Page 244 of The Black Trilogy

“Can he?” Tia asked me.

“Sure.”

The journey back was quiet. Tia sat in the middle of the backseat, curled into Ryan, who had his arm wrapped around her shoulders. I stared out of the window, contemplating how I’d managed to mess things up yet further with Luke. In the game of Bad Girl Bingo, I’d managed to check off covering up a crime, lying to a teacher, and corruption of a minor all in one week. Go me.

All too soon, we drew up at Luke’s home in Lower Foxford. I hadn’t been there since the night of the kidnapping, and it was back to how I first remembered it—a peaceful mock Tudor mansion rather than a hive of crime scene activity.

Tia turned and gave me a long hug. “Thanks for sticking up for me tonight.”

“That’s what friends are for. Just pile everything on me. I’m already in Luke’s bad books; a bit more manure slung at me won’t make any difference. I’ll get Bradley to send your artwork over to Arabella. At least you can pretend you did the project at her place.”

“Love you, Emmy.” Tia hugged me tighter, tears glistening in her eyes.

Apart from Dan when she was drunk, people didn’t often tell me they loved me. In fact, the last person to do so had been Tia’s brother, and I never did say it back. Emotion was something I didn’t do well and now was no different. Words stuck in my throat.

I squeezed her back, breathing deep. “Take care of yourself, yeah? Call me when you can.”

Tia gave Ryan a quick hug as well then walked to the house, dragging her feet. Luke’s silhouette appeared in the open doorway, hands on hips. Still angry. Great.

He moved aside to let Tia past, and I felt his glare, even though I couldn’t see it. When the front door slammed behind them, Ryan tapped on the privacy screen and our car slowly pulled away. Another perfect end to an evening involving Luke.

Would the storm clouds hanging over us ever clear?

CHAPTER 35

I DIDN’T HEAR from Tia the following day. Or the next one. The day after that, a Monday, I got a text message from Arabella.

Arabella: Tia says thanks for her schoolwork. Luke’s confiscated her phone and her laptop and she’s not allowed to use the house phone. She’s waiting for him to calm down and then she’ll call you as soon as she can.

I fired off a quick reply.

Emmy: I understand—tell Tia to keep her chin up.

On Tuesday, I returned to the States. I had things to do there—some good, some not so good—and with no further news from Tia, there was nothing to keep me in England.

I couldn’t wait to see Stan and Lucy, and Carmen called to say she’d organised a teppanyaki night. One of my regular clients also sent through a couple of interesting projects, and they’d keep me and my team occupied for a week or two. Not so enjoyable were the meetings with my accountants and investment managers—yawn—talking to my lawyer about Miriam, and dealing with paperwork.

Oh, and Alex was waiting for me to land, with bated breath and cracking knuckles.

The icing on the cake was my new tattoo, the one I’d got on Saturday, which itched like poison oak as it healed.

I’d thought I couldn’t sink much lower after the run-in with Luke last week, but Wednesday proved me wrong. Most mornings, the senior team met to discuss upcoming jobs, and today was no different. One look at Nate’s face when I walked into the conference room and I knew there was something on the agenda he wished he could erase.

Still, he kept me guessing while he dealt with the mundane stuff.

“Come on, spit it out,” I said when he umm-ed and aah-ed then launched into a detailed account of an elderly widow’s missing cat. A cloned cat worth $25,000, and the old lady was a wealthy heiress, but a cat nonetheless.

Nate sighed and fiddled with his tablet. “Okay, so we’ve had a request in from the CIA. They want a team, meaning Emmy, to go into Syria and look for evidence the Syrians are building chemical weapons they claim not to have.”

“Isn’t that the same brief they gave us a few weeks back?” I asked, recalling the request I’d knocked back just after I returned to Blackwood. “The one that was more of a suicide mission than a spying job?”

“Exactly the one. Except now there’s a new twist. After you blew them off, the CIA sent their own team, which has now disappeared. So the job’s gone from looking for weapons to looking for weapons plus hostages if they’re lucky, bodies if they’re not.”

“From the way the Syrians treat their hostages, I’d say being dead was the better option. Why can’t the CIA send their own people, being as they seem to think this mission actually has a chance of being less than a total disaster? A sentiment I have to say I don’t share.”

“The CIA already sent their best team.”

“So their best team couldn’t do the job, and now they want us to sort out their mess?”

---