“Peter here?” Morgan finally managed.
“Upstairs. I’ll follow you up,” Cook said softly.
Morgan was forced to brush by her in the narrow entrance. It was the slightest touch, but he felt as though he’d been shoved into a flame.
“After you, boss,” Cook teased, adding fuel.
Morgan walked on, glad to have the beautiful woman out of his vision. He had been recovering from a deep knife wound at the time of their brief affair, but not even the pain from his injuries had held them back in their passion.
With such sexual tension in the air, he was almost relieved to enter Sir Tony’s study. Surrounded by mahogany furnishings, Peter Knight was on his hands and knees, fastidiously working every inch of the room for a clue that would suggest the rich man’s death was suspicious.
“You don’t have to kowtow,” Morgan joked. “A simple bow would be enough.”
“Good to see you, Jack!” Knight grinned as he got to his feet and took Morgan’s outstretched hands. “It’s been too long!”
“It’s always too long,” Morgan agreed, having missed the company of his trusted British friend and colleague. “How are things looking here?”
“Sir Tony was found hanging from this beam,” Knight began, pointing to the ceiling. “No note has been found, which is one of the reasons his daughter is certain it wasn’t suicide.”
“What are the others?”
“That he was happy, successful and wanted to continue to be that way,” Knight answered. “From the people we’ve interviewed, it does seem out of character.”
“You never know what’s going on inside someone’s head,” Cook added.
“You don’t,” Knight agreed, but he could make a good guess at what was going on inside Morgan’s and Cook’s—the pair seemed almost at pains not to look at one another, and so it was with a little surprise that Knight heard Morgan’s next words.
“I’ve got nothing to start with on this missing-person case, Peter, so I’m taking Cook with me. Going to need to cover a lot of ground.”
“I can handle Sir Tony’s case alone,” Knight agreed. “Where are you going to start looking?”
Morgan hadn’t been given much to go on from Princess Caroline, so he drew on the initial information Private’s office had been able to gather.
“Sophie moved here from the country,” Morgan explained. “And when someone comes to a big city and gets in trouble, there’s a good chance they run for home.”
“And you think she’s in trouble?” Knight asked.
“From what I can see so far, she doesn’t seem like the kind to just drop off the grid. She was a friend of Abbie Winchester’s.”
Knight nodded. “Abbie Winchester was in the papers as often as the prime minister. If Sophie was in her circle, then it’s likely she tried to live her life on the grid as much as possible.”
“So we start at her home?” Cook asked.
Morgan nodded. “We’re going to Wales.”
Chapter 7
THE HELICOPTER CUT its way through the sky above a patchwork of fields and villages, the spires of local churches reaching up to Morgan and Cook like long-lost friends.
“I love this country,” Cook said proudly, her eyes on the ribbon of a river that glimmered silver in the morning’s strong sunlight.
Morgan glanced at Cook and smiled. “It has its charms.”
Cook let the compliment hang in the air before pulling a tablet from a packed rucksack that held a few changes of clothes, wash-kit, and all manner of items that ranged from torches to bolt-cutters. Cook had learned in the army that she should always be ready to deploy on short notice, and this pre-packed kit had been waiting patiently in her Private London office for an occasion such as this.
“Did you bring sandwiches?” Morgan teased.
Cook rummaged in the rucksack and pulled out a packet of freeze-dried rations.