The House That Jack Built by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

Jenna Caddrick couldn’t believe she’d agreed to this. Couldn’t believe she’d just stepped through the Britannia Gate to confront her father in front of half the world’s television cameras. Camera flashes and television crews lit up the whole departures lounge, illuminating a sea of spectators beyond the velvet-rope barricades. A sniper could be lurking anywhere in that vast, heaving mob. Noah Armstrong, silent at her side, descended the stairs with eyes narrowed, intent on the business of keeping them alive long enough to testify. She rubbed her chin nervously, wishing Paula Booker had left her muttonchop whiskers in place. But Noah had inisted the surgeon remove the implanted disguise and restore Jenna’s face to her own appearance, for the benefit of the cameras. Jenna felt naked, defenseless.

Below them, Malcolm Moore’s gurney had nearly reached the Commons floor, followed closely by Sid Kaederman’s—or rather, Gideon Guthrie’s. The man who’d trailed her from Colorado to London, bent on murder, was unconscious, his burnt hands cradled in special harnesses above his chest. Margo Smith walked beside her fiancé’s gurney, holding his hand as they carried him down to the station’s medical crews. Jenna’s throat closed at the thought of what these people had risked for her sake. Malcolm had nearly been killed and Skeeter Jackson had undergone plastic surgery, rearranging his whole face. Skeeter had been shot outside the Carlton Club, as well, saved only by his Kevlar vest, and had almost been killed at the bell foundry . . .