Big Ben (See No Evil Trilogy #1) - Nana Malone Page 0,7

Mom’s passing. Well, really since the car accident. I knew how to manage on my own. Depending on anyone was a recipe for disaster.

I snapped open my purse to find my shuttle ticket and pulled out the stiff cardstock. I frowned when I noticed what looked like a black tube of lipstick in the bottom of my clutch. My lipstick was in a silver tube.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention, and I glanced around. I’d made it through the security check point with no problems. But something made me wary.

I was a firm believer in our evolutionary cues that warned us of danger. Maybe some of that came from micro expressions, maybe a change in the air, but something told me to wait until I was on the shuttle back to London to investigate.

My feet dragged as I boarded the black limousine party bus with three other people. I chose a position close to the back where it was dark. The whole time I could feel the lipstick tube burning a hole in my purse. How had it gotten there?

Once the bus had been moving for ten minutes, I pulled out the black tube and examined it. It was only then that I realized it wasn’t lipstick. I tugged on it and it separated into two parts. It was a flash drive. What. The actual. Fuck?

Think, Livy. Slow it down. That was a game my mother had played with me as a kid when I would get so worked up about a social situation that I couldn’t function. It always worked. Once I got over my initial fear, I could always think more clearly.

One deep breath. The lingering scent of various perfumes clung to the air. Another deep breath. The chill had me pulling my shawl tighter around myself. A final breath. My mind played back the end of the party, those last moments when I’d tried to play hero.

The Viking.

He’d done this. He’d made me his accomplice. But to what?

3

Livy

As the seconds ticked by, my brain speed processed the seven stages of mental ass kicking. I was desperate for answers. Had I been targeted? Did he do this on purpose? Was this a game? Was he someone who assumed, that like my mother, I was a diplomat?

He’d be very disappointed. I was an executive assistant. I had no access to anything or anyone important.

I’d changed industries after moving back from the states to be with my mother, and I hadn’t been able to find an operations position. And unlike my mother, I had zero taste for the diplomat’s lifestyle.

Denial came quickly. Because no way was this happening to me. There was clearly a mistake. I hadn’t just broken a priceless artifact then unwittingly smuggled out some kind of flash drive. Even I wasn’t that stupid. Dexter was going to be furious. How the hell did I get myself into these situations?

Guilt lingered. I should go back and turn myself in. The anger though, that was surprising. I wanted to put on the gloves I used to have when I did Krav Maga and go to town, grounding and pounding this flash drive. I hadn’t asked for the disruption in my life. The other stages followed quickly after the denial and guilt, and finally, I was left with the flash drive still in my palm.

The shuttle pulled up to St. Pancras Station. For fear of being searched again, I shoved the drive into my bra, using my shawl to cover the misshapen bulge.

My stomach knotted and tightened as I stepped down off the shuttle with not a cavity search in sight. It was disturbingly easy to walk away with whatever this was. I was in such a tag that I took no notice of the glass arch above. Or the inky blankness only broken by crystals of water as it drizzled. What was on the damn thing? What if this was all a horrible misunderstanding? And why had the Viking handed it to me??I was a total stranger. Naturally, I flinched as I thought about how we’d first met. I was in such a fog I almost walked into The Meeting Place Statue. The bronze statue of the couple only served as a reminder of how my evening had ended.

I laid my head back against the glass as my train passed Victoria station.?I could almost see myself talking to my mother about what had happened earlier and her saying, ‘At last, some adventure.’ I blinked