Claim the Crown

by Carla Neggers

  She found a pay phone and tried him at the farm, but Iggy answered, telling her David had gone to Maine with a “built blond sweetie.” Iggy was unreal. Ashley hung up and tried Maine. Roger answered and impatiently explained that David was on his way to Badger Rock, and yes, he would certainly tell him his sister had called.

  “May I speak with Jeremy, please?”

  Roger huffed. “Very well.”

  In a moment, Jeremy came on the line and swore at her for at least ten seconds. Amazing, she thought, how good that made her feel. “Jeremy, I’m on my way back to the island. Wait for me?”

  “Forever, Ashley.”

  Then, with a refreshing bounce to her step, she stopped at the bank and, with the key Evan Parrington had given her, identified herself to the bank officer— this one didn’t flirt with her in her unkempt state—and opened the safe-deposit box. Tucking the velvet-bound cases into a canvas bag, she headed out. She had bummed a helicopter ride into the city from Westchester Airport. On the way back, however, she had to get her Alfa Romeo out of the garage and drive herself to the airport. She had asked a couple of mechanics to refuel her plane and give it a good going-over, and when she arrived, they were eager to show her their handiwork.

  Within minutes, she was back at four thousand feet, hoping she could hold herself together a while longer. The remaining Balaton jewels were at her side; so was the folder.

  31

  David concentrated on keeping himself seated as the boat skidded over the waves. With his broken leg, he couldn’t anchor himself, and even the slightest bump brought waves of throbbing pain. His jaw was cramped from gritting his teeth and his eyes burned... and he was sick with worry. Ash. What was she into now?

  “So what happened to my sister?” he asked, hanging on as they bounced over a line of rolling waves.

  Balaton kept his gaze on the gray ocean ahead. “We don’t know, but it’s my belief your uncle has her.”

  “Barky? What the hell for? He could have—”

  “He will want the remaining jewels.”

  David recalled that single day in Geneva, more than four years ago, when he had stared dumbfounded at a queen’s ransom in jewels. He’d thought them old-fashioned, but later, on the flight home, Ashley mentioned that she had kind of liked the tiara and the choker, except then she couldn’t imagine where she’d wear them. To a fish-tank opening, David thought.

  But there had been no mention in the You profile of the other jewels in the collection...or the safe-deposit box at Piccard Cie.

  “How do you know there are more jewels?” David asked sharply.

  Balaton hissed impatiently, his expression steely, “Because I am a Balaton.”

  “But you told Sarah—”

  “I know what I told her,” he erupted, suddenly out of control. Despite the nonstop biting wind, beads of perspiration broke out across his forehead, but he did not turn to face David. He took off his cap and rubbed the sweat off with a swipe of his forearm, like a pitcher on the mound in August. “Please.” He sounded calmer. “There’s so much you don’t understand. Your uncle—the man who calls himself Bartholomew Wakefield—will stop at nothing to get those jewels.”

  David scoffed. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black, Balaton. You sent your muscle—what’s his name, Smith—after the jewels...”

  “Giles was overzealous,” Balaton snapped. “He was not to have hurt you. I made the mistake of telling him how absolutely vital it is that your ‘uncle’ not get his hands on the jewels. He has only the tiara and the choker, am I right?”

  “Look, I don’t give a damn about the jewels. As far as I’m concerned, anybody wants them, they can have them. It’s Ash I care about. Now what the hell’s happened to her?”

  “She’s gone...this morning. David, listen to me.” Perspiration was gleaming on his upper lip now, too. “If I can get the remaining jewels of the Balaton collection, I can expose this man Bartholomew Wakefield for the traitor and thief he is.”

  David made a sudden movement that nearly sent him sprawling off his chair, but he held tight. Jewel thief he was willing to believe, but traitor? Not Barky.

  Balaton put his cap back on. “Please forgive me for being so blunt.” He had regained his formal manner and even managed to smile apologetically at David. “I forget what he is to you.”

  “It’s okay.” David didn’t care what people were calling Barky; he wanted facts. “Do you think Barky’ll try to get Ash to get him the rest of the jewels?”

  “I know it.”

  Why now? If Barky had ever asked Ashley and David for the contents of the safe-deposit box, in all likelihood they’d have given them to him. But David vividly remembered their argument over a new linoleum floor.

  “What’s wrong with this floor?”

  “It’s worn out.”

  “It still has years of use left.”

  “Barky, I’ll pay for a new floor.”

  “Don’t waste your money.”

  That was Barky. Not this person Balaton was talking about, not the man in black who’d battered him and Ashley in the woods.

  “What do you think we should do?” he asked Balaton.

  “Stop him.”

  “Sure, but how?”

  Balaton seemed clearheaded and calm now. “We must beat him to the jewels, David. You have access to them, don’t you? Perhaps we can get to Switzerland before they do and—” He stopped as David shook his head.

  “Won’t work.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because the jewels aren’t in Switzerland.”

  * * *

  After Ashley’s call, Jeremy found Lillian Parker in the dining room, where she sat with an ashtray, a pack of cigarettes and coffee. She had dressed casually in jeans and a bright turquoise cotton sweater, but her hair was lank, and because she hadn’t put on any makeup, he could see the lines of age around her mouth and eyes. Knowing she’d been worried, he told her Ashley was on her way back.

  Lillian smiled. “She’s irrepressible, isn’t she? I wonder if she went after the rest of the jewels.”

  “The what?” Stunned, Jeremy sat diagonally across from her. “Lillian...”

  She didn’t seem to hear him as she tapped her cigarette lightly on the edge of the ashtray; a whitened ash dropped off. “Mac will be furious—probably’ll blame me for her, too.”

  He contained his impatience. “I’m sorry, Lillian, I don’t understand.”

  “Of course not.” She laughed, tired and sad and bitter, and put the cigarette back in her mouth. “You were just a little boy yourself thirty years ago. You couldn’t know about all the honest but disastrous mistakes I made when I was young and oh, so stupid.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “Why not? Everyone else is.”

  Jeremy wished he could think of some way to comfort her, and yet at the same time, he only wanted to pin her down and get her to talk. At the moment, sitting under the portrait of the dead Judith Land, Lillian was just rambling and feeling sorry for herself....

  And then, all at once, it became clear. His eyes widened, but ever the lawyer, he forced a note of calm into his voice. “You and Judith were in Hungary in ‘56. You’re the other two Mac helped escape.”

  Lillian exhaled smoke at the ceiling. “Bingo.”

  What a bombshell that would have been— and would be now, if it were widely known. In an effort to keep from strangling the woman for answers, Jeremy pulled the insulated coffeepot over to him and had a look. Practically full. Lillian had an extra mug; he filled it. As he did so, he tried to imagine two rich young Americans caught in the hell of Budapest during one of its revolutions.

  “You lost Mac that night,” he said with compassion. “It must have been frightening.”

  “The whole thing was frightening from start to finish—pure hell. And much, much more than either of us, Judith or I, had bargained for.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. “Crockett hates it when I smoke here. He says
he can smell it for weeks afterward. Poor Crockett, he’s been through so much. Usually I oblige him, but today...I just don’t give a damn.”

  Jeremy steered her back to the subject. “He never knew about your foray into Hungary?”

  “God, no. He’d have started another war to get us out.”

  “What made you go?”

  “Romance, adventure. I’d wanted to be a journalist as long as I could remember, but, you see, I was young, rich, pretty and female—and no one took me seriously, especially at age twenty-two. Judith and I were in Vienna when the revolution broke out in Hungary, and I saw my chance.”

  “Did you know Mac was there?”

  She sighed. “Dear stuffy Mac. Yes, I knew. We’d known each other since we were tots, and so naturally we looked him up when we got to Austria. When the trouble started and I’d made up my mind I was going to pursue my first big story, I decided I’d go to Mac for information. There were dozens of journalists in Vienna—colleagues of my father’s—I could have bugged, but Mac was an expert. He knew Eastern Europe, he knew the language, he was a part of the story. But he’d also disappeared. Well, of course, I guessed exactly where he’d gone.”

  “Didn’t you also guess he was on a mission?”

  “Naturally. But I didn’t care.”

  Jeremy winced.

  “I’d made up my mind I was going, too. I didn’t think there would be any danger. You have to understand, Jeremy, that during those first few days, after the initial uprising, there was a real euphoria in the air—people actually thought the Hungarians were going to win. Journalists were pouring into Budapest. I wanted to be there, too.”

  “But you weren’t a journalist,” Jeremy pointed out softly. “You didn’t have credentials...”

  “I know: but I had money. It was ridiculously simple to gain illegal entry into the country.”

  “What about Judith?”

  “Judith—” She smiled wistfully, going after another cigarette. “Judith believed she could do anything I could do—and ought to. She insisted on coming with me. I argued, but she said she’d tell my father what I was doing if I didn’t let her tag along. So I did. And there we were, two little rich girls, one with an internationally famous face, prancing about a Soviet bloc country in the midst of a revolution. By the time we reached Budapest, all hell was breaking loose.”

  Jeremy nodded sympathetically. “How did you hook up with Mac?”

  “A Hungarian had heard about us—from the people who’d smuggled us into the country.”

  “Balaton?”

  She shook her head. “Bartholomew Wakefield.”

  “I see.”

  “Mmm. It was strange. He never made fun of us, never told us what silly fools we were. He just helped us. I’ve never known anyone else like him. Well, I trusted him immediately—it took Judith a bit longer— and told him about Mac. But he already knew about Mac, and he brought us to him, more or less dropping us on Mac’s doorstep like a couple of orphans.”

  “Mac must have loved that.”

  She laughed. “He was properly furious.”

  “But he agreed to help you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he compromised his own mission.”

  “That’s right.” With a sterling silver lighter, she finally lit the cigarette she’d been holding tightly in her palm. “He was helping a Hungarian who’d been passing information to the Americans—our dear sweet Andrew Balaton. Mac hid us out with him and told us he’d leave us to the KGB if we didn’t do as he said. At first, we had no idea he was a count. We thought his name was József Major and he was a dashing freedom fighter. He told us stories, restored our confidence in ourselves, made us believe we weren’t the idiots we knew we were. He made us feel brave at a time when we deserved to feel only stupid and terrified.”

  When she paused, blowing out smoke, Jeremy looked at her thoughtfully, trying to imagine what it must have been like. “You were in an untenable situation.”

  “Oh, Lord, yes. We didn’t know what was worse: facing Mac, the Russians, Land Crockett or Addison Parker. And my mother—my mother would have skinned me alive.”

  “When did you learn József Major was a count?”

  Lillian left her cigarette to burn on the edge of the ashtray. “The night before we were to make our escape, Judith wasn’t feeling well; the cellar where we were hidden was damp, freezing, a perfect hellhole. So Andrew told us his own story, about being the last of the Balatons, hiding from the Russians all these years, right under their noses all the time, pretending to be a trusted servant. We were mesmerized.”

  “What was his position?”

  “He wasn’t permitted to say, but I imagine it was a government clerical post—one of those positions where you have no power but access to tremendous amounts of information. Given the paranoia of the regime, it’s a wonder he was able to pull it off.”

  “Had he been exposed?”

  “Apparently it was imminent. I know Mac made it very clear Balaton had to get out of the country, but with two more added to the list...well, I was worried. I snuck out one evening, and I found the Hungarian who’d helped us earlier—and I asked him to help Mac now. He was a legend, you see. A sort of Scarlet Pimpernel.”

  “Orült szerzetes.”

  She sighed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Yes, the mad monk.”

  “You were thinking what a hell of a story you had, weren’t you?”

  “Oh, but of course. I’d already thought of how I’d change the names of the people involved, to protect the innocent, and all that noble stuff journalists sometimes do. I was keeping notes.”

  Thirty years later, in light of what Lillian Parker had become, Jeremy thought he could understand her desperation. “And Mac?”

  “I sent our ‘mad monk’ to him. Mac reluctantly accepted his help. Originally, our monk was to escort us to the border, but that plan fell through at the last minute. We had to go alone—the four of us. There was a clearing near the border. It was a landmark, a place where we could rest. It was so cold, and Judith had taken ill. Mac was in charge.” She licked her lips as her voice grew increasingly hollow. “He moved us out of the clearing as quickly as he could—we were so tired and just numb with the cold. But it was dangerous to waste time. Mac picked up the rear. There was a light, and we heard voices...shots. Andrew kept us moving. There was nothing we could do. We knew the Russians had Mac.”

  “Hell,” Jeremy breathed.

  With eerie calm, Lillian picked up her cigarette. “It was obvious to everyone but me that our mad monk had betrayed us.”

  “Why not to you?”

  “Because I believed in him. He’s that sort of man, Jeremy.”

  He nodded, thinking of Ashley. “So I’ve been told. Lillian, what about the jewels?”

  “They represent the second stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Andrew showed them to us, in the cellar, as a way of proving to us that he wasn’t lying about being this Hungarian count. It was very dramatic.”

  Jeremy had to smile. “You took notes?”

  “Of course.” And she, too, smiled. “Whatever mistakes I made, at least I meant well. Anyway, Andrew insisted that he wouldn’t take the jewels—the Balaton jewels, he called them—to the West with him. It was too dangerous, and he didn’t want them; they belonged in his homeland. But Judith and I decided he was being absurdly heroic. So we snuck the jewels into Austria ourselves, inside our clothing. Andrew had no idea.”

  “Mac?”

  “Lord, no. It was our secret. After the disaster on the border, we felt silly carrying a fortune in jewels around with us. For a long time we just didn’t say anything. Then Judith and Andrew decided to marry, and she came up with her plan to wear them the night they announced their engagement, at a Christmas ball, and surprise Andrew. She was absolutely stunning. Jaws literally dropped when she walked into the ballroom in that silver gown with the choker on that long white neck of hers and her hair woven in among the diamonds and pearls of
the tiara. I’d never seen her so beautiful.”

  Jeremy conjured up images of old Judith Land movies, the face, the smile of the legendary actress. And then he glanced up, and there she was, laughing and smiling in the oil painting. “Was Andrew surprised?”

  “I suppose so. I didn’t spend much time with either him or Judith. And the next time I saw the tiara and choker, Ashley Wakefield was wearing them that night at the institute.”

  32

  After a much longer ride than David had expected, they came to a dilapidated dock on an island enveloped in a damp cover of fog. “Weird place for a billionaire to hang out,” David muttered, looking around. As far as he could see, the place was uninhabited—but, he noted, he couldn’t see far. “Is the house on the other side of the island?”

  Balaton had taken the crutches and tossed them onto the half-rotted dock. Now he smiled as he offered David his shoulder, “Crockett is an eccentric.”

  “I guess so.”

  As he staggered under a wave of dizziness, David gladly took the wiry little man’s help in getting out of the boat, although they both nearly ended up in the drink. When, breathless, they were standing together on the dock, Balaton handed David his crutches. “Come,” Balaton said, “I’ll show you.”

  At best, the dock was unsteady, teetering ominously under David’s weight, and there were places where the boards had completely rotted through. As Balaton strutted ahead, David swung over a couple of missing boards. “Is Ash around here someplace?” he called. “If anything happens to her, all you assholes will pay.”

  The bluster went a long way to harden his spirit, taking the edge off some of the uneasiness that nagged at him, but he knew he was in no condition to make good on his threats. As he stood in the wild untrampled grass at the end of the dock, he looked around for any sign of human life, but he saw only trees and rocks outlined in the heavy gray mist, and the only sounds that came to him were the cawing, peeping, twittering and yelping of scores of birds, hidden and unseen.