Angel of the Dark

Then screamed.

“Lisa Baring. We have a warrant for your arrest.”

“On what charge?” demanded Matt.

The Chinese officer looked at him and smiled. Then he smashed his gun into the side of Matt’s face. The world faded to black.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

LISA BARING LOOKED INTENTLY AT THE man sitting opposite her. The last time she’d seen Inspector Liu was in her hospital room at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. On that occasion she’d paid little attention to him, a grave mistake, as it turned out. She remembered Liu only as short, physically nondescript and deferential. Despite his frustration about her refusing police protection, he had treated her with the respect due to a patient, a rape victim, and the widow of an important and powerful man.

Today, he looked different. Transformed. As he sat behind a Formica-topped desk in this plain white interview suite in Hong Kong’s Central District, his round face, glossy black hair and small, neatly manicured hands remained the same as she remembered, as did his cheap suit and thin polyester tie. But his manner had changed utterly. His formerly placid features seemed suddenly to have come alive, his mouth animated, his eyes glinting with something that Lisa couldn’t quite place. Excitement? Cruelty? His body language was aggressive, legs apart, hands spread wide on the table, torso and head thrust forward. He thinks he’s in control, and he likes it.

“I’ll ask you again, Mrs. Baring. How long have you and the man you were arrested with this morning been lovers?”

“And I’ll answer you again, Inspector. His name is Matthew Daley. And it’s none of your goddamn business.”

She knew she was provoking him, probably not the smartest thing to do under the circumstances, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. He was so arrogant, so rude. And the things he was suggesting about Matt were just preposterous.

It was strange how confident she felt, under the circumstances. When she’d awoken this morning in her bedroom at Mirage to find six men training guns on her head, the flashbacks to Miles’s murder were so strong she honestly thought she would pass out. If Matt hadn’t been there to calm her down, she probably would have. Darling Matt. How could anyone think he was mixed up in any of this? She wondered where he was now, and prayed he wasn’t being mistreated. She’d had no time to process what had happened between them last night, what with being frog-marched onto a plane, bundled into a squad car and dumped unceremoniously into this bleak interview room in a squat building in Central with the obnoxious Inspector Liu firing questions at her like poison darts.

Closing her eyes, Lisa could feel Matt Daley’s hard, passionate body pressed against hers. The rush of desire was so strong, she blushed. But it was mingled with other emotions. Fear. Guilt. It was so hard to untangle anything of what she was feeling with the awful Liu breathing down her neck. Still, she was not as afraid as she thought she would be.

Because I’m not alone anymore. I have Matt now. Matt will save me.

The door opened.

“Lisa, darling. I got here as fast as I could.”

Not Matt Daley, but a salvation of sorts. John Crowley, Lisa’s attorney, was the managing partner at Crowley & Rowe, one of Hong Kong’s leading law firms. In his midfifties, tall, dark and distinguished-looking, John Crowley positively radiated authority. He wore monogrammed cuff links and a bespoke suit that cost more than Inspector Liu earned in a year, and smelled of Floris aftershave and self-assurance. Lisa noticed the way Liu visibly shrank in his presence.

“John! How did you know where to find me? They wouldn’t let me call.”

“I know,” said Crowley, taking a seat without being asked. “Just one of Inspector Liu’s many breaches of protocol. I was contacted by a friend of yours, a Mr. Daley.”

Lisa’s eyes widened. “They’ve released Matt already?”

“Naturally. Once he produced his passport, it became clear he wasn’t even in the country on the night of Miles’s murder. Any suggestion of his involvement is pure fantasy. As is any suggestion of yours.” John Crowley looked at his vintage Cartier watch impatiently. “I

nspector Liu, on what grounds are you detaining my client?”

“We have the necessary authority.” Liu handed over a stack of papers, apparently warrants, all in Chinese. John Crowley glanced at them as if he were contemplating using them to blow his nose, then tossed them imperiously aside.

“Has Mrs. Baring been charged?”

“Not yet. She’s here to answer some questions. There are discrepancies, serious discrepancies, between Mrs. Baring’s account of what happened on the night in question and her staff’s.”

John Crowley turned to Lisa. “When were you arrested? What time?”

“This morning. Around ten o’clock, I think. I’m not sure, I was asleep when they broke in.”

Crowley looked again at his watch. “That was nine hours ago. Which means that Inspector Liu has a maximum of three additional hours in which to finish his questions. If he doesn’t charge you by then, you’re free to go.”

Inspector Liu glowered at the lawyer. He suspected that Danny McGuire from Interpol was involved in this somehow. That instead of returning his, Liu’s, call, McGuire had taken matters into his own hands and contacted the U.S. embassy, preferring to deal with expats than with the local Chinese police. Interpol was supposed to be impartial, but McGuire, Crowley, Lisa Baring, and Matt Daley were all American. Americans had a way of sticking together.

“As you rightly say, Mr. Crowley, time is limited. So I’d appreciate it if you stopped wasting it. Mrs. Baring…” Liu turned on Lisa. “At the Queen Elizabeth Hospital you told me that your husband had no living relatives that you knew of that we needed to contact. In fact, as you well knew, Miles Baring had a daughter by his first marriage. Alice.”

“That’s true. But Miles had no contact with her, nor she with him. After his divorce his ex-wife moved back to Europe and he lost all contact with her and the child.”