“I’ll catch up to you after I’ve had some breakfast,” Julia promised.
* * *
“What are you doing here?” Oliver Janko looked up from the security screen in surprise as Linus came through the door. “Your shift doesn’t start for eight hours.”
“I’ve got work to do.” Linus slapped down a notebook that held the precious little he’d been able to learn about Fletcher Pendleton from the internet. Other than the pages of search results about the case Julia had represented—which told him little more than she had the night before—Linus hadn’t been able to turn up anything helpful about the engineer. “I need to know everything I can about this guy.”
Oliver glanced at the pages. “No problem.”
Linus smiled. Though Linus was more used to working with Simon, who covered the evening shift, he knew Oliver was just as skilled at accessing information. That was his job. Besides its officers, the royal guard was split between three roles. There were the detectives, like Oliver and Simon, who did investigative work, much of it sitting in front of a computer, though they were trained to work in the field when needed.
Then there were the sentinels—the watchmen who manned the palace gates, patrolled the perimeters any time the royals attended state functions, and rode ahead when the royal motorcade rolled out on official business.
Finally, there were the bodyguards. Linus and his peers were assigned to specific members of the royal household. They’d been shuffled around significantly with the changes that had taken place following the attacks, but that didn’t excuse them from knowing their charges well enough to anticipate their needs. Before the recent attacks they had been called upon to rescue the royals from tiring social situations far more often than they were called upon to fight off attackers.
Not that Linus wasn’t prepared for both.
“Got a match on that shoe print from last night.” Oliver handed him a printout with a picture of the dark cross-trainer and its specs. “Size twelve. Look familiar?”
Linus nodded solemnly as he examined the image and tried to recall what little he’d seen of the man’s shoes in the darkness—only a brief impression as the man had kicked toward him. “Looks like what I saw last night. I’ll share this with Julia when my shift starts later. How’s she doing right now?”
Oliver changed one screen view to a scene of the back yard. The five-year-old son of King Thaddeus and Queen Monica occupied the center of the large palace sandbox, directing his aunt in sand castle construction while he held a hose, filling a moat.
As Linus watched, Prince Peter gestured excitedly with the hose, knocking a section of the castle into a sopping pile of sand. Julia gasped at him, laughing and waggling her shovel playfully at her nephew. The image contained no sound, but Linus could imagine their happy shrieks. With an impish grin, Peter moved the stream of water closer to Julia’s toes.
Julia pulled her bare feet away. Though her grin didn’t falter, Monica stepped in to redirect her son.
But Linus’s attention wasn’t on the queen. Julia stood and pulled out her phone, glancing curiously at the screen before answering an incoming call. As Linus watched, her smile fell. Her hand flew to her mouth just as it had the night before when she’d received the text from Fletcher.
Linus leaped toward the door.
Oliver had been briefing him about the shoes as he’d watched. “Did you hear what I said? The shoes aren’t sold in Lydia. It’s all on the spec sheet—where are you going?”
“Julia.” Linus pointed to the screen, to the clear distress on Julia’s face as she spoke on the phone. “Something’s wrong.”
* * *
“Mary?” Julia could hear the frantic tone in her friend’s voice, but she could hardly make sense of what the woman was saying. Mary was her sweet elderly neighbor back in Seattle. Julia always kept Mary’s cats for her when she was out of town, so Mary had been happy to volunteer to water Julia’s houseplants once a week while she was gone.
Now Mary was telling her something about her house—something about a break-in? Julia rushed to clarify.
“Mary? What’s wrong? Isn’t it the middle of the night over there?”
“Yes, the cats woke me up. That’s when I saw the light on inside your house and went to take a look.”
“A light on?” Julia was nearly certain she’d turned everything off before she left.
“That’s right. I don’t know how long it’s been on. I wouldn’t have noticed it during the day, and I’m not usually up in the night. But the moment I saw it I went to take a look.”
Julia didn’t like the idea of Mary stepping out alone in the darkness. “Are you there now?”
“I’m back inside my house with the doors locked. I suppose that’s silly but it frightened me.”
“What did?” Julia felt frightened as well, but she resisted accepting that what her neighbor said was true. Besides that, she didn’t want Peter to pick up on her fear, though he was in the midst of a lecture from his mother about the proper uses of a garden hose.
“Your house,” Mary moaned. “It’s been ransacked.”
Julia gasped. “And you went there? Oh, Mary, you could have been in danger!”
“No one’s there now—from what I saw I’d guess it happened days ago, maybe even right after you left town. Everything from your freezer was melted in a pile on the floor, and your plants are shriveled up, knocked from their pots. It’s a mess. Do you want me to call the police? I almost called them first, but then I thought I should call you.”
“I don’t know.” Unable to guess what the proper response might be without seeing the house herself, Julia looked to where Paul had been sitting just in time to see the guard jump up.
Linus was approaching at a trot across the well-trimmed lawn. What now? Julia listened with increasing distress as Mary recounted all she’d observed before fleeing back to her own house. Books knocked from shelves, cushions torn open, papers strewn everywhere. At the same time, Julia felt a sudden surge of relief seeing Linus, coupled with concern about why he approached her so swiftly. Had something else gone wrong?
“What is it?” he asked in a low voice once he reached her side.
“Just a second, Mary,” Julia said then covered the phone, relieved to pause Mary’s account of all the things that had been damaged. She met Linus’s eyes. “Why are you here?”
“I saw you on the security screen when the call came in. You looked scared. What is it?”
“My neighbor back home,” Julia explained quickly. “She says my house has been ransacked. I need to figure out what to do. Should I have her call the police?”
Both Paul and Linus urged her to do so.
Julia returned her attention to Mary, who agreed, and offered to place the call herself. “I’m going to phone them right now. I’ll call you back once I’ve spoken with them.”
“Thank you so much, Mary. Stay safe.” Julia closed her eyes as she ended the call. From what Mary had told her, the cottage she’d so lovingly decorated must be in chaos. But maybe somewhere in all that mess, whoever had broken in had left behind something that would lead them to the culprit. Was the break-in connected to the attack against her the night before?
It seemed likely. Quite possibly the same person could have committed both crimes. Julia had been in Lydia for two days before the attack. Her house might have been broken into at any time since she’d left for Lydia, the break-in undetected until Mary opened the door. The intruder could have easily found clues at her house that would have told him she’d gone to Lydia. He could have hopped the next flight and arrived in plenty of time to plan his next attack.
But why? What was so important?
Linus spoke, his low voice cutting short the fear that ran rampant through her thoughts. “Do you want to come with me to the royal guard station? I’d like
to call the Seattle police as well, but I’ll need you with me to fill in the facts.”
As she looked up at Linus and met his eyes, Julia felt the reassurance of knowing that she was in good hands. She thanked God for Linus—for his attentive concern and his skill at knowing just what to do. And then she prayed that he would know what to do, and that somehow, the attacks would end.
* * *
As Linus finished explaining the situation to the police in Seattle, he felt grateful for Julia’s confidence in him. He certainly didn’t feel confident. First off, the police had pulled up the file on the office break-in Julia had reported weeks before. Based on their notes in that file, they weren’t too concerned about what might have happened at her house.
Linus assured them that they needed to be concerned. They agreed to send someone to look at the house and take a statement from Mary.
It was the best he could do from half a world away. He closed the call and looked at Julia apologetically.
“Do you think it’s related?” She looked up at him from the office chair where he’d seated her, afraid after seeing her pale face that she might keel over if she got any more bad news.
Linus nodded as he turned his chair to face hers, already analyzing the newest twist in the case. All the things that had happened were like pieces of a puzzle, and this new development felt like an odd piece he’d picked up. He couldn’t decide if it fit with the rest or belonged to a different puzzle entirely. Given the proximity to the other events and the previous break-in at Julia’s office, he felt nearly certain it had to fit. But how?
Julia scrunched her face in a puzzled expression. “If it was the same person, why would he do so much damage to my house when he was so careful with my office?”
Linus had been wondering the same thing. “Maybe the perpetrator knew you called the police about the office break-in. Maybe he figured you’d notice, no matter how careful he was, so he caused damage instead to throw you off track and hide what he was really after. Maybe he just wanted to scare you.”
“What do you think he was after?”
“The file?” Linus raised an eyebrow.
Julia shook her head, perplexed. “What file? The Seattle Electronics vs. Pendleton file? They already broke into that file cabinet, but they didn’t take the file when they had the chance. Besides, all my work files are at my office. What could they possibly have been looking for at my house?”
“It’s hard to guess without seeing what they did to your house.”
“Mary tried to describe the damage,” Julia said as she sat up straighter, “but I suppose I’m the only one who could tell if something was really missing.” She planted her feet on the floor with determination and rose to stand, still favoring her uninjured leg.
Linus stood as well, extending an arm to help her, glad when she placed one hand over his fingers. He had an inkling of what she was thinking, and he didn’t like it. “You want to go back to Seattle?”
“How else am I supposed to sort this out? Besides, the break-in could have happened days ago, maybe just after I left town. If it was the same person who attacked me last night, the perpetrator probably followed me to Lydia after they realized I wasn’t home. If they’re in Lydia right now, Seattle might be the safest place for me.” She turned toward the door. “I’m going to see if I can book a seat on the next flight out of Lydia.”
Linus mulled her decision as he helped her back through the guardhouse to the palace lawn. Technically, she was a grown woman and free to do whatever she chose. But she was also under his care. He’d been assigned to guard her. How could he do that if she left Lydia?
She was right. Seattle might be safer than Lydia at the moment, but it wasn’t the safest place for her, not if the security of her home had already been breached. The safest place for her was at his side.
They no more than made it outside when Queen Monica pounced. “Julia? What happened? Are you okay?”
Julia quickly assured her sister that she was fine, then explained what she’d learned, including her decision to return to Seattle.
“No.” Monica shook her head forcefully. “I can’t let you go back there. It’s too dangerous. Mom and Dad are in Seattle. They can drive over and look at your place.”
“I can’t let Mom and Dad put themselves in danger,” Julia protested. “Besides, this is complicated. Something’s going on and I need to figure out what it is. I can’t do that from here.”
“Julia.” A note of warning carried through the queen’s voice as Monica took her sister’s free arm. “I don’t like it. I won’t let you go alone.”
“There’s no way you’re going to come with me.” Julia sounded frightened at the prospect of her sister accompanying her on the journey.
“You’re right about that.” Monica almost blushed. “I can’t leave Lydia right now. But I’ll send a guard along with you to keep you safe.”
“That’s silly. I’ve already heard that the royal guard is shorthanded after cutting loose the traitors who were part of the attacks against the royal family.”
“We can spare one guard to go with you. You’ve already been assigned a guard, anyway, so it won’t short us.” Monica looked up at Linus as she spoke. Her smile was half questioning, half conspiratorial.
Linus returned the look. “I’d be happy to go with you, Julia.”
The queen beamed at him.
Julia looked back and forth between them. Then she let out a breath that sounded relieved. “Okay then. Linus can come with me. But I am going back to Seattle.”
Monica grilled her little sister on her plans, then made her promise she’d allow time for lunch with the royal family before she left. With that much decided, Monica returned to the sandbox where the young prince played under Paul’s watchful eye. Linus helped Julia up to her room.
“Thank you.” She smiled up at him as he helped her down the hall. “Are you sure you should be helping me? Technically I think it’s Paul’s shift.”
“You’re right,” Linus acknowledged, supporting her again as they made their way down the hall. He wasn’t entirely certain why he’d rushed to her side and then stuck there since Mary’s phone call had come in—only that Julia had looked distressed, and he couldn’t bear seeing her that way without trying to help. “But if I’m going to be traveling with you, I might as well help you now.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind leaving the country? I’m only buying one-way tickets. I won’t know until I get there how soon I can come back.”
“I was planning on working anyway. Whether here or there won’t matter.”
“Your family won’t miss you?”
“It’s just my grandfather these days, and he’s as spry as ever. He’d laugh if I suggested he couldn’t stay home without me.” He paused as she opened the door to her suite. “If you don’t mind, for safety’s sake, I’d like to do a quick walk-through.”
“By all means. I’ve got my laptop here—I’m going to look into available flights.”
Linus scoped out the sitting room, bedroom and bath, paying special attention to the windows and doorways, but saw nothing that looked as though it had been disturbed. He passed back through the sitting room, where Julia already had flight times up on the screen. “How soon can you be ready to leave?”
“I could be ready to go in under an hour.”
She grinned. “Good.”
Linus grinned back, feeling eager to head out with her. The sooner they left, the sooner they could sort out what was going on, and the sooner she’d be safe again. And, he had to admit, he wouldn’t mind spending time with her, though he’d have to be certain to keep their every interaction aboveboard. He couldn’t give Jason any reason to bring up his long-buried record.
“I can book a flight for 3:00 p.m., then,” Julia said, but didn’t turn back to her computer.
>
After staring at her in silence for another moment, Linus realized he still had the spec sheet on the shoes that Oliver had given to him. If he was going to fit in any more research before their flight, he should ask her now if she recognized anything about the footwear. He pulled out the pages.
“Our investigators matched the shoe print they took on the beach to these shoes in a size twelve.” Linus stepped close and unfolded the paper.
Julia sighed as she laid the page flat on the desk beside her laptop. “They sell these shoes everywhere.”
“You’ve seen shoes like this before?”
“Sure. A lot of shoe stores in the malls back home carry them. It’s a popular design. He could have bought his shoes anywhere.”
“Not in Lydia.” Linus watched Julia’s face carefully as he revealed the details Oliver had included on the spec sheet. “This company uses sweatshop labor. Lydia strictly prohibits products produced under unjust conditions. These shoes have never been sold in Lydia.”
A haunted look entered Julia’s eyes. “He could have bought them at the mall near my house.” Her words remained level until the final two words, when a squeak of terror penetrated her determined stoicism.
Linus had already suspected her attacker might have followed her from Seattle. But even knowing that ahead of time didn’t make it any easier to hear the fear that edged her voice. In fact, he was surprised by the way his heart clenched with concern for her.
But that didn’t change the fact that her attacker hadn’t bought his shoes in Lydia. Linus made a mental note to ask Oliver to do a specific search on where the shoes were sold. If they could be bought just across the border in Albania or Greece, Linus wouldn’t rule out a local. Maybe the text from Fletcher Pendleton was only a coincidence. He couldn’t let himself jump to conclusions. But if the shoes were only available in the United States, he’d have to assume trouble had followed Julia from home.
FIVE
As Linus might have guessed, the queen was determined to protect her little sister, and the rest of the royal family rallied around her. By the time Julia emerged from her room, they had a plan in place, beginning with Queen Monica’s big announcement.
Defending the Duchess Page 5