Chapters (124)
- Cover
- About the Author
- Acclaim for Frank Gardner’s Luke Carlton thrillers
- Also by Frank Gardner
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgements
- THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
It was 10.30 a.m. when he entered the flat, walked into the living room and was surprised to see Elise still there. Instead of having left for work she was sitting upright at the breakfast table, wearing a fawn cashmere cardigan, and reading a book, the grey morning light coming through the window, a cushion resting on her lap.
‘Hey, you’re still here!’ he said, dumping his bag and going over to kiss her.
Elise flashed him the briefest of smiles, as if he had just popped down to the shops for some milk instead of spending the last two days in Moscow. He immediately sensed something was wrong. She barely returned his kiss – there was no warm embrace, no ‘Welcome home, Luke.’ He sat down next to her and reached out to squeeze her hand, but to his dismay she recoiled. Elise moved her chair back from the table, as if trying to put some distance between them. She looked at him with a deadly serious expression.
‘What’s wrong, Lise?’ he asked tenderly. ‘Is someone in trouble?’
‘Luke …’ she began, then stopped.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked again.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied, rather too quickly, glancing out of the window at nothing. ‘Look … there’s something you need to know.’ She was intertwining the fingers of her hands now, writhing them together, like mating snakes.
He had never seen her so nervous. Even her voice sounded different, somehow brittle and alien. ‘Go on,’ he said gently.
She was looking down at her hands now, unwilling to meet his eyes. ‘Luke, it’s time you knew. I’ve been looking back at the calendar. I’ve looked at the dates, at when you were here and when you were away and, well, I’ve got some bad news. It’s not … I’m afraid it’s not yours.’ She blurted out the last words in a rush, her face flushed.
‘What isn’t?’ and he could hear the lameness in his words even as he spoke them. Because he already knew the answer.
‘Oh, come on, Luke, for God’s sake!’ she snapped. ‘Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. The baby, Luke! It’s not yours. Do I have to spell it out for you?’ Then, softening her tone, she added, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but that’s all there is to it.’ Elise pursed her lips and looked at him for a reaction.
The sadness was so overwhelming he thought he might drown. Two days ago she had told him he was going to be a father. That meant they would be a family. Together. Yet now, with those simple, damning words, all that had suddenly been snatched away from him and smashed at his feet. For a second he said nothing. Then a voice he hardly recognized as his own said, ‘Whose is it?’
Quietly, almost under her breath, she answered him: ‘It’s Hugo’s.’