Almost Lost

You may have noticed that this book was first published with the author name “Ophelia Night.” Occasionally I like to experiment and try new genres, and when doing so, I might use a pen name to keep it separate and prevent confusion for my fans. I initially published this book with the Ophelia Night pen name. Soon after publishing it, I was happily surprised by the reception and reader feedback, and I realized that this book and series would indeed be a good fit for all Blake Pierce fans. So I’ve changed the author name back to Blake Pierce. If this is your first time reading one of my books, welcome to the Blake Pierce universe! Feel free to discover my other series. I have made the first books—and audiobooks-in most of my series free to enjoy!

CHAPTER ONE

Cassandra Vale stood in the long, slow-moving queue for the London Eye. After half an hour’s wait, she was close enough to see the giant wheel looming above her, its steel span arching into the overcast sky. The aerial view of London was a major attraction even on this gloomy November day.

She was on her own, although it seemed everyone else was here with friends or family. In front of her was a nervous blonde woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties, about Cassie’s age. She was in charge of three unruly, dark-haired boys. Bored with the wait, they had started shouting and squabbling, jostling each other and breaking away from the line. They were causing such a disruption that people were starting to complain. The elderly man ahead of her turned and glared.

“Could you please tell your boys to be quiet?” he asked the blonde in exasperated, upper-class British tones.

“I’m so sorry. I’ll try,” the young woman apologized, looking on the point of tears.

Cassie had already identified the stressed blonde woman as an au pair. Watching this confrontation took her straight back to where she’d been a month ago. She knew exactly how helpless the woman felt, trapped between unmanageable children who’d begun acting out, and disapproving onlookers who’d started to criticize. This could only end badly.

Be glad you’re not in her situation, Cassie told herself. You have the chance to enjoy your freedom and explore this city.

The problem was that she didn’t feel free. She felt exposed and vulnerable.

Her ex-employer was about to stand trial for murder and she was the only person who knew the whole truth about what had happened. Worse still, by now, he would have learned that she’d destroyed some of the evidence he was hoping to use against her.

She felt sick with fear that he would be hunting for her.

Who knew how far the reach of a wealthy, desperate man extended? In a city of millions, she’d thought it would be easy to hide, but the French newspapers were all over the place. Headlines shrieked at her from every corner shop. She was aware of the intensive camera monitoring, especially at tourist attractions—and central London was basically one huge tourist attraction.

Glancing up, Cassie saw a dark-haired man standing on the platform by the wheel. She’d felt his gaze a while ago, and saw he was staring in her direction again. She tried to reassure herself that he was probably a security guard or a plainclothes police officer, but that gave her no comfort. She was doing her best to avoid the police, whether they were plainclothes, or private detectives, or even ex-cops who’d taken up a more lucrative line of work as paid thugs.

Cassie froze as she saw the watching man pick up his phone, or maybe it was a walkie-talkie, and speak urgently into it. The next moment he left the platform and strode purposefully in her direction.

Cassie decided she didn’t need to see an aerial view of London today. Never mind she’d already paid the entrance fee—she was getting out. She’d come back another time.

She turned to go, ready to push her way through the line of people as fast as she could, but saw to her horror that two more police officers were approaching from behind.

The teenage girls who’d been standing behind her had also decided to leave. They had already turned and were shoving through the line toward the exit. Cassie followed, grateful that they were clearing the way for her, but panic surged inside her as the officers followed.

“Wait, ma’am! Stop now!” the man behind her shouted.

She wasn’t turning around. She wasn’t. She’d scream, she’d grab onto the other people in the line, she’d beg and plead and say that they had the wrong person, that she didn’t know anything about the suspected murderer Pierre Dubois and had never worked for him. Whatever it took to get away, she would do.

But as she tensed for the fight, the man shouldered past her and grabbed the two teenagers ahead of her.

The teen girls started shouting and struggling just as she’d planned to do. Another two plainclothes police converged, pushing the bystanders aside, grasping the girls’ arms while one of the uniformed police opened their bags.

To Cassie’s astonishment, she saw the cop take three cell phones and two wallets from the taller girl’s neon pink rucksack.

“Pickpockets. Check your purses, ladies and gentlemen. Please inform us if any of your possessions are missing,” the officer said.

Cassie grabbed her jacket, relieved to feel her phone safely stashed away in the inside pocket. Then she looked down at her purse and her heart plummeted as she saw the zip was open.

“My wallet’s missing,” she said. “Someone’s stolen it.”

Breathless with anxiety, she followed the police out of the line and around the corner to the small security office. The two pickpockets were already waiting there, both in tears, as the police unpacked their bags.

“Are any of these yours, ma’am?” the plainclothes officer asked, pointing to the phones and wallets placed on the counter.

“No, none of them.”

Cassie felt like bursting into tears herself. She watched as one of the officers upended the rucksack, hoping she would see her scuffed leather wallet fall out, but the bag was empty.

The officer shook his head, annoyed.

“They pass them down the line, get them out of sight very fast. You were in front of the thieves, so yours was probably taken a while ago.”

Cassie turned and stared at the thieves. She hoped that everything she felt and thought about them showed in her face. If the officer hadn’t been standing there, she would have sworn at them, asked them what right they had to ruin her life. They weren’t starving; she could see their new shoes and brand-name jackets. They must be doing this for cheap thrills, or to buy alcohol or drugs.

“Apologies, ma’am,” the police officer continued. “If you don’t mind waiting a few minutes, we’ll need you to make a statement.”

A statement. Cassie knew that wouldn’t work for her.

She didn’t want to be the focus of any police attention at all. She didn’t want to give them her address, or say who she was, or have her details noted down on any official report here in the UK.

“I’m just going to tell my sister that I’m here,” she lied to the officer.

“No problem.”

He turned away, speaking on his walkie-talkie, and Cassie hurried out of the office.

Her wallet was history, it was gone. There was no way she could get it back, even if she wrote a hundred police reports. So she decided to do the next best thing, which was to walk away from the London Eye, and never come back.

What a disaster this outing had been. She’d drawn a lot of cash that morning, and her bank cards were also gone. She couldn’t go into a bank to withdraw money because she had no ID with her—her passport was at the guesthouse and there was no time to fetch it, because she’d planned to go straight from the London Eye to join her friend Jess for lunch.

Half an hour later, feeling shaken by the crime, appalled by the amount of money she’d lost, and thoroughly annoyed with London, Cassie walked into the pub where they were meeting. She was ahead of the lunchtime rush, and asked the waitress to reserve a corner table for them while she went to the bathroom.

Staring at herself in the mirror, she smoothed down her wavy auburn hair and tried a cheerful smile. The expression felt unfamiliar. She was sure she’d lost weight since she and Jess had last met, and she thought critically that she looked too pale and too stressed—and this wasn’t only due to the trauma she’d been through earlier today.

Exiting the restroom, she was just in time to see Jess walk into the pub.

Jess was wearing the same jacket she’d had on when they’d first met more than a month ago, both on their way to au pair jobs in France. Seeing her brought the memories flooding back. Cassie remembered how she’d felt as she boarded the plane. Frightened, uncertain, and with serious misgivings about the family she’d been assigned to. These had proven to be well founded.

In contrast, Jess had been employed by a lovely, friendly family and Cassie thought she looked very happy.

“It’s good to see you,” Jess said, hugging Cassie hard. “What fun this is.”

“It’s so exciting. But I have a crisis on my hands,” Cassie confessed.

She explained about being pickpocketed earlier.

“No! That’s awful. What bad luck that they found other wallets, but not yours.”

“Could you loan me some money for lunch and bus fare to get back to my guesthouse? I can’t even withdraw cash at a bank without my passport. I’ll transfer it back to you as soon as I can get online.”