LITMIR.BIZ

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the plane’s entrance, waiting as Joshua took the steps up to the plane two at a time. The carryall that he kept perpetually packed and ready to go in his closet was slung over his shoulder.

      Taking the carryall from him, Murphy stepped back, waited until he was on board and then closed and latched the door.

      “No need to get a stitch from running,” Murphy told him. He gestured toward a seat, then took the one opposite it, buckling up. “It’s not like we can leave without you, seeing as you’re the reason for this quick hop.”

      The dossier that Corbett had promised was on the seat, waiting for him. Joshua picked it up before sitting down. Buckled into his seat, he crossed his leg over his thigh and rested the folder on it.

      “No,” Joshua contradicted as he opened up the dossier and scanned the pages within the black folder. There was a wealth of information waiting for him, all neatly cataloged and arranged by year. “The prime minister’s daughter is.”

      Chapter 3

      The first thing he noticed was how vivid her hair was, even through a telescope at this distance.

      Joshua wiped away another large, fat raindrop that seemed to fall on him in slow motion, and refocused on his target. Prudence Hill was a redhead and the tabloids really must have had it in for her, he thought, trying to ignore the pregnant promise of a downpour. He gazed intently into the back window of the run-down farmhouse from his vantage point some one hundred yards away.

      The pictures he’d seen on the covers of the same rags that had given her infamy of a sort made her look austere, frightening, with definite wicked-witch-of-the-west attributes. The headlines screamed as much, as did the nickname the magazines had all summarily bestowed on her: Pru the Shrew.

      But if the woman he was looking at actually was the British prime minister’s headstrong, outspoken daughter, then somewhere along the line, someone had made a big mistake. Not only that, but someone definitely needed to spring for better cameras for their photographers, because the only resemblance the gagged, bound young woman in the cluttered back bedroom of the isolated, dilapidated building had to the woman in the tabloid photographs that had been taken was that they both had red hair.

      Beyond that, the difference between the two was like that between a butterfly and a moth. They both had wings and they both flew, but one was beautiful and graceful while the other plain and shunned. The woman he’d sometimes seen portrayed on the tabloid covers beneath unflattering adjectives had dull, lifeless hair, dowdy clothing and a body that wouldn’t give a person the slightest pause or merit even a first glance, much less a second. That wasn’t true of the woman in the white jogging shorts and baggy but clingy T-shirt. And from what he could see, she had unconditionally killer legs.

      Her profile was to him and, despite the duct tape, he could see that her face, though flushed, was more than passingly attractive. He couldn’t see her eyes, which to him had always been one of the most important weapons in a woman’s arsenal, but he suspected that there was fire in them.

      Which would make her beautiful, not school-marmish. The tabloids loved her for her sensational comments and hated her for her attitude toward them, which was pure contempt. As to the discrepancy in appearance, he had a feeling that whoever was in charge of reviewing the final copy probably did what had been covertly done in the past: taken her head and pasted it onto someone else’s body, making sure they used the most unflattering photo of Prudence they could find.

      If he’d been armed with nothing more than their photos, he’d never have found her.

      But it had taken more than just flashing around her photograph, obtained from the prime minister’s assistant, to locate the missing young woman. It had taken the combined backing of a crack team in Paris, Lucia with her almost magical capabilities with the computer, and luck.

      He never underestimated the power of luck. Because luck had Mr. Merriweather Wilson walking up to the guard at 10 Downing Street ten minutes after he, Joshua, had been ushered into the prime minister’s presence. Wilson, he was told, began innocently enough by saying that he had something he believed belonged to the prime minister’s older daughter.

      The moment the words were out of his mouth, Wilson had instantly been taken into a basement room within the historical residence and thoroughly, repeatedly, questioned.

      The prime minister’s people had thought, at first, that Wilson was part of the kidnapping plot, sent to up the ante that had initially been set. But the poor, clueless man protested over and over again that his son Derek had found the MP3 player that morning near the park. Intending to keep his newfound prize, Derek could have easily done so if Wilson had not been running late that morning, not having yet departed for his very important position at the West End Bank.

      Wilson had actually been on his way out when he’d taken note of the MP3 player clipped like a newly captured trophy to his sixteen-year-old’s belt. He stopped to question his son, who’d recently entered a rather shady period of his life. Thinking the player to be stolen, he’d been left unmoved by his son’s impassioned protestations of innocence. But Derek remained steadfast, firmly maintaining that he had found the MP3 player, not stolen it from someone.

      Employing as much drama as he could, Wilson told his former interrogators that his jaw had practically dropped to the floor when he read the inscription on the back of the player. He’d lost no time in bringing it to Number 10 because he was a patriot—and because, he added more quietly, he was hoping that there might be some small reward for the player’s recovery.

      Joshua had left that part up to the other men in the room, the prime minister’s personal bodyguards and his best friend, Montgomery, a kindly faced man who towered over the others. Joshua remained focused. He’d asked Wilson exactly where the player had been located. Wilson had to defer to his son. The latter was summoned. Derek was quick to pick up that something had to be amiss and made an attempt to barter.

      But there was to be no exchange of information, on that the prime minister was absolutely clear. No one, except a very select few, was to even know that his daughter was missing.

      On that Joshua and the prime minister had been in agreement.

      Taken to the exact spot where Derek Wilson had first been united with the MP3 player, Joshua had the prime minister’s people fan out and locate every security camera in the area. After the London subway bombings of two years past, local small businesses, not to mention the government, had installed security cameras in as many available nooks and crannies as possible.

      They got luckier. A grainy film of the abduction was recovered.

      From that came a poor photograph of the van used and a much magnified partial license plate. Turning everything over to Lucia via the capabilities of his highly advanced cell phone, Joshua was rewarded in short order with the name of the van’s owner.

      The prime minister sent two of his people to the owner’s house. He wasn’t there. But a hit on one of his credit cards at a distant gas station, also thanks to Lucia, showed them the path that the van had taken. Away from London and into the countryside, the land of the sisters Brontë, haystacks and needles. In other words, it appeared that they were headed north, in the general vicinity of Haworth.

      It was an easy place to get lost. Or to hold a hostage.

      Eager, distraught, the prime minister wanted to send some of his people along when he’d discovered that Joshua had come alone. But he’d respectfully declined the offer, saying he worked best on his own and unimpeded. If the cavalry was sent in, Prudence would be dead before they made it to the front door.

      Reluctantly, the prime minister agreed to his terms.

      Joshua continued tracking and following slim leads until, a day and a half after Prudence Hill had been snatched outside of the southern end of St. James Park, he had wound up here, in an isolated section of the countryside relatively untouched in the last 170 years, staring through a telescope at a filthy window into an even filthier room.

      Staring directly at the object of his search.

      She

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