Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

One last roundhouse kick to the punchbag, and I stripped off my boxing gloves. A good session in the gym always made me feel better. Took some of the edge off. An edge so sharp right now that it could slice through titanium. A quick shower to get rid of the sheen of sweat, and I was ready to face the world again.

But first, food.

We always kept the staff kitchens fully stocked, but when I opened the fridge on the fifth floor, all I found was turkey on rye, falafel with carrot, chicken salad sans mayo, apples, grapes, celery.

"Has Toby been here?" I asked Tina, one of our London assistants.

"He sent a directive. The catering staff took all the junk food out an hour ago."

"But I need cookies."

"I think that's why he did it."

Gah. I also craved a meatball marinara sub, but I didn't have time to go out and buy one. Instead, I grabbed a bowl of fruit salad and headed for the conference room. Judging by the glum faces looking back at me from around the table, frustratingly little had happened.

"Can you give me an update?"

"We've been through the employee files, but there's little in there in the way of disputes," a woman told me.

What was she called? She'd joined just before I left. Helena? Melanie? Usually, I remembered names, but I couldn't think straight.

"That doesn't surprise me. Luke isn't the type to go around upsetting his employees. So there's nothing?"

"We found one complaint that looked kind of juicy. Luke sacked a programmer for lying that a project had passed beta testing when it hadn't, and the guy wasn't happy about it."

"I take it you followed up?"

"Oh, yes, straight away. He was surprisingly cooperative. Said he'd been going through a nasty divorce and things just got on top of him."

"Did he seem the type to bear a grudge?"

"He admitted he hadn't been happy at the time, but he didn't blame Luke anymore. Even said he'd have done the same. He reckons he's got a new perspective on life now he's moved to Sydney with his boyfriend."

"As in Sydney, Australia?"

Helena/Melanie nodded.

"Did you corroborate?"

"We sent an operative from the Sydney office to check on the happy couple. They offered him a beer and invited him back for a barbecue."

A complete bust, then.

Mack called back at five past eight, just as I was rooting through my desk drawers for a stray chocolate bar. No luck.

"I've got good news and bad news."

"Hit me with it."

"I've got into Luke's bank accounts, and his mother's. And through the firewall on his home computer and his work servers."

"And what's the bad news?"

"I haven't found anything concrete. But from the log files on the server, I'd say someone else has been trying to do the same as me; they just haven't been so successful."

"Any idea who?"

"No, but I'll keep trying to find out."

"Thanks. We could use a break. Was that the only thing of interest?"

"Oh, there's plenty that's interesting. Do you know how much money Luke gives to his mother each month? It's thousands, Ems. And she spends it all on hairdressers and clothes and golf and manicures."

"I've met the woman, and that comes as no surprise. But I meant anything of interest to the case?"

"No. I don't think so."

Mack hesitated a little too long before answering for my liking. What was she holding back? I was tempted to push, but my name already graced her shit list. No, I trusted she'd tell me if it was important.

"All right, we'll speak later."

At least she hadn't frozen me out today. This was progress.

At nine in the evening, I headed home. I needed to recharge, and although I had a fold-out bed in my office, after last night, I didn't want to risk sleeping in it. Bad enough to have Nick catch me sleepwalking without my entire staff finding out about my nocturnal adventures.

When I got back to Albany House, I snuck up the rear stairs from the garage, keeping my fingers crossed Luke had gone to bed so I could avoid talking to him. Stupid for someone who'd once thrived on confrontation.

"How was the office?" Dan asked.

Shit. Should have used the front door. Because Luke was sitting next to Dan, typing away on his laptop with Nick the other side of him.

Smile, Emmy. It intimidates those who want to destroy you, so said my husband.

"Yeah. Good. Great. I had spinach salad for lunch."

Dan laughed then grew serious again. "Luke might have found something."

Really? "Like what?"

Luke looked me in the eye for the first time since our argument. "I got an email alert a couple of hours ago to say someone was in my mainframe at work. They tripped an alarm while they were looking at the code for my new program, the same one the kidnapper wanted. I'm trying to track them."

I had a bad feeling about this. "Have you got very far?"

"Yes and no. Might sound crazy but, I think I know who it is."

"Go on."

"Well... You see... The thing is... I'm involved on the fringes of the online hacking community."

I recalled the time I'd caught him in the police database. Fringes my arse. "I already knew that. And?"

"You did?"

"Sure, and it makes perfect sense. You build cyber security products. The best way to defend something is to know every possible way to attack it."

I worked that way as well, except in the physical world rather than virtual.

"And you're not judging me for being a hacker?"

"That's not the sort of person I am. You'd know that if you thought about it. I didn't lie to you about everything."

Plus, I'd be a complete hypocrite if I got upset at Luke for skirting the bounds of legality.

"I guess." He paused to type in another command. "Anyway, there's this hacker called Diablo. He's one of the best, and we've always had a rivalry. Until now, I thought it was friendly, but I'm ninety percent sure that's who broke into my system. I recognise his footprint. So, if we can find Diablo, we might also find the kidnapper."

"I hate to rain on your parade, but I doubt that."

Dan looked at Nick, Nick looked at Dan, and Nick raised an eyebrow.

"Bloody Mack," I muttered to him.

Did Mack use the name Diablo? I'd lost count of her aliases over the years, but she was a hacker, and she'd just been in Luke's system.

Nick rolled his eyes. "You really think so?"

"Let's find out, shall we?"

Luke narrowed his eyes as I slid his laptop over to my side of the table, but he didn't try to stop me. A minute later, I'd navigated through our company website to the internal messenger program Mack herself had written. She'd clear out his browser history afterwards.

Diamond: Diablo???

A second later, her reply came.

Mack: Shit.

I spun the laptop back to Luke. "Now, you two play nice."

"Huh?"

"Diablo isn't our kidnapper. Diablo's on our side. Meet Mack."

"Who's Mack?"

"One of my closest friends. Happy hacking."

As I left the kitchen to go to bed, Dan and Nick trailing behind me, I heard the keys clicking as Luke typed out a reply to Mack. Hopefully, this would be the start of a beautiful friendship.

I woke at six the next morning in my own bed—a definite improvement. Barely coherent, I stumbled downstairs, zombie-like, my arms outstretched for the coffee machine. Two minutes later, I took my first sip of espresso, savouring the burn from the rich Colombian. An old friend was branching out into the coffee business, and he'd sent me the beans to try. Not bad.

"How are you feeling today?" Ruth asked. She'd been my housekeeper for years now, and knew not to ask questions before I'd had my first hit of caffeine.

"I need to call the control room."

"Young Nick already did that. Nothing new came in overnight."

I reached over for my phone, but Mack was offline and therefore asleep. She didn't keep office hours like a normal person. Most of the time, she worked unsociable hours as the sunshine battled with her inner vampire.

"An impasse," I muttered. "I hate playing the waiting game."

"You need to take your mind off things, love. You know you don't do well when you overthink. Why don't you spend half an hour in the pool?"

"I should help with the case instead."

"From the chatter in here earlier, they've got enough people working on that already. I don't know about you, but I do my best thinking in the peace and quiet. Maybe you'll come up with a few ideas?"

Okay, so she was right on that part. More than once, I'd had a brainwave out running or cycling or, yes, stroking lazily up and down the pool.

But today, I swam a couple of miles without any light bulbs pinging on, and my fingers turned into little prunes. My stress levels dropped in the water, but they soon rose again as I got dressed in jeans; an old, worn T-shirt; and a fresh pair of contacts. I was still wearing the lenses for Luke's sake. I wasn't sure where I stood with him, and if I was going to make a clean break at the end of this, it seemed easier to give him as little of the real me as possible.

"Breakfast?" Ruth asked when I got back to the kitchen.

My stomach answered with a loud rumble.

"Toast?"

"Sounds good to me."

Except before I could get the Nutella out of the cupboard, a commotion in the hallway caught my attention. I raised an eyebrow at Ruth, and she shrugged.

Okay, better investigate. As I got closer, a high-pitched voice made me groan.

"Where's Emmy? Is she up yet?"

And Luke replied. Shit.

"I don't think there's anyone called Emmy here."

"Nonsense, it's her... Oh! There you are! Sweet mother of Gaultier, who did that to your hair? It's just not nice. In fact, it's nasty! You look like a librarian who just escaped from the 1980s."

Luke's brow furrowed as a short but exuberant man marched over to me. His pink skinny jeans were studded with diamantes and matched his off-the-shoulder Pringle sweater—tame in comparison to some of his outfits. He held up the ends of my hair for closer examination.

"I cut it a bit," I confessed without thinking.

"What did you use? An axe?"

Deep breaths, Emmy. "Bradley, what the hell are you doing here?"

"You said you were back, so I flew over on the red eye and, well, SURPRISE!" He gave me jazz hands. "It was awful. There were no business class seats left, and I had to fly economy. Economy! Thank goodness I had my travel pillow and a cashmere throw with me. And a really cute member of the cabin crew gave me an eye mask and a pair of earplugs. And his phone number too, but I'd better not tell Miles that."

Miles, Bradley's boyfriend, spent his waking hours writing papers on ancient Egyptian burial sites, when he wasn't overseas digging them up himself, anyway. I'd never quite fathomed out how they worked as a couple. Bradley loved bright colours and changed his hairstyle the way most men changed their socks, which is to say about once a fortnight. Today's effort was platinum blond and gelled up in a faux-hawk. Miles, on the other hand, was as drab as the beige jumpers he favoured. But they'd been together for a decade now, so they had to be doing something right.

Before I could throttle Bradley, the front door opened and one person after another walked in, dumping packages on the floor and couch before going back out for more.

"Hey!" Bradley screeched as a guy lifted up a tall, thin cardboard box. "Watch out for the chandelier—it's a Dale Chihuly."

"Bradley, I'm sure I'll regret asking, but what is all this stuff?"

"I didn't know when you were coming back, so I had clothes from the spring collections on hold all over the place. And now you're here, so I'm having them delivered," he said, speaking slowly as if explaining the obvious to a small child. "I had to call in a lot of favours to get everything brought over this morning." He must have caught my look of horror because he patted me on the arm reassuringly. "Don't worry; you'll barely notice I'm here."

I glanced at the pile of shit that had taken over one side of the entrance hall. "Somehow I doubt that."

"Besides, I need to clear out your closet," Bradley continued, oblivious. "I mean, what are you wearing?"

I looked down at myself. "Jeans?"

"Not just jeans, Emmy. Those are last season's jeans."

"So? They're comfy."

"But now you have new jeans, which are both comfy and fashionable."

Oh, Bradley. I loved him dearly, but sometimes he exasperated me. On the plus side, he was fearsomely efficient at organising my clothes, houses, schedule, and life in general, so I couldn't get too upset with him.

"Fine, Bradley, do what you need to do."

Attempting to argue with him was pointless—I'd learned that the hard way over the years. Instead, I made a mental note to hide my favourite old clothes before he recycled them.

"I intend to." He tilted his head to one side. "Starting with your hair. The colour's so drab. Does it have to stay brown?"

"I meant with my clothes. The hair will have to wait. We're in the middle of a kidnap investigation, and I need to go into the office."

"Do we just have time for an argan oil conditioning pack?"

"No!"

I started for the stairs, but Luke caught my arm. "Emmy?"

Thanks, Bradley.

"Most people call me by a shortened version of my middle name." That was sort of mostly true. And Luke thought my middle name was Emily, which fitted. "Call me Ash or Emmy, it doesn't matter. I'll answer to either."

I had to get out of the house, mainly to avoid Luke but also to keep out the way of Bradley's wardrobe shenanigans, so I drove into the office, hoping there was something I could do. Rain was falling heavily, so I left the Aston snugly under its cover and took the X5 instead. Turned out it belonged to me, part of Bradley's car rotation program. The Land Rover was apparently being fixed after Dan used it for a bit of impromptu off-roading while trying to avoid a deer. Dan assured me the deer came out of it just fine, which was better than the Land Rover's suspension did.

In the incident room, phones rang, keyboards clicked, and the information board gradually filled up. The problem was, we had nothing significant.

While I waited on hold for one of my contacts to dig out some information, I flicked idly through the emails Sloane had flagged for me. I needed to start pulling my weight in the company again. My husband's death had left me as majority shareholder, with my fifteen percent and his forty combined. Nate owned thirty-five percent and Nick the remaining ten.

There had always been four of us splitting the administrative burden, but Nate and Nick had been carrying the can by themselves for over three months now, which I didn't think was helping our relationship. If I'd had that lot dumped in my lap, I wouldn't have been happy about it either.

I skimmed financial and operational reports first—we needed more staff in the Japanese office, and we'd won a big new contract in LA. Okay, that was good news. Then I found a message that had me itching to pick up my gun. My husband's Aunt Miriam was taking legal action over his estate because, basically, she wanted it. A letter from her solicitor gave me thirty days to file his will for probate, a deadline I'd missed, oh, twenty-seven days ago. Marvellous. I added a note on my to-do list to call my own lawyer.

"Emmy," Nye called from across the room.

Oh, thank goodness. A distraction.

"What?"

"A gardener working three doors up from Luke's house reckons he saw a transit van a few days before Tia got taken. I'm going to send someone to speak to him."

"Forget that—I'll go."

I was sick of sitting on my ass, waiting for something to happen. Plus if I was driving, I could avoid reading my emails.

Despite its size, the BMW was surprisingly speedy, and it wasn't long before I arrived in Lower Foxford. Could this be the break we needed?

No, was the short answer. The gardener only saw a white van drive past a couple of times a week previously. It could have been the kidnapper, or it could have been a lost courier. He was almost sure the driver was a man, but the only description he managed was, "I think he had brown hair."

Along with half the male population. Back to square one.

As I stomped into Luke's house, I needed coffee, preferably by intravenous drip. Lack of sleep was getting to me.

"Oi, love, could you sign for this?" a voice called from behind. The postman ambled up the drive, whistling tunelessly.

"Sure."

Anyone else want to keep me from the caffeine I so desperately needed?

He handed me a padded envelope—small, brown, nondescript. Alarm bells rang as I flipped it over. There was no sender's address.

I scribbled something unintelligible on the postman's pad and backed into the house, clutching the mystery package.

"What you got, boss?" one of the men stationed there asked.

"No idea, but at least it's not ticking."