Brodie seized the coat Munro had brought for him the day before and winced sharply as he pulled it on, then left the office for the larger one down the hall.
He didn’t bother to request to see the man behind the door and didn’t knock. The door slammed back against the inside wall.
“Get me out of here, now!” he demanded of Sir Avery.
Munro and Alex Sinclair had followed.
“What is it?” Sir Avery demanded. “What’s happened?”
Alex quickly explained as Brodie again demanded. “Get me out of here, legal or otherwise. I’ll not say it again.”
“You’re here under at the courtesy of the Prince of Wales, and still under arrest,” Sir Avery reminded him. “There are others who can handle this.”
“I dinna care if it’s the Queen herself.” Brodie flung back at him. “And every second you waste arguin’ may be too late for Mikaela. I’m leavin’, whether ye permit it or not.”
Curses filled the air as he left Sir Avery’s office, and then made his way out of the Tower even as a dozen thoughts churned.
He had warned her, told her in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want her involved in this.
She had been hurt, he saw it in her eyes. But there was that stubborn set to her chin even as she said nothing. She hadn’t argued with him, had simply nodded and then left Scotland Yard.
There were reasons he didn’t want her involved. Ellie Sutton’s death was personal. But there were things he hadn’t counted on—the man seen outside her town house in Mayfair, the information she had learned that the same man had been seen outside the hotel where Ellie worked, Brodie’s arrest. And now Mikaela had disappeared.
Damned, stubborn...woman! Why couldn’t she have listened to him?”
Munro handed the revolver to him as they arrived at the offices of Argosy Shipping.
The hound jumped down from the coach and raced ahead, nose to the pavement.
The answer was the same as Hastings had received—Matthews was gone, supposedly to an appointment. Brodie pushed his way past the clerk. Munro followed as Alex informed the clerk that they were with the Special Services Agency.
This part of the warehouse was a like a maze. It would have been near impossible to find their way without the hound. Nose to the floor, the animal appeared to know exactly where he was going, abruptly stopping before a set of large warehouse doors. He let out a sharp bark, then began to claw at the opening.
It was locked.
Munro fired two rounds into one of the doors, splintering the wood, and shattering the lock.
“Stand away,” Munro told him. “Yer in no condition.” He then seized the handle of one door and rolled it up at the opening. The hound was through the opening first.
He raced through the warehouse that opened dockside at the opposite end, darting among barrels and crates, howling as he picked up the scent, the sound echoing in through the building.
“She was here,” Munro announced as the hound then raced out the opposite end of the warehouse and onto the dock.
They found him at the base of the gangplank where dockworkers unloaded cargo into the hold of an Argosy ship. He circled, stopped, then began crazily barking pointed up that wide gangplank. Brodie exchanged a look with Munro.
“How do ye want to do this?” Munro asked.
“I want to get her out of there.” It was as simple as that.
“We’ll need a diversion,” Munro replied. “Like when we were lads on the street.”
“Aye,” Brodie replied.
“Ye’ll be no good to me with broken ribs,” Munro pointed out.
“Ye’ll not go alone,” Brodie informed him.
“I thought ye would say that. And there is the hound.”
