Page 25 of The Boathouse by the Loch (The Scottish Highlands #4)

Jake stood in the line for passport control.

He called Faye’s number. He couldn’t stand it any longer.

He had to know what was going on. It went to voicemail.

She was too busy to answer his call. Too busy being reunited with her daughter, he hoped.

Then his phone rang. His heart missed a beat when he heard Faye’s voice.

‘Have you found her?’

Jake listened, his heart pounding at every word.

They hadn’t found her. Faye was frantically searching the streets with friends.

One friend had been left behind to wait at her flat in case Natty turned up.

The police wanted Faye to stay home, but Jake completely understood; Faye had to be out there, doing something.

‘I’m coming right over. There’s just something I need to do first.’

‘I’m not at the flat, Jake, I told you.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Jake wasn’t thinking straight. Faye said, ‘Look I haven’t got time to talk. Would you go straight to the flat? Obviously my friend is there. But it would be so much better if you were there when Natty gets home.’

Jake felt slightly better, hearing those words – when Natty gets home . It made things sound normal, like she’d just popped out, or gone out on a playdate; not like she was missing. Jake understood – Faye had to convince herself Natty would be back, otherwise she’d go crazy with worry.

‘I just wanted to tell you that—’

‘Jake – whatever it is, this just isn’t the time! Just go to the flat, will you?’

‘But it’s about—’

Faye rang off.

Jake pushed his way through the queue, getting grumbles from those waiting in line, until security stopped him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Look, it’s an emergency,’ Jake pleased.

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He shook his head.

‘No, you don’t understand, Natty is missing. I’m trying to get home to help Faye find her.’

‘Hold on. Who is Natty? Is she your child?’

Jake could hardly speak, he was so anxious to get through security and on his way. He just nodded.

‘She’s missing, you say?’

Jake nodded again.

‘Have you called the police?’

‘Her mother has. I was away in Scotland. She phoned me and—’

He waved his hand at Jake. ‘Okay, all right. Come with me.’

Jake followed security past the long queue and watched him ask someone who was about to step up to one of the ePassport gates to step aside.

Jake stepped outside the airport terminal and immediately hailed a taxi.

He wasn’t going straight to Faye’s. There was somewhere he needed to go first. He had something to pick up that he hoped he’d find in Aubrey’s apartment.

Jake asked the taxi driver to wait as the car pulled up outside the Ross Corporation’s apartment building.

He barely acknowledged the porter on the door as he raced inside.

The concierge at the front desk recognised Jake, looking surprised to see him again in the space of just a few days.

The concierge hurried over to ask Jake if he had any luggage.

‘I’m not staying. Just a flying visit.’

The concierge returned to his desk.

Jake got in the lift that took him straight to William’s top floor apartment, where Aubrey was living. He needed something that he was sure Aubrey would have. And it wasn’t the speciality teas that Aubrey was so fond of.

He paused in the bright white, airy hallway, listening.

He didn’t call out Aubrey’s name. He hoped Aubrey wasn’t in.

All Jake could hear was his own heavy breathing.

Nobody was home. He sighed with relief. Aubrey would not let him have what he had gone there to take without a very, very good explanation.

But Jake was not about to tell anyone what he had it in his mind to do to get Natty back.

He raced to the study. Aubrey had told him once where he kept just what Jake was after. Jake was making an educated guess that wherever Aubrey was residing, he’d keep it in the same place – a desk drawer of a study.

‘Aha!’ Jake grabbed the small black case and slammed the desk drawer shut.

Thrusting the case into his jacket pocket, he retraced his steps to the lift and waited impatiently as it made its way to the ground floor.

His usual panic in lifts had not troubled him this time; he was too focused on his task.

Jake sprinted past reception and a bemused concierge and straight out of the door to the waiting taxi.

He told the driver his next destination and then slumped into the back seat, catching his breath, staring out of the window as the taxi manoeuvred into the late afternoon traffic outside the apartment building.

Jake frowned. Rush hour had already started.

He hoped the London traffic did not hold them up.

Jake looked at his phone. He was still praying that Faye would call him and say the search had been called off because they had found her; that the nightmare was over.

Jake had watched enough police procedurals with the same old line – the first twenty-four hours were crucial, and after that, the chances of finding a missing person fell dramatically.

It was all tosh – wasn’t it? And if there was some basis in fact, Jake wasn’t going to be unduly worried that he had just a short time to find her, because he knew exactly where to look.

And more importantly, he had exactly what he needed when he got there.

Jake had the small black case in his hand at the ready.