Claude Demartin practically ran out to his car.
“Put me through to Danny McGuire. Tell him it’s Claude Demartin. I have some news.”
THE MOMENT MATT DALEY’S HEAD HIT the pillow he felt intensely drowsy. Projecting confidence was one thing. Feeling it was another. The stress of choreographing his and Lisa’s escape plan must have taken more out of him than he’d thought.
Once we’re away from here, in Morocco, I’ll be able to protect her. We’ll start again, just the two of us. New jobs, new lives, new identities.
He felt guilty about his sister, Claire, and his mother. It wasn’t just Danny McGuire who Matt had disappeared on these past couple of months. It was his entire life back home. His past life, as he was now beginning
to think of it. Before he met Lisa. Before he was reborn. His divorce attorney left daily messages, the tones of his e-and voice mails becoming increasingly desperate. If Matt didn’t sign this or that paperwork, or show up to this or that hearing, Raquel would get everything.
Everything and nothing, thought Matt. Let her have it. Lisa has enough money for both of us, and it’s not as if we need much.
He was already half asleep when his cell phone rang.
Danny McGuire.
Wearily, Matt hit ignore then switched the handset off.
The last thing he remembered was Lisa’s lissome fingers softly stroking his hair.
“HI, YOU’VE REACHED MATT DALEY. PLEASE leave a message.”
Danny McGuire could have wept. He hadn’t “reached” Matt Daley. No one, it seemed, could reach Matt Daley, not now. His obsession with Lisa Baring had made him unreachable.
“Matt, this is Danny. We have firm forensic evidence placing Lisa Baring’s lover at the crime scene on the Anjou case. Are you hearing this? Whoever raped Irina Anjou conveniently left us a hair sample in your girlfriend’s bedroom. So you were right. The killings are linked. And I was right. You’re in serious danger right now. You need to get the hell away from that woman, and you need to call me back. Please, Matt. Call me.”
Danny hung up.
With a heavy heart, he dialed Inspector Liu’s number.
MATT DALEY HAD HORRIBLE DREAMS. HE woke gripped with panic. Where am I?
Everything seemed unfamiliar. The bed. The room. Even the smell in the air was foreign, thick and wet and heavy like a rain-soaked blanket. He sat up. Slowly, things came back to him, like distant objects emerging from a deep fog.
The Peninsula. The escape plan.
I have to get up.
He staggered to the window and opened the blinds. Daylight flooded the room. But it wasn’t the pale lemon light of dawn. It was the brilliant blinding glare of midmorning. Something had gone terribly wrong. He’d slept through his alarm. But how?
His head throbbed painfully. The whiskey… Had he been drugged?
Spinning around, he stared at the empty bed.
Empty bed. It hit him like a punch in the stomach.
The bed was empty.
Lisa Baring was gone.
PART III
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE HOTEL WAS GLORIOUS. IT BOASTED a sumptuous lobby, hallways lined with red velvet carpets, a spectacular Roman-themed spa and a bedroom suite larger than most Manhattan apartments. Best of all were the views, across Sydney Harbor to the famous opera house, rising like some grand ship with sails billowing against the skyline.
Lisa had always wanted to come to Australia. But not like this.