Rowan heads for the closet and I go for the fireplace. There’s nothing in here, and it’s much the same in the larger bedroom except for two missing floorboards. “Maybe something was hidden in there?”
“Whoever took Desta left this place in a hurry. Why else would they have left the newspaper clippings, diamond, blanket, or onesie behind?” Javier declares, his arms folded and his eyes scrutinizing. “It’s careless. What else was taken the night Desta was?”
Rowan and I shake our heads. “Her tiara, we’re assuming because of the diamond that was found. Her stuffed lion.” Rowan looks at me. “That was it, right? I can’t remember much of anything else. They never found the knife used to kill our father. The person knew how to get in and out of the palace without being seen. They were familiar enough or skilled enough to know how to break in. Only I heard a terribly loud bang in the hall and then Desta crying. It’s why I ran in to wake Father. I was scared. I didn’t know what the bang was.” Rowan swallows hard, guilt lining his features. “He raced out of bedand ran for Desta’s room. I heard him yell. He said something I couldn’t understand and then there was another bang, but he told me to alert the guards, and I did. I didn’t go in to help him.” He sighs.
“Father told you to alert the guards before he went in there,” I remark. “But it was storming. The bang could have been thunder. It had woken me up too.”
Rowan tilts his head, eyeing me curiously, not getting my meaning. “Yes.”
“But you went in to wake him. Why?”
He shrugs. “I just told you. l was scared. The bang was loud. I remember it feeling like the palace was shaking.”
I nod, pointing at him. “Yes. Exactly. I remember that too. It was storming out, but Father told you to alert the guards, not go back to bed, and ran into Desta’s room. Why?”
Rowan blinks at me. “I…I don’t know.”
“The person who stole Desta must have waited for a storm, using the thunder and loud rain to muffle their entrance into the palace. But Father must have known something was going on otherwise he would have told you to go back to bed and not to worry about the storm. And mother never reported the tiara missing. Hell, she slept through half of it all and didn’t get out of bed until I screamed for her.”
All the color drains from Rowan’s face. “You think he knew someone was coming for Desta? Or at least knew someone was a threat to us?”
“I think that’s looking like a very distinct possibility.”
“I don’t seewhy this is bad news,” I tell Rowan as we sit on the back patio, the outline of the Alps just barely visible in the darkness. “This is the news we were hoping for.”
After leaving the cottage, we were all out of sorts anddecided to head back to the palace. The palace Desta was taken from was only fifty kilometers from the cottage, but much like the palace where Nora’s helicopter went down, it’s been razed, the land donated to the city it dwelled in, and they turned it into a park and a memorial.
On the drive home, we received a call from the head investigator on the case. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
“Yes,” Rowan agrees softly, his voice drifting into the cold air along with the smoke from his cigar. It’s nearing midnight, but neither of us wanted to go to bed, and we definitely both needed a drink to unwind a bit. “The blood on the pajamas was Father’s and not Desta’s.” He leaves it at that as he takes a sip of his brandy.
“Why do you still sound like a whiny dog then?”
He grunts. “Because,Brother,” he sneers, “we’re not any closer to finding her than we were before all of this was discovered. It feels like a wild goose chase, and for what? Where will it lead us? We have to have a very uncomfortable conversation with Mother at some point soon, and I’ll be honest, I’m not sure much will come of it.”
I hitch up a shoulder, dipping the end of my cigar in my brandy and popping it in my mouth, taking a few puffs and blowing out a long stream of smoke followed by one smoke ring.
“I don’t know where it will lead us either,” I admit. “Possibly nowhere. Desta was taken there twenty-one years ago, and she could be anywhere at this point if she’s even still alive. We knew that from the start.”
“Yes, first my mystery woman runs out on me, Bellamy’s father falls, and now all this madness with Desta.”
I smirk, catching on the first detail and happily running with it to get my mind off everything else. “Ah, so you’re still heartbroken your mystery one-night stand left you without a trace.”
He flips me off using the hand holding his cigar before he takes another puff. “I might be. I have no way to find her either and it’s driving me up a wall.”
“She was that good?”
I can hear the smile in his voice as he says, “Better. She was fucking fantastic, not to mention beautiful, witty, and smart. You once called your Bellamy a hot pain in your ass, and I fear this woman could be the same for me and I’ll never find her again.”
“Whoa,” I exclaim, sitting up. “I thought this was merely about your pride and how this was the first time a woman dared to leave you before you could leave her. I had no clue you’d fallen in love after one night.”
He makes a noise of disdain in the back of his throat. “I didn’t say I wasin love. No one can fall in love after just one night. I’m simply…curious about her is all. I’d like a repeat or ten, and I’d also like to know why she felt the need to run off before that could happen without giving me so much as her last name or phone number. And yeah, maybe my pride is fucking hurt too.”
“I knew the second I saw Bellamy that I was fucked. Sometimes that’s all it takes. One look.”
“Well, I had a lookanda taste, and I might be fucked, but I’ll never know since I’ll never see her again.”
“And you’re sure she snuck into the wedding?”
