The Mistress

“And then what?” Wes asked.

“I get her out,” Kingsley said.

“You get her out?” Wes turned to Kingsley. “You and what army?”

“I don’t need an army.”

“What? Are you the French James Bond or something?”

“Of course not. James Bond is vanilla.”

“I feel so much better now,” Wes said as he scraped his fingers through his hair. “Kinky James Bond is going to rescue Nora. Thanks but maybe it’s time we get the cops involved.”

“Call the police if you want her dead. By all means, call them. They love to blare their sirens so the whole world knows they’re coming. Do you know how easy it is to kill someone like...” Kingsley raised his hand and snapped his fingers loudly in Wesley’s ear, so loudly Wesley flinched. “Like that. The speed of sound is 342 meters per second. The speed of a bullet is four times that. She’ll be dead before they can even knock on the door. I promise you, she’s guarded. Every minute of every hour someone with a gun is within shooting distance of her. One wrong step equals one bullet.”

“We have to do something. We don’t even know where she is,” Wes said.

“I do.” Laila sat up and wiped her face. “I know where she is.”

“Where?” Wes looked down at her and she saw hope in his eyes.

Laila reached up and unclasped her necklace. She flipped open the locket and passed it to her uncle.

“That room.”

“What room?” The redheaded woman leaned over her uncle’s shoulder and stared at the picture. Laila didn’t have to look. She’d worn the silver heirloom locket for most of her life, knew the photographs in it better than she knew her own face. On one side of the locket was a picture of her grandmother holding her mother as a newborn baby. On the other side of the locket was a photograph of her grandmother holding her uncle Søren as a newborn. Her grandmother had kept a box of photographs that she looked at from time to time. They all seemed to be taken in the same room—a library with a fireplace. Gold walls, green curtains. She’d asked her grandmother about it once and her grandmother had said she would rather not talk about her time living in America. All that mattered, her grandmother said with a sad smile, was that she gave birth to her son while in that country. He made up for everything.

“Are you sure?” her uncle asked.

She nodded. “I saw the pictures in Mormor’s box. There was one where she sat by a fireplace holding you. She wasn’t smiling. But it was that room in my locket, the one Tante Elle is in. I know it was.”

“Søren?” Wes’s voice prompted her uncle to look up from the locket.

“Eleanor’s at my half sister’s house. She’s at Elizabeth’s.”

“Your sister’s house?” Wes asked. “Is she involved in this, too?”

Søren shook his head. “No, I told Elizabeth to leave the country and travel, to stay on the move. I’d been afraid something like this would happen. She and her sons left last week. She’s not home. She’s not part of this.”

“We’re sure she’s at your sister’s?” Kingsley asked.

“Yes.” Søren looked at Kingsley, who nodded as if Søren had given him some kind of telepathic message.

“We’ll go, then,” Kingsley said. “I’ll call him right now.”

“Call who?” Wes asked. “Go where?”

“We have a friend who lives near his sister’s,” Kingsley explained as he pulled a phone out of his trouser pocket. “Only ten miles away. I’ll be able to plan better if I’m closer. I may have to come and go several times. I need a base. His house is perfect.”

“A friend of yours? Can we trust this guy?” Wes stared aggressively at both Kingsley and her uncle. For the first time she wondered who he was, what he was to her aunt that made him so deeply a part of this nightmare.

“We can trust him. He owes me. He owes him, too.” Kingsley nodded at Søren as he scrolled through the numbers on his phone. “And he owes our missing Maîtresse most of all.”

Laila sensed excitement in the air. Not excitement, no. More like anticipation and even a measure of relief. They knew something now, something more than they did before. And even more, they knew something the woman who had her aunt didn’t know they knew. They knew where to find her.

“He doesn’t owe you anything,” her uncle said with obvious exasperation.

“He kicked me out of my own bedroom. He owes me.”

“Who is he? Nora’s life is on the line here. If you won’t even let me call the police—”

“He’s on our side, I promise,” Kingsley said. “Trust me, you’ll like him. He’s nice and dull. Married, a family man. He’s even...honorable.” Kingsley said the last word like it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“A nice and honorable family man?” Wes repeated, sounding utterly shocked Kingsley would associate with such a person. “Then why are you friends with him?”

“Because he’s kinky as hell, and I used to f**k his first wife.”

“Kingsley, please,” Søren said, scowling.

“This is why no children are allowed in my house.” Kingsley winked at Laila. “You turn everyone vanilla.”

“I’m eighteen now,” Laila protested.