and, without a flicker, dealt with the tea.
‘It looks like this video stream came in a few days ago, right about the time we were headed to the charity auction,’ he said.
‘Torquil received a couple of incoming messages while we were in the limo,’ I recalled, ‘and he looked pretty smug about them at the time.’
‘Hardly surprising,’ Caroline Willner put in. ‘Brandon Eisenberg makes such an unseemly fuss about being faithful to his wife, when just about
‘So, how big a scandal would it cause if it came out that Eisenberg’s wife was sleeping with half the crew on his yacht?’ I asked, and out of the corner of my eye saw Parker wince slightly.
‘Oh, I don’t suppose it would ever have come out,’ Caroline Willner said, sounding surprised that I didn’t know how this game was played. ‘I’m sure Brandon would have found a suitable financial incentive to prevent his son ever showing that video to anyone.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘After all, he always has done in the past.’
Now when I glanced at Parker, his gaze had lost any trace of self-consciousness and turned calculating.
‘Maybe this time he got tired of paying,’ he said, reaching into his jacket for his cellphone. ‘How about I call him and find out?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
‘Hey, um, Charlie? There’s folks here to see Miss Willner.’
Joe McGregor’s face appeared round the cracked edge of the bedroom door after a perfunctory knock, looking discomfited. I should have guessed why.
‘Who is it?’ I asked.
I was fully expecting a contingent from Eisenberg’s security personnel, come to interrogate the pair of us about what we’d witnessed on the beach the previous morning. Instead, it was Manda Dempsey who insinuated herself through the gap and hurried forwards into the room with a dramatic cry of, ‘Oh, honey, we heard the news! How are you taking it? Are you all right?’
Directly behind her was Orlando, and through the open doorway I caught a glimpse of a guy in a suit who’d taken up station on the other side of the corridor with his back to the wall. He had the build of a rugby player, complete with broken nose. I didn’t need to check the bulge under his arm to know he was security.
I glanced at Dina, sitting propped up against a heap of pillows, clutching the bedclothes tightly around her body as if suffering from a chill. She’d slept for most of the previous afternoon, after Parker’s departure, and all through the night. It was now the following morning, and she’d turned away three or four trays of elaborate delicacies before being coaxed into eating half a bowl of fresh fruit for breakfast.
She’d asked for me when she’d woken, and I’d been sitting with her for around half an hour when Manda and Orlando arrived. I’d managed, by approaching the subject as you would a potential suicide on a high ledge, to find out that she denied categorically sending an email to Torquil the morning before.
I’d also got the distinct impression she might just be working her way up to telling me something important – something that scared her – and hadn’t tried to hurry things. Now – with this interruption – I began to wish I’d pressed harder.
It was just after 10 a.m. Torquil Eisenberg had been missing a little over twenty-four hours with no ransom demand being made.
So far, we’d drawn one big blank when it came to answers. Parker had not managed to talk directly to Torquil’s father the previous day. A man like that is not freely available at the end of a phone to anyone but his closest friends.
Parker had argued and cajoled his way up the food chain as far as one of Eisenberg’s personal assistants before he met his match. By the sound of their one-sided conversation, she couldn’t have blocked him any more effectively if she’d been in goal at an ice hockey match.
Ever discreet, my boss would only say that we had picked up Torquil’s PDA, which he must have
Eventually, he ended the call and shrugged. ‘I’ve done what I can at this point,’ he said, and only because I knew him well did I see the frustrated weariness beneath his controlled tone. ‘My instinct is to call in the FBI, but I can’t do that without the family’s say-so. It could be putting the kid at serious risk.’
He left Joe McGregor on station as backup, which was no hardship. I’d worked with McGregor numerous times. A young black Canadian, his cheerful attitude belied solid combat experience and very good instincts.
Parker promised to keep us updated as soon as he had news, but we heard nothing for the rest of the afternoon and into the next day.
Now, the two girls came rushing in to offer Dina comfort, amid much fluttering and high voices. Orlando perched on the edge of Dina’s bed, taking the girl’s hands in hers and giving them a quick squeeze. I nodded to McGregor, who took one look at Dina’s face and realised there was likely to be an outpouring of excessive female emotion. He flashed me a look that said, ‘All yours!’ and went gratefully back to guard duty.
I stayed back and watched the three of the girls together for a moment, but it was difficult to read any new tension in Dina. She was already quivering like the wires of a suspension bridge in high wind. I wondered why. She hadn’t responded this badly when the attempt on her at the riding club had failed. Why the dramatic reaction now? Unless she
Manda was fussing round Dina, straightening the covers, talking nineteen to the dozen without giving Dina much of a chance to say anything in return. Manda looked as well groomed as I’d come to expect, but there was something about the butter-soft suede jacket she slipped out of and held carelessly in my direction – like she’d chosen it in a bit more of a hurry than usual. But I suppose that, for them, ten in the morning counted as being up at the crack of dawn.
I took the jacket without comment and dumped it across the back of an armchair. If she was expecting valet service, she was out of luck.
‘I saw them coming and I … I thought they were coming for me,’ Dina said, her gaze unfocused, voice slightly reedy. ‘And I was frightened, after what happened to Raleigh, I—’
‘Hush now,’ Orlando said, soothing. ‘You’ve had a shock. Try not to think about it. It’s all gonna be OK. Tor’s father and his people will do everything they can to get him back safe, you hear me?’
Dina moved her head in her direction, almost as though she was working on sound alone. ‘It could have been me,’ she whispered.
‘Not with Charlie here to look after you, honey,’ Manda said, giving me a meaningful look to back her up on this one.
‘I don’t want to be taken,’ Dina said.
‘You won’t be,’ I told her.
‘I—’
‘Hush now, honey,’ Manda said firmly, leaning forwards and making sure Dina established and sustained eye contact. ‘You’ll be quite safe. Nothing bad will happen to you, I promise.’
Dina hesitated, then nodded, a fractional movement of her head. Orlando leant forwards and gently tucked a stray strand of hair out of Dina’s eyes, smiling almost shyly.
Feeling like an intruder, I shifted my gaze to the window and the stunning view beyond it. The room was at the back of the house, overlooking the beach, but Dina rarely had the blinds pulled back to appreciate the view. I wondered if living with something beautiful all the time made you weary of it more quickly.
I’d been unable to offer this kind of sisterly comfort to Dina, and I doubted it was what she wanted of me. My instinct had been to tell her to pull herself together. She hadn’t been physically injured, wasn’t sick, so why hide herself away like an invalid?
But I hadn’t voiced such thoughts. I could still remember a time when all I’d wanted to do was burrow long and deep. And hope, when I finally surfaced, the world as I knew it had simply gone away. It hadn’t worked.
Behind me, Orlando was saying how they didn’t want to tire her, that they’d just stopped by to see how Dina was doing. She gave her hands another quick squeeze and stood up.
‘Get some rest, honey,’ Manda said, picking up her jacket. They kissed her cheek, headed for the door. I
