Run Girl: Ingrid Skyberg FBI Thrillers Prequel Novella (6 page)

“She may be his girlfriend,” Angelis said.

“No way,” the third male student said, finally joining the discussion. “She’s far too fit for Adam. No way could he pull someone as gorgeous as that.”

The female student continued to glare at him. The one who was trying to keep her distance stared down at the floor.

“You really work for the FBI?” The third student turned to Ingrid, his face a mask of suspicion.

“That’s right, sir.”

“Then tell us why you’re really here,” the first student chimed in.

“I’m sorry?”

“You come here spinning us an unbelievable story about Adam, and expect us to just swallow it? What’s the real reason for your visit?”

Good grief
. A hundred and fifty students in that hall and they’d managed to hook themselves a real live conspiracy theorist.

The glaring female student was craning her neck to get a glimpse of the photograph. Ingrid nudged Angelis’ arm. He grabbed the picture back and handed it to her.

“She is beautiful,” the girl said. “I knew Adam had moved on after I dumped him, but I had no idea his little trans-Atlantic boffin friend was anything special.”

Ingrid detected a definite hint of jealousy in the girl’s tone. “You used to date Adam?”

“We split up during the summer vacation.”

“And you know about her?” Ingrid pointed to the picture.

“He’s been really secretive lately. At first I’d assumed he was seeing someone else on campus.”

The girl sitting next to her shifted forward in her seat, like a woman poised to make a swift exit.

“I’d seen details of her profile before, but never her picture,” the first girl continued. “I know Adam was quite smitten with her.”

“Do you know how they met?”

“Some online forum—for geniuses, Adam liked to pretend. You have to pass a test before you can make any posts—to prove your IQ is above 175.”

“That’s high, is it?” Angelis asked, a little disingenuously, Ingrid suspected. He must have known it was damn high.

“We think maybe they’ve taken off together. You know—a romantic few nights alone,” Angelis said.

“Yeah, right,” the conspiracy theorist muttered. “In his dreams.”

“For the sake of argument, let’s just assume Mr Oxley has managed to woo this attractive young lady. Where might he have taken her?” Angelis looked directly toward Oxley’s ex-girlfriend, who wriggled in her seat. “Is there any place you visited with Adam, any place he might have taken her?”

The girl took a deep breath. “Last summer we went to his grandmother’s house—she wasn’t there, she’s dead. It’s in the middle of the country somewhere.”

“Where?” Angelis asked. He grabbed his cell phone from a pocket and was poised to type the address into his GPS app.

“For God’s sake, Sara! Don’t tell them anything else—we don’t even know if we can trust them,” the conspiracy theorist warned.

“Oh grow up!” The girl thought for a moment. “Essex,” she said, emphatically.

“Can you be a little more specific? It is rather a large county,” Angelis said.

“His parents dropped us off there and picked us up again. I never really paid attention. I’m sorry, but I don’t know the address.”

A second or two later the girl next to her slowly got to her feet. In barely more than a whisper, she said, “I know. I know where it is.”

11

The ex-girlfriend stood up too, her face just inches away from the other girl’s. “How? How can you possibly know…” Her eyes opened wide. “Wait a second, are you saying you’ve been seeing Adam?”

The quiet girl looked at her shoes and said nothing.

“I thought you were supposed to be my friend.”

“You weren’t interested in him anymore.” She sniffed, almost defiantly. “Besides, it only lasted a few weeks. Until he became besotted with Sophie.”

Ingrid and Angelis exchanged a glance.
Sophie
?

“There is such a thing as loyalty, you know.”

Angelis cleared his throat noisily. “Forgive me for interrupting your important conversation, ladies, but we are rather keen to track this Adam chap down.” He touched the quiet girl very gently on the arm. She pulled away as if she’d been scolded. “So you know where Adam’s grandmother’s house is, do you?”

“Not the exact address. But I know it’s in a village called Bicknacre.”

“Do you know if Adam’s grandmother was his dad’s or mom’s mom?” Ingrid asked her.

She blinked back at her. “I… I don’t see… I don’t know…”

“His dad’s mum,” the other girl interjected and stuck her chin in the air, obviously pleased she knew Adam Oxley better than her friend.

“Thank you.” Ingrid moved between the two girls. “Listen, I can’t even begin to tell you how important it is that we find… Sophie. She’s young, a long way from home… she’s really quite vulnerable. Her parents are out of their minds with worry. Is there any place else you can think of Adam may have taken her? Maybe a favorite hotel? Here in London or in another city?”

“He’s not really a champagne and roses, posh hotel kind of bloke,” his ex said. She looked to her friend for agreement.

“It’s true. Adam’s a bit… careful with money. He wouldn’t splash out, no matter how besotted he was. When it comes down to it, he’s just too… sensible for grand romantic gestures.”

Ingrid wondered if Oxley might be swayed if someone else was paying. She hadn’t yet discovered just how much cash Rachel Whitticker had withdrawn from the ATM in Paris.

“Anything else you can tell us about the vanishing Mr Oxley?” Angelis asked the male students.

All three students adjusted their postures, two folding their arms across their chests defiantly, the third deliberately turning away.

“Thank you so much for your cooperation,” Angelis said, “if you do think of anything that might help us find Adam, please, don’t hesitate to call me.” He handed each of them a business card.

Ingrid watched the three male students shuffle out the lecture hall, followed by the two girls, who seemed to be chatting quite happily to one another, clearly united against a common enemy.

Once they were all gone, Ingrid said, “Let’s hope the old lady never remarried.”

“I’m sorry?” Angelis was staring down at the smiling face of Rachel Whitticker. He refolded the color photocopy and shoved it back in a pocket.

“Your company’s got access to a whole range of national databases, right?”

“Our intel is second only to Mossad’s.”

“Great—then you should have no problem finding a property in Essex originally registered to a Mr Oxley.”

“I like your thinking.” Angelis retrieved his phone and put in a hurried call to his company headquarters. When he hung up he said, “Should have the GPS coordinates for us in a couple of minutes.”

They hurried out of the math department and back toward Angelis’ motorcycle.

“You think it’s worth traveling to this Bicknacre place?” Ingrid asked him. “Do you have any other leads at all?”

“Rachel’s been very clever covering her tracks. We’ve still got people working on it, but right now, it’s Adam Oxley or bust.”

“How long to get to Essex?”

“Too long. Even on the bike.”

“Can we justify the expense of a helicopter?” Ingrid broke into a jog to match Angelis’ long-legged stride. “Actually, I never asked, who is funding this mission?”

“My company is providing our services for free. We generally like to keep our regular clients happy. These are quite extraordinary circumstances. But a chopper? That might be a generous donation too far.”

Angelis’ phone bleeped. He glanced down at it. “We have our address.”

Ingrid slowed down a little, conscious they were rushing at something that maybe needed more consideration.

Angelis picked up her change of pace and slowed too. “What is it?”

“Let’s think about this for a second.”

“I’m listening.”

“What if they’re not in Essex? They could quite easily be holed up in a hotel right here in London. We don’t really have the time to waste visiting some little village in the middle of nowhere just to find out the house is empty.”

They reached the motorcycle.

Angelis pulled out the motorcycle helmets from the box on the back of the bike. “I can hardly ask the Essex police to check the property out for us. We do have to keep this thing under wraps.”

“You don’t have operatives all over the country you can call on?”

“Fortnum’s is a big operation, but it’s not that big.”

“OK—we contact someone else. We just need a damn good cover story.”

“Have anything in mind?”

“Sure. Find me a lawyer close to those GPS coordinates.”

“Oh I think I like where this is going.”

Two minutes later Ingrid was on hold at Simons and Atkins in Chelmsford, Essex. Just a few miles from the village of Bicknacre. Eventually the receptionist put her through to one of the junior partners, a Mr Jennings.

“How can I help you, madam?”

“Good afternoon. I’m calling from… Weinstein and Zeigler in New York, we’re trying to track down the beneficiaries of a sizable inheritance. The last known address we have is a small village a few miles from your office.”

“Really? Which one?” Mr Jennings said, a definite note of excitement in his voice.

Angelis leaned on the bike and folded his arms. He was making faces at her.

Ingrid turned away. She didn’t need the distraction. “A place named Bicknacre. Unfortunately all our letters have been ignored. We really would like to tie things up.”

“You’d like us to speak to the beneficiary?”

“Right now just knowing that we have the right address for him would be good. It’s a Mr Adam Oxley.”

“How about I visit the property myself?”

“Would you? That’s just great.”

“I’d need to check with my secretary, but I’m sure I have a slot in my diary some time next week.”

Ingrid rolled her eyes. “I was hoping you could go there right now.”

“Oh no, that won’t be possible. I’m afraid we do things a little differently here in the UK.”

Ingrid sucked in a breath, wondering if that meant slowly and inefficiently. “What about sending a clerk? We just need to find out if Mr Oxley is actually resident at the property. At this stage, we’d rather no one made direct contact with him.” Ingrid was keen that if Adam Oxley and Rachel Whitticker were at Oxley’s grandmother’s house, they should remain blissfully ignorant that they were even close to being discovered.

“I suppose I could ask Marjorie, our receptionist, to swing by in her lunch break.”

“That would be very kind of you. If it’s not too much trouble.” Ingrid gave the lawyer her contact details and was assured Marjorie would call her back within the hour. He was also very clear just how much Marjorie’s time would be charged out at. As soon as she hung up, Ingrid explained the situation to Angelis.

“So—as we have an hour or so to kill,” he said, once she’d finished, “how about a bite to eat?”

12

The bite to eat turned into a rushed three course lunch at Angelis’ private members’ club in a street named Pall Mall. The street was lined on both sides by impressive Regency houses, and looked so familiar to Ingrid she guessed it must have been used as a location for countless period films and TV dramas.

On the way to his club, Angelis had ensured they rode slowly past Buckingham Palace. The golden statue of an angel on top of the Victoria Memorial glinted in the weak December sun. Ingrid had seen nothing like it before. She hoped she’d get a chance to do some decent sightseeing before she returned home.

In the lull between main and dessert courses, Angelis leaned back in his chair and gestured extravagantly around the large banqueting room, complete with oil paintings on the walls and crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings. “What do you think of the place? Impressive, isn’t it?”

Ingrid shrugged. “I guess.”

“You guess? Have you any idea just how exclusive this establishment is? I had to wait a bloody long time to be accepted as a member.”

“Hey, at least they let you in eventually.” Ingrid forced a smile. The more he tried to impress her, the greater her determination not to show any interest. “I’ve been thinking, what if Rachel Whitticker isn’t actually with this Oxley guy in deepest darkest Essex? We have assumed they’re together.”

“I don’t think we’ve assumed anything at all. I’m keeping an open mind.”

“But according to the intel, he remains your only lead right now.”

Angelis gave her a begrudging nod.

“What if she booked herself into a hotel right here in London? Shouldn’t we at least be checking out that possibility?”

“How do you propose we do that?”

“How much cash did she withdraw from the Paris ATM?”

“Seven hundred Euros.”

“That’s enough for a last minute ticket on the Eurostar and what else? One night in a five star hotel?”

“Five star? Barely.”

“Can you really see the Secretary of State’s granddaughter wanting to stay anywhere else?”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Your company must have the resources to visit them all—maybe some upmarket four star hotels too. Have a discreet chat with the managers, find out if any eighteen-year-old girls checked in without a lot of baggage today.”

“That’s an awful lot of hotels.”

“Start with the most famous.” Ingrid pushed away her plate and what was left of her poached salmon salad. “I really don’t feel comfortable relying on a single lead. Time’s running out. We need a contingency.”

Angelis grudgingly agreed to call head office and line up the manpower to do what Ingrid had suggested. He was still on the phone when the receptionist from the Essex lawyers’ office called Ingrid.

“Miss Skyberg?” The woman’s voice seemed a little hesitant. Ingrid wondered if maybe she was worried about the cost of calling an American cell phone. “I visited the house in Bicknacre and spoke to the young man.”

Goddammit
. Ingrid had specifically requested they didn’t talk to him. He could be halfway to Scotland by now. Or any other goddamn place “What did you say to him?”

“Oh don’t worry—I pretended to be an estate agent, asking whether he’d ever considered putting the property on the market.”