Royal Heist

by Rachelle Mccalla

  At the bottom of the stairs they followed another short hallway, ending in what looked like, in the weak light from the lone bulb far behind them, a blank stone wall. But the princess slipped her hand into a space between the stones and peeled back the false wall easily.

  “It’s on rollers,” she explained. “The track is hidden by the door—you can only see it once you roll it back.”

  As Galen stepped through after the others, he looked down and saw the narrow rut where the casters traveled.

  Then Kirk switched on another light and a wall-size surface like stainless steel gleamed in front of them.

  “Titanium alloy,” Kirk explained, rapping the silvery sheen with his knuckles. “Seven layers thick. Impervious to gunfire and anything but the most high-powered explosives.”

  “Any bomb strong enough to put a dent in the vault would most likely destroy everything on the other side, besides bringing down the tower and the streets above us in a giant pile of rubble,” the princess added, sliding a much smaller stone veneer panel to the side, revealing a larger version of the thumb pads the palace used as a basic security measure.

  Princess Stasi turned to her assistant. “Why don’t you show us how it’s done, Ruby?”

  Ruby nodded silently, her eyes wide as she stepped forward and pressed her hand to the surface. A green outline shimmered on the dark surface and a keypad appeared beneath her hand. “Acts 16:14, 40.” Ruby recited the code softly as she punched in the letters and numbers.

  Galen recognized the reference—the two Bible verses about Lydia, the founding mother of the house church that had been the start of the Kingdom of Lydia. No sooner had Ruby entered the code than a green light illuminated numbers above the door, counting down from ten.

  “Once the light turns on, you have ten seconds to get through the door before it closes automatically behind you—another security feature. You have to reenter the code from the other side to leave. There’s an override button inside to make the door close more quickly, but nothing to keep it open. If it were to stay open longer than ten seconds, it would trigger the alarm at headquarters.” Kirk explained as he grasped the knob at the right side of the door, gave it half a turn and pulled the door open.

  “Nothing sounds here?” Galen clarified.

  “Nothing ever sounds here,” the princess confirmed as she stepped into the vault. “If the vault was compromised, we wouldn’t want anything to alert the trespassers that guards were on their way.”

  Galen caught Ruby’s eyes for just a moment as they stepped in after the princess. Ruby’s tiny, hope-filled smile encouraged him as he braced himself for what they’d see inside, and prayed the crown jewels would be undisturbed.

  TWELVE

  “Oh, wow.” Ruby’s voice caught in her throat as she entered the chamber. Emotion filled her, welling up in her throat and her eyes. She blinked it away, swallowing repeatedly and sucking in a steadying breath of the cool air inside the vault, leaning back slightly against Galen’s steady frame, grateful he was near.

  “I had no idea,” Galen whispered, awe in his voice as he gently squeezed her shoulder.

  Ruby could only nod in agreement. Though she’d visited the vault several times now, the splendor of the space never failed to move her. Inside the vault a long hallway led forward in time, marching through the centuries past glass cases, each settled in front of statues and portraits of the kings and queens whose jewelry lay on the black velvet surfaces within each case. Often the very necklaces, signet rings, scepters and tiaras pictured in the portraits lay in the cases below, alongside other more varied riches: brooches, pendants, bracelets, letter openers, gold-encased Bibles, jewel-encrusted pencil cases, combs, mirrors, inkstands and pocket watches.

  “In the early years of Lydia’s history, the jewelry was much simpler, favoring amethysts in reference to the founding mother, Lydia’s, work in purple cloth,” Stasi explained as she passed slowly down the aisle toward the more modern pieces at the rear of the vault. “Once we reach the era of Charlemagne, we see the repeated image of the Carolingian cross—four trefoil knots that meet in the middle.”

  “Nothing’s been disturbed?” Kirk asked.

  “Not that I can tell.” Stasi smiled at her fiancé. “I’d have to examine the pieces more closely to be certain they haven’t been replaced with fakes, but the Bulldog Bandits aren’t known for bothering with those kinds of details, are they, Ruby?”

  “Not that I’ve ever heard.” Ruby felt her tension ease with the reassurance that the crown jewels were, thus far at least, safe. The bandits had a history of taking everything they wanted in one clandestine hit. She’d been trying to recall all she could of the details she’d read and heard of the bandits’ activities.

  Now she wanted to apply what she knew in hopes of saving the Lydian crown jewels. “The Bulldog Bandits work at night when stores and museums are closed. They override the security systems. No alarm, no matter how high-tech, has ever gone off during any of their heists.”

  “What about human guards?” Galen asked.

  Ruby swallowed. She recalled that detail with chilling certainty. “They kill the guards before they can sound an alarm—usually by shooting them in the back of the head.”

  “The guards never knew what hit them?”

  “They never saw it coming.”

  “In that case—” Galen crossed his arms over his chest, and Ruby immediately missed his hand on her shoulder. “We have an advantage. We’ve had some warning when the others didn’t.”

  Ruby appreciated his attitude. “How can we leverage that advantage to save the royal jewels? I’d hate to put a live guard down here, not if the bandits are just going to shoot him. In fact, I think that man in the information booth should be better protected.”

  “He’s behind bulletproof glass,” Stasi reassured her. “Even assuming the bandits got this far, the cases each have a laser-activated security alarm. If the glass is broken or removed, or anything interrupts the beam of the interior lasers, an alarm goes off at the royal guard headquarters.”

  “But if they have a valid thumbprint and know the code for each case, they can open the cases just like we do and take the contents without triggering anything,” Ruby reminded her friend.

  “Each case has a unique code?” Galen asked.

  “Yes,” Stasi explained. “The code is the coronation date of the monarch whose jewels are in each case.”

  “All the royal guards have the coronation dates memorized,” Ruby mused aloud.

  “The coronation dates are public knowledge,” Stasi admitted, “but the fact that they’re the code is a secret known only to those who’ve been inside the vault. Just like the Bible reference for the main door, they insure that only those who value Lydia’s history and heritage can access the jewels.”

  “But if they’re stolen—” Galen began.

  “We’re not going to let them be stolen,” Stasi interrupted him.

  “I understand—” Galen nodded patiently “—but if any piece is removed from this vault, do we have a way of tracking it?”

  “These are historical artifacts,” Stasi reminded him curtly. “They’ve never been altered in any way.”

  “If the bandits get their hands on them, alterations will be the least of their crimes,” Kirk reminded his fiancée.

  Ruby understood how protective Stasi felt about the jewels, but Galen had a valid point, and her friend needed to understand it. “If we planted tracking devices on select pieces, we could find the jewels again, even if our worst fears are realized.” She placed a hand on Stasi’s arm as she spoke.

  Stasi closed her eyes. “I hate to think that’s necessary.” She shook her head regretfully. “But you’re right. They would have to be extremely small devices. I don’t believe we have anything like that readily available in Lydia. We’d have
to order something.”

  “I don’t want to think that the bandits could get this far.” Galen’s voice was solemn. “But if they did—” His words trailed off, their warning lingering in the cold air of the vault.

  Silently they walked the aisle between the glass cases. Ruby paused several times to look at the kings and queens in the portraits. Despite their gentle faces and compassionate smiles, their eyes held the same determination Ruby had seen in Stasi’s eyes so many times—the tenacity to keep their kingdom safe from any and every invader down through the centuries.

  It was a legacy Ruby hoped to preserve. But what if her father was right? What if she betrayed her friends unwittingly, just as she’d betrayed her family?

  * * *

  Galen kept a close eye on Ruby as they headed back to the palace. The tension she carried in her shoulders and the balled fists of her hands had eased somewhat once she’d seen that the crown jewels hadn’t been disturbed, but anxiety still shadowed her eyes. He waited until Kirk and Stasi went back inside the palace, leaving him alone with Ruby in the back garden as late afternoon gave way to evening. She’d said she wanted to speak with him, but now she seemed lost in her thoughts, overwhelmed by all they’d seen and learned.

  He chose his words cautiously, not wanting to upset her further. “I feel reassured after seeing all the security features protecting the crown jewels.”

  Ruby nodded a little too quickly and blew out a breath, but didn’t meet his eyes. They’d wandered slowly toward one of the garden fountains, its water cascading gently down, catching the last of the evening sunlight.

  “You’re still worried about the jewels?” He didn’t know what else to say, but he couldn’t stand for her to carry her burden alone. In all the time they’d spent together over the previous summers, Ruby had almost always been carefree and joyful. The change tore at him.

  Ruby trailed one hand through the clear water of the fountain. Finally she sat on the stonework edge and looked up at him. “I’m the weak link,” she said, her voice so soft Galen had to strain to hear her over the fountain.

  He sat beside her. “What do you mean?”

  “They came after me. They attacked me to get my handprint and any other information they still needed.”

  “Their only other choices would be guards or royals under guard. You weren’t guarded. It’s nothing personal. It’s an oversight—you should have had a guard from the moment you were given high-level security clearance, but we’ve been shorthanded.” Galen knew Ruby had been surrounded by guards both inside the palace walls and when she was at Stasi’s studio. It was only when she had walked home without her friend that she’d been vulnerable.

  But Ruby pinched her lips together and shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I hate to tell you. It’s so awful.”

  Concerned now, Galen took her hand. “Please tell me.”

  Ruby stared at the falling water for several long minutes. Galen waited patiently, praying silently for his friend.

  Finally Ruby offered, “My parents own a chain of jewelry stores.”

  “Tate Jewelry.” Galen nodded, aware that her position as heir to the business placed her on a much higher social rung than the one he occupied.

  “They expanded several years ago. It was a risky venture, but my parents had realized that if they ever wanted to be able to afford to retire, they needed more than the revenue they were currently making. At first it appeared things were going well.” She sighed and stared at the water.

  “At first?”

  Ruby shook her head. “Everything took a turn for the worse all at one moment. Our suppliers turned on us, the competition undercut our prices with alarming precision, it was as though someone was on the inside, telling everyone else how to ruin us.”

  “I’m sorry,” Galen said when Ruby paused again.

  “It was my fault.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t think what I might have done, but the trouble all began the very week after my high school graduation party. We had over a hundred people at our house. My parents and their friends mostly stayed outside on the back deck and gazebo, but I let my friends come inside the house.” Ruby took a shaky breath. “My father is convinced that one of my friends did something—put a bug in his home office or something.”

  “Did your friends go in his office?”

  “They weren’t supposed to. It was locked, but my father threw a fit when he unlocked the door the next morning. He claimed his papers were out of order and blamed me for letting my friends in. Then when the business tanked...” She pinched her eyes shut and turned her face toward the sky.

  Galen waited, not wanting to hear, wishing Ruby wouldn’t have had to experience the things she’d already told him.

  She let out a slow breath. “He said it was my fault. He said I had betrayed him.”

  “But you didn’t do anything. You didn’t know—”

  “I betrayed my family without even knowing it.” Ruby stood and turned her back to him, holding out her hand and staring at her palm, as though the print might yet let the bandits reach the jewels. “And without knowing it, I’ve betrayed my best friend’s family, too.”

  “You haven’t betrayed them.” Galen stood and linked his fingers through hers. “The jewels are still safe.”

  “For how much longer? We don’t know who these bandits are or where they are or when they might strike.” Ruby choked back a sob. “I should leave Lydia.”

  “No,” Galen breathed out the word, wrapping his other arm protectively around Ruby’s waist as if he could hold her there forever.

  “If I’m not here, they can’t use my handprint.”

  “If you’re gone, the princess won’t be able to finish her jewelry designs in time for the other weddings.”

  “That’s the other thing.” Ruby turned and met his eyes for the first time. “The designs. How do you think those leaked out?”

  “It could have been anything.”

  “It could have been me.”

  “How?”

  “When I forwarded the designs to my father. The bug in his office—”

  “You’ve never gotten rid of it?”

  “We’ve never found it. We’re not even sure there is one, but after what’s happened, I realize I’ve been foolish to assume the designs would be safe. For the past five years Tate Jewelry has been floundering, constantly outmaneuvered by her competitors. The replicas of the royal jewels were my plan to save the company.”

  “Ruby.” Galen still had his arm around her waist, and pulled her closer now that she was facing him, encircling her in his arms. “It’s not your fault.”

  “The evidence says otherwise.” The tension in her shoulders eased as she let her forehead rest on his shoulder.

  He pulled her closer, glad for the tall manicured bushes that encircled the fountain and shielded them from view. Evening was falling, but the garden lights had not yet come on. No one could see them, not even from the high palace windows, thanks to the distance and the lack of light.

  Not that Galen would have let her go, even if he’d thought someone might see them. Ruby was carrying far too much guilt. He felt its heavy weight. She gripped his shoulders, pulling him closer, burying her face in his shoulder as she wrestled with her burden.

  “It’s not your fault,” he whispered, rubbing her back gently, wishing he could chase away all the tension and worry she’d bottled up inside. “You didn’t betray anyone.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “Believe it. It’s true. You’re a good friend. The princess raves about what a faithful friend you’ve always been.”

  “But if I’ve betrayed her—”

  “You won’t. You didn’t.
Besides, you’ve always been a good friend to me. Nothing you’ve done or ever will do could change that.”

  “That’s the other thing.” Ruby shook her head. “Last summer when we were at the airport, you asked if you could kiss me goodbye. It was the single most romantic moment of my life and I told you to back off, to give me space.”

  Galen wasn’t certain what she was trying to say. He let go of her and stepped back. “I’m sorry, you’re right.”

  “No.” She reached for him. “That’s not what I meant. I don’t want you to stay away from me.”

  Torn by uncertainty, Galen met her eyes. “What do you want, Ruby?” He extended his arm, brushing the tips of her fingers with his, unsure whether he was welcome to take her hand.

  She took a step closer. “When Stasi finishes her designs, I have to return to America. I love this kingdom. It hurts to leave. And I’m afraid.” Slowly she slid her fingers forward until they laced through his. She held his hand securely. “If I let myself give in to my feelings for you, I’m afraid I won’t be able to leave.”

  Galen wanted to tell her how he felt about her, but the captain’s warnings pounded through him with every beat of his heart. He couldn’t speak, but he couldn’t walk away, either.

  Ruby’s hands slid down his back to his waist, pulled him closer even as she lifted her face. Her hair brushed his cheek. Her nose traced his jawline.

  He wanted to kiss her. He’d wanted to kiss her for a long time, but it had never been so difficult for him to resist. As long as he kept his eyes shut and didn’t look at her, he should be able to hold out.

  “Galen?” Her voice was soft, her mouth so near his ear he felt her breath caress his cheek.

  He couldn’t keep his eyes closed any longer, but tipped his head and looked into her eyes.

  Trust and uncertainty and affection shimmered in their jade-green depths. If he’d wanted his feelings returned, he’d have hoped to see that affection there. But since he couldn’t allow himself to get any closer to Ruby, the sight of it chilled him. But in the midst of all the longing in her eyes, he saw that she questioned whether he felt things for her that he wasn’t supposed to feel.