There was no hostility in the words, only a cool understanding of human nature and the desire to believe that one’s loved ones were not so unhappy as to wish to take their own lives. “I can’t imagine how hard it must be for the families, wondering if they could have done something. Stopped it. Have you ever lost someone close to you, Peter?”
“My wife,” Knight said solemnly, picturing the face of his true love and mother of his two children.
“My mother died of cancer.” Eliza sighed. “My father was always a huge supporter of cancer research and charities for people suffering the disease.”
“As are you,” Knight noted, paying the woman her dues for her incredibly generous donations.
“You looked into me?” She almost smiled.
“I look into everyone. That’s why you brought us in. And I’m sorry to say, Eliza, that your father killed himself.”
Slowly, as if breaking the news to a child that Santa is a myth, Eliza explained why Knight was wrong. “You know, this is the first Sunday in months that he hasn’t spent here. He was as much my friend as my dad. We’d always have guests over—sometimes a lot—and we would laugh so much. If Dad drank too much wine, he’d stay over, and we’d watch Blackadder together. He even has—had—his own room here. That was how close we were, Peter. I’d know if he was planning suicide.”
“He had a room here?” Knight asked, interested, and a little chastened for not having known earlier. Never assume, he cautioned himself.
“You want to look at it?” Eliza guessed. “I haven’t touched it since he was last here.”
Knight followed her through the apartment.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” she told him, opening the door.
Knight stepped inside. Unlike the rest of the modern apartment, the bedroom reflected Sir Tony’s style, gaudy and opulent—this truly was his room.
He set to work as he had done in the Eaton Square home, covering every inch, looking for clues or evidence that would set off an alarm in his investigative mind.
He was back on his hands and knees when he found it.
Taped beneath the bed was a USB thumb drive.
Chapter 10
IT WAS EVENING by the time Jack Morgan and Jane Cook had landed at Cardiff airport, collected their four-by-four rental and driven to the small town of Sophie’s childhood. Brecon nestled amongst the spectacular scenery of the Brecon Beacons mountain range, and Morgan marveled at the beauty.
He was also impressed that Cook navigated the winding roads without any need for a GPS.
“The army does a lot of its training down here,” she explained. “See that peak over there? That’s Pen y Fan. One of the toughest tests we do—did—is the Fan Dance.”
Morgan smiled inwardly at Cook’s use of “we.” No one who had served was ever truly a civilian once they left. Morgan felt the same way about the Marine Corps.
“Pen y Fan?” he asked, butchering the Welsh pronunciation.
The former soldier laughed. “And that’s one of the easy ones to say.”
She was not wrong. Morgan saw tongue-twisting place names like Caerphilly, Merthyr Tydfil and Llangadog as they drove past roadside signs.
“There’s a Cardiff in San Diego,” he told his driving partner.
“I’ve never been to California,” Cook hinted.
“Are you still surfing?”
“When I can. Not many spots for it in London.”
Morgan smiled, and forced his mind away from the image of Cook on a Californian beach.
“We’ll split up tomorrow,” he told her. “I’ll go to the family, you canvass the town and try friends. Sophie’s social media has been quiet for days, and most of her circle seems London-based, but Brecon looks like a small place. If you ask the right questions to the right people, you might be able to dig something up.”
Cook nodded. She didn’t need to ask what those questions would be, or who those people were. She had proven herself to be an excellent investigator during her first year at Private. She was still a rookie, but one with a bright future in her new field.
“This is it.” She smiled, pulling the car to a stop outside a quaint hotel that brandished three gold stars above its doorway. “Probably not the luxury Jack Morgan is used to, but there’s no Shangri-La hotel in Brecon.”
Morgan smiled. “Check us in. I’ll get the gear out the trunk.”
“It’s called a boot.”
“These are boots.” Morgan pointed to his feet. “I’ll see you inside.”
After a few minutes to check in with Private HQ and carry their bags inside, Morgan joined Cook and followed her up the stairs. His heart beat faster as he walked, and it had nothing to do with the heavy baggage. The attraction to Cook today had been magnetic, and it had taken all his focus to keep his mind on the task and his hands off her body.
They stopped outside Jack’s room.
Cook turned to face him and he could sense she felt exactly the same.
He leaned to kiss her, but she turned away.
“I’m sorry. I misread the situation,” he said.
Cook shook her head. “You didn’t, Jack. But I’m with someone now.”
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
“It wouldn’t be right.”
“It wouldn’t.”
“I should have told you sooner.”
“There’s no harm done. You’re a good person, Jane, that’s why we hired you.”
Cook nodded. Clearly there was a part of her that, in this moment at least, did not want to be a good person.
“Good night, Jane.”
Morgan opened the door and stepped inside his room, closing the door without looking back.
Chapter 11
AFTER A LONG day of travel, Jack Morgan needed a shower. After his moment with Cook, he made it a cold one.
Looking in the mirror, he told himself that it was for the best that nothing could happen with Jane. Last time they had been together, they were civilian and soldier, not boss and employee. With a sudden stab of emotional pain, Morgan remembered other affairs that had ended in more than a little heartbreak—they had ended in death.
There was a knock at the door.
Morgan’s heart pumped instantaneously—she’d come back.
“Who is it?” he called as he picked up his jeans from the bathroom floor and pulled them on.
The delay saved Morgan’s life.
Bullets pumped through the hotel room’s wooden door, sending splinters flying, the rounds chewing into the desk, biting pieces from the television and carefully laid-out refreshments. The sound of the shots was muffled, almost like a heavy tutting—whoever was out there was using a silencer. Morgan subconsciously counted the blasted rounds. They stopped at seventeen.
He took his chance and bolted from the bathroom. There was just a split second to take in the riddled doorway before he twisted behind the wall that separated bed from bathroom. He was out of the line of fire, but he expected the door to be kicked open at any moment. Whoever had fired would come through to finish the job.
Morgan looked to the window. The hotel was privately owned, and unlike with the big chains, the windows were not held almost shut to prevent suicides. He could make it out, he knew, but if the assassin had a partner, that’s where they would be waiting.
He looked above him at the ceiling panels. The time from the gunshots to his decision took mere seconds. Morgan pushed away a tile and hauled himself up into the cavity. Dust cascaded onto the bed, where it fell alongside pieces of splintered furniture that had flown across the room. Pressed in between floors like a coal miner in a seam, he scuttled backward, pushing by cabling that snagged at his feet. In moments, he had pulled the tile back into place.
And then Morgan held still.
If he made any noise he knew he would be an easy target through the thin ceiling panels. And so he waited as quietly as he could.
But there was no crash of the door being kicked off its hinges. No more gunshots. There was only the sound of terrified screams from other rooms in the hotel, and then a fire alarm. Morgan held his breath and held his position.
He waited.
He waited, and then he heard her.
“Jack?”
Chapter 12
MORGAN DROPPED DOWN onto the bed. He saw a rush of relief wash over Jane Cook as she realized he was uninjured.
“We need to go,” he told her. “Now.”
“The police are here,” she replied.
“That doesn’t mean we’re safe.”