Princess: A Private Novel (Private #14)(18)

“I can’t think of any good reason why she would blackmail her own father,” Knight mused.

“Well, maybe because she knew it would push him into suicide. She’s an only child and next of kin. We’ve seen her dad’s financials. She’s about to be a very wealthy girl.”

Knight shook his head. “She’s already a wealthy girl, Jez. We’ve seen her financials. She’s been making a killing since leaving university. And, more to the point,” he added, “if she was blackmailing him, why would she hire us to investigate it?”

Hooligan looked over Eliza’s bank statements again. Sir Tony’s daughter had granted them full access in a move to show good faith and full cooperation. “Looks like Cambridge was the wrong choice for me.” The man laughed. “Should have gone to LSE.”

Knight stopped dead in his tracks.

“I said I should have gone to LSE,” Hooligan repeated, thinking his joke had fallen on deaf ears. “LSE. Eliza’s university. The London School of Economics.”

Knight cursed himself for having taken so long to put the pieces together. “Eliza was at LSE?” he managed, trying to picture again the educational certificates that adorned the walls of her home.

“Yeah,” Hooligan answered, wondering at Knight’s exasperated expression. “Graduated in 2011. Why?”

Knight said nothing. He was too busy thinking over possibilities, plots, motivation, and murder.

Because Eliza Lightwood was not the only promising young lady to graduate from LSE in 2011.

There was another he knew of, and her name was Sophie Edwards.





Chapter 29


KNIGHT RAN FROM Private’s building to Eliza Lightwood’s home. The London traffic was heavy, and he wanted answers without delay. The gray clouds had finally delivered on their threat and rain was falling. Knight drew stares as he weaved between umbrella-carrying pedestrians.

He was soaked by the time he arrived at Eliza’s apartment complex. There was no way in without a code, but Knight’s disheveled state drew a compassionate look from the security guard who sat behind the building’s glass frontage. The man got up and shuffled to the door.

“I’ve seen you enough times,” he told Knight, opening the door. “So much for summer, right?”

“I know,” Knight agreed, rewarding the kind gesture with a smile. “I appreciate this. Thank you.”

The security guard smiled back, glad that he could do a little to help someone’s day. Knight gave the man a parting wave and made his way to the elevators. After shaking his hair like a soaked dog, he knocked gently on Eliza’s door.

There was no answer.

He knocked again and again. No answer.

Knight pulled out his phone. Eliza’s number was a fixture in his recent calls list. He hit it. It went straight to voicemail.

He frowned. He tried again. Straight to voicemail.

Knight looked at the apartment door’s lock. It was the Trilogy model that was popular in the homes of the wealthy. There was a slot for a key card, and then a pad for a code. He could only hope it wasn’t set up to require both.

With nothing but intuition from his gut to guide him, Knight entered the birth date of Sir Tony Lightwood.

An LED flashed green, and the lock clicked open.





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.