Джеймс Паттерсон: Private Princess

His call was picked up on the first ring.

“Hello, Jack,” Peter Knight answered in his London office. The head of Private London, Knight had been side by side with Morgan through some of their toughest scrapes. He was also the American’s friend. “The office told me you diverted here. Business or pleasure?”

“Business, Peter. Let’s get together and talk about it. I’m going to send you my location.”

“What’s the case?” Knight asked, knowing that their calls were encrypted to government levels and stood no chance of being monitored.

“Missing person with connections.”

“I might need to send you a team in my place, Jack. I had a case come in a few days ago. A man named Sir Tony Lightwood was found hanged in his home a few days ago, and his daughter wants us to take a look into it.”

“What have the police found?” Morgan asked, disappointed that it appeared he would be working without his British right hand.

“Said it looks like a straight-up suicide. Daughter wants a second opinion.”

“Why?”

“Says suicide doesn’t fit her dad.”

“Everyone says that. The truth’s hard to accept.”

“True,” Knight mused, “but the Sunday Times did list him at number fifty-two on their Rich List.”

“You’d better run with that case,” Morgan agreed. “Money doesn’t buy happiness, but...”

“It does give people a good reason to want you dead,” Knight finished.

Morgan was about to follow up, but then movement along the trail caught his eye.

De Villiers.

“I’ll meet you at your site,” Morgan told Knight, then hung up and walked over to join the tall figure of the Guards officer.

“Did you get everything you needed from the Princess?” De Villiers asked.

“She said Sophie had some things in her past, and that she made bad decisions. Can you be a little more specific?”

A look of distaste passed over the Colonel’s face. “Sophie was a good friend of your pal Abbie Winchester, if that helps,” he revealed, referring to the hard-partying royal whom Morgan and Knight had rescued from murderous kidnappers.

“I need more than that,” Morgan told him, but the officer shrugged, enjoying the moment.

“You’re the world’s greatest investigator, Mr. Morgan.” De Villiers smiled. “So let’s get you back to London. Then you can begin investigating.”

Morgan declined colonel De Villiers’ offer of being driven to London. Instead, he asked to be taken to the nearest helicopter landing site. There he was collected by a flight chartered by Private and flown back into London. Morgan’s mind was full of questions, but after asking his team to come up with a background file on Sophie Edwards, he forced himself to sleep on the short flight — experience told him that such luxuries would be in short supply during the investigation, and he needed to be sharp.

Collected by car from the heliport, Morgan peered at the London streets as he was driven to Eaton Square, one of the many homes of business tycoon Sir Tony Lightwood. Eaton Square was one of the most expensive places to live in the UK, with an average house price of £17 million, and Morgan could see why. The buildings’ white stucco facades gleamed in the sunlight, and Bentleys and Rolls-Royces lined the street. Everything about the area screamed opulence. Only one thing seemed out of place.

It stood in the street, all smiles beneath a mop of red hair, a West Ham United football shirt tucked into skinny jeans.

Morgan stepped from his car and greeted the man. “Good to see you, Hooligan. Really good.”

The men shook hands. Jeremy “Hooligan” Crawford was a double Cambridge graduate turned MI5 tech guru turned Private London legend. He was also a diehard Hammers fan, and a man who had helped save lives several times over for Private — Morgan’s amongst them.

“Good to see you too, boss,” the East Ender replied, still shaking Morgan’s hand. “The rest of them are inside.”

Morgan turned and followed Hooligan toward the entrance of the home. The building wasn’t large, and was adjoined at both sides to its neighbors, but its colossal price could buy someone an entire village in the north of the country.

“Sir Tony wasn’t shy about flashing his cash,” Morgan noted.

“You can say that again, boss,” Hooligan agreed. “Inside looks like the Saatchi Gallery.”

“Contemporary art a passion of yours, Hooligan?” Morgan asked, trying to hide his surprise.

“Bloody hell, no.” The Londoner laughed as they stepped inside. “I heard her say it.”

“Her” was Jane Cook, former British Army major, and newest agent of Private London. Astute and striking, Cook had worked alongside Morgan as they’d raced to save Abbie Winchester’s life before the Trooping the Color parade, two years previously. Their mission had ended with Abbie’s release, but their time together in London had not. Morgan had delayed his flight back to the U.S. twice before a critical case had finally pulled him from Cook’s bed.

“Jane.” He smiled.

“Jack.”

Hooligan opened his mouth to speak and excuse himself, but quickly realized he had already been forgotten. Chuckling to himself, he moved away along the richly appointed hallway.

A moment of silence held between Cook and Morgan.

“Peter here?” Morgan finally managed.

“Upstairs. I’ll follow you up,” Cook said softly.

Morgan was forced to brush by her in the narrow entrance. It was the slightest touch, but he felt as though he’d been shoved into a flame.

“After you, boss,” Cook teased, adding fuel.

Morgan walked on, glad to have the beautiful woman out of his vision. He had been recovering from a deep knife wound at the time of their brief affair, but not even the pain from his injuries had held them back in their passion.

With such sexual tension in the air, he was almost relieved to enter Sir Tony’s study. Surrounded by mahogany furnishings, Peter Knight was on his hands and knees, fastidiously working every inch of the room for a clue that would suggest the rich man’s death was suspicious.

“You don’t have to kowtow,” Morgan joked. “A simple bow would be enough.”

“Good to see you, Jack!” Knight grinned as he got to his feet and took Morgan’s outstretched hands. “It’s been too long!”

“It’s always too long,” Morgan agreed, having missed the company of his trusted British friend and colleague. “How are things looking here?”

“Sir Tony was found hanging from this beam,” Knight began, pointing to the ceiling. “No note has been found, which is one of the reasons his daughter is certain it wasn’t suicide.”

“What are the others?”

“That he was happy, successful and wanted to continue to be that way,” Knight answered. “From the people we’ve interviewed, it does seem out of character.”

“You never know what’s going on inside someone’s head,” Cook added.

“You don’t,” Knight agreed, but he could make a good guess at what was going on inside Morgan’s and Cook’s — the pair seemed almost at pains not to look at one another, and so it was with a little surprise that Knight heard Morgan’s next words.

“I’ve got nothing to start with on this missing-person case, Peter, so I’m taking Cook with me. Going to need to cover a lot of ground.”

“I can handle Sir Tony’s case alone,” Knight agreed. “Where are you going to start looking?”

Morgan hadn’t been given much to go on from Princess Caroline, so he drew on the initial information Private’s office had been able to gather.

“Sophie moved here from the country,” Morgan explained. “And when someone comes to a big city and gets in trouble, there’s a good chance they run for home.”