Page 280 of The Black Trilogy

“We’re flying into a slight headwind, so we should reach London in approximately five hours and twenty minutes,” the pilot said. “Temperature on the ground is nine degrees Celsius, and there’s currently a spot of rain.”

The child bawled louder.

In the cab from the airport, I tuned out the driver’s chatter and concentrated on the punchbag waiting for me when I got home. I’d already got Sloane to reschedule tomorrow’s meetings, and next week I’d be lucky if I got time to breathe. But tonight I was blissfully free. I’d spend an hour in the gym, and if Mack didn’t have plans, we could go out for dinner. According to Sloane, she was still in London.

The rusty taxi belched smoke as the driver sped off from Albany House, unhappy because I didn’t give him a tip. But when the inside of the vehicle smelled like McDonald’s and he’d talked non-stop about football all the way back from Luton, no way was I paying him extra.

I slammed the door and dumped my carry-on bag on the couch in the hallway. The oversized, decorative thermometer Bradley had installed next to the window told me the house was at nineteen degrees Celsius, so I turned the thermostat up a notch. I’d been freezing in a pair of denim cut-offs and a tank top ever since the plane took off.

Three steps up the stairs, I froze as a man’s voice called out from the kitchen.

“Sweetheart, is that you?”

Now, I could have sworn I recognised that voice. Except there was no way the owner of it should have been in my house, and even less way he should have been calling me sweetheart.

But it turned out my ears weren’t deceiving me. Because when I walked into the kitchen, I found a shocked-looking Luke Halston-Cain perched at the breakfast bar, drinking a cup of tea.

I spoke first as he seemed incapable. “Well, I can honestly say that if I’d had to make a list of people I expected to find in my kitchen today, your name would have been somewhere near the bottom of it.”

And judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t expecting to see me here either. So who was “sweetheart?”

“Uh…what are you doing here?”

“Shouldn’t that be my line? I mean, last time I checked, this was my house.”

“Yes, I know. It’s just that Mack said you were on your way to the States.”

Interesting. He clearly knew my schedule. And he knew Mack. I was going to make a wild assumption here and say that Mack and “sweetheart” were one and the same. What on earth was going on?

“If you must know, my flight to Virginia got intolerably delayed, so rather than sit around for hours watching the sandals, socks, and shell suits brigade, I flew to London instead. Why are you here?”

“Er, I lent a hand with the search when I found out you were missing.”

“I called in five days ago, so that doesn’t explain why you’re still here. Or how you knew I was missing in the first place.”

“I ran into Mack after a meeting at Sector 8. I mean literally ran into her, because I wasn’t looking where I was going. The Tube drivers were on strike again, so I offered her a lift home, and we ended up here. That’s when I realised you’d disappeared.”

I supposed stranger things had happened. It wasn’t as far-fetched as the initial meeting between Black and me.

“Why did you offer to help?”

“I felt like I owed you one after you found Tia. Plus Mack told me you didn’t just call her up and invite her clubbing. She said you helped her out with a problem in the middle of the night the weekend before.”

Thanks, Mack. What else had she told Luke?

“Yes, there was a small issue, but it’s been resolved. Tia won’t make the same mistake again.”

“What happened?”

“That’s up to Tia to tell you, if she wants to.”

I thought he might push it, but he backed off. “For what it’s worth, thank you. For whatever it was you did. I can see how much you care about her.”

“She’s a great kid. So, the second part of my question. What are you still doing here?”

“Uh, Mack and I were helping each other with some computer programming.”

The front door opened and closed, and I heard the click of heels on the tiled floor. Seconds later, Mack stopped in the doorway, the tiredness etched on her face turning to dread when she saw Luke and me.

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