Royal Mate

by Juniper Hart

  Someone is definitely watching her, but who?

  Cameron intended to discover the identity of the creeper. He simply did not want to give Gabriella cause for alarm while he investigated it.

  If she has a gun and doesn’t know how to use it, she could get hurt.

  He had no way of knowing if she was a trained shot or not. It was not as if he could simply ask her, after all. If she suspected that he had been following her, that would create an entire new wave of problems he did not have time for. He had already gotten himself in much too deep.

  “Tell us again what happened,” Brewer asked gently, eyeing the sheriff. Cameron looked away. Crime scene investigators were crawling through the scene as well as every available man on the force. Homicides did not happen in Great Falls. They were not equipped to deal with such a bloody event.

  Cameron grew annoyed. If we are forced to call in the Montana Department of Justice, shit is going to hit the fan. There will be too many unanswered questions. Investigations going back years will be reopened, ones we swept under the rug before we grew more cautious.

  “I told you!” Gabriella sobbed. “I was sleeping on the sofa and this man just appeared in the living room. He called me a whore and shot at me. I managed to duck out of the way…”

  She trailed off and looked pleadingly at Cameron, but he avoided the eye contact.

  I cannot give her any indication that I know what happened here. In fact, I must do the exact opposite. I can’t give anyone reason to suspect anything.

  “How did this happen to him?” the sheriff asked flatly, pointing at the stranger’s mangled corpse. Gabriella, however, had no answer for him, and he knew it. He could read the expression on her face. If she dared say what had truly occurred, everyone would look at her as if she were insane. So she kept her mouth shut and hoped someone else would offer a plausible explanation.

  “Did you stab him?” Cameron insisted, gesturing wildly around. “He’s in shreds!”

  “There was an animal in here,” she whispered meekly. “A wolf or… something.”

  The officers tittered slightly, covering their mouths at the farfetched idea that a wolf had wandered in on an attempted murder.

  “A wolf, huh?” Brewer said thoughtfully, glancing at his boss. Cameron scowled, unwilling to take the bait. Jasper had no reason to assume he was responsible for what had happened. It could have been any member of the pack.

  “Your story is hard to believe,” the sheriff told Gabriella monotonously. “Do you know the deceased?”

  “No!” Gabriella insisted. “But I think he’s the same guy that was in my yard this morning… I mean yesterday morning.”

  It was almost three o’clock in the morning at this point. Nothing good ever happens after midnight, Cam thought grimly.

  “Let’s get you down to the station for a proper statement,” Jasper Brewer sighed, pulling on her slender arm.

  “No!” Cameron heard the word before he could stop himself. The others turned to stare at him quizzically. “I mean. I’ll take her.”

  He did not want to miss one word coming from her lips. In his mind, he was thinking about how he could cover up the events that had transpired, but as the minutes ticked by, he knew that he had overstepped this time.

  Someone will expect me to be on the phone with the Department of Justice as soon as I get back to the station. This case is too bizarre to be handled by such a small police force.

  Cameron could not allow that to happen.

  “Let’s go,” he told Gabriella gruffly, taking her from beneath Brewer’s suspicious gaze. He ignored Jasper and hustled Gabriella from the house, aware that she trembled beneath his touch. “Don’t say a word until we get back to the station,” he warned her as he placed her in the back of the squad car.

  “Why am I riding in the back?” she demanded as the door closed. “I did nothing wrong!”

  “What did I just say?” Cameron snapped, slipping into the driver’s side. He adjusted the rear-view mirror so he could see her better, then started the car and drove towards the station.

  “Am I a suspect?” she cried out. “I swear I didn’t do anything to that guy! He was trying to kill me!”

  “Did you not hear me? Stop talking!” Cameron roared, furiously turning to face her. He narrowly missed hitting an oncoming vehicle.

  Gabriella seemed to get the point and sat back, her face pale. “It doesn’t matter what I say,” she muttered. “No one will believe me, anyway.”

  The sheriff did not respond, keeping his eyes on the road, but he could not help but look at her from time to time, studying the perfect bone structure of her face.

  Someone wants her dead, he thought. Someone almost succeeded in killing her. If I had not bothered to stick around and follow her, it would be her body we would be processing right now. Who was that man, and where did he come from?

  “Who would want to harm you?” he asked aloud. Gabriella folded her arms beneath her small but firm breasts and stared stonily out the window.

  “Oh, what? Suddenly you’ve forgotten how to shoot your mouth off?” he asked with annoyance. “If you want people to believe you, you better come up with a believable story.”

  She remained silent, but he could see her eyes flashing with indignation.

  Come on, Gabriella, think of anything, any story that would not make you look crazy.

  Cameron admitted, he was having a difficult time creating one himself.

  “Was someone else with you?” he urged, hope leaping into his chest.

  If she cast the blame on a third party, it might fly as a defense. After all, she had no cut marks on her from wielding a knife. And blaming a third party sounded a hell of a lot better than “a wolf did it.”

  “Oh? Am I allowed to speak now?” she retorted furiously.

  “Only if you say something that makes sense. Who else was there?”

  “I already told you that a wolf was there!” she snarled. “If you choose not to believe me, that’s your problem, but your forensics team will show that an animal made those marks, not a knife.”

  Cameron gritted his teeth. He now had more problems than he could count.

  How did I get myself into this situation?

  He glanced back at the sweet-faced brunette. Her bronze glow had waned to an unhealthy white.

  She knows that her life is in danger and that she was protected by a supernatural presence. That is a lot to digest for a day. They pulled into the stationhouse, Cameron’s mind still reeling. How am I going to hide this and protect Gabriella from whomever is trying to harm her?

  The answer was obvious but cruel.

  There must be a better way, he thought as he led her into the offices.

  “You aren’t having a good week, are ya, honey?” Jeannie called after Gabriella, casting Cameron a rueful grin, but he was far too distracted to return the gesture. “It’s too bad you aren’t Gabriella Medina, or you’d be far away from here by now.”

  Cameron wished that it wasn’t Jeannie’s weekend to work the nightshift. He didn’t need her making the situation worse. Together, Cameron and Gabriella walked into an interrogation room where he shut the door and spun to face her.

  “I am giving you one last chance to tell me what happened,” he told her sternly. “And I want something I can believe. Do you think you can handle that?”

  Swallowing visibly, Gabriella shook her head, shifting her gaze to her small, dainty hands.

  “I have nothing else to tell you,” she insisted. “It happened the way it happened.”

  Cameron sighed deeply and rose to his feet.

  “Then I have no choice but to arrest you for the murder of John Doe,” he told her. “Hands behind your back, please.”

  “Wait, what?” Gabriella squealed. “You can’t arrest me! You have no proof! The man had a gun! He wanted to kill me—”

  “You have the right to remain silent,” Cameron intoned, slipping a pair of handcuffs around her wrists. “Anything you say ca
n and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney—”

  “You’re goddamn right I’m getting an attorney!” Gabriella screamed. “You will allow me one phone call—”

  Abruptly, she cut off her own demands, clamping her mouth together.

  “I waive the right to counsel,” she said flatly, and Cameron paused reciting the Miranda rights to stare at her pensively.

  She is scared. Scared enough to remain hidden from the world despite this assassination attempt.

  Cameron processed her and put her in a holding cell.

  “We will keep you here until your arraignment,” he told her. He saw all the light fade from her limpid brown eyes.

  I am breaking her by doing this, he thought as the cell door clanged shut with finality. No. I am saving her. No one can get her behind bars and the Montana Justice Department will steer clear of Great Falls. This is the best for everyone. I will find another solution; I just need to buy some time.

  As Cameron walked away from the holding cell, he heard a sob escape Gabriella’s lips, and he felt like a knife had pierced his heart.

  It is only temporary, he assured himself. She will be protected here. She may not realize it, but this is what’s best for her.

  He could not bring himself to look back at her, knowing that she had dissolved into a puddle of tears and that he was the cause of her distress. Cameron had an almost insurmountable desire to tell her the truth and explain to her why his actions were necessary, but he knew his conscious was overriding the greater good.

  This is only temporary, he reminded himself. In a day or two, I will have figured out a way to resolve this and Gabriella will be free and safe.

  While he admitted that his thoughts were plausible, Cameron wondered if there would ever be a time when Gabriella would forgive him for what he had been forced to do.

  He did not have high hopes.

  7

  Gabriella couldn’t understand how her world had done such a one-eighty in such a short amount of time.

  She tried to recall how it had begun precisely, but it seemed like one minute she had been living the high life as a top-rated model, breaking into international markets with ease and flair, while the next she was rotting away in a jail cell, fearing for her life.

  She had been provided a public defender, a fact which had shamed and infuriated Gabriella, but she was powerless to do anything about it. Oddly, the sheriff was still calling her Grace in front of others, and she was suspicious of his intentions.

  If he thinks I’m a murderer, he should be outing me at all turns. He shouldn’t care to protect my identity anymore.

  When they were alone, she decided to ask him his reasons for maintaining his silence.

  “Why haven’t you told everyone who I am?” she asked bitterly when he shoved a paper bag filled with fast food inside her cell. She had never eaten so much crap in her life, and she loathed to admit that she rather enjoyed the change from her kale shakes and protein smoothies.

  “I promised you I wouldn’t,” Cameron told her simply. “Would you rather I did?” He walked away before she could respond. Gabriella didn’t know what she wanted anymore.

  On one hand, she was furious with Cameron Lapin and the entire Great Falls Police Department, but on the other hand, she knew that she was the only viable suspect they had.

  Not to mention, I am probably safer in this place than waiting for someone else to kill me. Well, maybe no one else is trying to kill me. That guy could have been a lone weirdo. Who knows…

  Something about the would-be killer told Gabriella he was not acting on a delusion. Moreover, how did he know where to find her? Had he tracked her from New York City? It was the only way that Gabby could imagine she had been located… unless the sheriff had told someone. Yet, as she stared at the sheriff’s gruff face, she couldn’t reconcile him as someone who would do that. It didn’t make any sense.

  Why would he? He could have easily told everyone who I am from the day of the accident. He has no reason to protect my identity.

  Another side of her reminded herself that he had also convinced her to stay in Great Falls.

  Did he do that so that he could set me up for murder? Is he working with someone in New York? But how? I only chanced upon Great Falls by accident. He would have had to contact just the right person who wanted me dead.

  Cameron walked back and opened the jail cell to lead her to an interrogation room, where she sat down.

  “Your lawyer’s here,” the sheriff explained as he left the room and another man walked in.

  Nothing made sense, and Gabby didn’t know who she could trust. Certainly not this hack in a one-hundred-dollar suit, she thought scornfully, eyeing the young public defender.

  “Miss Kelly,” he began. “I have to say, this is sort of hard to believe.”

  Gabriella was sure she would scream if one more person informed her of their incredulity surrounding the death of the hitman.

  “Yes, I have been told,” she snapped. “But that’s what happened. What do we do now?”

  The lawyer, whose name was Tristan Bosley, shook his dark red head soulfully.

  “I’m not sure,” he confessed.

  Gabby furiously clenched her teeth. “What do you mean you’re not sure?” she hissed. “I am being accused of murdering a man!”

  Tristan sighed and shook his head, as if trying to instill sense into his mind.

  Gabriella had no hope that it worked. “There is no proof that I killed him! I called 9-1-1 after everything that happened! I would have killed him—”

  “Now wait a second,” Tristan said nervously, glancing up at the one-way glass as if he was worried someone might be listening in on their conversation.

  It's a privileged conversation, idiot! Gabby wanted to yell at him. No one is eavesdropping.

  “Don’t go around telling people you would have killed him,” the young attorney insisted. “That will not bode well for you in a courtroom.”

  Gabriella realized that she was in a never-ending nightmare. She began to laugh.

  This is all a bad dream—the mayor, the scandal, leaving New York, all of it. I am going to wake up any minute and be in my Upper East Side apartment, cursing my alarm clock. I will make a double espresso, call Victor, and laugh about it before going to a shoot for Vogue.

  She looked at Tristan, her eyes bright with near-mad amusement, but his expression was caked in concern.

  “I will see about having a doctor examine you,” he said, rising as if very uncomfortable in his chair. He seemed to read her proximity to cracking under the pressure.

  “I’m not hurt,” she snapped. “The bastard missed me, thankfully.”

  Tristan swallowed quickly as he gathered his paperwork. “I’m not talking about a physical examination,” he muttered, and it took Gabby a long minute to understand what he meant.

  “I am not insane!” she shrieked after him. “It really happened that way!”

  Tristan disappeared, leaving Gabriella to stare at her hands in misery.

  I went from international supermodel to convict in a month. I am about to be evaluated by a psychiatrist. Maybe it is just time to accept that I truly am insane.

  Cameron watched the adolescent-looking lawyer scurry from the stationhouse.

  He doesn’t seem too confident, he thought worriedly, but he wasn’t sure what else he should have expected. The kid had his work cut out for him. He turned toward the interrogation room where Gabriella sat, waiting to be transported back to her cell.

  “I can take her,” an officer volunteered, but Cameron shook his head.

  “No,” he said. He paused and turned to the squad. “I want you all to listen to me.” The men stopped talking long enough to address their superior. “No one goes near the girl without my express consent,” he told them. “I will handle Grace Kelly alone. You are to work on witnesses and the crime scene. Do I make myself clear?”

  There was a brief silence, but slowly a
murmur of acknowledgement flittered through the room as they agreed to his orders.

  “I want you working day and night on this,” he continued. “There is a potential killer running around out there.”

  “Oh, come on, Cam, you know the girl did it,” another officer grumbled. “We’re wasting good manpower on what will soon be a closed case.”

  “Do you have something else to do?” Cam asked conversationally. “Until she is found guilty, this is an active case. No forensic evidence ties her to the killing, and there is a chance she could be telling the truth. Stranger things have happened in this town.”

  The sheriff could feel Jasper Brewer staring coldly at him.

  Why would you remind them of the similarities? Jasper asked silently. Cam’s head whipped around and he locked gazes with the older man.

  Silently, Cameron replied, Are you questioning me? There was no further comment from Brewer and Cameron spun to deal with Gabriella in the interrogation room.

  She seemed to have shrunk into half the size he remembered her as she sat in the cold steel chair. It was not surprising; Cameron had seen hardened criminals become reduced to puddles of their former selves in police custody. It was no place for a gorgeous, sensitive woman, who also happened to be innocent.

  “Let’s go,” he told her as he entered, but she didn’t immediately respond. She did not seem to notice that he had entered the room at all, and she continued to stare blankly at the table. Cameron wondered what she was thinking.

  Probably the same thing I am, he thought. How the hell are we going to get her out of this mess?

  “Why do you hate me so much?”

  The question took him by surprise, and he arched a dark eyebrow.

  “Hate you?” he echoed, glancing behind him into the corridor. He stepped further into the room and closed the door. “Why do you think I hate you?”

  Gabriella laughed mirthlessly and threw her hands up.

  “If this is love, I would hate to see how you treat people you don’t like,” she replied sarcastically. “What am I doing here? You have to know that none of the evidence points to me having killed that man. He had a gun. You found it. You saw the bullet holes. He was shooting at me.”