by Zara Zenia
"Not quite," I said. "The Prince asked to meet with me again, but under more personal conditions."
"Do you seriously mean to tell me I asked you to follow an alien dictator and you left with a date?"
"To the Prince it's a date. To me it's an opportunity for more contact. A chance to learn more about him and what might have happened that day."
"So you do think he was involved."
"I think the Prince is a lonely young man with a lot of pressure on him. I think one day that pressure may lead to him doing something desperate and that day is probably closer than he thinks. And I believe there's more to what happened at that cultural center than just a brilliant idealist and his friends trying to prove a point."
Nora clicked her tongue. "I didn't hear an answer to my question in all those words, Kelly."
My shoulders slumped. I knew there was a decent chance she'd fire me if I disagreed with her. For some reason, even when it was in my best interest, I couldn't throw him under the bus.
It’s just one date. Dinner and a boring conversation, and then you're on the first plane out of here.
"All I can say is that there's more going on here than meets the eye and I think the Prince may be the fastest way to figure out what. Which is why when he asked to see me again, I agreed."
Nora left me hanging for several tense seconds before she heaved a sigh. "That makes sense I suppose. If you're sure you aren't falling for him."
"I think I can safely say there's no danger of that, Ms. Morse," I said, relieved.
Prince Lortnam was easy on the eyes and had a manner about him that made me want to hand him a beer and give him a hug in equal measure, but I wouldn't be climbing into his star-dusty sheets anytime soon. He was just a good guy who I didn't think was a criminal mastermind. I could have lied, but I wasn't that desperate yet.
"Well, thank you for bringing me up to speed," Nora said, pulling me from my thoughts. "But I don't see why you called me to tell me you don't have anything yet."
"Actually, I called because I need a verbal authorization for additional expenses related to the date."
"Oh no! I am not paying for that asshole to wine and dine one of his potential baby makers. He can damn well feed you from his own kitchen."
"There's a problem with that," I said. "The Prince thinks I'm a reporter with a different last name. Every time I go near his palace, I run the risk of that lie being exposed."
I said a silent prayer that Nora would let the subject drop because that was a topic I didn't want to get into. There was nothing illegal about pretending to be a reporter but going onto the Prince's ship under false pretense was too close to espionage for comfort. That wasn't something I could admit to on the phone. In fact, the less Nora knew about how and where the interview happened, the better.
"Okay, I guess I can see that. But try to go Dutch at least. That cheap bronze-skinned bastard would probably love the chance to pass off the expenses to someone else. Hmph, administrator my ass. That's just a fancy way of saying he's supposed to figure out how to make Mother Earth shoulder as much of the burden as they can."
This time, I couldn't hold my tongue. "I don't think that's true, Ms. Morse. The research I've done so far suggests they are handling most of their upkeep themselves. That includes all those fancy parties they used to throw. They don't let their security teams get into trouble and I couldn't find a single use of diplomatic immunity, let alone a misuse. In fact, a few months ago, the Trilyn King allowed Prince Akrawn to be taken into custody from one of their embassies. Granted he was found not guilty. All foreign dignitaries should be so respectful of the locals."
My heart sank as Nora's side of the line went quiet. Damn it, I had gone too far. I needed to back the hell up and talk my way out of this.
"Kelly, are you sure you aren't attracted to him?" she asked. "I would understand if you were. There is a certain... barbarian quality to him. If that's the sort of thing that stokes your fires."
"I'm attracted to the truth," I said through gritted teeth. "Can't get enough of the stuff. It's why I became a PI. Look, if Lortnam did this, I will personally get on any witness stand you point me too and help nail his ass to the wall. The same if it was his brothers, or an aide looking for a promotion, or a guard getting above his station. And make no mistake, Ms. Morse, all of those are just as likely as the Prince having personally been involved."
I struggled to keep my breath and stomach steady as I waited for Nora's reply.
"Just keep the bill below four figures," she finally said. "Maybe I can figure out a way to write it off as a business expense. In the meantime, do you have a weapon or something to protect yourself? I don't like you being left alone with him for hours on end."
"I'm sure I'll be fine," I lied.
"You can't be sure of anything when you're in the room with one of them. Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't tried something like this sooner."
I closed my eyes, letting Nora's rant flow through one ear and out the other and trying not to fall below the surface. She asked for details about the date, which I told her it was best she not have. Altogether, it took me half an hour to usher her off the phone. After, I tossed my phone aside, letting it fall into the recesses of the couch as a wave of fatigue washed over me. Once this case was over, I wouldn't talk about Trilyn or aliens or fortresses with anybody ever again. I never felt clean after.
An hour later and feeling no better, I hauled myself to my feet and walked back to the liquor store. If I had been thinking ahead, I would have bought two bottles the first time to save myself the trip. But then, if I had been thinking ahead, I would have hopped on a plane the second that ship of his broke through the atmosphere.
On the walk, I weighed my options again. To put it simply, I didn't have any. Not if I wanted to get on a plane to Japan. But there were other ways to leave. The money Nora had already paid me would buy gas and lodging to get a few states away. If I stalled her for a few more days and the second check cleared, it would give me a larger nest egg. It wouldn't get me far and it wouldn't keep me there long, but I would be out of Baltimore and away from the shadow of the Prince's fortress.
I dismissed the idea by the time I crossed the store's threshold, bottle of wine clutched between my half-frozen fingers. No matter how I fudged the numbers, I couldn't make the meager amount stretch long enough for me to get seeded with another private investigation agency. It'd been years since I'd done any other kind of work and I wouldn't be able to give my current agency as a reference if I skipped out on a case halfway through.
But there was another question I hadn't wanted to think about. Now that Prince Lortnam was interested in me, could I disappear even if I wanted to? How far did the Prince and his royal brothers' reach go? Could he fly his fortress to Tokyo and make a deal with their prime minister? Could he have Mei arrested for harboring a fugitive? The man I interviewed didn't seem like the type to play that dirty, but he could have been as deep undercover as I was. Or he could have just believed his own lies.
By the time I was back on my couch, my head was swimming. After fishing my phone out of the couch and checking my world clock to make sure it was a decent hour in Tokyo, I called Mei.
"I fucked up so bad, Mei," I blurted the second she answered the phone.
My phone said it was half past noon in Japan, but Mei still hadn't changed out of her black pajamas. The adorable white polar bear painted across her boobs waved at me cheerfully. Smart ass. Didn't it know I was about to become a runaway bride intergalactic style?
Mei blinked and slid a finger beneath her glasses to rub her eyes. "Eh? It's too early for jokes, Kelly. You can't have fucked up. It was just an interview."
"An interview that ended with a dinner date." I slid the wine bottle between my thighs and crammed the corkscrew into the cork in a pathetic attempt to vent my frustrations.
Again, Mei blinked. She tilted her head to the side. The polar bear followed suit.
"You and who?"
&nbs
p; "Me and the super-tanned Prince Charming who's been camped out in the park a few blocks from my apartment for the last four years."
The wine cork yielded with a satisfying thunk. Success! I brought the neck to my lips and took a deep sip. No point in pretending to enjoy the aromas and subtle notes of flavor tonight. If I knew how to make a cocktail that didn't taste like lighter fluid, I would be getting drunk with that instead.
"Just take a breath, Kel," Mei took a deep breath to demonstrate, raising her hands on the inhalation and lowering them exhalation.
I tipped the bottle toward the screen. "I can't take a breath, I'm too busy drinking."
"It's just a date—"
"Do not do the calm thing. I hate when you do the calm thing."
"You could always tell him you changed your mind," Mei said. "Or that you were seeing someone and things suddenly got serious."
"Yeah. That would have been a great excuse if I hadn't already told him and the client that I'd do it."
Mei rubbed her forehead. "Kuso! All right, so it's bad."
"It gets worse." I took another sip from the bottle before continuing. "I don't think they were involved. At least the Prince I interviewed today wasn't."
"Really? You seemed so sure going in."
Mei's words left a sour taste in my mouth that my bold red couldn't overpower. I had been sure Lortnam and his family staged the attack when I left my apartment that morning. But after an hour with him, my thoughts had changed. After an evening combing through every second of our time together— every shift in tone and body language —I couldn't see the Prince putting innocent people in harm’s way any more than I could see myself joining Jacob Corbin and his bloody crusade.
"That was before I met him."
"Let me guess, he wouldn't hurt a fly?"
"He'd blast the little fucker from the sky," I said, my lips turning up into a smile in spite of myself. "But only if he was in his own home. I think he's just got too much riding on this whole thing to take a chance like that. I don't think I've ever met a guy who wanted to get married so badly."
"Wouldn't that amount of pressure make him more likely to pull something like this?"
"He wouldn't want to go about it this way. Apart from putting innocent people in harm’s way, this number of eyes pointed in his direction is new territory for him. When I ran into him, he looked like he was ready to jump out of his skin. He wouldn't want this level of attention."
"How does he spend four years here and not get used to the attention?"
I screwed my lips to the side as I mulled over Mei's question. "I saw a couple of economic news types heading for coffee after the first round of interviews. Maybe that's all he watches."
"That's weird."
"Meanwhile, the client's a real peach. I told her I didn't think he was involved and she practically accused me of being a Trilyn sympathizer."
Mei scrunched her nose and pursed her lips. "One of those? Did you get those vibes from her when you met her?"
I shrugged. "She seemed like your typical type A, rich snob with an axe to grind."
"Well maybe it's not xenophobia. It could be good old-fashioned entitlement. You said her car is one of the ones that blew up, right?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. "No, this was deeper than that. I don't like the Trilyn either. I've thought about some of the things she said. But hearing them from the client, I felt like I was watching a guy on a street corner raging about the moon landing."
Mei frowned. "Thoughts motivated by anger and hate aren't the same as ones motivated by fear."
"Still too close for comfort." I leaned back on the couch, cradling the bottle to my chest. "I need to get out of here, Mei. While there's still enough of me to leave. That dinner is my ticket out. One way or another, I'll know enough to close the case."
"I know you won't take money," Mei said, "But will you let me help?"
"Not that I wouldn't love some, but I don't see how you can."
"Ah, Kel, you know better than to doubt me." Mei interlaced her fingers together and stretched them palms out to the screen. "You have to go on the date, but nobody said it has to be a good one. All we need is enough information on Prince Charming to make sure you avoid anything that makes you look too interesting."
I rolled my eyes. "You make it sound so easy."
"Breakfast first." Mei grabbed her phone and climbed to her feet. The screen bobbed gently as she moved through her apartment in search of said meal. "It is easy. How hard can it be to ruin a date?"
"Ask Tony," I said scowling as his name popped up on my screen. I rejected the call and took another sip of wine.
"Can't say the guys in Japan are much better," she said. "But there's no fortress over here. And you can eat some decent food for once."
I couldn't help but smile. "Says you. I'll have you eating junk food you've never even heard of."
Mei and I spent the rest of the night combing the internet for everything we could find on Prince Lortnam. His habits, his tastes, what he watched. Mei ate while I combed the legitimate press. While she finished eating, I perused the rag mags.
The search took hours because we kept coming up empty. If he watched television, he wasn't using any of our streaming services. He never left his palace except on official business. He never had guests. As far as I could tell, he spent every night locked up in his palace alone reading or staring at the city.
By sunrise, my wine was gone and I had given up. With no way to gather enough research for a proper dossier on the Prince My only choice was to go in cold and play speed chess with his attraction.
I curled up on my couch and prepared to make it my bed for the morning. If the Prince planned to keep our date, then when I woke up he'd probably have a restaurant picked. Then I could drown more of my sorrows finding a dress on Nora's tab.
"Just one bad date," I said sleepily. "Then she'll pay her balance and I can get on a plane and we can spend Christmas eating bad fried chicken and watching television I can barely understand."
Mei flashed her row of crooked teeth, and for a second all was right with the world.
Chapter 9
Lortnam
The next morning, I sat in the recessed nook in my sitting room before a feast with no stomach to eat. Apparently alarmed by my lack of proper supper the night before, the kitchens had sent double my usual portion of breakfast that morning. My usual fresh bread and sausage were a mound of peeled orange fruits arranged on a platter and small biscuits that smelled of butter and honey before I added anything to them.
The small oranges were a special treat, the only fruit on Earth I had developed a taste for. In exchange for his silence, I paid a grocer on the corner double their worth every week for my weight in the delicious things when they were in season. The Human agricultural scientists had mastered germination of most plants outside of their usual season, but our people had long ago learned the best taste came from eating the fruit in its time.
Any other morning, I would have devoured the spread like a wild animal, but this morning I was hours behind schedule on an important task. After midnight, I had finally called my search until sunrise in hopes that a night of sleep and a clear head would make a choice easier.
Instead, I dreamed of Kelly Fillmore all night. Through dinner she laughed at my jokes in a way I'd never managed to earn in the waking world. The scent of her perfume— long gone from the air recyclers and having never touched my bedroom besides —sprang to my nostrils as easily as her image. It teased my shaft to the hardness of a rock. It begged me to bury my nose in the flesh of her neck.
In my dream, we returned to my palace after dinner and retired to my private rooms. Kelly drank wine from a goblet, smiling wickedly at me across the rim as I slid the flimsy nylon down the curve of her leg, revealing the succulent flesh below.
I scowled at the oranges and adjusted my growing erection before turning back to my pad. Daydreaming wouldn't make my task any easier. It seemed I had been through every resta
urant in Baltimore and several in Washington D.C. and New York City, both of which were a short trip away in my transports. No matter the establishment there was some problem my critical eye couldn't look past. Some were too casual to be suitable for a date with a potential mate. A few had beautiful architecture but left us open to surprise attack. After the first few hours, I narrowed the focus of my search to setting and ambiance, reasoning that if the reviews were poor, I could buy out the place for the night and have my staff cook.
Half an hour into my search that morning, my breakfast still untouched, I was no closer than I had been the night before. I set my pad down on the table and looked at my plate.
The door to the room chimed and my assistant stepped through, a look of disappointment gliding across her face as her eyes fell on my untouched meal.
"Your Highness, many apologies for interrupting your breakfast, but there is a Special Agent David Yadav here to see you," she said.
I didn't look up from my pad. "Who?"
Perhaps if I expanded my search farther. To the west coast?
"He said he was sent by the UEG," she said. "I would have had him wait, but he said it was about the attack on the cultural center."
My stomach sank. If not for the attack, I would never have met Kelly Fillmore, but that quirk of luck did nothing to soothe the lingering wounds from that night.
I climbed to my feet. "Send him in and bring up another place setting."
My assistant disappeared back into the corridor, returning with a Human man with a briefcase clutched in his hand. He had the odd look of someone who had been stretched slightly too tall for his frame. A thick black mustache nearly obscured his upper lip from view. He must have had kind superiors. I didn't know the Earth government to be any more lax about personal grooming than my people.
My assistant rose to her full height, letting her arms hang perfectly straight at her sides. "Your Royal Highness, may I present Special Agent David Yadav of the UEG."
David Yadav flinched at the formal introduction. His deep brown eyes swept the room quickly before settling on me. He didn't speak until my assistant left the room. Because of his size, I expected his voice to be high and light, but it had a depth to it I found reassuring.
