Private Princess (Private 14)

“It will get to the point where the main road meets the forest track in ten minutes,” Cook told him.

Morgan shook his head. “Not fast enough. They’ll hit it in less than five, and that’s if they use the same point into the forest that we did. There could be others. They could even dump the vehicle and make it out on foot.”

“They could,” Cook agreed, downcast.

Rain pattered from Morgan’s shadowed face as he made his decision. “You two will go back in the Range Rover and secure the scene until the police arrive.”

“We can’t split up, Jack,” Cook pleaded. “They could still be out here, setting up a second ambush.”

“All the more reason for me to be on foot,” he replied. “I can stay off the tracks. It’s not thick forest. I’ll make quick time.”

“But—”

“Jane, thank you, but remember who we are and what the hierarchy is. This is my call.”

“Of course,” she managed, taking a half-step backward.

“She’s right though, Morgan,” Lewis added from the passenger seat. “No offence to the girl, but Sophie doesn’t know if she has company or not. Don’t risk the living for the dead.”

“The crime scene needs preserving,” Morgan insisted, pulling tight his laces.

Lewis put her hand out of the window and into the pouring rain. “The crime scene is bollocksed, and the local bobbies will be here in well under an hour.”

“We should stick together, Jack,” Cook ventured again.

It was her eyes more than her words that convinced Morgan. It had nothing to do with tactics, he admitted to himself, and everything to do with not wanting her to be out of his sight.

“OK,” he conceded. “Find us a new route out of here, Jane, just in case there’s another surprise on the route that we came in on.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“The Princess hired us to find Sophie,” Morgan said, grim-faced. “We need to be the ones to tell her what happened to her.”

Cook nodded solemnly. “And then what?”

It was a moment before Morgan answered. He was prying something out from the shattered windshield with his fingers. “And then,” he told Cook, holding up the dull shape of a flattened bullet, “then we find the connection to two bodies. We find Eliza Lightwood.”

Chapter 35

PETER KNIGHT STOOD in his office, hands on his head, his eyes burning into a map of the United Kingdom that he had taped to the office wall. Brightly colored pins had been jabbed into various towns and villages with Post-it notes attached. These were places with known connections to Eliza Lightwood—grandparents, cousins, ex-boyfriends, favorite getaway locations. Hooligan had laughed out loud at Knight’s low-tech methods, but Knight was a man who liked something tangible to work with, and in front of him was the map of what his Private employees had bee

n able to piece together through Eliza’s records, social media and character profiling.

She could be anywhere, he thought, staring at the array of pins that stretched across the map.

But she was not.

“Peter,” a familiar voice said at the door, with a gentle knock.

Knight turned. His hands dropped from his head. His jaw dropped to the floor.

“Eliza,” he gasped.

“I heard you’ve been looking for me. I went to the coast to think,” she explained, taking the chair Knight offered her.

“You went to the coast?” he gently pushed.

“Just to drive, and think. There’s been so much bloody noise since my dad died. Some of it of my own creation, but then there’s his businesses, bloody lawyers, relatives who want a handout. He’s not even in his grave and they’re after his money.”