Private Princess

Chapter 30

The Range Rover made easy work of the forest tracks as Jane Cook drove them toward the location of Sophie Edwards’ waterfall photos. One of the royal residence’s cleaners, a Brecon Beacons local her entire life, had identified the spot, and now Jack Morgan guided them there with the use of an Ordnance Survey map.

“Take this,” he told Lewis, seeing a call from Knight coming through and taking it on a headset. “Peter?”

“Can I be overheard?” Knight asked.

“No,” Morgan replied.

His brow creased as Knight revealed that Sophie and Eliza had both attended the same university and graduated in the same year.

“It’s not a big school, Jack. There’s a good chance they could have known each other.”

“Is she with you?” Morgan asked.

“No. Her phone’s going straight to voicemail. I’ve tried her offices, and she’s not there either.”

Morgan ran a hand through his hair as he worked through it. “Sophie and Eliza were blackmailing him together,” Morgan concluded. “Where do you think she is now, Peter?”

But there was no answer.

The line was dead.

“Dammit,” Morgan cursed, looking at his phone screen. “I’ve lost all service. Do you have anything on yours?” he asked the two women with him in the Range Rover.

“Nothing,” Lewis replied. “We’re deep in the forest now, Morgan. Not LA.”

Morgan held his reply.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting to find here,” the Welshwoman said to no one in particular. “Needle in a bloody haystack.”

“You could have stayed behind,” Cook answered, getting frustrated with the other woman’s negativity. “Or I can stop the car, and you can walk back?”

“Someone has to look after you.”

Something in Lewis’s reply put Morgan on edge. Unconsciously, he checked the knife that still resided in his boot, working it upward a little so that it was loose. It would take a second to draw it, and another second to use it. He wondered how fast Sharon Lewis was with the pistol, and if she had a round already chambered. If she was forced to draw back on the pistol’s top-slide first, he was certain that split second would cost the officer the fight.

“We’re almost there,” Lewis said. “Pull up in that clearing.”

Cook did as she was told, then opened the door. The sound of rushing water was stark against the otherwise still forest, and the ticking of the Range Rover’s cooling engine. As they exited the vehicle, Morgan made sure he mirrored Lewis’s movements, sliding from the back seat on the passenger side so that he was behind her, and close. Outside the car, the smell in the air was thick with the scent of damp earth.

“Bloody perfect timing,” Lewis complained as thick blobs of rain began to penetrate the forest’s canopy. “Let’s get this over with before we get soaked.”

“You’ve got the map,” Cook told her. “Lead on.”

The police officer sighed, and made her way across the clearing to where a worn pathway led through the trees.

The roar of water was growing louder. The sound of the waterfall was the only waypoint needed now.

“I bloody hate the rain,” Lewis grumbled as she folded the map away, placing it inside her jacket. The shower had become a downpour, the rain bouncing from the forest floor and slapping at the leaves. What had been a quiet haven was fast becoming a cacophony — the rain even drowned out the sound of the waterfall. It made it hard for Morgan to gauge how close they were drawing, and so the cascading white waters were almost something of a surprise as they turned a corner of rocks and shrubs and saw nature’s marvel revealed ahead of them.

But Jack Morgan was not looking at the waterfall, no matter how beautiful.

He was looking at the body that was hanged beside it.