Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Princess

“I can do that,” she told him, professionalism overcoming her desire to be close to Jack Morgan. “Will I see you back in London?” she asked.

Something in her eyes, something in her words, made the investigator in Morgan question what he had been told.

“You’re not in a relationship, are you, Jane?” he asked her.

“I’m not,” she confessed.

“Then why—”

“Because I didn’t want to be the woman sleeping with the boss,” Cook blurted out. “I didn’t want people talking behind my back. But more than that, I needed to know how Jack Morgan would treat me if we were colleagues, and not lovers.”

Morgan let the words sink in. “Well, now you know.” He stepped in closer, less than a foot between the two of them as the rain pattered against Cook’s upturned face.

“Now I know,” she agreed.

He put out his hands, and pushed back the wet hair from her face, tucking it behind her ears. She was beautiful. No matter how he had tried to suppress his feelings, they had not diminished. Now Morgan looked deeply into Cook’s eyes.

“We’re close to finishing this,” he promised.

She understood that he meant their absence as lovers as well as the case.

“And when we are, we’ll go away. No work. No cases. Just us.”

“Sounds perfect.” Cook smiled. “Where?”

“Hawaii,” Morgan told her, picturing the blissful image of big waves, blue skies and Jane in his arms. Despite the cold Welsh rain, he felt as though he was already there. Only the sound of helicopter blades broke him from his reverie.

“You have to go,” she almost whispered.

“I’ll send it back for you,” he promised. “Hand over to the legal team, and I’ll take care of the Princess.” Morgan turned to watch as the helicopter touched down a hundred yards from the house, the mountains behind it ominous and dark beneath the thick cloud.

It was time for Morgan to leave Wales. There was only one more thing for him to do.

He took Cook’s hands in his, the touch full of the spark and promise of what was to come. “I’ll see you in London.”

And then he kissed her.

Peter Knight looked at what had become of his office. His map of the United Kingdom and the carefully placed pins lay crumpled and torn on the floor. A chair lay on its side by the door. The pens, photos and paperwork from his desk had been tossed like confetti.

“Are you calm now?” he asked the woman who had trashed his office. Fearing for Eliza Lightwood’s safety more than his own, Knight had taken her down with a self-defense move and was now sitting on top of her, exerting just enough pressure to keep the woman pinned.

“I’m sorry,” Eliza wheezed out.

“I know you’ve had a shock, Eliza, but I can’t let you up if you’re going to do that again.”

“I’m good, Peter, honestly. I’m sorry. That just all came as a shock. It... it really threw me. I’m sorry. I just lost it for a moment.”

Knight could understand why: hearing that your friend was responsible for blackmailing your father into suicide was not something that could be taken lightly. Still, it gave Knight pause for thought. If Eliza’s temper was as violent as this...

He hadn’t revealed to her that Sophie’s body had been found, but could Eliza already know that the blackmailer was hanging in a Welsh forest? Could she have been the one to put her there, during her absence that she claimed was a drive to the south coast?

He had more questions than answers. He expected he wouldn’t learn much more by keeping Eliza pinned to his office floor.

He stood.

She got up slowly, red with embarrassment and exertion as she took in the devastation she had caused. “My God, Peter... Send me the bill. Whatever it is. Redecorate the entire floor of this building and I’ll pay for it. I’m so, so sorry.”

“That won’t be necessary, Eliza. You’ve had a rough time recently. It’s perfectly understandable.”

“Thank you, Peter.” She sighed. “You’ve been so amazing throughout all this... Do you have a bathroom I could use? I’d like to clean myself up before I go.”

“Of course.” Knight smiled, and showed her the way.

As soon as she was out of sight, he pulled out his phone and wrote a text message to Hooligan:

Look deeper into Eliza. Could she have put contract killers onto Sophie? Or killed her herself? Possible she could have got to Wales and back in time to dump body? Try to discover her movements in the past three days.

Private London’s tech guru replied a second later.

OK. What will you be doing?

Peter looked toward the bathroom before he replied.

Old-fashioned stuff.

“Thanks for waiting, Peter.” Eliza smiled as she emerged from the bathroom.

“No problem.” He smiled back, walking her out to the front of Private’s building and waving her goodbye.

Then, as Eliza opened her umbrella and blended into the pedestrian traffic of London, Knight began his tail.

Knight wasn’t sure where he expected Eliza Lightwood to go when she left Private headquarters, so he wasn’t caught by surprise when her distinctive red umbrella marked her as taking a detour from the shortest route to her home, instead joining dozens of other Londoners as they bustled into an Underground station, umbrellas snapping closed with sighs of relief as they found sanctuary from the rain.

Like any investigator or law enforcement agent, Peter Knight hated the London Underground. It made what was an already difficult job so much harder — a sprawling warren of tunnels, staircases, barriers, carriages, escalators and lifts, not to mention the thousands of people that could be inside the busier stations. Each one of these factors was an obstacle that had to be overcome again and again. Get too close, and the target of the tail would see you — in this case, shattering any trust that Eliza had in Knight should she be innocent. If she was guilty, well... then Knight knew that any chance of Eliza slipping up would be gone — she was too intelligent to make mistakes twice.

He pushed back the hood of his jacket as he entered the station and replaced it with a cap he kept in its pocket — the “disguise” wouldn’t save him from a direct look, but on the crowded levels of the Underground, it was enough to protect against a target’s peripheral vision, or sweeping gaze as they sought out platforms, lines and train times.

There were no such looks from Eliza. She cut through the station like a missile, leaving in her wake a trail of angry looks and muttered curses. It made Knight’s work as a tail a hundred times easier, but there was always the chance that Eliza could stop and turn quickly, catching him out and ending a game in which Knight hoped he was the only witting player. To counter this, he had a plan.

In fact, he had a plan years ago, and he had been working on it ever since. Like any true professional, Peter Knight had prepared and he had practiced. Every member of Private London’s staff had taken turns trying to lose their co-workers in London. The Underground was a particular favorite place to do this, and Knight had made it a priority that he and Private’s agents honed their tracking skills whenever their investigations allowed. Seeing the Underground as one great maze to be understood and mastered had led to great competition developing amongst Knight and his agents, and it became impossible for Knight to take even the shortest trip with his family without finding himself seeking out the best vantage points, the quickest turnstiles and the most covered approaches.

He used this accumulated knowledge of the system now as he passed through the other travelers with as little fuss as possible. Peter Knight was a much bigger person than Eliza Lightwood, and he would not be able to get away with the same kind of barging approach that the petite woman had — while Eliza’s behavior had drawn shaking heads and disgusted looks from some men, it could mean a punch for the six-foot man.