Royal Heist

by Rachelle Mccalla

  “I went to the cathedral.”

  “Mom made dinner.”

  Galen’s stomach growled at the reminder. He hadn’t had anything since breakfast. “I got caught up with work.”

  “I was wondering about that.” Adrian wasted no time before asking questions. “What’s up with the guard? It’s all over the news that Princess Isabelle’s jewelry got stolen or something.”

  “Not the jewels themselves.” Galen didn’t even know where those were being kept, but he was nearly certain he’d have heard if they were missing. “Just the designs.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be guarding those things? I thought you said the royal guard was going to be better than ever, now that the insurgents were rooted out.”

  Galen rubbed his face and tried to think. He’d never measured up to his brothers. The royal guard, in his brothers’ eyes, would never be as good as the army. Someday, he’d show them he was every bit as strong and capable as they were, that he’d made the right choice when he’d joined the royal guard instead of staying in the military like the rest of the men in his family. “Princess Isabelle authorized the Tate Jewelry reproductions.” Galen stated the facts. “They were bound to be knocked off eventually.”

  “Before the wedding?”

  Galen needed to get off the phone. The interrogation would be starting any minute, if it hadn’t already, and by the way Ruby hovered patiently, he guessed she wanted to speak with him first. “I’ve got work to do. Tell Mom I’m sorry I missed lunch.” Galen ended the call before his brother could continue pressing for answers.

  Ruby beamed up at him as he put his phone away and stepped toward her.

  “Have they started questioning Luciano yet?” she asked.

  “They’re about to.”

  “I want to question him, too.”

  “I’m sorry, you can’t.” Galen sincerely wished he could tell her otherwise. “Captain Selini won’t even let me talk to him.”

  Her face fell. “But I’m the one who—”

  “You can watch with me.” Galen could guess what her arguments would be, but he didn’t have the authority to give in, no matter how valid he thought her request was. He took her hand and pulled her toward the door and forced his voice to stay level as she gave his hand a squeeze. “That’s the best I can do. We’d better hurry.” Given what he’d learned of Luciano so far, Galen knew he didn’t want to miss a single word of what the man would say.

  TEN

  “Please state your name.”

  “Rocco Salvatore.”

  “Rocco,” Ruby mouthed to Galen, surprised she’d never heard him use the name before.

  Captain Selini must have been equally surprised. “Do you have an alias?”

  “I have two middle names. Sometimes I use those instead of my first name.”

  “Please state your full name.”

  “Rocco Federico Luciano Salvatore.”

  Ruby settled into her seat as the captain continued with his questions, taking painfully long to extract any information from the suspect who sat opposite him. From their vantage point in a darkened adjoining room, she and Galen could only see the captain’s back, but Adam and Ethan stood on either side of the suspect, whose scarred face, apart from the occasional smirk, was mostly impassive.

  “Do you think he’s angry?” She whispered her question close to Galen’s ear as Salvatore explained in a flat tone that he’d been in Lydia for over a week.

  “The captain or the suspect?” Galen whispered back. “I think they’re both angry.”

  Ruby nodded, processing Galen’s observation even as Selini quizzed Salvatore. The suspect claimed he’d been at the cathedral for the worship service, the same as everyone else. When asked why he’d headed toward Stasi’s studio, he said he had unfinished business there.

  Ruby raised an eyebrow at Galen, who returned the look. She held his gaze perhaps a second too long, feeling a kinship stronger than friendship, wishing she’d had time to apologize to him properly.

  There wasn’t time now. When Selini asked Salvatore the purpose of his visit to the kingdom, Ruby leaned forward, eager to hear his answer.

  “I’m a bounty hunter tracking jewel thieves.”

  Ruby nearly fell out of her chair.

  As Ruby sat listening in shocked silence, the captain slowly and methodically extracted the details from the suspect. Salvatore claimed he’d taken the position as a security guard at her school as cover while he was working on a different case, tracking a wanted jewel thief whose identity had been unknown. Once he’d gathered enough evidence for the police to arrest the thief, Salvatore collected his reward and stayed undercover to pursue another lead against an even bigger ring of thieves, the notorious Bulldog Bandits.

  The Bulldog Bandits, Salvatore explained, operated in darkness, breaking into museums, private collectors’ homes, and jewelry stores during the night, disabling all alarms and getting away with millions of dollars’ worth of jewels before anyone ever detected the thieves were there. The only clue they’d left behind, save for their perfect stealth and penchant for antique pieces with historical value, were a few stray bulldog hairs—hence their nickname.

  Ruby listened over her pounding pulse. Her first thought when Salvatore claimed to be a bounty hunter was to assume he was lying. But as he continued with his story, she wasn’t so sure. She’d heard of the exploits of the Bulldog Bandits—their operation was a genuine concern for the jewelry industry, especially since pieces they’d stolen occasionally surfaced after changing hands several times on the black market. They weren’t just getting away with stealing, but with successfully reselling their goods.

  And Salvatore’s story fit with Professor Nickel’s disappearance. Had Nickel been the jewel thief Salvatore claimed to have been initially trailing?

  It was possible.

  But Carlton had said that Salvatore was interested in the Lydian jewels. Was Luciano Salvatore the real Bulldog Bandit? All his talk about tracking criminals could easily be a cover story. He claimed he’d gone past the studio after the morning worship service to see if the bandits had returned, that he’d been there the night before trailing them and hoped they’d come back to finish their interrupted work.

  Was he telling the truth? Even his reason for working at her alma mater was inconclusive. Maybe Nickel had been on to him, and that’s why the professor had disappeared.

  Questions spinning through her thoughts, Ruby had to make a conscious effort to pay attention as the captain continued his questions, focusing now on Salvatore’s activities on the two evenings when Ruby had been targeted. At first, the suspect seemed to be caught off guard by the question, and Selini had to clarify the exact time before Luciano stated that he’d been exercising at the local gym every evening during those times.

  When the captain asked for proof, Salvatore insisted that he’d signed in and out each evening, and that the gym had security cameras that would likely contain footage of his activity inside the building.

  “He certainly looks like he exercises,” Ruby whispered.

  “Harris, contact the front desk at the gym.” Captain Selini’s voice buzzed through the intercom. “I want scans of Rocco Salvatore’s signature with the times he signed in and out, as well as any security footage they can find of him that proves he stayed at the gym between signatures.”

  Ruby stayed to listen to the rest of the interrogation while Galen left to track down the requested information. In his absence she felt acutely alone. Faint but familiar, his lingering scent reminded her of the hours they’d spent on an island two summers before, lying on the white sand beach, watching falling stars streak across the sky. It was one of her favorite memories, perhaps the most precious event of her whole life. Galen had shared bits of a sermon he’d heard about God creating the stars, and how it had meant God
loved each person.

  Ruby couldn’t remember the specifics, but she’d never forget how very loved she’d felt at that moment. Loved by God, as she’d never felt before.

  The memory stirred inside her, along with regret that her apology earlier had been interrupted before she’d had time to explain herself. She needed to talk to Galen. If anything, her attempt at an apology had only made things worse.

  She promised herself she’d find time to finish the conversation, but, for now, she needed to focus as the captain continued with the interrogation.

  Rocco kept his responses guarded. As far as Ruby could tell, the man wasn’t about to admit to the slightest infraction, nor would he tell them anything about the identity of the Bulldog Bandits.

  “I’ve put almost two years into gathering evidence against these guys. All I need is to keep an eye on them until they return to American soil so I can turn them over to the authorities and collect the three million dollar reward. I don’t have to tell you anything. In fact—” Rocco Salvatore leaned back in his chair and stretched his massive arms outward in a yawn “—I don’t think you have any grounds for keeping me here.”

  “We need to see if your alibi checks out.” Captain Selini turned to Galen, who’d stepped into the room.

  “His alibi checks out.”

  “What about the witness?”

  “The witness?”

  “The victim? Can she pick him out of a lineup?”

  “I’ll ask her.”

  Galen was at her door an instant later.

  Ruby was ready with her answer. “He was wearing a mask.” After hearing the man’s explanation for his activities, Ruby didn’t know what to think. Had Rocco Salvatore attacked her three nights before? She couldn’t be sure. And if she wasn’t sure, she wasn’t about to claim otherwise. Not if it meant imprisoning the wrong man.

  Captain Selini entered the tiny room behind Galen. “Tell me that’s him.”

  “I can’t.”

  “If you can’t tell me that’s him, we have to let him go. If we let him go, he could come after you again.”

  “But what if he’s innocent?”

  The captain turned to Galen. “How much of the interrogation did she hear?”

  “All of it.”

  Selini threw his hands into the air as though he might punch something, but instead of striking out, his hands sagged to his hair, sweeping it backward as Ruby had seen him do before. “So you let our smooth-talking suspect convince the witness that he didn’t do it?”

  Ruby realized instantly why the captain was so upset. If she hadn’t heard Rocco’s explanation, would she have picked him out of a lineup?

  Maybe.

  And since Galen had let her in to hear Rocco, the captain would blame Galen for letting the suspect go free. She couldn’t let Galen get in trouble. She tried to think of some way out. “Let me smell him.”

  “What?” Galen and the captain asked together.

  “The man who attacked me smelled of cigarette smoke.”

  “Inconclusive. What if he walked through a cloud of smoke before he grabbed you that night, but he didn’t today?” Selini argued.

  “He smelled like a smoker. There’s a difference. It was coming out his pores. Just let me smell him.”

  “I can’t let the suspect see you,” the captain protested.

  “What difference does it make? If he’s guilty, he already knows who I am. If he’s innocent, I have nothing to fear.” Ruby thought her reasoning sounded convincing enough.

  But Selini shook his head. “There is no legal precedent—”

  “Then let him go,” Ruby spoke with far more confidence than she felt.

  Reluctantly, Selini led her into the next room.

  Salvatore sat up straight when he saw Ruby, clearly recognizing her.

  She nodded a tacit greeting and approached him cautiously, praying silently that she’d be able to detect enough of a scent to know for sure whether he was the same man. “I’m just going to smell you,” she explained as she bent close to his shoulder.

  The suspect looked at her warily, but he didn’t protest.

  Ruby sniffed.

  To her surprise, the man didn’t smell sweaty, nor did he reek of old smoke or cheap aftershave. In fact, he didn’t smell unpleasant at all. “It’s faint,” she sniffed again. “Is that lavender?”

  Rocco’s scarred face twisted into a thoughtful expression, then he brightened. “Lavender dryer sheets. I buy the same ones my mom always bought.”

  Ruby nodded, understanding completely. She still used the same detergents she’d been raised on. It reminded her of home even when she was far away. “It’s not him,” she announced as she straightened, feeling relieved to be able to say so with assurance.

  Captain Selini didn’t look at all relieved, but acknowledged, “You’re free to go.”

  * * *

  “This way.” Galen led Rocco to the exit door. He wanted to ask the man a few questions of his own—questions he hadn’t known to put on the list until after he’d heard Rocco’s story. “These bandits you’re after—what are they doing in Lydia?”

  “Plotting to steal the crown jewels.”

  Galen might have been surprised if he hadn’t feared as much already. “When?”

  “As soon as they can, I suppose.”

  “Are you going to try to stop them?” Galen opened the door that led from the royal guard headquarters to the palace grounds. As Rocco stepped through, Ruby came up behind them, following them outside.

  Rocco shook his head. “I don’t have any sort of jurisdiction in this country. I didn’t have the evidence I needed before these guys left the States. Now I’ve got what I need, but I can’t catch them until they’re back on American soil.”

  “Why not?”

  Rocco paused as though weighing whether he should take the time to explain. He looked back at Ruby and something in the man’s tough exterior softened. “In most U.S. states, a bounty hunter can bring in a wanted fugitive. The law allows for that. In any other country, if I capture someone, I’d be charged with kidnapping, assault—you name it.”

  Galen grinned. He’d suspected Rocco’s plan was something like that, and was glad to have his suspicions confirmed. “If your bandits commit a crime on royal property, or a crime against the crown, the royal guards can arrest them. If you’re willing to work with us to keep the crown jewels safe, we’ll extradite your bandits to the U.S. and you can claim your reward.”

  They’d reached the pedestrian gate, which was operated by electronic lock, the controls inside the guardhouse. Rocco Salvatore looked at the gate expectantly.

  Galen tried again. “Can you at least tell us the names of the Bulldog Bandits?”

  Rocco looked offended, even angry. “I’ve worked two years on this case. It’s my work, my reward. I don’t owe you any favors. You still have the guns you took from me.”

  The man had been carrying the weapons legally, so Galen had no grounds for holding them any longer. Galen pulled the weapons from the back of his waistband, where he’d tucked them out of sight under the lightweight blazer he’d worn to worship that morning. He nodded to the guard in the gatehouse to unlock the gate.

  Rocco stepped through.

  “Stay inside,” Galen told Ruby softly as he stepped out after the man. Once the gate had shut securely behind him, he handed Rocco his weapons, along with a business card that carried his personal cell phone number and that of the main royal guard switchboard. “Think about my offer.”

  To his relief, Rocco nodded. “I will.” He checked his weapons, tucked them back into their holsters, and walked away.

  Back inside, Galen looked at Ruby in silence, his thoughts still processing all that Rocco had said. Was the man telling the truth? Would he be willi
ng to work with them?

  Ruby must have been pondering similar questions. “Give him time,” she said softly.

  Galen raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “He’s upset right now about being interrogated,” she explained. “Once he has time to think about your offer, he’ll come around, even if it’s just for the sake of getting his reward money sooner.”

  “I hope so.” Galen hesitated to voice the rest of his thoughts.

  “You’re worried that we let the wrong guy go free?” Ruby guessed as they made their way slowly back toward the guardhouse.

  “We know the man who attacked you had accomplices. We just don’t know who or how many.”

  “You think Rocco could be one of the Bulldog Bandits, even though he doesn’t smell like a smoker?”

  Galen tried to process aloud the jumbled thoughts that didn’t make sense. “Your friend Carlton told you that Luciano—aka Rocco Salvatore—was after the Lydian royal jewels. We’ve seen him hanging around Princess Stasi’s studio, and now Princess Isabelle’s wedding jewelry designs have been scooped.”

  Ruby stopped in her tracks before they reached the guard building. “The Bulldog Bandits don’t care about wedding jewelry designs. They don’t do reproductions.” She crossed her arms over her chest and met his eyes as she wrestled visibly with the conflicting information. “The Bulldog Bandits have pulled off at least fifteen jewelry heists in the past six years, and every single one of those jobs was made up entirely of jewelry at least a hundred years old, some of it centuries old.”

  “Maybe they’re branching out?”

  “They’ve left behind modern pieces that were in the same case with the jewels they stole. I’ve read about these guys and the theories of their modus operandi. They clearly cater to a specific clientele and they’re not going to risk getting tracked down by lifting jewelry that’s not already spoken for.”

  “Clientele.” Galen latched on to the word.

  “Collectors—wealthy and unscrupulous, probably drug dealers, pirates or despots—people who’ve made their money by breaking the law and prefer to spend their money buying things that flaunt their ability to break the law.” Ruby made a sour face. “Honest people don’t go out of their way to buy stolen property.”