Chapter One
London
Eaton Square, Belgravia
Monday
The rain came on suddenly. In an instant, heavy rain clouds darkened the afternoon sky to a dingy gray. Like every Londoner, Elizabeth carried a brolly with her, just as she always carried her current novel and lipstick. She pressed the release with one hand without dislodging her grocer’s bag with its cargo of frozen cheese pizza, crisps, hummus, and the carrots she’d bought to still her mother’s voice in her head. And a bundle of yellow tulips, her favorite. She didn’t fumble, too much practice.
She was alone in the street. She looked over at Eaton Square Park just opposite and saw a young couple, oblivious to the rain, their heads together, holding hands, a single large black brolly over their heads. Elizabeth loved the park, the trees still late-winter bare, but in another three months, the leaves would be unfurled in all their glory. She loved her home on Eaton Square—well, really, her family’s London home for five generations. Her father had told her once he wanted it to be hers and her younger brother Tommy’s equally, but for now it was hers alone since, justifiably, her father had finally given up on his son.
Elizabeth had already started putting her stamp on it, her first purchase a lesser-known impressionist painting by Pissarro.She’d hung it in a place of honor over the neoclassical fireplace in the sitting room.
She quickened her steps. She had to change clothes for her dinner with the Honorable Giles Beresford Arlington, second son of the Earl of Clode, an old friend and a man with a mission. He was leaving tomorrow on his long-planned voyage to Greenland, sailing a ship he’d replicated, flying a huge red-and-white-striped sail. Except for the video cameras on board to record his passage, it was in all respects like a Viking ship from a thousand years ago. He and his crew would sail as the Vikings did, eat only what they ate. She’d teased him about whether his furs would have zippers. Should she dress like a Viking woman, ask for a slab of raw codfish at dinner? Giles would be amused, maybe.
She heard a car engine, loud, louder, saw a black Aston Martin barrel around the corner going too fast. At the last minute, it jumped the curb, aimed right at her. Elizabeth leaped backward and landed in a yew bush in front of the Todd-Smithsons’ doorway. The Aston Martin roared past her so close, she felt the heat of the engine on her face. It clipped one of the Todd-Smithsons’ decorative pillars, veered back onto the road, and sped off, barely missing a rubbish bin. The couple in the park yelled and came running.
The boy covered Elizabeth with his brolly as the girl helped her up. She was young, all English peaches and cream, a delicate ring in her nose and another at the corner of her left eyebrow. “That idiot! Are you all right? Do you want to go to casualty?”
Elizabeth’s heart was kettledrumming, nausea rising in her throat. She swallowed bile and managed to whisper, “No, I don’t need to go to hospital. I’m fine, he didn’t hit me.”
“That guy was a nutter or stoned out of his mind,” the boy said, craning his neck to see if the Aston Martin was still in sight, but of course it wasn’t. He was tall and good looking, his hair in short dreads dyed a fire-hot red. He handed the girl the brolly and gathered up Elizabeth’s groceries. He started to giveher the grocer’s bag when he saw how wobbly she was and settled it on his arm. He said, “Maybe the asswipe was stoned, but it seemed to me like he wanted to hit you, I mean he headed right for you. I know that Aston Martin model, it’s a couple of years old, but sorry, I didn’t get the number plate. I think you should call the police.”
She nodded numbly. “Could you give me your names and mobile numbers? Maybe the police will find them.” Was he right, was it on purpose? No, that was impossible, it didn’t make sense someone would want to run her down with an Aston Martin in the middle of the day. She hadn’t pissed off anyone she could think of, certainly not enough to warrant a death run.Not true, not true. You nearly died last year with hundreds more at St. Paul’s, all because of Samir Basara.But it couldn’t be him: Samir was dead, long dead.
Her hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t enter their information on her mobile, so the girl, Mandy, did it for her. They walked her to her home, only six doors away, the last house on the crescent, three stories of stately blazing white. Elizabeth assured them again she was fine, thanked them again for being there to help her, slipped inside, and slid the dead bolt home. She leaned back against the door, her heart still pounding so hard she wondered it didn’t burst out of her chest. She felt lightheaded, closed her eyes.
She took deep, slow breaths to get hold of herself. She repeated over and over,I’m alive, I’m alive. Finally, her heart slowed and she felt calm enough to think. Even the boy, Thomas Dauber, had agreed whoever was driving the Aston Martin could have been drunk or taking drugs. It was common enough. She’d seen her younger brother, Tommy, flying high on cocaine and driving like a maniac, didn’t matter if there was anyone around him, in a car or walking.
Elizabeth realized she’d gotten a glimpse of the driver, but only for a second, long enough to see his dark glasses, a blackwatch cap pulled down low, and yes—there’d been another man next to him she’d barely seen. The driver had seemed young, maybe about Tommy’s age, and just as out of control, convinced he was immortal.
Elizabeth carried her grocery bag into her newly remodeled kitchen—a present from her mother—pleased she wasn’t weaving around any longer. She eyed the crushed pizza box. Who cared? She shoved it into the freezer. The tulips were only a bit bunged up. Slowly, with great concentration, she put them in a Waterford vase that had belonged to her great-grandmother Maude and added water.
Suddenly her hands were shaking again so hard she nearly dropped the vase. She set it carefully on her kitchen table, closed her eyes.You’re fine. Breathe. Maybe the men in the Aston Martin were on drugs, maybe they were mad, maybe they tried to hit you for a lark. So many explanations to choose from.
Yet again, she wondered if there was anyone who could possibly hate her enough to try to kill her. Yet again, no face came to mind. She thought of Tommy’s drug dealer, Carlos—yes, she knew his name, knew he hailed from a small town in Spain—but that didn’t make sense; she was the one who always made good on whatever her brother owed when he couldn’t pay. No reason Carlos would want to kill his golden goose. Half of what she’d earned from her last sale of a painting went to Carlos. She sighed. No, she wouldn’t think yet again about how to stop being Tommy’s enabler, not now.
Elizabeth took two aspirin, carried a bottle of chardonnay to the sitting room, and stretched out on the eighteenth-century brocade sofa, next on her list to be re-covered. She was calmer, in control now, but aches and pains in her back and shoulders started to broadcast. She drank two glasses of chardonnay and sank back against the sofa pillows. The wine helped a bit, until what came crashing back into her mind full blown wasn’t the Aston Martin coming straight at her, it was the horror of hernear death a year ago at St. Paul’s, the man dressed like an old woman who’d hidden packets of C-4 throughout the church. She’d never forget his name as long as she lived—Bahar Zain. He was a terrorist, taking orders from Dr. Samir Basara, a handsome, smart, and don’t forget charming Algerian and a renowned professor at the London School of Economics. And she’d slept with Samir, flaunted him in front of her appalled father. In the end she’d realized the face he showed to both her and the world was only a front. He’d used her, sent her to her death. Her father hadn’t said a word when it was over, even when the newspapers had hounded her and her family for weeks about her affair with him, a man who’d been perfectly willing to murder her in St. Paul’s along with hundreds of others. Her mother hadn’t chided her either, ah, but she couldn’t hide the tears or avoid the looks. As for Tommy, bless his heart, he’d hugged her and laughed and whispered in her ear, “Obviously only outdoor weddings for you from now on.”
She’d had nightmares, still did occasionally, of the famous St. Paul’s dome crashing down on her, her friends, her family, and she’d jerk awake, heaving, sweat soaked, the stark terror still as vivid as that day. No one would have survived. No one. If Officer John Eiserly of MI5 hadn’t seen what Bahar had done on the security cameras, there wouldn’t have been any nightmares, she’d be dead. Of course, Samir had been safe in his penthouse flat, waiting to see the smoke rise from St. Paul’s in the distance above London.
Did Samir know you cashed out his expensive gifts to you to pay Tommy’s drug dealer, Carlos? Yes, Samir had to know, it probably amused him.Ah, but the cachet it earned him to squire around a blond English aristocrat, everyone knowing they were sleeping together and she reveling in the knowledge that her stiff-necked father, the Earl of Camden, was appalled. She remembered clearly one night Samir had laid his hand on her belly and remarked in a lazy voice, “How perfectly white youare, Elizabeth, inside and out.” He’d kissed her belly, caressed her, and she’d forgotten to ask him what he’d meant.
Whenever that day invaded her mind with soul-deadening horror, she still felt a mixture of terror and shame she couldn’t shake, even after nearly a year. Who it was exactly Samir Basara had targeted to assassinate that day in St. Paul’s was never discovered.
The only good thing to come out of that horror was Ellie Colstrap, the bride, had decided not to marry Johnny Bridgeton, as addicted to gambling as her own brother was to drugs. When Johnny was told what nearly happened that day, he’d blamed Ellie’s father for insisting the wedding take place at St. Paul’s. At least it was good riddance to that arse.
What should she do? Call the police after all? No, they’d agree the guy was probably drunk, and how would they even prove that, if they found him?
She dialed Tommy, asked him if he’d done anything to piss someone off, owed anyone money he hadn’t told her about. He was flying high on cocaine and, happy as usual, claimed his dealer was always happy to see him, so what was the problem, sis? He remembered to ask her for money.
He was all of twenty-eight years old and would be living in a ditch if not for her, their father having finally disowned him nearly a year ago. But he was her little brother. She’d protected him all her life. What could she do to keep him safe, since he refused treatment? Keep rescuing him until he overdosed? Until his body simply gave out? She drank a third glass of wine and fell asleep on ancestor Maude’s rock-hard sofa.
She jerked awake at the loud hammering of the lion’s-head knocker on her front door. She started to open the door, thought of the Aston Martin swerving toward her, and looked through the peephole. She’d expected to see Viking-lover Giles, but she saw no one. She called out, “Tell me who’s there or I’ll call the police.” She waited, heard nothing, and pulled the entry halldrapery aside to look outside. The night was perfectly black, no stars to see through the still-pounding rain. She heard a car rev and drive away. She called Giles on her mobile and apologized, claimed a migraine, and wished him luck on his sail to Greenland dressed in bearskins. She wondered if he’d take a toothbrush.
Chapter Two
The next morning, Elizabeth woke up stiff from sleeping on Maude’s horsehair-stuffed sofa. Her back and shoulders ached from her crash into the yew bush, but her brain was sharp and clear. She showered and dressed, ate scrambled eggs, and drank two cups of coffee.
