The Royal Guard

by Cindy M. Hogan

  “A word to the wise,” Halluis chirped in. “Someone is always watching and listening.”

  “We took the information you told your dad and filled in the rest with research. What did we miss?”

  “Nothing that I know of.” She felt raw and exposed. Marisa looked down at her hands in her lap. She didn’t like this feeling of vulnerability. She checked herself and sat up straight, her back only a few millimeters from resting on the seatback. She reminded herself who she was. If she had to, she would fight her way out of there. She did not want to be easy prey ever again. She eyed Christy, noticing how much shorter she was than herself. She could take her.

  “It’s Tara we need more information on,” Christy said. “We don’t know her true identity yet. We’ve made a loose connection between her and several people at the castle, but nothing we can run with. We believe she’s been looking for a mark to get her into the castle for about a year now. Why would she steal those specific things from the vault? There were many things worth way more than those things.”

  “What did she steal? I don’t even know.”

  “Ten pieces of jewelry and a small ring box.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “We realize the things she took could easily be melted down and taken apart, making them indistinct. But in that case, the motive points to money, and I can’t believe that’s what it was all about.” Jeremy sighed. “There was too much time and effort put into this. She could have done a myriad of others things to get that same amount of money. By the way, your dad has men watching for any of the items to turn up with pawnbrokers, both large and small. We will leave that to him. We are tasked with finding Tara and uncovering her motives so that we can clear you.”

  “Tell us everything she told you about herself,” Christy said.

  “Honestly, not much. I did most of the talking.” Shame filled her once again as all eyes were on Marisa. She felt diminished. “Let me think.” She closed her eyes, going back to the day they met and relaying their conversations as best she could, glad Christian was out and couldn’t hear her sorry memories. They listened intently without asking for any elaboration, as if they already knew most of what she was telling them—until she talked about Tara wanting to work on a forgery case.

  “She told you she was an expert in forgeries?” Christy asked, excited. She didn’t wait for a response. “That’s right, Dioli and Dioli are defending a guy accused of forging over one hundred documents that cheated people out of almost ten million dollars.”

  “You mean she really worked for that firm?” Marisa asked. “She didn’t just make that up?”

  “Nope. That was true,” Jeremy said. “What else? Continue from where you left off.”

  She did, but they didn’t question her about anything else. Christy appeared to have a blank expression on her face a good portion of the time. What was that girl thinking? Perhaps she was simply zoning out.

  “I may be on to something,” Christy said, her bright blue eyes zeroing in on Marisa. “Tell me about what has been happening around the castle for the past week. Everything you know.”

  “I’m not sure I can tell you any of that.”

  Christy scrunched up her nose, and Halluis sighed. “Of course you can. What you tell us stays here.”

  “You have nothing to worry about, Ms. Donati,” Jeremy said in his calming tone. “We need to know everything in order to help you.”

  She gave a narrative of everything, starting seven days previous. They listened without speaking. Until she told them what happened at the club the day she met Tara for the first time.

  “What night?” Jeremy prodded.

  “The night before I didn’t get the royal personal guard detail.” Her eyes rested on the unconscious captain.

  “You had tried out for the job?” Halluis asked.

  “Yes, and I was sure I would get it. I’ve been the top of the training charts the whole time I’ve been a royal castle guard. But it became clear to me that day that I would never get my deepest desire because I was a woman.”

  All three furrowed their brows and looked like they wanted to say something, but Christy spoke first, as if she was reading it out of a history book. “Marisa Donati is the first woman to ever be considered for and accepted into the royal guard in any capacity.” Christy peered at Marisa as if through new eyes. “You’re a pioneer for women’s rights.”

  She put up her hands. “No. No. I’m not. The press wants that to be true. Women’s rights activists want that to be true, but it’s not. I was thinking of no one but myself when I trained for this job. Well, the job of personal royal guard.”

  Marisa’s heart thundered as Christy began telling the story about Marisa’s brother and her interaction with the personal royal guard for the first time. Marisa leaned forward. “Wait a minute. Where are you getting your information? The only people who know that story are my family and the selection committee at the castle.” Including the captain of the guard. Her face burned.

  Christy cocked one eyebrow.

  “You’ve read my file? That’s supposed to be sealed. Classified. Untouchable.” Marisa’s jaw was slack, and she felt like she had just found out her childhood pet had been killed.

  “For normal people, yes,” Jeremy said. “But not for us.”

  “Who are you anyway?”

  “Like we told you earlier, we work for Division, a highly secretive independent black ops consortium.”

  “That tells me nothing.” She leaned hard back into her seat.

  “It’s all we have to tell.”

  Marisa scowled, but she had no idea how to force them to tell her more. She would try again later. She circled back to working hard to become a royal guard. “Seriously, though. I wanted to be in the guard and didn’t let anything stop me.” She glanced back at the captain.

  “But you weren’t bargaining on Captain Christian Di Stefano,” Christy said. “Tell me more about Tara. I can’t lock on to her motivation for choosing you.”

  “I have no idea. She approached me after I’d made a total fool of myself in front of the captain.”

  “She must have witnessed what happened and made the connection that Marisa was part of the royal guard,” Jeremy said.

  “It was never a secret.”

  “No, but your dissatisfaction was,” Christy said. “The newspapers make it seem like you were happy as a lark there, showing the way for all women to become anything they wanted to.”

  “What did you tell Tara after you were so unjustly passed over?” Halluis said.

  “I told her about not making it and that I hated the captain and that … And that’s when she suggested I seduce him.” She huffed. “That’s it. She knew he couldn’t be seduced. Tara had tried and failed. She set me up to fail too, so that I’d be angry and hurt.”

  “So, you’d be willing to do anything to get back at him,” Christy said.

  “What’s that they say about a scorned woman?” Halluis said.

  “That they’ve been out with Halluis?” A voice said over the speaker in the car, then a chuckle.

  Marisa thought about the captain trying to seduce her, and hurt and anger filled her. “Yes, but I had decided not to go. I couldn’t.” She stopped. Why had she said that? Was it even true? “I mean, I only remember thinking it might be fun to make Christian look the idiot. That’s when we downed the rest of our drinks and headed for the car. After that, I have no idea what happened. I was so stupid. I fell right into her hands.”

  “We’ve all been duped at least once in our lives,” Halluis said. “It won’t be the last time.”

  “Speak for yourself,” the voice said over the speaker in a mocking tone. “Some of us are simply smarter than others.”

  “Is that supposed to be insulting? Because the only thing I find insulting is the sound of your voice.”

  The voice on the speaker started to sing some classic rock song.

  Christy said, “Aren’t they adorable? It’s like having two little
brothers with you at all times. The disembodied one is Ace. You’ll meet him at the house.”

  “Ace is our tech guy,” Jeremy explained. “He’s the one who created that suit you wore.”

  “Seriously? That was unbelievable. I thought only Harry Potter had fabric that would make things invisible.”

  Halluis laughed at that. Christy and Jeremy chuckled.

  “Anyway,” Jeremy said, clearing his throat again and turning to Marisa. “It was right after you told her the captain had wronged you that Tara drugged you and forced you to take her into the castle. It fits. But what was she after in the castle? That remains the question of the day. We are going to assume it wasn’t the scanty jewels she stole. They simply don’t fit.”

  “I have such a terrible headache. Why can’t I remember anything?” Marisa placed her elbows on her knees and cradled her chin in her hands.

  “That’s not uncommon with that drug,” Ace said over the radio.

  “I just wish I could remember something.”

  The captain of the guard stirred.

  “Should we allow him to wake or should I put him out again?” Jeremy asked.

  All eyes turned to Marisa.

  “I’m not sure we want him awake, but I don’t want you to put him back under either.” Something waved in her belly. They had done something to him.

  “We’re almost there,” Halluis said. “We’ll wake him when we’re inside.”

  He stirred again, but didn’t come to.

  “We’re hoping to end this hunt by tomorrow,” Jeremy said. “What else is going on in the castle?”

  “There’s a bunch of extra people running around getting ready for the centennial celebration.”

  “One hundred years ago from tomorrow.” Christy spoke as if reading from a newspaper sitting in front of her. “Aligard settled a mining dispute with the Fiorelli family creating a peace that united the entire country of Monterra as one. To celebrate and renew their commitment to a peaceful co-existence, the castle is throwing a celebration to honor the people of Aligard for their commitment to peace and prosperity for all. Hmm,” Christy said. “So there’s renewed tension between the two, huh?”

  “How did you know that from what you just said?”

  “I read between the lines. Renewal of a binding agreement only happens when one party seeks to remind the other what it says.”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I do know that the princeps from Aligard—”

  “Ottavio Mondadori,” Christy interjected.

  Marisa gave her a strange look—why did she know so much about Monterran politics? She continued, “Yes, Ottavio Mondadori had words with the captain and was asking a lot of security questions. I also know that no one at the castle seems to like him. The queen works the hardest at being civil. The rest of the family barely tolerate him and were not looking forward to his visit.”

  “Interesting,” Christy said, turning to a computer and typing something.

  “Could you read us the rest of the article?” Marisa asked. “That’s one I haven’t read.”

  “Maybe later,” Christy said. “I need to look some other stuff up first.”

  “But don’t you have the article right there? Just go back and I’ll read through it on my own.”

  “I never had it up,” Christy said, biting her bottom lip and concentrating on something on the screen.

  Halluis said with an air of importance, “She has a great memory.”

  “Oh, I get it now.”

  “What do you get?” Christy asked, not looking up.

  “Why someone as young as you would be on an elite team like this.” She spoke matter-of-factly.

  Christy swallowed hard, her nose flaring.

  “And,” Halluis said, dragging the word out as he changed the subject. “You’re thinking, Christy, that the break-in might have something to do with the celebration?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure yet.”

  “Why did Tara want me dead?” Marisa said. “How could I possibly hurt her?”

  “The overdose could have been a mistake,” Christy suggested. “It’s not easy to figure out how much of a drug to give a person.”

  “Not likely,” Jeremy said. “Most don’t die from that stuff, but Marisa had five times the normal levels in her blood. That’s pretty bad calculating, and this Tara girl had brains.”

  They all nodded.

  “Or,” Halluis said. “Marisa could have such a strong, independent will that Tara was forced to give her more to keep her compliant.”

  Christy stared at Marisa. “That makes sense.”

  Marisa quirked up a corner of her mouth. Had this girl just given her a compliment?

  Jeremy’s phone rang. “Interesting. Thanks for doing that. Yes. I will fill everyone in.”

  “You’re clear,” Ace interrupted over the radio, and they pulled into the attached garage of a large two-story house with charming Swiss chalet type architecture painted with pure whites, reds, and greens. Jeremy and Halluis helped Captain Di Stefano into the living room, and Christy led Marisa.

  “Have a seat,” Christy said as they entered a living area with two couches, one of which was already taken by a prone Captain of the Guard and six chairs sprinkled about the room in a very formal attitude. Marisa sat in a tufted red chair with sturdy armrests and Christy took a seat on a firm couch with wooden accents.

  14

  Another buff man with tatted up arms and tousled light brown hair entered the room, his button up shirt untucked and his tight, dark jeans, carrying a platter with drinks and danishes. “Just thought I’d bring some much needed cheer into the room.” He took the danishes straight to Marisa, who took a raspberry one. “All I ask is that you eat it slowly. I’m really not in the mood to clean up puke. I’m Ace.” He pressed his lips together and proffered his hand. She shook it and stared at him, curiosity filling her. The rest passed the platter of pastries and took one, while Ace divvied out the glasses of water.

  “That was General Donati on the phone.” All attention moved to Jeremy as he spoke. “No one has tried to pawn the stolen items—there’s been no word about them.”

  “If the goal was to quickly get the money, she would have tried to sell already,” Ace frowned as he sat. “Being a novice thief, I’m betting she has no clue who she might sell them to besides pawn type shops.”

  “And if she’d made a deal to exchange the jewels for something,” Halluis said, “then the receiving party would have tried to pawn them or announced their acquisition of them by now.” He stroked his thin mustache.

  “It doesn’t fit. The theft had to be a diversion,” Jeremy said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Christy, do you have anything more for us?”

  “Nothing firm, but it looks like Tara could have been in and out of the vault in less than ten minutes if all she wanted to do was steal the items she took, but entrance logins show Tara and Marisa entered the vault not once, but twice. And there was a one hour break between the two. What was she doing during the time between?”

  “She must have done something in that vault before taking the jewels,” Marisa said.

  “Yes,” Ace said. “If only we knew what that was.”

  All eyes fell on Marisa.

  She bit her lip and looked away, an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach assailing her. “I don’t know.”

  “I might,” Jeremy said. “What if Tara altered a document in some way? She did tell Marisa she was a master with forgeries.”

  Marisa thought she could almost hear the gears of the team churning.

  “I see nothing wrong with that conclusion,” Halluis said.

  “It’s sounds pretty likely to me,” Ace said.

  “Yes,” Christy said. “That would explain her double entry into the vault. She retrieved the document the first time and went somewhere to alter it. When she returned it, she took the jewels.”

  “An attack of greed?” Halluis offered.

  “I doubt it. Greed would lead to taki
ng things of much greater value.”

  “She never claimed to be a jewel thief,” Ace said. “Maybe her ignorance worked against her here like it did with the drugs.”

  “Maybe, but I think it’s fair to say we don’t need to focus on the jewels anymore. They weren’t the primary reason for getting into the vault. They were secondary.” Jeremy seemed to always be the voice of reason.

  “Well, now that she’s on the run, she might need to pawn them to survive,” Halluis said. “I don’t think we should discount them yet. With Marisa having no memories, the only lead we have to the truth is Tara, and our only lead to Tara is the jewels.”

  “So, not much changes,” Jeremy said. “We have the general keep an eye on the jewel market and such, and we find Tara and/or what she altered in the vault. Yes. Let’s run with this.” Everyone was nodding. “Ace and Halluis, start researching forgers and see if you can get lucky and find our little druggist. It could lead us to her true identity. Christy, I need you to work with the captain on a way to get into that vault. We need you to look over everything to see if you can spot an anomaly in any of the documents.”

  “If you think the captain is going to help anyone get into the castle behind the royals backs,” Marisa said. “You’re nuts. And helping someone into the royal vaults? No way.” Marisa looked at the clock on the fireplace mantle. It had only been thirty minutes since they’d taken her. It seemed like much more time should have passed.

  As if he had heard his name and knew he was needed, the captain groaned and rolled over, falling to the floor. He groaned again as Jeremy and Halluis hurried to him, lifting him up under protest to sitting position on the couch. “Relax. You’re safe.” The captain’s strong arms fought against his bonds until his handsome hazel eyes fell on Marisa. Then he stared at her in stunned silence.

  She resisted the urge to stand and salute him. Instead, she said, “Captain Di Stefano, I’m glad you’re awake.” She wanted to fix his hair. A section of his short-cropped, pistachio shell colored hair stuck straight up, and she knew he would hate that if he knew.

  He narrowed his eyes and then examined the room quickly. “Where am I?”