by N. J. Croft
“I’m also here because David thought you might be in some sort of trouble,” he said gently. “He would have wanted me to protect you.”
“I’m in no trouble, and I can protect myself.”
A resigned expression crossed his face. “You found the body, didn’t you? Can you at least tell me what you were doing there last night?”
“Have you spoken with the police?”
“Briefly, but I wanted to speak with you first.”
She shrugged. “We’d arranged to meet after his evening surgery. David had been looking into some medication—”
“Medication?” He jumped on the word. “He wasn’t your doctor, was he? I got the impression you were a couple.”
“No, we were just friends.”
“But David would have liked you to be more?”
“Maybe. It doesn’t matter now. I have a medical condition. Up until recently, my father was treating me, but he died suddenly, and I had to sort something else out. David was arranging for me to see a specialist, a friend of his.”
“How did he die?”
“My father?” Her gaze flashed to his face. “Well, I assure you he wasn’t murdered, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She didn’t try to keep the irritation from her voice. “He was in a car accident, but there was absolutely nothing suspicious.”
“And your illness?”
“Is none of your business.”
His eyes widened slightly at her angry tone, and another brief smile flashed across his face. He held up his hands. “Okay. So David was setting you up with a specialist. Anything else?”
She had no reason to lie, but something cautioned her to be circumspect with what she revealed. Maybe she was her father’s daughter after all, and secrecy was ingrained in her personality.
“David had sent my medicine off to the lab for analysis, and he was expecting the results yesterday. He wanted to discuss them.”
“And Descartes? Why were you talking about it?”
Jenna decided it was the time to take the offensive. This man was interrogating her. What did he really want? Revenge for his cousin’s death? Or something else?
“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Grafton—”
“Please, call me Luke.”
“But while I appreciate your concern, Luke, I don’t see how David’s death could be connected to me. I don’t know anything about this Descartes, but if I think of anything, I’ll let you know. Now I have work to do, so…”
She glanced meaningfully at the door. For a moment, she thought he was going to ignore her unsubtle hint. The silence stretched out but finally, he shrugged and rose to his feet.
Jenna almost took an instinctive step back but forced herself to hold her ground.
“My cell number is on the card,” he said. “If you think of anything, call me.”
He reached out his hand, and Jenna clasped it reluctantly.
“Jenna.” He used her name for the first time, and it sounded odd coming from a stranger. “Whoever killed David is still out there. The police told me he’d been tortured. I don’t want to see that happen to you.”
Swallowing the lump that rose in her throat, she tugged her hand free. “It won’t.”
A small smile flashed across his face. “Call me.”
He turned and walked from the room, and Jenna stumbled around her desk and sank into the chair, clutching the card.
Her fingers twitched as she recalled David’s poor hand from the night before, and it occurred to her that Luke Grafton’s words had sounded strangely like a threat.
…
Well, that had gone well.
Luke had learned little from the meeting, but strangely, he didn’t feel bad about the situation. He and Jenna Young were far from finished. She might not know it, but she was somehow involved in this. He just had to find out how.
On his way out, he glanced through the open doorway to the lab where she’d been working earlier, his gaze flicking to the half-completed skeleton on the table.
What had drawn her to work with a load of old bones?
The interview had awoken a sense of anticipation he hadn’t experienced in years. She was hiding something from him, but that was unsurprising—she was bright and obviously didn’t trust him.
By the way she’d clutched his business card, she was probably on the internet now, finding out what she could about him. The cover would hold, but he wasn’t convinced she would call him. Her face had been pale, her eyes red from lack of sleep and no doubt crying. Though she’d denied any connection to the GP’s death, she was scared.
She didn’t want to believe she was involved.
Luke needed to find some way to convince her she was.
…
Lauren was seated at her desk, going over the latest projections when a tap sounded on the door. She checked the monitor and swiped her hand over the lock control. The door opened and Mark entered. “What is it?” she asked.
“Lee Carson is dead.”
Lauren’s jaw tightened as she glanced up to where he loitered in the doorway. “What the hell happened?” She got up and paced the room.
“We’re not sure. But he turned up in the morgue. A hit-and-run. Last night.”
“When did you last hear from him?”
“He called after he’d…finished with the doctor.”
“Finished? I take it the man’s dead. What happened there?”
“Carson reckoned he knew nothing of interest. He was going after a lead the doctor had mentioned, but he was pretty sure it would turn out to be nothing, as well.”
“Do we know who the lead was?”
“A woman—a patient.”
Lauren took a deep breath and forced down the anger threatening to overwhelm her. She was surrounded by incompetents. Taking a seat at her desk, she tapped her fingers on the wood as she considered possible complications. Everything was in place. If they postponed now… She didn’t want to contemplate the repercussions. The financial implications were the least of her worries. This had been her baby. And the blame would land squarely on her.
However hard she thought about it, she could not see how Merrick could be a threat. At the same time she also couldn’t see any reason for a general practitioner to consult with Merrick on a patient. He’d never dealt with patients; he was a biochemist. Likely it was a coincidence. Except she didn’t believe in coincidences. Even so, should they remove him now or leave him in place? For now, the latter.
“Have we heard back from the tail on Merrick?” she asked.
“Nothing out of the ordinary so far. He’s been at a conference in Berlin, but it was scheduled six months ago, so unlikely to be anything we need to concern ourselves about. And according to the tail, he had no unscheduled meetings. He’s due back today.”
“I don’t want anyone going near him that I don’t know about. And send someone to find out about this patient. And for God’s sake, send them with backup this time.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Just a few more days and it would be done.
And the world would be changed forever.
Chapter Twelve
Jenna forced herself to return to her father’s house after work. She could have gone back to her apartment, but it felt like cowardice. Like an admission that she was somehow connected to David’s death, and she wouldn’t believe that. Then it would be her fault, and that was unbearable.
The house was set in the countryside, the nearest neighbors over half a mile away, and surrounded by oak woodlands on one side and open fields on the other. They had moved here when she was four years old, and she knew the area well.
She couldn’t remember much of her life before the move. Her father had told her they lived in London, but she had no memories of a house or her mother. Just a white room with white walls and a door—m
aybe a hospital and she’d been ill even back then. Occasionally people watched her from behind a small window, eyes peering through the glass.
She poured a tumbler of water and pulled her medication out of her pocket. One lone pill lay at the bottom of the bottle. She placed it on her tongue, tasted the sweetness as she washed it down with the water.
Tomorrow would be the first day she hadn’t taken one for as long as she could remember. With David gone, she needed to get something else sorted out, and she’d made an appointment for the morning at a private clinic around the corner from the museum. Hopefully they could help her.
After Luke Grafton had left, she’d tried to get back into her work, but his intent stare kept intruding. She’d never had any trouble dismissing men from her mind or her life, but now she couldn’t get him out of her head.
Sinking onto the sofa, she pushed aside her father’s cryptic lab notes she’d discovered yesterday and grabbed her laptop. She typed in Luke’s company website and scanned the information. It appeared genuine and very successful, with branches in all the major cities of Europe and a few scattered across the States.
Luke Grafton was listed as the company CEO, and there was a small photograph of him. She studied it closely. In the picture, he wore a sleek gray suit and appeared every inch the successful businessman. There was only the bare bones of a biography with the picture—where he’d been to school, when he had started the company—it told her nothing of interest.
Next, she entered his name and found nothing to ring any alarm bells. It appeared he was exactly what he claimed to be, but she could remember clearly the edge of danger that accompanied him, and she knew instinctively he hadn’t always been a businessman.
By the time she finished reading, darkness had fallen. She was almost sure Luke Grafton was who he said he was, but that didn’t mean she would call him. She didn’t know why David would have told him she was in danger. Maybe he’d misunderstood.
On an impulse, she punched in “Descartes” and found the reference halfway down the first page.
“The Descartes Highlands is an area of highlands located on the near side of the moon that served as the landing site of the American Apollo 16 mission in early 1972. The Descartes Highlands is located in the area surrounding Descartes crater, after which the feature received its name.”
How could a lunar landing site possibly be tied in with her? She flicked back to the search. There were other Descartes, including a French philosopher, but that seemed as unlikely as a place on the moon.
It was probably nothing. Maybe just the random name of some project her father had worked on with this Professor Merrick. Which reminded her, the professor should be back from his conference. Tomorrow she would call him again and clear this up.
She rose from the sofa and stretched. The room was dark and full of shadows, the only light from the open laptop. She went to switch the overhead light on but hesitated. Instead, she crossed the room to stand beside the big bay window and stare out into the garden.
Tonight, the moon was covered by cloud. At first, the darkness appeared complete, but as she watched, faint forms emerged, black on black. She made to turn away but caught a movement out of the corner of her eye, something shifting in the darker shadows close to the wall. Jenna stepped back then froze.
She stayed still for what seemed an age, her muscles locked in place, her gaze fixed on the spot. Nothing else moved. A car drove past, briefly illuminating the garden. In the beam of the headlights, she saw a hunched figure pressed closely against the wall.
She whirled around, ran out of the room and into the hallway, keeping to the edge so she wouldn’t be seen from outside. She stopped at the front door and slammed the bolts at the bottom and top.
Her breath came quick and shallow. Leaning back against the wall beside the door, she forced herself to breathe slowly. She had to think this through. David’s murder was getting to her. The shadow could have been anything. Though it was too big for a fox. Maybe a large dog? But she knew it was no animal, and a vision of David flashed across her mind.
She picked up the hall phone and lifted it to her ear.
Silence.
Staring at the receiver clutched in her hand, her mind refused to process the implications. She shook it and pressed it tight against her ear.
Nothing.
No comforting purr of the dial tone.
Panic flared, and she threw the handset down. There was still her cell phone.
Her bag was on the sofa in the sitting room. She didn’t want to go back in there, but she crept in and grabbed the bag. At the last moment, she picked up her laptop as well.
When she reached the door, she paused and glanced back over her shoulder, staring out through the windows. Nothing moved. She hurried into the hallway, feeling safer where there were no windows.
She put the laptop and bag on the hall table and pulled out her cell phone. Her hands trembled as she pressed the numbers, so it took three attempts to hit 999. As she lifted the phone to her ear, she swallowed the lump of fear in her throat.
There was nothing. No connection. She held the phone in front of her face and stared at the screen—no signal. It wasn’t possible. She always had a signal here.
She lifted the lid on the laptop.
We are unable to connect to the internet right now.
Fear slammed into her, and she swallowed a whimper.
Think.
A small gate in the wall at the back of the garden led directly into the woods. If she could get there without being seen, she would be safe; she would be able to elude any followers.
She crept down the hallway and into the kitchen, edged toward the window, and peered out into the night. A dark figure detached from the cover of an oak tree and glided toward the house.
Jenna jumped, and a small scream escaped her lips. Her pulse pounded and adrenaline surged in her veins. She tiptoed to the back door and slid the bolts shut, the scrape of metal on metal sounding thunderous in her ears.
Leaning back against the door, she focused her mind.
Closing her eyes, she slowed her breathing and ran one of the calming pre-fight mantras through her brain. Gradually, the mind-numbing fear receded, and a strange sense of calmness overtook her.
She opened her eyes.
One thing was clear—she needed to get out of the house. She didn’t want to be trapped inside.
The room was almost in darkness, but if she concentrated hard, she could make out the pieces of furniture. She inched across the floor, her hands groping for the counter. She ran her fingers along the smooth marble until she came to the knife stand, feeling the handles until she found the one she wanted—a large meat carver her father kept razor-sharp for cutting the traditional Sunday joint.
Her palms were slippery with sweat. After wiping them down her skirt, she wrapped her fingers tightly around the knife handle.
She forced herself to return to the window and stood slightly to the side, peering out.
In the dim light, she could just make him out, a tall figure dressed all in black, a black balaclava pulled over his face so only a pale band of skin and the gleam of his eyes showed. He was close now, moving cautiously but with purpose toward the house.
One chance was all she would get. She edged away from the window to take up position behind the door, ready to use the element of surprise. If she messed it up, she was dead. But she would rather die trying than give in.
Each breath slow and controlled, she stood perfectly still.
The latch lifted, and her stomach muscles clenched. The door didn’t open, the bolts holding it locked. A few seconds later, a face appeared at the window. Jenna knew she couldn’t be seen, but her body pressed against the coolness of the tiled wall anyway.
The man stepped back, and seconds later, something heavy crashed into the door. It held for the first blow,
but at the second, the wood around the bolts cracked, and on the third it gave and the door burst open.
Jenna held her breath, waiting until the man was entirely in the room. As the door swung shut behind him, she whirled and kicked out, her foot catching him in the center of his chest. He staggered but came back immediately.
Holding the knife close by her side, she gave way before him. Her back came up against the counter, and she stopped, nowhere left to go. For the first time, she noticed the gun in his hand.
“We’re not going to hurt you.” His voice was muffled by the balaclava. “We just want some information.”
Jenna clamped her lips shut. Biding her time. The memory of David made her strong.
When the intruder took another step forward, she lashed out with her left foot and caught him in the groin. He hunched slightly, but he was obviously well trained, because he straightened immediately and raised the gun as Jenna lunged forward and drove the knife into his belly. For a moment, they stood close together, almost embracing, until he slumped forward.
She forced her clenched fingers to release their grip on the knife handle, and the man collapsed to the floor. Her hand was sticky with blood, and nausea stung the back of her throat; her insides felt icy cold, and her whole body shook. Crouching down, she wiped her palm on his jacket. A low groan emanated from his throat. Jenna leaped back, falling onto her behind as a loud crash sounded at the front door.
She had to get out of there.
She scrambled to her feet, stepped over the man, and grasped the door handle, but his body was in the way, and she swore softly. Stepping around him, she grabbed his feet and yanked. He was heavy, but someone was moving down the hallway, and the sound gave her strength. With one last heave, he shifted, groaning again, and she wanted to scream at him to shut up.
Finally, she dragged him far enough away to open the door.
She slipped out through the gap and into the night, a whimper of relief trembling on her lips. It occurred to her that she should have taken his gun. Too late now. Her whole body screamed at her to go. Instead, she hovered in the shelter of the doorway, her gaze fixed on the gate. Only a hundred feet away.
