Before she could respond, the screen on the far wall flickered and a face appeared. Male, late fifties, steel-grey hair cropped close, the kind of face that had spent decades in rooms without windows making decisions that determined whether people lived or died. Director Graves. MI5.
"Captain Ward," Graves said. His voice was clipped and professional. "I've been briefed on the situation with Princess Florence. My team is running ANPR hits now. I need to speak with whoever was with the Princess when the intercept occurred."
Helena looked at Vic. Vic stopped pacing and stared at the screen with the expression of someone who'd been asked to testify at their own trial. She was wearing a bright pink knitted jumper that looked wildly out of place.
"I was with her," Vic said. Her voice cracked on the last word.
"And you are?"
"Victoria Grey-Hughes-Wilding. Family friend and equestrian coach. The Princess was in my care."
Julia tried to get Erin to step back. She rose from her position beside Alex and came to Erin's side, her warm brown eyes filled with that particular brand of calm authority that Julia deployedin exactly the moments when everyone else was falling apart. She placed a hand on Erin's arm.
"Erin, you need to let Helena and Director Graves run this. You're too close."
"I'm her mother."
"I know. That's why you need to step back. Let the professionals work. You'll get in the way of your own goal if you lead from emotion right now."
Erin shook her head. The idea of stepping back, of sitting in a room somewhere while other people searched for Florence, made her want to tear the walls down with her hands. "I'm not stepping back. I can't."
"Erin—"
"Julia, she ismydaughter." The words came out harder than Erin intended and Julia flinched. Erin saw the flinch and hated herself for it, but she couldn't modulate right now. Every instinct she had, years of protection training, a decade of parenthood, a lifetime of being the person who kept other people safe, was screaming at her to take control, to do something, to move.
Standing still was torture. The screens showed nothing but empty roads and replay footage of a car that was already miles away. Florence was in that car. Her eight-year-old daughter who was afraid of thunder and readThe Secret Gardenbefore bed and knew the shape of her pony from a helicopter window. Florence was in a car with blacked-out windows, taken by people whose faces they couldn't see, and every second that passed put another mile between them.
Erin's hands were trembling. She balled them into fists at her sides and forced herself to breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. The way she'd taught herself during her Protection Command training, when the fear had to be controlled because people's lives depended on her steadiness.Florence's life depended on her steadiness. She couldn't afford to fall apart. Not yet. Not until Florence was home.
But the fear was enormous. It pressed against her lungs, heavy and immovable, making each breath an act of will. She had protected heads of state. She had thrown herself in front of bullets. She had faced down threats that would have broken most people. None of it compared to this. None of it came close to the specific, paralysing terror of knowing that her child was gone and she didn't know where.
Graves was asking Vic questions on the screen. The route. The timing. The exact words the driver had used. Whether she'd seen other vehicles. Whether Florence had spoken. Whether the driver had been armed. Vic was answering as best she could, her voice getting steadier as the operational questions gave her something to grip. Helena was coordinating with the officers at the monitors, her voice low and clipped, each instruction delivered with military efficiency. Julia had returned to Alex. The room had the controlled chaos of a crisis being professionally managed, and Erin was at the centre of it all and completely useless.
Vic came to her side when the call with Graves ended. She reached for Erin's arm. "Erin. Let me?—"
"Don't touch me."
Vic pulled her hand back as though burned.
"You were with her." Erin's voice was quiet, which was worse than shouting. She could feel something building in her chest, a pressure that was going to find a way out whether she wanted it to or not. "You were there, Vic. You were right there and you let them take her. You let a car pull up on a bridle path and take my daughter and you stood there and watched."
Vic's face went grey. "Erin, the credentials were?—"
"I don't care about the credentials. You were an Olympic athlete. You've been riding with Protection Officers for manyyears. You know what looks right and you know what a red flag looks like and you didn't question any of it. You let Florence get in a car with a stranger and you just—" Her voice was rising and she couldn't stop it. "You justlet it happen."
"That's not fair." Vic's voice was barely audible and she was picking at a loose thread of wool on the wrist of her hideous pink sweater.
"No, Vic. What's not fair is that my daughter is missing and the person I trusted to look after her is standing here telling me she had afeelingten minutes too late."
The silence in the room was absolute. Every officer had stopped working. Helena was still. Julia had one hand pressed to her mouth. Alexandra was watching from her chair with tears on her face and an expression that Erin would see every time she closed her eyes for the rest of her life.
Vic said nothing. Her hazel eyes were swimming and her lips were pressed together and she looked as though someone had hit her very hard in a place that wouldn't bruise. A single tear broke free and ran down her cheek, tracing the line of the scratch she'd got riding back to raise the alarm.
Somewhere in the back of Erin's mind, a voice was telling her that she was being cruel. That Vic had been tricked by professionals. That Vic loved Florence. That this wasn't fair. She heard the voice and she couldn't listen to it, because the only thing louder was the silence where Florence should have been.
Erin turned and walked out of the room.
She made it to the corridor. She made it to the stairwell. She made it to the ground floor and out through a side door into a service yard where the bins were kept and the stone walls formed a narrow corridor that smelled of damp and diesel. She was alone. No cameras. No officers. No one watching.
