Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Princess

With one exception.

Between the photos of popping champagne bottles and rooftop bars, one location continued to show up throughout the years since Sophie had left Brecon — a beautiful waterfall surrounded by forest. Sophie was posed in front of the cascading white water in several pictures, each one chronicling the effect that drugs and alcohol were taking on her body, her ageing accelerated by her damaging lifestyle.

“She went downhill fast,” Lewis commented, looking over Cook’s shoulder.

“Do you know this location?” Cook asked, pointing to the waterfall. “It could be somewhere around here that she knew from her childhood.”

Lewis shook her head. “I don’t. But print me a copy and I’ll pass it around the team. A lot of the guys are into distance running and mountain bikes. Maybe they know it. If not, we can ask the farmers. You expect to find her there?”

Cook shook her head. “I doubt she’s gone missing because of a hiking accident, but what else do we have? If it’s close, it’s worth investigating.”

“You’re right. I’ll go get the printouts from the office.”

Lewis had only been gone a moment when Morgan re-entered the room. Cook was about to tell him of her small lead, but something on the American’s face told her that he had bigger news.

She wasn’t wrong.

“Peter and Hooligan found the origin of the blackmail note: Eliza Lightwood’s penthouse.”

Peter Knight needed to clear his thoughts. His mind was in the trees, and he needed to pull back to see the forest. If there was one thing that helped him see clearly, it was the faces of his children.

Knight’s ten-year-old daughter accepted his video call. As always, the joy of seeing her was mixed with a pang of sadness and loss — she looked so like her mother.

“Hi, Isabel. Is your brother with you?”

Isabel called out for Luke, and her slightly younger sibling pushed his way onto the screen.

“Hi, Dad!” he bellowed.

“Hi, Luke. What have you guys been doing today? Did you have a good time at football?”

“No. We lost,” Luke replied.

“Winning isn’t everything,” Knight told his son. “It’s how hard you tried that counts.”

“Is that what it’s like in your job, Daddy?” Isabel asked.

Knight forced a smile, pretending he wasn’t involved in a career where losing often meant someone’s life. “I try my best, Isabel.”

And that was the truth — how could he do less? He loved his children with every ounce of his heart. They were growing fast — too fast — and soon they would be adults, unleashed into the big bad world. Peter Knight knew just how bad it could be, and he would do his utmost to make it safe for his own kids, and those of every other parent — no one should have to witness or suffer the kind of loss that he had seen.

“Are you OK, Dad?” Luke asked.

Knight smiled at his son’s perceptiveness. “You’d make a great policeman.”

“I want to be a stuntman!” Luke said instead.

“What happened to being a pilot?”

Luke thought on that. “A stunt pilot!” he declared.

I should just keep quiet , Knight said to himself. “I love you both,” he told his children, signing off.

With their goodbyes in his ears, Knight walked from his office to Hooligan’s lab. He saw Perkins, the royal liaison, napping on a couch in the shadows. Hooligan was, as usual, enraptured by the data on his screens.

“You look happy,” Hooligan said, turning to Knight. “Call with the kids?” he guessed, knowing the man well.

Knight nodded, then got to business. “Find anything on Eliza?”

The East Ender shook his head. “Not a banana. The only link between her and the blackmail is that it was sent from her home.”

“I can’t think of any good reason why she would blackmail her own father,” Knight mused.

“Well, maybe because she knew it would push him into suicide. She’s an only child and next of kin. We’ve seen her dad’s financials. She’s about to be a very wealthy girl.”

Knight shook his head. “She’s already a wealthy girl, Jez. We’ve seen her financials. She’s been making a killing since leaving university. And, more to the point,” he added, “if she was blackmailing him, why would she hire us to investigate it?”

Hooligan looked over Eliza’s bank statements again. Sir Tony’s daughter had granted them full access in a move to show good faith and full cooperation. “Looks like Cambridge was the wrong choice for me.” The man laughed. “Should have gone to LSE.”

Knight stopped dead in his tracks.

“I said I should have gone to LSE,” Hooligan repeated, thinking his joke had fallen on deaf ears. “ LSE . Eliza’s university. The London School of Economics.”

Knight cursed himself for having taken so long to put the pieces together. “Eliza was at LSE?” he managed, trying to picture again the educational certificates that adorned the walls of her home.

“Yeah,” Hooligan answered, wondering at Knight’s exasperated expression. “Graduated in 2011. Why?”

Knight said nothing. He was too busy thinking over possibilities, plots, motivation, and murder.

Because Eliza Lightwood was not the only promising young lady to graduate from LSE in 2011.

There was another he knew of, and her name was Sophie Edwards.

Knight ran from Private’s building to Eliza Lightwood’s home. The London traffic was heavy, and he wanted answers without delay. The gray clouds had finally delivered on their threat and rain was falling. Knight drew stares as he weaved between umbrella-carrying pedestrians.

He was soaked by the time he arrived at Eliza’s apartment complex. There was no way in without a code, but Knight’s disheveled state drew a compassionate look from the security guard who sat behind the building’s glass frontage. The man got up and shuffled to the door.

“I’ve seen you enough times,” he told Knight, opening the door. “So much for summer, right?”

“I know,” Knight agreed, rewarding the kind gesture with a smile. “I appreciate this. Thank you.”

The security guard smiled back, glad that he could do a little to help someone’s day. Knight gave the man a parting wave and made his way to the elevators. After shaking his hair like a soaked dog, he knocked gently on Eliza’s door.

There was no answer.

He knocked again and again. No answer.

Knight pulled out his phone. Eliza’s number was a fixture in his recent calls list. He hit it. It went straight to voicemail.

He frowned. He tried again. Straight to voicemail.

Knight looked at the apartment door’s lock. It was the Trilogy model that was popular in the homes of the wealthy. There was a slot for a key card, and then a pad for a code. He could only hope it wasn’t set up to require both.

With nothing but intuition from his gut to guide him, Knight entered the birth date of Sir Tony Lightwood.

An LED flashed green, and the lock clicked open.

The Range Rover made easy work of the forest tracks as Jane Cook drove them toward the location of Sophie Edwards’ waterfall photos. One of the royal residence’s cleaners, a Brecon Beacons local her entire life, had identified the spot, and now Jack Morgan guided them there with the use of an Ordnance Survey map.

“Take this,” he told Lewis, seeing a call from Knight coming through and taking it on a headset. “Peter?”

“Can I be overheard?” Knight asked.

“No,” Morgan replied.

His brow creased as Knight revealed that Sophie and Eliza had both attended the same university and graduated in the same year.