Page 89 of The Black Trilogy

“Do you always go this fast?”

I noticed he was gripping the sides of the seat, and his knuckles had gone a bit white.

“Yes.”

He closed his eyes and whispered a prayer.

Old life, meet Luke. Luke, meet my old life. I hope you enjoy the ride.

CHAPTER 28

ONCE WE HIT the motorway, I scrolled through the phone’s memory to the number I wanted, took a deep breath, and hit dial. The line crackled as someone on the other side of the world answered.

“Nate?”

“Emmy?” Surprise was evident in his voice, but also a tinge of something else. Anger? Relief?

“Yeah.”

“Thank goodness. Why didn’t you answer the phone the other day?”

Yes, anger and relief, both present and correct. In truth, I hadn’t expected him to be anything but annoyed. It was his normal demeanour, even when I hadn’t done something really, really stupid.

“I was busy. Are you at home?”

Virginia was five hours behind, and any normal person would be in front of the TV at nine in the evening. But, like me, Nate wasn’t normal and often slept in the office.

“Busy? Busy? I could see you were busy. What in the devil’s name did you need all that equipment for? And no, I’m in the control room. Someone’s got to run this company, and it sure hasn’t been you.”

“Uh, there was a small situation. Actually, there still is. I could use some help.”

“What kind of situation? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Someone else is in trouble, and I’m trying to fix things.”

“If you’re ‘fine,’ then where have you been for the last three months? You vanished without a trace and left some cryptic freaking note. I’ve been monitoring hospitals and morgues the world over.”

Yep, he definitely had a scowl plastered across his not-so-pretty face.

“I’m sorry. I was messed up.”

“That’s it? You were messed up? You’ve put us all through a nightmare, and now you phone one night out of the blue asking for help?”

I stared at the road, barely seeing the way ahead. I deserved his anger, but that didn’t make it any easier to take.

“Please, Nate, I’ll explain later. I promise. Right now, a girl’s been kidnapped, and her life’s at stake. Could you put the animosity aside and lend a hand?” I thought of Tia, bound and gagged on the floor. “Please?”

“You know we’ll do whatever you need. But, Emmy, we will talk about this later.”

Hurrah. That gave me something to look forward to, but I’d deal with it once we’d resolved the Tia situation.

“I need manpower. The girl’s been gone thirty-two hours now, and the ransom drop just got botched.”

“Got it. Now you’ve turned your phone on again, I can see where you are. You going to Albany House?”

“That’s the plan. I need you to get a team together at the office, and I’ll go and brief them. Can you pull in everyone not working on a priority level one case?”

“Everyone? Do you have any clue what that’ll do to the running of everything else?”

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