Royal Pursuit

by Susan Kearney

  When they reached the car, he started to place the key into the lock when Taylor grabbed his hand and pulled him back. “What’s wrong?” he said, turning to her.

  She peered at smudged fingerprints on the door of the shiny new car. “These might belong to a curious passer-by or a car thief who tried the door to see if it was locked, but—” she frowned and bent lower “—neither of them would have left smudges this low on the door.”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a compact.

  Now was not the time for Taylor to freshen her makeup. He reminded her, “We need to leave before Ira—”

  “Wait.” She opened the compact and angled it under the car.

  Her action struck him like a hammer blow. Taylor wasn’t putting on blush. She was searching under the car to see if anyone had tampered with it.

  “Oh, God.” She dropped the compact.

  At the tension in her voice, his stomach clenched.

  “Run,” she gasped. “It’s a bomb.”

  Curling his arm around her waist, he yanked her away from the car. The bomb could go off at any moment. Together they sprinted over the sidewalk and across the grass, racing toward the nearest cover, a huge oak tree in a neighboring yard.

  They didn’t make it.

  The force of the explosion knocked them off their feet, but he never let go of her. They fell and rolled. He tried to protect her from the heat and flying debris by covering her with his body. He didn’t quite succeed. Landing on his side, he curled around her, placing his back between her and the burning car, the flaming ruins.

  For a few seconds he couldn’t breathe. The blast had sucked all the oxygen from the air. His lungs hurt, his side ached and sparks landed on him like biting mosquitoes—annoying, but not dangerous.

  Taylor tugged him closer, burying his head into her shoulder. Suddenly she was yelling at him like some crazy woman. He could see her lips moving, but couldn’t make out the words and realized dully that the blast had damaged his hearing. She manhandled him, forcing him to roll in the grass, and she pounded on his back with her hands.

  Slowly the ringing in his ears subsided, and he could hear her. She slipped off the straps of his overalls, yanked his shirt over his head, and then spun him around and ran her fingers over his back. “Are you burned?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m fine.” The concern in her eyes made his stomach warm and settle. She’d been willing to risk burning her own hands to save him. But now instead of keeping her attention on him, she was staring at his charred shirt in the grass, as if he meant nothing at all to her. He was beginning to think he could spend the next fifty years with this woman and never understand her. Why wasn’t she happily throwing herself into his arms and kissing him? They’d just escaped death. She’d saved his life with her quick thinking. He hadn’t noticed the handprints and even if he had, he’d never have thought to search under the car for a bomb.

  He yearned to take her into his arms and hold her. Hell, he needed to put his arms around her, to feel her warm flesh against him.

  And she stood there scowling at his shirt. “Are you up to jogging a few miles?”

  “Excuse me?” He ached to kiss her, and she wanted to exercise? He slipped the straps of his overalls back onto his bare shoulders, realizing that the blast and fall had stunned his thought processes.

  She tugged him away from the blast. “Unless you’re hurt, we need to get the hell out of here.”

  He’d forgotten that the security chief was on the way home. Automatically, he fell into step beside her. He glanced over his shoulder, confused. “Did you see Ira?”

  “No.” She jogged easily, her long legs setting a quick but comfortable pace. Obviously she didn’t want them to appear as if they were fleeing the scene, but simply out for a Saturday late-afternoon jog. “Think. That bomb was another assassination attempt.”

  Damn! And then the conclusion she must have reached minutes ago while she’d stared at his burned shirt hit him like a lightning bolt. “Someone’s seen through my disguise. How?”

  When they rounded the corner, she picked up the pace. “When we ditched my car at the shopping center, someone could have lifted our prints. I assume yours are on file in Vashmira?”

  “Yes.” He thought hard, his intellect finally kicking into gear. “But I bought the new car in your name.”

  “With the weapons I’m authorized to carry, my prints are on file, too.”

  “Yeah, but how could they track us here?”

  “Once they had my identity, they pulled up my credit report. The car dealer would have made a recent inquiry—even if you did wire cash. Whoever planted that bomb simply had to ask the dealer where the car would be delivered.”

  He’d almost gotten them killed because he’d wanted the convenience of a car instead of the hassle of taking cabs. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. Sooner or later they would have found us, anyway.” She glanced over at him. “How are you doing?”

  He was tired. Damn tired and not about to admit it. “I was in the military. We didn’t just sit around and drink tea, you know.”

  “Okay.” She slowed their pace, tugged out her cell phone, then snapped it shut.

  “What?”

  “Calling a cab will give away our location.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Steal a car.”

  She wanted to steal a car? There were some things the prince of Vashmira would not do. “No.”

  “We need transportation,” she argued.

  After all she’d done to help him, he wanted to contribute, and this time, he’d deal with the situation differently. “Let me handle this.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Alex found and approached a neighborhood teenager out washing a Saturn that was used but in good condition. “How does it run?”

  “Great.” The teen didn’t even look up, just kept washing the car, which obviously meant a lot to him.

  “Mind if I ask what you paid for it?” Alex asked pleasantly as Taylor stood next to him, thinking that the last time he’d purchased a car, they’d almost been killed. But if Alex could negotiate a sale with this teen, and if he paid cash, there’d be no tracking them until she bought insurance and a tag and registered the title change with the department of motor vehicles.

  The kid let off the pressure on the hose nozzle and plucked a chamois out of a back pocket. He began drying the roof in the center, working his way toward the edges. “I paid two thousand and Dad paid the rest.”

  “Will you take double what you both paid, in cash, right now?” Alex asked.

  The teen stopped wiping the car and frowned at him. “I’d have to ask my dad.”

  “Okay.” Alex didn’t pressure the kid.

  Ten minutes later they drove out of the neighborhood in a car without a license plate or registration. Taylor knew they’d eventually be stopped by the police, but a ticket was the least of her worries. To solve this case, they needed more information than they’d found at Ira’s condo.

  She phoned the hospital to check on Willard, pretending to be a family member. Upset, she told Alex what she’d just learned. “Willard reacted badly to the anesthesia. He’s in ICU.”

  Alex turned right at the next major intersection as if he had a destination in mind. “ICU?”

  “Intensive care is for the most critically ill patients. Willard may not make it.” Taylor now realized that the delay in questioning Mark Willard might have been a crucial mistake. If he died, he couldn’t tell them who’d hired him. And if he had been paid in cash, which was likely, they wouldn’t find a paper trail to follow, either.

  She’d been thinking so hard about the case, she hadn’t even noticed where Alex was driving. Unfamiliar with this particular section of the city, she looked around for a landmark and saw that ethnic restaurants, boutiques and mom-and-pop shops lined a narrow street between condos and apartments. “Where are we?�
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  “I thought we’d pay the general a visit.”

  He’d driven here from the security chief’s condo without taking one wrong turn. “Have you been here before?”

  “I rented the house for him over the phone. And I’ve studied maps of your city.”

  Her eyes widened. Although there was much more to Alexander’s intellect than he liked to reveal, his exceptional memory surprised her. “And you carry the map around in your head?”

  He shrugged. Obviously he had other things on his mind as he changed the subject. “Without my tools, or even my screwdriver, it’s going to be more difficult to be convincing.”

  Alex parked and they approached an apartment complex. “The general is subletting an apartment for the next two months. Unlike Anton, who is staying in a hotel, Vladimir likes the comforts of home away from home.”

  The dark street had only one streetlight. Tourists didn’t frequent this section and the only activity came from the bars whose loud music filtered into the street. “In this neighborhood, your general is unlikely to bump into diplomats or politicians. He could meet anyone on the corner without fear of running into people he works with. I’m surprised you rented him a place in such a seedy neighborhood.”

  “The general has never cared for upscale accommodations. He wouldn’t think of hiring a housekeeper like our security chief.” Alex took her hand and peered at darkened windows on the north corner of a brick apartment complex. “He doesn’t appear to be home.”

  Taylor pointed to a metal flight of stairs that ascended from six feet above the ground to the third floor. “We could try getting in through the fire escape.”

  “Good idea.”

  Even though the suggestion to use the fire escape had been hers, Taylor wasn’t sure going up so high in the dark was a good idea, but kept her opinion to herself.

  When they reached the stairs, Alex jumped up, grabbed them and tried to pull them lower. He hung on with all his weight. “They’re stuck.”

  Relief flowed through her. “I guess we should go in the front.”

  “We can do this,” Alex insisted. He released the stairs, bent over and cupped his hands as if expecting to boost her into a saddle.

  Reluctantly, she placed one foot in his hands, and as she shoved with her other foot, which was still on the pavement, he boosted her into the air until her hands grasped the bottom step.

  Alex kept lifting until she pulled herself up high enough to place her knee on the metal. After taking a deep breath, she stood and turned around to watch him.

  “Hold on,” he told her, then jumped. When his hands caught the bottom step, the stairs bounced. He swung his feet, bending at the waist like a trapeze artist then, hand over hand, raised himself onto the stairs.

  His success gave her confidence to turn back toward the building. The first flight ended on a square platform where she changed direction and headed up again. By the time she reached the top story, her nerves felt as raw as her hands, which had been tightly gripping the handrails.

  She told herself that the height didn’t bother her. Her feet were exactly the same distance from her head, as normal. Everything was fine—even if she couldn’t suddenly sprout wings and fly. She didn’t fear falling—just splatting on the concrete sidewalk thirty feet below. Taylor took several deep breaths and refused to look down. Stopping at the third story, she tried to force her knees to stop shaking, then realized that the entire staircase was shaking from their upward progress.

  Great. No doubt the city inspectors hadn’t examined this fire escape in years. The bottom section hadn’t worked at all, refusing to pull down, hopefully due to lack of use and not rust. She could only pray that the anchors pinning them to the building hadn’t rusted through. She waited for Alex to join her and when he finally did, she had the sudden urge to fling herself into his arms.

  Instead she steadied herself by clenching and unclenching her fingers around the railing. “Now what?”

  Seemingly oblivious to the possibility of plunging three stories, Alex leaned over the railing to peer into a window. “We break in.”

  She’d been about to ask how, but Alex had already removed his shoe. Leaning outward, he smashed the glass. The breakage sounded loud to Taylor and the tinkling of the falling shards on the staircase served as another reminder of their height.

  Alex broke out the entire pane, carefully brushing the edges of the frame with the bottom of his shoe to remove any remaining shards. Finally he banged the shoe on the railing, clearing off the remaining vestiges of glass, then replaced it on his foot. “Ladies first?”

  He wanted her to climb from the railing into the window. Of course he hadn’t mentioned that a good two feet separated the stairs from the window. A mere twenty-four inches. The maneuver was a piece of cake.

  Her mouth turned desert dry. “I could wait here for you.”

  He wrapped his arms around her. Her cheek rested against the heat of his bare chest. Against her ear, his heartbeat pumped to a steady rhythm. Gently, he used his hand to tip her chin upward and then his mouth swooped over hers.

  She expected his kiss to be tender, persuasive, gentle. He kissed her like a thirsty man who couldn’t wait another moment to soothe his parched throat. Taking, plunging, savaging, his fierce kiss got her blood pumping, her heart rate accelerating. For the next few moments she forgot she stood on a rusted staircase on the edge of a building where she was about to commit a crime.

  She took everything he gave her and used his need to renew her determination. Right now, nothing mattered but Alex’s arms around her, Alex’s mouth on hers, Alex breathing life into her and infusing her with his own need to keep going.

  Finally he broke away. “You okay?”

  “Never better,” she lied.

  “Good. Take off your shirt.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ll spread it over the sill to protect you from any stray shards.”

  With shaky fingers, she did as he asked. Still, she couldn’t help but envision a helicopter’s spotlight and a camera crew headlining her on the nightly news as she broke into an apartment wearing jeans and a bra. Telling herself the publicity would be wonderful for business did nothing to calm her nerves.

  Once she actually focused on placing her hands on the sill, lifting her leg over the rail and ducking through the window, she felt more in control—that was, if she ignored the burning in her stomach due to her overactive imagination.

  Now that she actually had both feet planted on the apartment carpeting, she worried over Alex. One slip and he could… He swung inside with the agility of an acrobat. She retrieved her shirt and slipped it on while he moved forward slowly in the dark.

  The room, full of shadows from its furniture, smelled like lemon wax, fresh dust and burned coffee grounds. Alex flicked on a light, and she frowned and whispered, “Someone might see us.”

  “There’s no point in breaking in if we can’t find what we need,” he pointed out so logically that she wanted to slap him. He didn’t seem to realize that thieves required silence and darkness to do their dirty work. With the light on, she felt exposed and vulnerable.

  But he had a point. She followed him through the bedroom into a long hallway and a den that the general had converted into an office. Alex began by pulling out the drawers of the desk. There was no computer, no file cabinets, so she checked the nearest closet.

  She opened the doors and froze for a second. “We have a problem.”

  “What?” Alex kept digging through the drawers.

  “The general has a silent alarm system.” She pointed to the red blinking light. “When you broke the window, this system automatically called the police.”

  As she spoke she heard a loud siren coming their way. “You want to try and run for it out the window?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “You could be hurt.”

  Now he was concerned for her safety? “If we’re caught here, we’re going to jail.”


  Alex shrugged, as relaxed as if were conducting a state dinner. “You worry too much.”

  A bang on the door interrupted her four-letter curse. She strode to the door and unlocked it. “I’m opening the door and raising my hands over my head,” she called to the cops. At least Alex had the sense to raise his hands, too.

  Two officers with guns aimed at them entered the apartment. Taylor kept her hands high. “Officers, I’m a licensed private investigator and am carrying a weapon in my ankle holster.” She made no move to retrieve the gun.

  She knew these police officers were on edge. They had no idea if someone might jump out of the next room and start to fire a machine gun at them. They didn’t know if Taylor and Alex were high on drugs, common thieves or about to start a fight. Trained to make hair-trigger decisions, the officers would likely assess the situation before shooting—but she couldn’t be sure and gave them no reason to fire their weapons.

  Alex kept his hands up. “What’s the problem, officers?”

  “Turn around slowly and put your hands behind your back,” the taller officer ordered Alex.

  “We aren’t criminals,” Alex protested. “My name is on the apartment lease.”

  The officer looked from the broken window back to Alex. He didn’t lower his weapon. “Why didn’t you call in the security code?”

  “Because I leased this apartment for an employee.”