Pitch Black: A Romantic Thriller (Blackwood Security Book 1) (36 page)

“Maybe the mother knows something, though? That guy looks pretty close in age to Luke, so it could have been an affair?”

“Head to Lower Foxford,” I settled back in my seat. “Let’s see what the mother of the year’s take on all of this is.”

Had she even noticed Tia was missing yet?

Chapter 34

DAN DIDN’T DRIVE as fast as I would have, but on the plus side, she didn’t hit anything and traffic was mercifully light so we still made good time. I gave Nick a call to see what was happening at his end.

“Have you sorted out the logistics?”

“More or less. We found someone in the investigations division who looks enough like Luke that we could use him as a decoy, but Luke’s determined he’s doing the drop himself. He says he’s not taking any chances with Tia’s life.”

“So he’d rather risk his own as well?” After his idiotic trip to the woods that didn’t really surprise me.

“I can’t change his mind, and believe me, I’ve tried.”

I’d seen Luke’s stubborn side. He would be doing the drop whether we liked it or not.

“Right, we’re on damage limitation, now.”

“Understood. We also need to come up with £1million in cash. Again, Luke’s insisting. He doesn’t want to risk pissing this guy off if anything goes wrong and he gets away with the ransom. He says he’ll cover it.”

“He’s good for the money, but I wasn’t planning on letting this arsehole get away for a second time. That cash will be coming back, one way or another.”

“Any ideas where we can get £750,000 in used bills without having to bribe a bank manager?”

I gave Nick the code for a safe in the basement, which contained enough to make up the million. It was the least I could do after the shit I’d pulled with Luke. My husband had always liked to keep a quantity of cash on hand for emergencies, and I’d say this qualified.

Once Nick had repeated the code back to me, I updated him on our progress, and we both felt it was best not to get Luke involved in my end of things. He had enough on his plate already without having to deal with the havoc I was about to wreak at his old home.

“Oh, and Nick, whatever you do, don’t let him answer the phone to his mother if she calls. He doesn’t need her hysterics on top of everything else.”

“Got it. I’ll make sure his phone stays with me.”

I received one more call on the way. Jason called to say a speed camera caught the kidnapper’s van doing thirty-five in a thirty limit on the outskirts of Bromley two days ago. South London again, and not too far from where the ransom note was posted. Together with the initial theft of the plates, that made three connections with the area.

We had to be on the right track, didn’t we?

As Dan and I neared Lower Foxford, I kept half an eye on the cars she was slicing past and focused the rest of my thoughts on what to say to Luke’s mother. I didn’t want to alert her to the fact Tia had disappeared. I could foresee hysterics if she found out, swiftly followed by a call to the police. Once again, I decided to lie through my teeth. I already knew I was going to hell—at this point it was go big or go home.

Dan slewed to a halt in front of the Halston-Cain family residence, covering the front porch in a hail of gravel. I hopped out and rang the bell.

Mrs. Squires answered the door, looking like she was sucking a lemon. If someone gave her the gin to go with it, she might loosen up a bit. She showed me into the formal sitting room with the enthusiasm of a stripper in the Arctic.

“Madam will be with you shortly.”

Fantastic. I could hardly wait.

Luke’s mother swanned in a few minutes later. As usual, she was perfectly attired and her face screwed up in disgust as she registered me sitting on her Laura Ashley sofa. Guess she didn’t love my jogging outfit.

“Oh, you’re Luke’s little friend, aren’t you? I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name?”

“It’s Ash.”

“Oh, yes, like the leftovers from a bonfire. How appropriate. What can I do for you?”

Bitch.

“Luke asked me to come. A man claiming to be his brother turned up on the doorstep this morning. As you can imagine, it was a bit of a shock.”

How would she react to that? I watched carefully.

“That’s ridiculous. Luke doesn’t have a brother. I hope he sent him away with a flea in his ear.”

I could almost swear she was telling the truth. She didn’t hesitate as she answered, and her eyes remained fixed on mine. Her demeanour was pissed off, not shifty.

 
“That’s what I said at first, but this guy looks so much like Luke he reckons he’s telling the truth. He’s quite upset.” Got to love the British penchant for understatement.

“For goodness sake, tell him he’s mistaken.”

On the way over, I’d had a graphics wizard on the marketing team put together a mock-up of the suspect standing in Luke’s sitting room. I pulled it up on my phone screen and handed it over.

Luke’s mother narrowed her eyes at it. “Well, I’ll admit there’s a similarity, but that’s all. I haven’t had any children other than Tia and Luke.” She focused back on me. “Why are
you
here anyway? Did you get lost on the way back to your street corner?”

Ooh, gloves off.

“Luke thinks you’ve been hiding things from him. He’s so furious he sent me over instead because he couldn’t bring himself to speak to you.”

“Nonsense. Luke would never stop speaking to me. I’m his mother.”

She fetched her own phone from her handbag and dialled Luke. I just about managed to keep a straight face as she got cut off once, twice, three times. Thanks Nicky.

Now it was time to have fun.

“So if the kid isn’t yours, who else was your husband shagging? Some sweet little piece who could give him what you couldn’t? Because having breathed the same air as you for a few minutes, I can see why he’d look elsewhere.”

Come on lady, get angry. Let something slip.

“You witch! I gave my husband everything he needed. He knew I was the best he’d ever get. He wasn’t going to swap someone with my breeding for a slut. Now, I want you out of my house!”

“Even heifers have a pedigree. That doesn’t mean men want to fuck them.”

My cheek stung where she slapped me, and I resisted the urge to pound her face into the coffee table.

“Get out! Just get out!” she screeched. “My husband only had eyes for me.”

She shoved me towards the hallway. Dammit! She genuinely seemed to believe what she was saying. We needed to come at this problem from a different angle.

As I neared the door, it opened before me. Mrs. Squires held the handle, a self-satisfied smirk spread across her ferrety face. And there was something else in her expression. Smugness—she’d clearly heard every word. But what was missing was surprise.

I thought back to what Tia had told me about Mrs. Squires a while back—“I’m sure she’s only around because she has too much dirt on mother to fire.”

She knew! She fucking knew.

Instead of walking out the front door, I turned right into another sitting room, this one decorated in muted shades of green and peach. Like the vomit you’d see outside a nightclub that had been offering 2-for-1 shots on a Friday night.

“Where are you going? Mrs. Halston-Cain told you to leave.”

“I thought we’d have a chat first.”

“I have nothing to talk to you about,” she answered haughtily, but she was worried. She looked everywhere but at my face.

“Yes, you do. All I want are the names, and I’ll leave.”

“I’m not telling you anything.”

“If you don’t, I’m going to unleash so much shit on you it’ll make your nightmares seem like a happy place. I’ll have a team of investigators rake through your entire life. When they find out who you’ve been blackmailing, and why, and how much for, I’ll tear you apart for it.”

I said it with a smile, but my tone was icy. Please let my guess be right. From what Tia said, there had to be some blackmail involved somewhere.

She just laughed. “What makes you think you can do any of that? Mrs. Halston-Cain told me you were just a stable girl.”

“Mrs. Halston-Cain has no clue who I am. See the Aston Martin out there?”

I pointed out of the window. Dan was leaning on the car, looking bored. Mrs. Squires followed my gaze.

“It’s mine,” I continued. “That look like the kind of car a stable girl would drive? No. You’d better believe I can make good on that promise.”

“Fine.”

Wow. That was easier than I thought it would be. I guess it was true that bullies were just cowards in disguise.

“If I tell you what I know, will you keep quiet about hearing it from me?” she asked.

“Yes.” Whether I would or not was a different story. I felt no loyalty to the snivelling woman who stood in front of me.

“I don’t know much. Mr. Halston-Cain had several affairs over the years, but the woman who gave birth to his child was named Fiona. I remember her coming to the house one day while she was pregnant. They had a huge argument, and Mr. Halston-Cain said he wanted nothing more to do with her. He accused her of trying to trap him, and judging by the look of her, he was right. Common as muck, she was. He said he’d give her money each month, but if she ever tried to contact him again, the payments would stop. That was more than generous if you ask me.”

“What was her last name?”

“I don’t know.”

I took a step closer, feeling satisfaction as she cowered. “Fucking tell me.”

“I don’t know, I swear.”

“How long ago did it happen?”

She shrunk before my eyes. “Right before Luke’s birth. Odd how the man had managed to get two women pregnant at the same time.”

What a prick. Mrs. Squires’ glanced towards the door, looking for a way out. I’d almost finished with her.

“Where did she live?”

“Not round here. London I think.”

All roads led to the city. I didn’t bother bidding the bitch goodbye as I strode to the car, already planning our next move. Dan had the engine started by the time I pulled the door open.

“We’re going back to London.”

It was lunchtime, giving us four and a half hours until the ransom drop. I called Mack. We needed her skills now.

Except Mack didn’t answer, and my call was transferred to her assistant.

“I need Mack,” I told her.

“Mack got called away. There’s been a data issue at the LA office, and she had to fly there pronto. Something about a drive failure.”

Bloody marvellous. “Fine, give me Nate, then.”

Nate was Mr. Gadget, and he was almost as good at hacking as Mack. A few seconds later he picked up, and I didn’t waste time with small talk.

“I’ve got a lead. I need to find a woman called Fiona with a son born around the same time as Luke,” I told him.

“Do you have any idea how many women called Fiona there are in England?”

“Narrow it down to South London.”

“That’s not going to help much, Em. Why couldn’t she have been called Felicity or Miranda?”

“Could you at least start? I’ll get back to you when we have anything more.”

Next, I called the incident room and asked Nye to cross-reference the name Fiona and the approximate age of her son with the records in our database. Maybe the name had already popped up somewhere?

As Dan crunched through the gears, I was deep in thought. How could we find one Fiona in thousands? I cursed as traffic ground to a halt. Bloody road works. Six men standing around drinking tea, not a shovel in sight. I sighed and stared out the side window at an old church, grimacing gargoyles staring down at me from its grey stone walls. Such a contrast in London beside the glass-fronted office buildings and blocks of flats. The graveyard formed a tiny green oasis in the sea of concrete. I envied the dead their tranquillity.

Then it hit me.

The dead.

I got Nate back on the phone. “Try dead Fionas.”

“What? Start from the beginning.”

“I reckon Fiona might be dead.”

“How’d you work that one out?”

“I was thinking, why now? The son’s got to be Luke’s age. Why start this campaign when he’s in his thirties? Why not five years ago? Ten, even. Something triggered it. It could have been the death of his mother. They had to have been close for her to tell him who his real father was.”

“I’m on it.”