The Colonel's Daughter Is Gone novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Lobby

My husband walked into the lobby of the Holcomb office in Holborn at ten past nine, still in his dress greens.

Alana came in behind him with her phone up.

There were sixty people in that lobby.

Clients waited on the leather sofas, and a line of associates stood at the reception desk with their coffees.

Every head turned toward the uniform.

"Where is my daughter?" Rodney said, loudly, to the room.

The receptionist stood up very slowly.

"Sir, you'll need to wait while I call upstairs."

"I don't wait." He stepped past her desk. "Hattie! Come down here!"

Cedric came out of the lift first.

Hattie and I came out behind him.

I stopped ten feet from my husband and held a manila envelope in both hands.

"Hello, Rodney," I said.

His eyes went over me from head to foot.

I wore my navy cardigan and my own ring on my own hand, and I had slept three hours.

"Hattie," he said, ignoring me. "Get your bag. We're going home."

"No," Hattie said.

"I wasn't asking."

"I know," she said. "You never do."

He moved fast.

He crossed the floor and caught her by the arm above the elbow.

Cedric's hand closed on Rodney's wrist.

"Take your hand off her," he said.

"Who the hell are you?"

"The partner whose floor this is. And she's eighteen." Cedric did not raise his voice at all. "You have three seconds."

Rodney let go.

Hattie rubbed her arm and stepped around Cedric.

"Two days ago you told me I was no daughter of yours," she said, loud enough for the whole lobby. "Now you've flown across an ocean to collect me. Which is it, Dad?"

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