Page 179 of The Black Trilogy

Tia’s sigh settled over the room. Somebody’s lawyer had been working overtime, hadn’t they?

Shoving her chair back so hard it fell over, she glared at the screen. The internet was a dead end. Whatever stories Rob and Mark looked at must have long since been removed like the article in The Richmond Times.

Why hadn’t she paid more attention when Luke tried to teach her computer stuff? It would probably take him five minutes to write a program that searched dead web pages, but she didn’t dare ask him for help. Even if she said she wanted to learn more about programming in general terms, he’d still be suspicious. She’d always glazed over at the first mention of his work in the past.

Arrrgh. This was so flipping frustrating!

Tia flopped back onto the bed, only to sit straight back up again as she recalled Luke’s earlier words. Emerson had started the charity that ran the ball tonight, right? What was it called? She thought back to the conversation she’d had with her brother yesterday, the one where he’d been moaning that his tuxedo jacket was too tight. Blackstone? Blackrock? Blackwater? No, Blackwood. The Blackwood Foundation. That was it. She righted her chair, typed that into the search engine, and got a sleek-looking website. News of the ball took up most of the front page. The Black and White Ball, sponsored by Blackwood Security.

Tia tried searching for the name of the company instead. Surely they were connected? She clicked on the first website up, a global security conglomerate, and pored through the pages. Jeepers, Blackwood was big—the second largest security firm in the world if its advertising was to be believed.

Received death threats and need a bodyguard? No problem. Need a crime investigated? They had a team for that. Want assistance with training your own security team? Blackwood offered to travel anywhere in the world to do it. Got to have a state-of-the-art alarm system? They’d design something so secure even a mouse couldn’t get in.

Eventually, on a page detailing the history of the group, Tia was rewarded with a small reference to the company’s founders: C Black, N Wood, and E Black. Did the “E” stand for Emerson?

Tia trawled through the rest of the website, her heart rate increasing with every click, and found… Nothing. Not a single hint. With no other avenues to try, she returned to the “Contact us” page, selected her choice of country as the UK, and fired off a short message.

What was the worst that could happen? Only that someone would file it in the bin.

Covering a yawn, she changed into a pair of pyjamas, brushed her teeth, and climbed into bed. Sleep didn’t come easily that night. Instead, Tia lay awake, watching the night sky out of the window. There wasn’t a cloud up there, and the stars twinkled. She wished she knew the names of the different constellations. If Ash had been there, she’d have asked her. Ash knew things like that. Ash knew everything.

And somewhere under that same sky, Tia thought, Ash could be watching the stars as well. The question was where, and who with?

CHAPTER 16

“DID YOU SEE Luke’s face?” I asked Nick as we rode back in the car. My fingers picked at the folds of my dress, and I couldn’t stop them. A hole opened up near the seam. Oh, shiznits, Bradley was going to kill me.

“He looked slightly unhappy, I’ll admit.”

“Don’t try to trivialise this. He gave me the look he normally reserves for something he’s scraped off his shoe.” I smacked the back of my head on the seat in frustration.

“Why didn’t you try talking to him?”

“There was a rather large audience, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Fair enough, but you need to sort this out. Why don’t you call him?”

“I’m not having that kind of discussion over the phone. I need to speak to him in person. But I’m not doing that until he’s had a chance to calm down.”

“So you’ll go and see him tomorrow, then?”

Tomorrow? Tomorrow was less than an hour away. I broke out in a cold sweat at the thought of talking to Luke so soon.

“I think he needs a bit longer than that.”

Like a few weeks, maybe. I didn’t plan to be on the same continent as Luke tomorrow night.

“You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”

“Doing what?”

“Running away.”

I let out a long breath. A thin stream of pain. “I can’t help it. I hate confrontation.”

“Liar. You thrive on confrontation. I remember last October when you stood up to that senator on the White House committee and told him just how wrong his assumptions on Iraq were. You didn’t pull any punches.”

“That was different.”

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