra was a part of it. Ayad blood flowed through Zahra’s veins, just as her blood flowed through them. They were family, for better or worse.
Zahra stretched and sat up, wearing a pair of gym shorts and a sports bra. She had spent the night in the loft above the living room and had the space to herself. Her father had insisted that she take the bed since she had had the rougher go of it lately. She swung her feet over the side of the bed and went to stand but stopped. On the nightstand holding her sunglasses was a pamphlet. Curious, Zahra picked it up and saw it for what it was.
There wasn’t much — just locations to take photos and explore and places to eat. The Grotta del Genovese also contained Neolithic cave paintings.
Zahra guessed that there would be more information as to how cave paintings came to be on Levanzo. At the moment, it didn’t really matter, though. She presumed that the independent landmasses making up the island chain were connected at one point. There was also a shipwreck of a Roman cargo vessel off the eastern shore in the waters of Cala Minnola that had made recent waves in the historical community, though Zahra hadn’t looked into it any deeper than what she read in the headlines. Levanzo wasn’t a sprawling, luxurious getaway. It was a place to relax and recharge, and Zahra had done just that.
The floorboards creaked under her weight as she stood. Her knees and back, not to mention her feet, were sore as hell. She stepped lightly, unsure of whether her father was still asleep or not.
He wasn’t.
She leaned over the railing of the loft and saw that the couch was already empty and put back together, exactly the way they had found it the evening before. Her father was sitting quietly at a small table out on the balcony. He clutched a coffee mug in both his hands. Even from here, Zahra could feel the chilly morning breeze coming in off the water.
Zahra dug through her bag and found a clean shirt, tossing it on before carefully making her way down the tight, spiraling staircase. The metal beneath her bare feet was cool and felt great pressed up against her aching soles. The discomfort reminded her that she needed a new pair of boots.
