“Is there anything else in there?” Grayson asked.
“Just this. It looks like some sort of thumb drive. An older one.”
Grayson returned the rock to its spot and then moved next to her. She handed over the bag. All the while, she wondered what could be so important about a computer file that it cost her mother her life.
“What do you think is on it?” Annabelle asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s very important.”
“It is,” a male voice said from behind them. “Now turn around slowly.”
Dread inched down Annabelle’s spine like icy fingers. When she turned, she gasped. The man standing there holding a gun on them was someone she knew—someone the king knew and trusted. It was one of the palace staff, Mr. Drago.
He was an older man with thinning white hair and the gun he held on them looked to be even older than him. The hand holding the large revolver shook, but she didn’t know if it was from nerves or age. Either way, she wasn’t feeling so good about his finger resting on the trigger.
“Drop the bag to the ground and kick it over here,” he demanded.
Grayson did as he said without any argument.
“And now your keys.”
Annabelle had those. She pulled them from her pocket and dropped them to the ground. She gave them a swift kick sending them skidding over the concrete patio.
“Why?” Annabelle hadn’t meant to speak—to do anything to provoke him, but the word popped out of her mouth before she could stop it. With the damage already done, she asked, “Why did you kill my mother?”
After the man picked up the plastic bag and the keys, he stuffed them in his pocket. “You don’t understand.” His eyes filled with emotion. “No one was supposed to get hurt.”
The tremors in his hand grew more intense. The gun moved up and down, left and right. And yet his finger remained on the trigger.
“Your mother, she just wouldn’t quit interfering. Just like you. I warned you to leave the past alone, but you just couldn’t.”
“I...I just need to know the truth—to understand.” Annabelle couldn’t believe she was staring at the man who had killed her mother. Nothing about the man screamed murderer to her and yet, he’d almost come right out and admitted it. “Why did she have to die?”
The man expelled a weary sigh as though he were shouldering the weight of the world. “Since I’m leaving this island—my home—and never coming back, I suppose I can tell you. My wife...she was sick. She needed to be flown to the United States for treatment, but I didn’t have that kind of money. And then I got an offer. For some information about the country’s defenses, I could get the money necessary to save my wife’s life. I’d have done anything for her. She...she was my world.”
Annabelle helplessly stared at the man who’d murdered her mother. His hand with the gun continued to shake. And his finger remained on the trigger. Anger and disbelief churned in her gut. And worst yet, she’d dragged Grayson into this mess, risking both of their lives. She deeply regretted her rash decision to rush out here without security.
There had to be a way out of this. Maybe if she kept the man talking a bit longer, a plan would come to mind. “So what went wrong?”
“Your mother caught on to the plan somehow. She said she was going to tell the king, and I just couldn’t let her ruin everything.”
And then a memory fell into place. “It was you that I saw arguing with her in the South Shore piazza the evening before she died, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “I was trying to find out how much she knew. I needed to know if she suspected me. She wouldn’t tell me anything, but then the next day we met again. She said she’d intercepted a note to me—”
“Your name is Cosmo?” For as long as Annabelle had been coming to the palace, she’d only ever heard the man addressed by his surname—Drago.
“Yes, it is.” His arm slowly lowered as though he was tired of holding up the gun. In the next breath, he lifted it again. “Your mother said that she was taking it to the king. That’s when I pulled out this gun. She reached for it. We struggled and...and it went off. There was nothing I could do for the princess. The shot hit her in the chest. She...she died before she hit the ground.”
Annabelle’s heart jumped into her throat as she envisioned her mother’s final moments. Her mother had been protecting the king and this land that she loved. She was a hero and no one knew until now.
Annabelle swallowed hard. “What...what happened next?”
“My wife...she died before I could get the data to sell.”
“And what’s on this thumb drive?”
“Instructions on where to deliver the data. And how I’d get my payments.”
“So you never met the person behind the espionage?”
“No. There were cryptic messages and a couple of phone calls.”
“And they just left you alone after your wife died? Even though they didn’t get their information?”
“I was a man with nothing to lose and nothing to gain by then. I told the man on the phone that I’d go to the king and take my punishment before I’d give in to his blackmail.”
“Funny how you grew a conscience after my mother died.” Annabelle’s hands clenched at her sides as she tried to keep her emotions under control. “How could you do that? Do you know how much we loved and needed her?”
The older man’s eyes grew shiny with unshed tears and his face creased with worry lines. “I told you I didn’t mean for it to happen. It...it was an accident.”
“And then what? You made it look like a mugging gone wrong?”
Drago’s eyes narrowed. “What choice did I have? I couldn’t go to jail. Not with my wife so ill. And it was an accident.”
The man didn’t even hesitate as he spoke. Annabelle’s mouth gaped. The man seemed to think of himself as innocent. No wonder he’d gotten away with it for so many years. Without a guilty conscience to trip him up, it’d been easy.
“What did you do with my mother’s jewelry?” Perhaps it was stashed in the palace and could be used as evidence.
“I buried it.”
“Where?”
“I...I don’t know. It was a long time ago.”
“And you just stayed on at the palace, serving the king and acting like nothing ever happened?”
“What else could I do?” A tear splashed onto his weathered cheek. “The king needed me. I couldn’t let him down.”
But you could kill his sister without batting an eye? Annabelle wanted to tell Mr. Drago about the devastation he’d caused, but she had Grayson’s safety to think about. She couldn’t agitate this man any further. And there was nothing he could say that would bring her mother back to them.
And that was when she noticed movement behind Mr. Drago.
“What are you planning to do with us?” Grayson asked.
She figured that he must have seen her security team and the police moving into position behind the man. And Grayson was doing his best to distract Drago until they were ready to make their move.
“Do with you?” The man’s face broke into a smile. “You think I’m going to kill you too?”
What did one say to that in this very sensitive situation? Annabelle glanced at Grayson, willing him not to upset the man, who was obviously not quite all there.
Grayson shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I’m just going to leave you stranded out here. No one ever visits this place. I’m surprised you found it.”
“How did you discover we were coming here?”
“It wasn’t hard to eavesdrop and do a bit of snooping—”
His words were cut off as the police signaled for Annabelle and Grayson to drop to the ground. Grayson leapt into action shielding Annabelle’s body with his own. Seco
nds felt like minutes as she was trapped between the concrete and Grayson’s muscled chest.
“All clear,” an officer called out.
Grayson helped her to her feet. “Are you all right?”
Annabelle nodded. With unshed tears blurring her vision, she said, “I’m so, so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen.”
He didn’t say anything. In fact, without another word, he turned his back to her. She blinked repeatedly as she watched him walk away. She had a sickening feeling that, although no shots had been fired, there had been a casualty today.
Their relationship.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE RIDE BACK to the palace was tense and silent.
However, the scene awaiting Annabelle was anything but.
They didn’t even make it past the great foyer before her father, followed by the king, confronted her. One glance at Grayson told her that she was in this alone. He wouldn’t look at her, much less speak to her. They were acting like she’d planned for all of this to happen. All she’d wanted were some long-overdue answers. Was that so bad?
Speaking of answers, she didn’t even get a chance to tell them that she finally had them—she knew what had happened—before her father launched into a heated speech.
“How could you do this?” Her father’s face was flushed and his arms gestured as he spoke. “I thought I could trust you. And here you go, sneaking around, risking your safety.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Oh, I understand.” Her father frowned at her before stepping in front of Grayson, who at least had the common sense to stay quiet during this confrontation. “And you, I expected more of you. And yet, you let my daughter go off recklessly without her security—”
“That was not my doing.” Grayson’s voice rumbled with agitation. “At least it wasn’t intentionally. We both got wrapped up in a heated conversation. By the time I realized that Annabelle had forgotten proper protocol, we were almost at the landmark.”
Her father’s voice echoed throughout the foyer. “How could you not realize you were leaving without any security?”
Grayson and her father glared at each other. Jaws were tight. Hands were clenched.
The king cleared his throat. “We were just really worried about you when your bodyguard reported that you’d slipped off without notifying anyone.”
Her father’s mouth opened, but before he could utter another angry word, Annabelle said, “And how exactly did you find us if my security wasn’t following me?”
Her father paused. He averted his gaze. She knew this reaction. She’d seen it in the past when he’d done something that he knew his family would not approve of.
“Poppa, what is it? What did you do?”
His gaze met hers. “It was for your own good. I knew you were out of control and that things might end badly. I had to protect you.”
“Poppa, out with it.”
He sighed. “After I learned that you stole your mother’s journal—”
“Borrowed.”
“Fine. Borrowed. I knew there was a possibility that you’d get caught up in the past and you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself—you’d have to follow the clues.”
“Of course. How could you expect me not to?”
“Well, I wasn’t about to let you go off and get yourself hurt so I installed a tracking device in your purse and your car, as well as a tracking app on your phone. I wasn’t taking any chances.”
Annabelle checked her phone. “You really did. How could you?”
“What? You’re attacking me. My forethought is what saved your life.”
Annabelle reached for Grayson’s hand, craving his strength and the knowledge that they were in this together. Her fingers brushed over the back of his hand. She was just about to curl her fingers around his when he moved his hand behind his back out of her reach.
When she glanced his way, Grayson was staring straight ahead. She couldn’t look into his eyes. She had no way of discovering why he had gone from being so helpful at the landmark to completely shutting down now that they were back at the palace. And the little voice in the back of her mind was warning her this was something different from his confrontation with her father. This thing, whatever it was, had to do with her and her alone.
She turned back to her expectant parent. “Mr. Drago wasn’t going to hurt us.”
When the king spoke, his voice was hollow as though he were in shock. “Drago, he admitted everything to you?”
Annabelle nodded. “I had to push him a bit, but in the end, it all came out.”
“Oh, my.” The king’s color was sickly white. He stumbled a bit. Grayson and her father rushed to his side and helped him into a chair.
“I’ll get help,” Annabelle said, afraid this revelation was too much for her uncle.
“No. I’m fine,” the king said in an unsteady voice. “I don’t believe this. First my wife is murdered and now, my sister—all in the name of the crown.” His head sunk into his hands.
Annabelle’s heart went out to the man, who had weathered so much during his reign. She’d been so young when her aunt, the queen, was assassinated. The assailant had been aiming for the king but had missed. The whole ordeal had taken a toll on the family, but justice had been carried out. Who’d have imagined a few years later Annabelle’s own mother would be killed.
Sometimes she thought being royal was a blessing and other times, she knew that it was a curse. Because the king was right, if not for the crown, both of the women who had meant so much to him—to all of them—would still be here.
“I think that it was an accident,” Annabelle said, hoping to lessen the blow for everyone.
“Annabelle, how can you talk like this?” Her father’s voice shook with emotion. “He stole your mother from us. Surely you must hate him?”
She shook her head. “No, not hate.”
“I don’t understand,” her father said. “I’m trying, but I just don’t get it.”
She recalled the time she’d spent with her mother. They hadn’t enjoyed many years together but in the time that they’d had, her mother taught her some valuable life lessons. “I don’t think Momma would want any of us to hate Mr. Drago. She used to say that hate, and even the word itself, was a more powerful weapon than anything man could ever create. Hate could destroy a man as sure as it could destroy a nation.”
Her father’s mouth gaped as he tried to absorb his daughter’s words. And then he composed himself. “For a moment there, you sounded just like her. I never knew she told you that. I’d almost forgotten that she’d said it. And so you’ve forgiven this Drago man?”
Annabelle shook her head. “Right now, I’m struggling with the not hating part. Forgiveness, well, it’s a long ways off. He stole a very precious person from me—from all of us. And then he nearly destroyed our family by covering it up. He did a lot of damage, but I’m trying to take comfort in knowing he now has to account for his crimes.”
“I don’t know.” Her father rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think I can be as calm and rational about this as you.”
She didn’t want to lose her father again to hatred and resentment. Maybe if she explained a little more, it would help. “He said he never meant to hurt her, just scare her. And the gun accidentally fired.”
Her father looked at her with disbelief reflected in his eyes. “And you believed him?”
She nodded. “He was leaving the country and never coming back. I’m not even sure that old gun still worked. What do you think, Grayson?”
Instead of answering her, he turned and walked away.
Where was he going? And why wasn’t he speaking to her?
She chased after him, following him up the stairs. She couldn’t let him get away. Not now. Not after everythi
ng that they’d shared. This was the beginning. Not the end.
* * *
Grayson couldn’t stand there for one more minute.
It didn’t matter what anyone said to Annabelle; she thought that she had done the right thing. He’d only ever been that scared one other time in his life. He’d sworn he would never live through something like it again. And yet just minutes ago he’d been staring down the end of a gun and praying that nothing would happen to Annabelle. And she’d refused to be quiet. She’d kept pushing the man, agitating him.
Grayson’s heart pounded just recalling the horrific scene. Why did he think that staying here was a good idea? Why did he think Annabelle would be different?
He strode down the hallway toward his suite of rooms. He needed to get away—to be alone. A headache was pounding in his temples. His neck and shoulders ached. His muscles had been tense since he realized they’d left the palace without her security.
He’d just stepped in his room when he heard Annabelle calling out his name. Couldn’t she get the message? He just wanted to be alone.
“Grayson—”
“Not now. Go away.” He looked around for his bag. He needed to start packing. He just couldn’t stay here any longer.
She didn’t say anything for a moment and he was hoping that she’d take the hint and leave. He needed to calm down so he didn’t end up saying anything that he would later regret.
“I can’t go. I don’t understand what’s going on.” She stepped further into the room.
“You don’t understand?” Was she serious?
She sent him a wide-eyed stare. “Why are you so upset?”
“Because of you.” At last, he recalled his bag was in the closet. He retrieved it and threw it on the bed. “You’re reckless. You think you’re invincible. And you don’t listen to anyone.”
“If this is about earlier, I’m sorry. I was just doing what I thought was best—”
“Best for you. Not best for anyone who cares about you. If that man had shot you...” No, he wasn’t going there. He couldn’t think about going through that agonizing pain again.
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