The threat was thinly veiled and sent a shiver through Claudia that felt as sharp and cold as ice. She’d never met this man, but she knew instinctively that he was as untrustworthy and dangerous as Marcus. He had probably even benefited from the crimes his client had committed. However, he surely wouldn’t have known when making his statement that the house in West London had already been abandoned, or that the shop on Kensington High Street had been sold. But he’d find out soon enough, perhaps as early as today, and then there was every chance that the hunt for his client’s wife and stepdaughter would begin.

Chapter Three

“Dan! How are you? Come in, come in.”

Andee Lawrence stood aside for her very welcome visitor to enter the stylish Georgian house she shared with her partner Graeme Ogilvy at the heart of Kesterly’s exclusive Garden District. She was a tall, dark-haired woman in her mid-forties, with such arresting aquamarine eyes that some, when meeting her for the first time, became momentarily dazzled.

This didn’t happen to Dan Collier as he embraced her warmly, for several months had passed since he’d first been introduced to her, when he had actually momentarily lost his words. His old uni friend Graeme had clearly been as amused by the double take as Dan had been embarrassed, while Andee had politely pretended not to notice. Now Dan paid little more attention to her looks than he did to his own, which he considered far less remarkable than his late wife, Ellen, had. Although she’d been biased because, as she’d put it, she’d been clever enough to see in him what others hadn’t.

“I never thought I’d end up with a ginger,” she used to tease, “but that’s because I didn’t know they came with sleepy eyes trying to hide behind sexy specs, and serious muscles.”

“They also come with broken noses, oafish hands, and loads of brains,” he’d inform her, and while saucily admiring the first two she’d usually scoff at the third.

He wished Andee had met Ellen, for he knew they’d have gotten along like the proverbial house on fire, but two years before he’d moved his legal practice to Kesterly Ellen had been killed in a car crash. Sadness was his companion now, and although he never gave it a public airing, when he was at home he spent much of his time grieving her loss and wishing they’d had children. At least then she would continue to exist in other human beings whom he’d love perhaps even more than he’d loved her, although that was hard to imagine.

“Graeme’s cooking,” Andee informed him, pointing him across the hall toward the kitchen, “and don’t worry, we haven’t fixed you up with a blind date.”