The Lost Prince Read online

  “Shouldn’t we call the cops?” Seth asked.

  “Not right away. Dumont’s the only piece of this puzzle I have. Look around.”

  Cat and Lelani returned.

  “Sorry,” Cat said. “The smell was … too much.”

  Cal shot his wife a concerned look that asked if it was morning sickness. She hunched her shoulders to indicate who knows? Cat’s pregnancy test had been ruined the night Dorn’s henchmen attacked their Bronx home. Cat strongly suspected she was pregnant.

  The house seemed quite normal except for the dead body. It was clean and painted in warm yellows and mint greens, with hardwood floors, antique cherrywood furniture, lots of knickknacks from Crate & Barrel, Pier 1 Imports, and a healthy supply of lace doilies beneath table lamps and other tchotchkes. Cal looked in the drawers of an old-style secretary desk, but there was nothing of note in there. No one had rummaged through Dumont’s belongings.

  “They must have gotten what they needed from him before they killed him,” he said.

  “My lord,” Lelani said, beckoning him.

  The group converged on Lelani’s position in the pantry. She stood before a locked metal door.

  “All the other doors in the house are wood with brass or crystal fixtures,” Lelani said. “This one is steel with a lock normally reserved for front doors.”

  “Probably keeps his coin collection down there,” Seth pointed out.

  “Can you open it?” asked Cat.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to blow it apart with a whammy? Or kick it down with your horsey strength?” Seth asked.

  Lelani pulled a bronze key out of her bag and blew hot breath on it. She stuck it in the lock and rubbed the bow for a few seconds with her thumb before turning the key. The door clicked open. She removed the key, which looked different than it did when she put it in. She held it directly in front of Seth’s nose so that he practically went cross-eyed to see it.

  “Subtlety is the hallmark of all good magic,” she said. “And I am not a horse.”

  It was a finished basement, strangely nonmusty, and as comfortably decorated as the house above. Behind a large antique desk was a bookcase built into the wall lined with books on antiquities, mostly coinage and stamps. A large dehumidifier sat silently in the middle of the room. The other walls were wood paneled. There were several lit display cases of the type one found in museums, full of old and rare coins from around the world. One display sat atop a series of long flat steel drawers, the type a jewelry merchant might put his wares into after closing up shop. Cal tried the first drawer, but it was sealed. Lelani used her key to unlock the flats and pulled open the top drawer. On black velvet liners lay ten Phoenix Standards laid out in a row.

  Seth whistled. “That’s a few thousand dollars if those are real,” he said. He picked one up and turned the half-dollar-sized gold coin around. The profile of a man with a long face, hawkish nose, short curly hair, and large ears adorned the other side. “Whose face is this?”

  “That’s Archduke Athelstan, Danel’s father,” Lelani said.

  “Who’s Danel?” Cat asked.

  “Prince Danel the third, future archduke of Aandor, prince of the realm, regent to the future king,” Cal said. He took the coin from Seth and became lost in its brilliance. “If we succeed, it’ll be his face on all newly minted coins one day.”

  Cal pulled open the next drawer down. He froze. What lay in there was a miracle; he never thought to see it again. Disbelieving his eyes, he took the sword by the hilt and lifted it out of the drawer. His mind raced with long-ago memories—the sound of his grandfather pulling the sword out of its scabbard when he taught him to duel. The smell of whale oil on the steel as the old man taught Cal how to clean the blade. The tales of how his grandfather did the same for him, and that one day it would be Cal’s to wield. What little light the basement had magnified off the blade, tiny flares erupting like small suns on its edge.

  “Whoa,” Seth said.

  The blade part was three feet long and gleamed like polished silver. Ancient runes were etched into the steel. It had a double fuller. The hilt was brushed bronze with brown bull leather suede wrapping on the grip. The cross guards and rain guard were ornately engraved with a vine motif, and the grooves were stamped in gold leaf, which reflected brightly against the bronze.

  “It’s Bòid Géard,” Cal said. “It’s my sword.”

  “You named your sword?” Cat said incredulously.

  Cal motioned in the air before him, slicing, thrusting. The air whipped around the blade. The weapon was part of him—an extension of his arm and his will. It was an instrument of his duty. It was his family … it was Aandor.

  “Swords are handed down from generation to generation,” Cal said. “My grandfather gave me this blade. His grandfather gave it to him.”

  “You’re not giving Bree a fucking sword,” Cat said. Then she added, “My lord.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous…,” Cal said.

  “Right,” Cat agreed.

  “Girls don’t inherit swords,” he added. “If we have a son, we’d bestow Bòid Géard on him after my father relinquished his sword, Sìth Géard, to me. That’s the symbolic sword of the MacDonnell clan. It’s finer than even this one; made of Murano steel. Slightly lighter than this with a single deep fuller, but perfectly balanced and slightly more ornate.”

  Cal’s delivery may have been more serious than he intended, based on his wife’s reaction. Cat’s jaw hung in disbelief, but he wasn’t sure if it was because a child of hers would inherit a weapon, or because Bree would be excluded from a birthright due to gender-biased traditions.

  He winked at her and smiled. Cat was ready to sock him.

  “Porn stars name their swords, too,” Seth said. “The guys, that is.”

  Cat looked ready to transfer that punch to the photographer.

  “Aren’t we men silly?” Seth added quickly.

  “Shut up,” Lelani told him.

  The sword still retained the nicks of every battle Cal had ever fought. But Dumont had treated it well—oiling and polishing the steel to a luster Cal only remembered seeing at ceremonial occasions. He looked around for the scabbard and spotted it hung from its straps in a dark corner. Dumont hadn’t stored it, thinking it was a less valuable thing. Most who did not know weapons did not appreciate the artistry in a great scabbard. The wood is shaped and sanded, the leather stretched just right. For a sword like Bòid Géard, it would be a custom-made fit. He took the scabbard from the wall and looked it over, thinking for sure that it couldn’t still have … ah, but there it was—the tiny leather pouch was still looped on the belt. Cal looked over his shoulder. Cat was occupied with other items in the collection. He unclasped the pouch and stuck his finger in. It was still there … the silk and lace of Chryslantha’s garter, and the strands of her hair she tied to it; his good luck charm. Until this moment, Aandor remained a distant dream, but now, laying fingers on his betrothed’s hair, more than just recollections flooded back. Now he remembered the scents of leather, hemp, steel; the taste of the food; the feel of the clothing; the sounds of knights on horseback and the smell of their mounts—the scent of bedsheets after he and Chryslantha had made love. Real … all real.

  “Find anything?” Cat asked.

  His wife’s voice pulled Cal back to reality. He pushed the fetish back into its pouch and said, “My scabbard.” He sheathed his sword and threw it over his shoulders, buckling the belt across his chest. The weight was negligible, more like something returned that had been missing from his life.

  “There’s a light blinking on Dumont’s message machine,” Cat said.

  The desk was the real working center of Dumont’s operation. Dumont used an old-fashioned telephone message machine. A light blinked, indicating two messages. Cal pressed play. A woman’s voice said, “Jimmy, why aren’t you answering your cell? Call me as soon as you get this. It’s important.” Beep.

  Cal suspected there were a bunch of messa
ges on the cell phone in Dumont’s pocket, too.

  “Is it me, or did that voice sound familiar?” Cat said.

  Beep. “Jimmy, it’s Glory. Where the heck are you? More people came in today asking about you-know-what from you-know-when. Why are people dredging up the past all of a sudden? This is a nightmare. Call me!”

  Cat studied the photos of friends and family on the wall and pointed one out to Cal. He took it down and they looked at it closely. Cat pointed to a woman in the front row. A thinner, younger, but very familiar uncooperative county clerk appeared in the picture. Cal pulled the photo from the frame and read the back. Me with Gloria’s family—Manning family reunion, Millerton Rec Park, ’96.

  CHAPTER 8

  COMING OF AGE

  Daniel sat up in bed finishing his rendering of Luanne. It was the best of all his drawings. He was quite pleased, and yet had a foreboding that nothing good could come of it. The intellectual part of his brain said to put a match to the whole sketch pad, but the tiny little corner that still yearned to impress Luanne overruled it. It would be rude to the subject to destroy the work after she volunteered her time to pose for him. A willing model was easier to work with, he convinced himself. His brain was most definitely not a democracy—a tiny selfish minority overruled common sense. He enjoyed looking at her. She was—bouncy. No degree of equivocation would erase that fact from his consciousness.

  Daniel and Colby were there on Beverly’s good graces. Bev was a gracious host and shared what little she had openly with them. Luanne had even given up her bedroom and slept in her mother’s king-sized bed. The trailer park was a safe place to hide until the authorities found other crimes to distract them. Daniel’s good behavior was paramount to continuing this arrangement. Breathing space was vital to coming up with a long-term plan of action; it was worth more than some short-term titillation. Talk about timing—meeting Colby at the bus station in Baltimore was a brilliant stroke of luck for Daniel—he had no history with the boonies of North Carolina, no ties to this community that the cops could trace back. There was no reason to look for him here, and the trailer park inhabitants were too distracted with subsistence living to poke their nose into his business. No one there suspected the sweet, well-groomed, articulate thirteen-year-old was wanted for murder.

  When Luanne turned off the shower, the beleaguered pipes reverberated through the trailer adjusting to new pressure. The bathroom was across the tiny hallway opposite his door. She’d need to use the hallway to get to her mom’s room at the end of the trailer. He convinced himself to stay put—no midnight trips for water, snacks, or to walk the dog they didn’t own. Her footsteps padded into her mother’s room. He imagined her wet, wrapped in a towel; an alien force had taken control of his mind; he couldn’t stop thinking about her with that overly stimulated brain of his.

  Why did she suddenly take an interest in me after ignoring me the first day? Luanne was selfish and self-indulgent—not the type to seek out friends unless it improved her status. There was nothing in it for her to make nice with Daniel. Was she really that impressed by the drawings? It nagged at Daniel, but his little brain, aided by his ego, bullied the big brain into acceptance.

  Daniel put away his sketch pad and turned off the light. His head hit the pillow but sleep eluded him—he was too revved up. The whole room reminded him of Luanne. It smelled like her. He grabbed a wad of Kleenex from the nightstand and reached down beneath the covers—the teenaged boy’s Ambien since before recorded history. He tried to think of Katie Millar, except somehow, she kept morphing into Luanne. So much for loyalty, he thought. He succumbed to his mind’s insistence for Luanne and finished off quickly. With his vitality dispelled, Daniel drifted toward slumber. This can’t go on, he thought as his mind settled down. The morning would bring a clean slate. Luanne will have lost interest by then—girls like that always did.

  Daniel awoke to a sharp chill nipping at his nose, cheeks, and shoulders. The clock said only forty minutes had passed since he dozed off. The room had dropped in temperature and he could see his breath. He pulled the thin timeworn sheets up to his nose and folded into the fetal position to preserve body heat. There was a knock at his door—Daniel realized another knock had preceded this one while he slept, and it was why he’d awakened. The door creaked open.

  “Danny?” Luanne whispered. Her breath misted against the weak light in the hallway. Daniel couldn’t understand the point of her whispering. They were the only ones in the house, and she clearly intended to wake him. Wouldn’t normal volume make more sense? Luanne tiptoed into the room wrapped under a large comforter. Upon reaching the bed, she took it off and threw it over his blankets—in that second he glimpsed an extra-large Brooks & Dunn T-shirt that draped over her like a short dress before she crawled underneath the combined covers, pushing him to the far edge of the mattress.

  “What the heck are you doing?” he asked. Panic, confusion, and even a bit of elation vied for control.

  “Mama forgot to pay the propane man,” Luanne said. “She’s a scatterbrain. Scoot over.”

  “Scoot? It’s a twin mattress.”

  “Move over!” she insisted. “It’s thirty degrees. We’ll be warmer this way. Mama and I do it all the time.”

  Daniel straightened out from his fetal position to make room. “Do I look like your mother?” he asked.

  “Ain’t you ever been campin’?”

  “What if Beverly comes home?”

  Luanne giggled. “No room for her here.” She lay on her side facing the door, and away from him.

  “Seriously,” he said.

  The thought of Beverly catching her little girl in bed with him gave Daniel stomach knots. That’s how Luanne gets rid of me, Daniel thought. Mom comes back in the morning, it freaks her out, Luanne gets her bed back. Now it made sense. He had no car, Colby was gone, and they were in the middle of nowhere. He’d be lucky to get the kitchen floor.

  “She’ll thank you for not lettin’ me freeze to death because she was too scatterbrained to pay the propane,” Luanne said, as though reading his thoughts.

  Daniel doubted it, but it really was cold. The windows had crap insulation—no better than being in a school bus with furniture.

  She took a healthy helping of mattress, forcing him to the far edge. He turned on his side facing the window and away from her and instinctively bent into a fetal pose, which turned them into two butting bookends and made less room in the bed.

  “Turn—the—other—way,” she said, like scolding a puppy that just didn’t get it. Daniel flipped over so that they were facing the same direction. She squeezed against him to spoon.

  “We could have spooned the other way, too,” Daniel pointed out.

  “Then I’d be on the outside,” she said. “The girl goes on the inside. Don’t you know nothin’, Danny Hauer?” It was also the warmer position. Daniel swore he could sense her smiling, even with no view of her face. As he tried to settle in, Daniel didn’t know what to do with his arms; one was bent and pressed between him and her back—the other kept wanting to go back or forward from his side, but neither was comfortable. He held his arm in the air until it started to ache, trying to decide.

  “What are you doin’?” she asked impatiently.

  “Can’t figure out—uh, my arms…”

  “Put it around me, dummy. Least you can do for kickin’ me out of my bed is keep me warm. Jeez Louise, ain’t you ever bunked with a cousin when you was little? Gone campin’?”

  Daniel was fairly certain cousins north of the Mason–Dixon over the age of ten would get smacked for bunking like this.

  She pulled his lower arm through the space under her neck. Then guided his upper arm over the curve of her waist. His hand settled naturally on her stomach. When she was entirely in his embrace, she closed the space between them tight. This seal would impress NASA, he thought.

  Daniel was acutely aware that but for the T-shirt, she was essentially naked. The hem had ridden up with her fidgeting and her bar
e bottom was now pressed against his crotch, separated only by the slender margin of his Fruit of the Looms. Things stirred below.

  Luanne wrapped her ice-cold feet around Daniel’s shins. The shock spazzed him out, and he thrust against her tighter.

  “Sorry,” she said, giggling. “That feels sooooo good, though. You’re hot as a teapot.”

  Her hair was still damp from the shower and smelled of strawberries. She smelled clean and fruity overall—he wanted to take a bite out of …

  Stop that! he thought to himself. Daniel was in deep. Perhaps Luanne does this with all her friends—and more power to them—but his loins, despite his conscious wishes, approached DEFCON 1 in a subversive act of rebellion. She’s going to tell her mom and Colby I’m a perv, he thought, panicking.

  He lay as still as he could, hoping she’d fall asleep, and more importantly, to keep a bad situation from escalating. But her scent and her heat overrode his effort to calm down. He couldn’t get the image of her posing naked out of his mind—he tried everything—imagining the Orioles’ starting lineup; intricate stacking designs for cereal boxes; and in an act of utter desperation, he even tried to imagine old people, like William Shatner and Joan Rivers, completely naked … but nothing worked—her clean scent corrupted his resistance. His heart pounded like he’d just run a sprint.

  Luanne absorbed Daniel’s body heat like a thirsty succubus. It was getting hot under the covers. She hadn’t moved for a while; he prayed that she’d fallen asleep. Daniel wouldn’t get any sleep tonight—there was no way for him to take care of business a second time.

  Luanne gyrated her butt against Daniel. “Well at least you ain’t a gay,” she mumbled into her pillow.

  “Sorry,” he said. Beverly was going to KILL him.

  He waited for the eviction. And waited … they lay, unmoving.

  “That thing ain’t goin’ anywhere, is it?” Luanne said.

  “Uh…”