Leaving
Dieter Schwarz
I said it too many times,
but Flicka needed to stay in that hotel room.
I wouldn’t have left her if my daughter hadn’t needed me.
“It’ll only be for a few days,” Dieter said, packing his toothbrush, razor, and last few toiletries in the duffel. The limp, mostly empty bag reminded him too much of his military time. “I’ll be back in two days.Stay in the hotel room, all right? Don’t go out. Order room service and stay inside.”
“You keep saying that,” Flicka said. “After all, what would I do out there?”
“I don’t know, but stay in the room,” he grumbled.
Flicka von Hannover had a well-documented tendency to dodge away from security at any opportunity. His two-day absence was more than enough time for her to flit off and end up inPunkeydoodles Corners or Titty Ho.
Dieter couldn’t remember how many times he’d tracked Flicka down when she was a defiant teenager, insisting that nothing would happen to her, even when something did. She’d been the target of five separate kidnapping attempts that he knew of, but she’d run off dozens of times. She called itwalking the Earthorjumping ship.No matter how she tried to spin herability to slide out from under the nose of her security details, it was always dangerous for her. Dieter hated it when she did that. His job was complicated enough without chasing down his primary subject three times a day when she slipped around a corner to get a littlealone time.
Even though she was twenty-three now and supposedly much wiser, he didn’t trust her at all. If he could have lockedher in or stationed guards at her door, he would have.
Large guards.
Several of them.
Flicka still might have pranced into the Las Vegas crowd when they blinked.
She had the escape artist ability of a mischievous hamster, and it had served her well when she’d had to escape her husband, who had abused her, and his Secret Service security team.
Dieter ground his molars, trying not to turn redwith anger because Flicka didn’t like it when he did that. His pale, Swiss skin hid nothing when he got mad.
Before he zipped the duffel, he tucked in the pink teddy bear that Flicka had haggled the pawn shop owner for when they had sold the Laurel Tiara. Pawning Flicka’s family heirloom still grated on him, but he was glad to have the bear to appease Alina for leaving her with her nanny forover a week.
“Besides, it’s not like I could go out and get a job,” Flicka said. “I don’t have any real skills like an engineer or an accountant.”
“Just don’t,” he said.
“No one is hiring princesses that I can find. I looked at the Las Vegas job listings on all the websites, and everything wants a degree or special training or something. I don’t even know what half of them meant.”
“Don’t lookat job listings.”
“It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m useless as a human being.”
“You finished your bachelor’s in music.” Dieter pressed his lips closed, but it was too late. That sounded like he was tacitly encouraging her to go out and get a job, which he wasn’t.
“Yippee yee-haw,” Flicka said, sighing. “The local philharmonic appears to be full up for soloists next year.”
“I’m not encouragingthis—”
“You never are.”
“Maybe you could teach piano to kids.”
“Oh, God, no. Kids hate me. They sense that I don’t understand them and don’t know how to relate to them, wandering around like feral little animals. They should all be locked up in boarding schools until they’re human.”
Dieter laughed at her. He was concerned about how Flicka was going to get on with Alina when he brought herback with him, but he’d have to deal with that when he could. “You weren’t locked up in a boarding school. Wulfram sprung you when you were in kindergarten. You lived off-campus with him in a house.”
“Yes, and look at how I turned out: at loose ends, with no degree or skills of consequence and no prospects,” she fretted. “Maybe I should go back to Pierre. Being a princess is all I can do.”
