The #1 Bestsellers Collection 2011(147)

“Is there something wrong?” Stan’s voice penetrated the silent case of shock that enveloped her.

“I need a taxi.” Her voice wobbled as tears threatened to choke her throat.

“Come with me, miss. I’ll get one for you from the rank outside.”

A belt of hot, humid air hit her like a wall as they left the air-conditioned sanctuary of the lobby and approached the taxi rank outside. Stan pulled open the taxi’s door, pushing a validated, prepaid taxi voucher into her hands, and Holly slid into the back seat. As the Knight Enterprises Tower disappeared behind her, she murmured the private hospital’s address to the driver, then began to pray as she’d never done before in her life.

Please, please let me not be too late.

“What do you mean she isn’t there?” Connor paced his office, shouting at the speaker phone on his desk as if that would refute Thompson’s calm information that Holly wasn’t back at the island.

“They haven’t arrived yet, sir.”

“Arrived? Dave should have returned here by now. I’ll call you back.” Connor buzzed down to the front desk security in the lobby.

“Did you see Miss Christmas leave the building a short time ago? … You did? Find out what taxi company and call them to see where they took her.”

What the hell was she up to? Why hadn’t she called him? He slapped his hands on his desk and fought the urge to swipe everything off its cluttered surface and to the floor. Their agreement had been quite specific. She wasn’t to go anywhere without his okay. He should have known better than to trust her. Once he found her, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.

If he found her.

He sank into his chair. She couldn’t go missing completely, he rationalised. He would find her. He would find his baby. No matter what. She didn’t have the means or the support to disappear for long.

“What?” he roared as Janet peeked her head around the doorway. A pang of guilt punctured his foul temper as she flinched. “I’m sorry, what is it?” he asked in a level tone, banking the fury that roiled inside him.

“Security didn’t get the name of the cab company that you wanted, but Stan said she made a call on his phone before she left. No one’s used it since. Do you want him to redial it?”

“I’ll do it myself. Make sure nobody touches that phone.”

Who could she have called? Dozens of possibilities, none of them making any sense, raced through his mind before he arrived at the ground floor and covered the short distance to the front desk.

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know she wasn’t—” Beads of perspiration stood out on the elderly security guard’s forehead.

“Don’t worry, Stan. It wasn’t your fault.” He reached across the desk and pulled the telephone toward him. “This was the one she used?”

“Yes, sir. No one has used it since.”

“Haven View Hospital.” The disembodied reply at the other end brought him up sharply. She’d gone to her foster sister? But why? “Hello?” The voice enquired down the telephone line.

He gathered his thoughts together, relieved it had been so easy to track her down. “Has Holly Christmas arrived yet?”

“Yes, she has. Would you like me to bring her to the phone?”

“No, don’t worry. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He swiftly replaced the receiver and bolted for the emergency stairwell that led to the basement car park. The BMW’s tyres squealed in protest as he roared up the garage ramp.

Haven View was Auckland’s most exclusive hospital, he knew that from his own personal experience. After all, the last time he’d set foot in there had been to say a final farewell to his mother when he was eight years old. Despite its lavish surroundings and the expansive gardens outside, it was first and foremost a place where people went to die. He thought he’d forgotten the smells, the atmosphere, the fear. Yet it all came rushing back, as current and clear as if it had been yesterday.

Snap out of it! he growled fiercely at his reflection in the rearview mirror. You’re thirty-one years old—not a boy of eight filled with terror. Not some little kid who’d cried to be allowed to go outside and play in the sunshine rather than stay with his father and brothers in the room with a mother he barely knew as anything more than a frail bedridden woman. He’d been too young to understand the cancer that had destroyed the vibrant woman she’d been. He could still see the look on his mother’s face, of compassion tinged with sorrow, the sweet smile she’d given him as he’d run from the room the instant his father had given him reluctant permission to go.