Private London

Chapter 25

I cursed as the taxi pulled to a stop at yet another traffic light.

I leaned back, closing my eyes. Willing my heart to beat slower. Thinking of the young girl I had fetched across the Atlantic to London.

The worst possible thing had happened. She’d been kidnapped on our watch. Taken by violent men. Had her cover been compromised? Was it a random attack?

I remembered her small hand holding mine. I had said I was going to take care of her.

I felt sick as I played over in my mind what Kirsty had told me had happened to the other girl. Another girl I had also promised to protect. A promise made long ago in a foreign land when her father, who had given his life to save mine, had begged me to look after her.

Twenty minutes later I stood outside the intensive-care room looking through the slatted blinds at the frail, young woman who lay in the hospital bed. Surrounded by wires and drips and monitors.

Chloe Smith. Who had just as much heart and guts as her father.

Jack Morgan had wanted somebody undercover at the university to keep an eye on Hannah. A companion, he’d said, not a bodyguard. And I had thought Chloe was the perfect choice.

She’d had a gap year travelling round the world and was going to sign up to join the police. She was as bright as a button and fearless in the way that only youth can give you.

Her mother and I had discussed it. University would be an ideal opportunity for her. She would come out with a law and psychiatry degree and should she still wish to join the police she would be fast-tracked as a graduate and get where she wanted to be far quicker. Private would pay all her fees and a salary as well. Jack Morgan had sanctioned that and Hannah’s father had gladly written the cheques. There would be a job for Chloe in the company if she changed her mind about joining the force. It was win win all round. Or should have been.

Chloe had enrolled at Chancellors under a cover name, much as Hannah had. She had befriended the American girl as planned. It wasn’t hard to arrange.

The same course, the same accommodation. Private has connections. The strings were pulled and it was supposed to be straightforward. Chloe was meant just to keep an eye on Hannah, report back if there was any trouble. Chloe was clearly her father’s girl, though. She had gone in, guns blazing, to the rescue and to hell with the consequences. I had done something similar all those years before and her father had come to my rescue. If it hadn’t been for him I wouldn’t be alive today.

But because of me his daughter was now comatose in an intensive-care hospital bed.

Jack Morgan had told me to keep a special eye on the million-dollar baby. He’d told me it was personal to him. Well, it was just as personal to me now.