Royal Pursuit

by Susan Kearney

  “Right. You’ll have your chance to tell the judge. Turn around, sir.” The officer spun Alex and handcuffed his wrists behind his back.

  Alex didn’t resist but he kept talking. “Look, even if I were a criminal, I have diplomatic immunity.”

  “You have ID?”

  “Not on me.”

  The cop rolled his eyes at the other one who had cuffed Taylor and retrieved her gun. “You have a license to carry a concealed weapon, ma’am?”

  “Yes.”

  The officers escorted them to their black-and-white car. Alex didn’t appear the least upset. On the other hand, Taylor was shaking. She didn’t have diplomatic immunity. And if she was convicted of committing a crime, she’d lose her P.I. license and her livelihood.

  “They didn’t even read us our rights,” Alex complained from beside her in the back seat, which smelled of sweat and old cigarettes.

  “They haven’t asked us any questions, so they don’t need to Mirandize us,” Taylor told him. “But anything you say can be used against you.”

  The two officers exchanged a long glance at her answer. Most citizens didn’t know the particulars of the law. Right now, Taylor wished she knew more. Since this was Saturday night, she figured they’d be spending the weekend locked up. Bail wouldn’t be set until Monday—at least that’s what she thought. She’d never been arrested before.

  On Saturday night, the station was jammed full of prostitutes, penny-ante drug dealers, runaway teens and a DUI. They waited to be processed while Alex got a look at the seedier side of the city. He seemed particularly fascinated by the hooker’s accusation that the officer had taken her bribe then arrested her anyway.

  Finally they were taken to separate desks where the officers filled out paperwork. Taylor sat close enough to hear Alex’s entire conversation, which didn’t go well from the start.

  “Name?” the older partner asked Alex.

  “Alexander, Crown Prince of Vashmira.”

  The jaded cop didn’t bat an eye. “That’s not what your ID says.”

  “My ID is fake. I’m surprised you cannot tell,” Alex said conversationally. He was taking this as if it were an afternoon lark. Didn’t he understand they were in trouble here? That he was dressed in overalls and sneakers, not an Armani suit. That they’d been caught in the general’s apartment, after breaking a window.

  “Your ID looks real enough to me.” The cop wrote down his alias. “Address?”

  “The royal palace, Vashmira.”

  The cop started to write, then scratched it out. “Your address in the States?”

  “The Vashmiran embassy.” The cop struggled with his patience, crushed a paper coffee cup and tossed it in the direction of his trash can. “Look, sir. I don’t like filling out paperwork. I especially don’t like filling it out twice. I’d appreciate the truth on the first go-round.”

  Alex kept his voice entirely conversational. “I don’t think you’d know the truth if it bit you in the—”

  “Alex!” Taylor warned him. “Can you produce the lease with your signature on it?”

  “Of course.”

  The cop sighed. “Oh, really?”

  “It’s at the embassy.”

  She turned to the younger officer. “We get a phone call, right?”

  “Later.”

  “Look, you all don’t like paperwork. You might not have to fill any out. Let him call the Vashmiran attaché, who can bring a lease along with the prince’s identification. Then you can release him, right?”

  “Wrong. It’s not my job to ascertain identity or to read leases. I just book thieves.”

  Great. Just great. The crown prince of Vashmira was going to jail on her watch. It was her job to protect him, and he was going to end up in a holding cell with addicts and drunks. If news got out, and it would, the tabloids would have a field day.

  Meanwhile, he could be in danger from his cell mates. She’d heard too many stories of what happened in jail cells not to worry about his safety.

  She’d had enough of this nonsense. “Are you officers aware that the Vashmiran crown prince disappeared from the embassy several days ago? That his guards were killed and that the prince’s body wasn’t found? Are you also aware that a Mr. Mark Willard was shot by his mistress yesterday afternoon? Willard tried to kill his mistress with a garotte.”

  “So?”

  “Look at Alex’s throat. That wound was caused by a garotte.”

  The two officers looked at the fading red line around his neck then exchanged another long glance with one another. Obvious, they didn’t believe her, but maybe they were starting to have doubts.

  Perhaps she could get past their cynicism. “And Mr. Willard works at the Vashmiran embassy.”

  “Nice try, ma’am. But that doesn’t get you out of a break-and-enter.”

  Taylor shook her head. “You guys are making a mistake. The least you can do is put the prince in a private holding cell. If he gets through the weekend unharmed, then maybe you’ll still have jobs come Monday morning.”

  The cops didn’t say anything. Their faces remained stoic. Alex leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles. “How long would it take to pull up the prince of Vashmira’s face on the Internet and check it against mine?”

  Taylor couldn’t believe that Alex’s tone still held an edge of amusement. She really didn’t want to spend even an hour in jail. The handcuffs on her wrists bothered her more than she wanted to admit. The thought of a jail cell door clanging closed behind her made her feel much too vulnerable.

  For Alex, accustomed to every luxury, a jail cell would be not only humiliating, but offensive. Yet, to look at him, he seemed unaware of any discomfort.

  The younger officer seemed to consider Alex’s suggestion. His fingers moved clumsily over his keyboard, and then he squinted at his monitor. He stared at the screen, then at Alex. “Nice try, Your Majesty.”

  Amusement curled Alex’s mouth. “That title belongs to my brother, the king of Vashmira. You may address me as Your Highness.”

  The officer chuckled, thinking Alex witty rather than truthful. “Did you know that the real prince has black hair?”

  “I’ve decided blondes have more fun,” Alex quipped, and Taylor couldn’t quite keep the scowl from her face. She feared the police officers might suggest he could prove that he’d bleached only the hair on his head. But although the policemen clearly didn’t believe Alex’s statements, the officers treated them with a polite respect that did credit to police officers everywhere.

  Which made her anger all the more difficult to suppress. These police were intelligent, so why couldn’t they use their eyes? “Damn it. Look at his features. I know it’s a computer image, but surely you must see the resemblance.”

  The older officer clicked his pen with impatience. “And I went to Vegas last week. You know how many Elvis impersonators I saw?”

  Alex shrugged. “I suspect if one of them was the real thing, you wouldn’t have believed him, either.”

  “You could simply check his fingerprints,” Taylor suggested.

  “We’ll get those when we book you both.” The young officer turned back to his forms. “Let’s start again. Name?”

  A half hour later Alex had given up his mother’s ring and watch, and they’d both had their mug shots and fingerprints taken. On a busy Saturday night, no one would bother running them through AFIS, the national automated fingerprint identification system. It appeared they wouldn’t be able to straighten out this mess until Monday when a judge set bail.

  An hour later they were placed in a holding cell—a private holding cell—so maybe all their talking had done some good. Alex was confined to the men’s side, and she to the women’s. They couldn’t see one another, but they could talk.

  And the handcuffs were finally gone. Although there were no windows, the Plexiglas doors allowed in bright light from overhead florescents. Her cell contained a metal toilet bowl with no seat and n
o privacy from the male officer stationed to watch them both, a concrete bench and about ten feet of pacing room.

  “Don’t worry,” Alex told her from his side of the cell.

  “Why would I worry?” Just because she’d never been jailed before? Just because she could lose her private investigator’s license? Just because she had no other way to make a living? Just because she was more concerned about his safety than any of the other stuff? Taylor stretched the kinks out of her arms. “At least no one can attack you while we’re here.”

  “We’ll be out within the hour.”

  “Your phone call must have been more productive than mine. Who’s getting us out?”

  “General Vladimir.”

  She’d thought nothing worse could have happened, but she suddenly sat down hard. “Tell me that I heard you wrong.”

  “General Vladimir has a copy of the lease,” Alex explained. “He can also vouch for my identity.”

  “Have you forgotten the general is one of our prime suspects? That the man had a mistress who tried to kill your brother and an aide who tried to kill your sister?”

  “Well, as you pointed out, he can’t exactly kill us inside the police station.”

  The officer assigned to watch them ignored the entire conversation. He sat at a desk, going over paperwork. Taylor didn’t know if anything short of a bomb blast would have interrupted his concentration.

  “Okay. What happens after we leave here with General Vladimir?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Alex couldn’t be this dense. He was deliberately setting himself up as bait. She realized that Alex wanted the general to make his move before the rest of his family arrived for the embassy opening in four days.

  “You’re hoping the general will try to kill you again, aren’t you?”

  “He’s not going to succeed.”

  “Oh, really? Would you mind telling me why not?”

  “Because we’re going to outsmart him.”

  “We are?”

  “Yes.”

  The prince sure could be cagey when it suited him. But she wasn’t standing for his testosterone-induced state of we’re-going-to-be-fine. “Just how are we going to outsmart the general?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  A sudden sick feeling filled her with distress. Even the idea of him deliberately placing himself in danger made her physically ill.

  She dropped her head into her hands. “Then we need to come up with a plan.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  While they plotted, the officer continued to ignore them. A ringing phone on the officer’s desk interrupted their conversation. The man’s eyes darted to Alex, then he reached for the electronic switch that slid back the remote-controlled doors, which opened with a smooth swish—not a clang.

  “Your Highness?” The policeman approached Alex.

  Taylor rushed out of her open cell and watched Alex rise to his feet with the grace of a jungle cat. She would have thought he would be pleased by the recognition of his status, instead he nodded regally as if bored. “Yes?”

  “Apparently we’ve made a terrible mistake. The king of Vashmira—”

  “His brother,” Taylor said with a jerk of her thumb at Alex simply because she enjoyed watching the officer squirm. It was mean of her, but she couldn’t resist. After all, they had been treated like criminals.

  “The king called our ambassador, who called our mayor who called the chief of police. The upshot is that you are free to go. Oh, you can pick up your personal items at the desk, and a General Vladimir is waiting out front to take you to the embassy.”

  “We need our personal effects and my gun,” Taylor told him. She required her cell phone to put their plan into action. She was to call the paparazzi while Alex took care of his part.

  “Right this way.” The officer really did look sheepish as he led them back down the corridor, especially when he held out a pad of paper and a pen. “Your Highness, may I have your autograph?”

  Taylor choked back a giggle at the absurdity of their situation. Alex simply looked at the officer’s name badge, then scribbled on the pad. “Perhaps you could be good enough to let me personally thank your chief of police?”

  “I’m sure he’d appreciate it,” the officer told him.

  “And meanwhile, I’ll go fetch our stuff,” Taylor suggested. Alex’s job was to delay, one he seemed extremely well suited for. Despite his shirtless state and the baggy overalls, when it suited him, he could play lord of the manor.

  She signed for Alex’s jewelry, his money and her purse. Thank goodness her cell phone batteries hadn’t gone dead. Quickly she called several reporters and anonymously gave them the hot tip that the missing prince of Vashmira had been found by the Washington Police Department. She gave no other details, then checked her watch.

  Alex not only had to stall to give the reporters enough time to arrive, he had promised to stay out of the General’s sight. In addition, Alex had promised to set up a diversion that would prevent the general from immediately following them.

  Taylor peeked around the corner of the busy hallway to see General Vladimir in his stiff, starched-and-braided uniform pacing impatiently. Deep frown lines between his eyebrows and beside his mouth revealed that he wasn’t in the best of moods. Was he annoyed that his prince had broken into his apartment? Embittered that the prince obviously didn’t trust him? The general could be an innocent man who had simply been called out of his latest mistress’s warm bed.

  He could also be a traitor and furious that his assassination attempt had gone awry. Right now, he could be scheming to betray Alex again.

  She glanced upstairs at the chief’s glass-windowed office. Wearing his watch and ring, Alex graciously shook hands and signed more autographs, and a few flashes told her he’d even posed for pictures with the officers. Good. She checked her watch. Twenty minutes had passed since she’d phoned the papers. Where were those sleazy tabloid reporters when a celebrity needed them?

  She peeked around the hallway corner again. She wanted chaos, but saw only normal activity. General Vladimir continued to pace and to glare at anyone who approached him. A handsome black man with thick dreads and at least five carats of diamonds in his left ear, an alligator vest, baggy slacks and high-topped sneakers appeared to be bailing out an anorexic-looking woman in a revealing pink tank top and red leather capris. A drunk snored in a corner. One teary-eyed woman filed a missing persons report on her runaway teen. And several cops stood around a battered coffee machine, drinking out of paper cups and trading stories.

  Finally, the exterior doors opened and several reporters swarmed into the room. There could be no mistaking their profession. Cameras hung from their necks and they held microphones as if they were extensions of their hands. Just then two women with large, half-exposed breasts latched onto the general.

  Bingo! Alex had succeeded in hiring his distraction. Those two ladies were to remain by the general’s side and call attention to him and themselves for the press. It had taken Taylor some time to convince Alex of the wisdom of the plan. He didn’t want any bad publicity reflecting back on his country. However, she’d risk a little bad press to gain a measure of safety.

  Leaving this police station would be dangerous. But less so now that the two women were flagrantly rubbing themselves against an astonished general who clearly couldn’t decide whether to be pleased and flattered or frustrated and annoyed.

  When the cameras began flashing, the general started shouting. Taylor glanced up to see Alex strolling down the stairs as if they’d rolled out the red carpet for him instead of having arrested him.

  She waved to him, noticed that he now wore a police officer’s shirt beneath his overalls and wondered how he’d talked the man in his undershirt into literally giving the prince the shirt off his back. He’d probably traded him an autograph, she thought sourly, then wondered why his adaptability bothered her, when she should be pleased since he’d made her job of protecti
ng him easier.

  However, she was anything but pleased. Male and female officers alike fawned over him. And like a spoiled cat lapping up the cream that was his due, Alex took the blind adoration in stride, accepting their smiles and handshakes and accolades with the grace of a…a prince. Damn it. She had no reason to be annoyed. But she couldn’t help wondering whether he’d even notice if she slipped out the side door and left him alone.

  She was jealous! And she didn’t like what the green-eyed monster told her about herself. She’d grown more fond of Alex than she’d ever expected to.

  But how could she not like the man? She’d bought him a hot dog for lunch and used clothing to wear, then turned a prince into a handyman. He’d almost been blown to bits, had stooped to breaking and entering and ended up in jail. Never once had he blamed her. Never once had he complained—treating the entire life-and-death episode as if he were caught in a fascinating game, all the while enjoying himself.

  She resented those hangers-on at his side and didn’t like herself for it. Didn’t like that all she wanted to do was spirit him away to a hotel where she didn’t have to share him with anyone—where he could kiss her and make love to her and give her all his attention.

  The women Alex had hired were kissing the general, who now looked like a mouse caught in a cage. With the press out there watching the general’s every move as they waited for Prince Alex to appear, the man couldn’t very well shove the two women from his side.

  Taylor backed away from the melee out front. Hopefully, Alex had so impressed the police chief that the man had instructed his officers to give them a ride. She joined Alex at the bottom of the stairs.

  He reached out and grabbed her hand. Together, escorted by police, they hurried out the side door. She expected to ride in a police car. But there wasn’t one vehicle on the street.

  Her heart started to pound too rapidly. After the noise inside, it was too quiet. Too empty. Had they been set up?

  OUT OF THE DARKNESS an ultralong limousine with Vashmiran flags flying from the vehicle’s hood, flanked by a motorcycle brigade with their lights dimmed, quietly pulled up to the police station’s back door. From Taylor’s wary expression and her hand in her pocket gripping her gun, Alex knew she’d been expecting more trouble. However, he knew that only one man could be inside that vehicle. His brother, King Nicholas II, had arrived in the United States.