Page 6 of Jacob

“If wherever we’re going requires an overnight stay, I have nothing with me.”

His gaze was sober, steady. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get whatever you need, no question. My advice? Don’t worry about anything. Whatever your problem is, it’s over now.”

Well, what an odd thing to say.

The pilot at the top of the stairs greeted her with a smile, took her briefcase from Dylan’s hands, and ushered her to another buttery-soft leather seat. The jet sat twelve people and it had a level of luxury that made the helicopter look like a covered wagon.

“Dr. Hethering, my name is Sam Lawrence and I will be your pilot today. Is there anything I can do to make you comfortable? Drinks are in the cabinet over there and if you want tea or coffee there are thermoses in the galley, together with turkey and veggie wraps and fresh fruit. Our estimated flying time is just under four hours.”

“Flying time towhere, Mr. Lawrence?” she asked.

He opened his mouth, looked at Dylan who shook his head almost imperceptibly, then simply smiled and nodded at her and went back to the cockpit.

She turned angrily to Dylan, who held his big hands up. “Headquarters. That’s where we’re going.”

“Headquarters ofwhat?” Alex nearly shouted the words.

“Black Inc. And that’s all I can say, sorry. So sit back and enjoy the ride. I’d suggest a cup of tea if you don’t want alcohol. We have a blend of Indian chai that comes in fresh from Mumbai every week. It’s absolutely delicious.”

Headquarters of Black Inc. Alex realized she had no idea where headquarters was. She knew they had offices in several US cities and offices abroad. For all she knew, headquarters was in London or Paris, though London and Paris were much more than four hours’ flying time away.

She could of course take out her cell or open her laptop and Google it. But it would be clear what she was doing, and she didn’t want to give Dylan the satisfaction.

And wherever headquarters was, there was nothing she could do now. They had started taxiing and the pilot announced take off in the next three minutes. She obviously wasn’t going to get Dylan to tell her anything more, she couldn’t throw herself out of the plane, she might as well relax. Or at least go over the details of the problem once more in her head so that, wherever she was being taken, she could give the best possible account of her troubles.

The small plane leaped into the air and the suburbs of Atlanta soon gave way to green hills and lush farmland. Alex leaned her head against the window and ordered her thoughts, went over the mental bullet points, once more reviewed the explanations of the abstruse technical issues for a layman. And wondered who she’d be explaining them to.

Man was she tired. The past three nights had been sleepless as she worried about Elias being missing and then began to worry about the implications of a missing Elias, as worst-case scenarios danced in her head. She’d gone over and over everything and, until there was new information or until she’d consulted with someone outside the CDC, it was pointless obsessing. Her eye lids grew heavy as she watched the almost hypnotic flow of fields beneath the plane.

For years, whenever she travelled somewhere, whenever she flew, she wondered if she was close to where Jake was. It angered her and saddened her that he was always so close to her thoughts, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. Though nowadays, at times, whole days went by without her thinking about him, thoughts of Jake were still a constant in her life. She knew the physiology of the brain and knew that thinking the same thoughts over and over actually caused a change in the morphology of the brain. It tunneled permanent neural pathways. Somewhere inside her head was a sulcus named Jake and it was probably permanent by now.

She watched the roads, towns, and farms slide by. Did he live down there? Was she flying over his house without knowing it? Was he—was heright thereand she didn’t know? Was he married, with a family? Was he a good husband, a good father to someone?

Usually, thoughts of Jake were accompanied by a shot of white-hot anger, but right now, she was too tired to be angry. And what was always beneath the anger was a vast lake of melancholy. The sadness of not knowing what had happened to him. It was almost more painful than the thought of her parents.

She’d come to terms with their deaths. They’d lived good lives that had been cut short. They’d been great parents, they’d loved each other and they’d loved her and they were dead. But Jake? Where was he? Was he sick? Homeless? Jake had had the worst possible start to life. When he disappeared, he hadn’t even finished high school. What kind of jobs were available to men like that? Almost zero, or the kind where you could barely survive. One thing she knew, he wouldn’t end up on drugs. He hated drugs and never drank. Having seen his father, she understood why.

Oh Jake, she thought. He’d been such an important part of her life. She’d seen him every day. He’d given her her first kiss and instead of a tentative shy first-kiss meeting of lips it had been overwhelming. Every hormone in her body had been kick-started and surged into life.

It was, hands down, looking back, the best kiss she’d ever had, even eighteen years later.

She had built him up into a myth in her head, she knew that. Her best friend told her that, her therapist had told her that. Endless self-help books told her that. But somehow the space he occupied in her head had never been filled by anyone, ever again.

She was so tired. Her eyes closed as she thought—Where are you, Jake?A tear seeped out from beneath her closed eyelids, and she wiped it away angrily. A silk cushion had been placed in the seat next to her and without opening her eyes, she placed it between the seat back and the window, settled her head more comfortably and let her thoughts drift…

A gentle hand nudged her shoulder and she sat up, disoriented. She followed the hand up to a face, but the name eluded her.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty, we’ve landed.”

Dylan. Dylan Gardner. He handed her a glass of water with a slice of lemon in it. The glass was cut crystal. Of course. She shook her head no. At this point it was a principle not to accept anything. The pilot came out of the cockpit and opened the plane’s door, letting in heat and the smell of aviation fuel. Rollup steps were already there.

“Okay.” Dylan picked up her briefcase and gestured with his hand to the door. “Last stage of our journey.”

He clearly wasn’t going to say journey to where and, out of stubbornness, Alex refused to ask again. He wasn’t going to answer her anyway and she’d just make a fool of herself. She hesitated at the top of the stairs. At the bottom, waiting for her, was a limo. The real deal. The limo came with a driver in livery, down to the cap, holding the back door open for her. She descended slowly, Dylan right behind her. The limo driver seated her in the luxurious back as if she were the Queen of England, closing the door with that vault-like whump only insanely expensive cars had, then slid behind the wheel.

“Just a few minutes, ma’am,” he said cheerfully over his shoulder, sounding exactly like Michael Caine. “I’ll have you at the helo in no time.”

Dylan held up his big hand again.Don’t ask. No, she wasn’t going to ask. And if she was being kidnapped it was in the most lavish, luxurious style possible. The limo glided forward with an almost inaudible purr and Dylan’s hand hovered over an array of crystal decanters. “Would you like anything to drink?”

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