“Detective. I’m Mr. Green. We spoke on the phone. Let’s get right down to business, shall we?”
“That would be nice.”
“Your great-great-great-aunt Eleanor Pendridge left this for you.” He leaned over and picked up a small briefcase. He laid it on the desk and opened it with the inside facing him.
Michael slowly reached for his gun.
“Detective, there are a few questions I must ask you before I can give this to you.”
“What is it?” Michael asked, trying to look over the case to see the inside.
“Are you Micajah Pendridge, adopted son of Albert and Mary Davenport? And were you adopted when you were six months old by the Davenports?”
Michael held up his hand. “You’ve proven you know a lot about me. But what does any of this have to do with someone missing?”
Green’s dark eyes shifted to the briefcase. He put both big, beefy hands in and lifted a small box so that Michael could see. “The contents of this box can lead us to a man we have been searching for for many years.”
Michael narrowed his eyes on him. “How’s it going to do that?”
“When you open it, you will see.”
But when Michael reached for it, Green held the box away and slid a piece of paper and a pen to him with the other hand.
“Just sign here, please.”
He placed the box on the desk while Michael read the document. It basically said he swore he was Micajah Pendridge.
“Would you prefer us to leave while you open the box?” Green asked.
Michael looked at the etchings on the box. Deer and a castle. He shook his head at them and opened the box.
He immediately felt drawn to the blackened brooch inside. He swallowed. He wanted to ask Green why someone had left him a charred piece of jewelry, but he didn’t want to stop looking at it. The room seemed to pulse with a life of its own. Something was happening. He felt as if he had no control over his own thoughts. He lifted the brooch out of the box. There was a long pin attached to the back of it. “What is…” His mind drifted. He rubbed his finger over the surface of the brooch. The blackened char began to fall away. A shape began to appear. A dragon curled around a yellow stone. The air shimmered around it, coming from a light within the stone.
There was a small name in the stone. Michael looked closer at it. “Pendragon,” he whispered.
The ancient brooch fell to the carpeted floor when Michael disappeared from the office.
*
Beddington, London
October 1724
The carpeted floorturned into a paved street. Outside. What? How did he get out here? He shook his head. Did he black out? How? He wasn’t drunk. Wait. He looked around in all directions, squinting under the sun. Where was he? None of this looked familiar. Where were the buildings, the skyscrapers in the distance? His heart began to accelerate.
He heard the sound of people around the corner, for he was on a street in the city, just not his city.
His hands flew to his belt. His gun and his badge were gone. No! His phone, his wallet. Everything. This couldn’t be happening.All right, pull yourself together, man. You’ll figure it out and find your stuff.
He followed the sound of the people while lifting his hand to his head. Had Green or his bodyguard hit him?
He turned the corner to find a crowd gathered around the middle of the street. All their eyes were set on the same thing. Some kind of traveling street show performing on a dais, with musicians and dancers. It looked medieval to Michael’s eyes…and the people in the crowd…they were dressed oddly, too. Women wore petticoats and riding habits with tricorn hats and gloves. Men wore riding habits, also, with hose and—no. No. What was going on? Had he stumbled onto a movie set?
Someone—a woman, shoved her way past him and into the crowd. He watched her because it helped keep him from screaming that someone had better end this before he took them all in!
He knew that it was only because he was so used to examining things so closely that he saw the woman stumble into a well-dressed man wearing a monocle over his eye and slip her daintily gloved fingers into his pocket. She was robbing the man! Just as she had probably robbed him!
He hurried toward her.
