Page 81 of The SEAL's Duchess
The conference door opened a few inches.
Sinclair.
“Everything all right, gentlemen? Lambourne? We’re waiting.”
Ryder turned his head. “Keep waiting.”
Sinclair’s smile thinned to a dark line, his cufflinks glinting like a scalpel before the first cut. He looked directly at Lambourne. “As soon as you’re ready.”
The door clicked shut.
Lambourne’s exhalation shuddered through his whole frame.
Ryder flexed his hands at his sides and cut a look through the glass doors at Sinclair taking his seat, pulling at his collar. “That man fed you falsified data. Henderson proved it. The rig’s a structural nightmare—methane pockets under the foundation, it’s unstable as hell.”
Lambourne stumbled backward, palms hitting the wall. His face drained of color. “What?”
“Jack Barnes gave Ivy the data. The real data.” Ryder sucked in a breath. “Maybe someone wanted her out of the way for asking the wrong questions. And now she’s not answering her phone, and she’s not in her room. You know where she is?”
Lambourne’s hand stilled. “God. She tried to warn me, but I brushed her off. If something’s happened to her because I didn’t listen?—”
Ryder’s phone buzzed. Not a call. A text.
From Ivy.
His stomach lurched.
Going to talk to Jack at the rig. Supply boat leaves at two. I’ll be back before dinner.
He checked his watch. Two thirty.
The boat’s already gone.
“Ryder?” Lambourne’s voice was faint. “What is it?”
He turned the screen so Lambourne could see. “She went to the rig. To the Vega.”
He hit dial anyway, praying to hear her voice, to hear anything.
“Hi. This is Ivy. I can’t come?—”
Shit.He killed the call.
Lambourne paced the corridor, panic bleeding through his accent. “Why would she?—"
“Because she was trying to save you.” Ryder was already pulling up the Northern Marine Services site on his phone. “She went to get proof from Jack. She thought it was safe.”
“Is it?” Lambourne halted, voice small.
Ryder scanned the schedule. Supply boat out at two p.m., expected back by six p.m. Four-hour run, if the weather held.
He glanced out of the window. He didn’t like how fast the clouds were rolling in over the bay.
“I don’t know.” He pocketed his phone. “But I’m going to be there when that boat comes back.”
“I’m coming with you.” Lambourne straightened.
Whatever else George Lambourne was, he wasn’t a coward. And he loved his sister.
