by Banks, Evie
She pulled out her phone. He would know what to do, whether to continue with the mission or abandon it for a better opportunity. Yes, that was the right thing to do. She eagerly pressed the Contacts button, but with a sinking feeling she lowered the phone. He had her number, but she didn’t have his new one. They discarded mobiles often to avoid detection and he had intentionally not programmed his current number onto the phone she held in her hand. If something were to go wrong, there couldn’t be any trace of their link. It was up to Tina.
She tried to slow her breathing and think through the situation logically. If the Heiress had relocated then there was nothing she could do, but if she returned to the Hotel, then the plan was still in play.
Tina felt easier now.
She sat down. She would wait.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
RENEE TOOK THE STAIRS, went down one flight and poked her head out of the door. All clear. Half way down the hallway a cleaning cart was parked neatly by a closet. Renee padded silently to it and had half a mind to check the closet for a maid’s uniform and try to walk out of the servant’s entrance, but a door began to open in the hall. Quick as she could, she climbed into the cart and covered herself with the dirty sheets and damp towels. She tried not to breathe and didn’t make a sound when a large armful of dirty laundry was dropped on top of her. This was repeated two more times as the maid stripped two more vacant rooms. Renee prayed there wasn’t much more to do because it was becoming harder to breathe and remain still, and with every passing moment she was growing more frantic. Finally, Renee felt herself being pushed and the ding of the elevator told her the cart was full. Renee didn’t know what she would do if the maid started emptying the cart into a washing machine; what a shock she would have to find the heiress at the bottom of it. Please take me to the garage, thought Renee and repeated it over and over again. She felt the floating sensation in her stomach so she knew the elevator was descending. The maid bumped the cart roughly over the threshhold and down a ramp. The cart came to a halt. Through the layers of laundry, Renee could barely hear what was happening.
“They’ve got you working on Christmas Eve, eh?” said a male voice. Renee recognized it as belonging to the guard stationed at the door to the garage that she had passed earlier.
“Oh yes. The laundry never ends. But it’s kind of exciting to be here tonight, although I wish I could be here tomorrow instead. The whole staff will be lined up in the lobby to bow and curtsy as she goes by. I just wish I could see her dress!”
“Maybe you can wash it for her.”
“Oh, you!” said the maid, but she didn’t sound angry.
The guard and the maid continued to flirt for a couple of minutes. Just give him your number already! Renee thought angrily.
“Let me help you with that,” said the guard.
Finally!
Renee felt herself being pushed up a ramp into a truck.
“That’s the last one,” said the maid.
The truck door slammed closed. A minute later the truck rumbled to life. Renee mentally followed the turns of the truck and knew that when it paused, it was checking in with the guard at the garage exit. Renee held her breath and the truck began moving again. She was out!
Renee tentatively swam to the surface of the cart, silently pushing aside the musty linens and towels that threatened to gag her. She poked her head up and saw that she was at the very back of a dark truck. Christmas music played on the radio up front and the driver was whistling along with it. Renee had to act fast. She climbed out of the cart and crouched behind it while feeling with her hand up the door looking for a latch. It was hard to keep her balance while being knocked into by the cart. She found the latch and when the truck paused at the traffic light, she prayed, pulled it, pushed it open just enough for her to squeeze through, and jumped out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
TINA HAD WAITED anxiously, forcing down cups of the stale coffee in her thermos. When she saw the yellow Mini return with a full car and then leave a few minutes later with only the flame-haired woman and Roberts, she breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was going to be fine. The plan was still in play.
The hastily swallowed coffee began to make demands of her. She asked a lady who had set up a chair nearby to keep an eye on her things so she could find a loo. The lady nodded and Tina set off down the street to use the facilities in the corner pub. She emerged back onto the street again ten minutes later, determined to never set foot in a pub loo ever again. She would be a good citizen to notify health and safety about the conditions inside. Shocking!
She stuffed her hands into the deep pockets of her parka and stopped to let the snowflakes gather on her lashes. She breathed deeply the crisp air. It was little things like this that she enjoyed and if it wasn’t for the mission she was to carry out tomorrow, she would have said that being out at night among the cheerful masses was quite fun. She idly watched the garage door to the hotel slide up again and another service truck exit. It stopped at the street light near where she stood.
She marveled at the amount of people it took to keep things clean and humming. Just a single hotel, for instance, required doormen, valets, cooks, concierges, maids, and service drivers. All of these people worked feverishly to keep a relatively few people in comfort. She shook her head. It was madness.
Her stomach growled and she thought she might nibble on the sandwiches she had brought along.
At first she thought she was imagining that the back door to the service truck had opened, but when a woman quickly jumped out, shut it behind her, and ran to the sidewalk, scooping up a discarded glitter hat from the ground and sticking it on her head, Tina knew this was the real thing.
All thoughts of sandwiches and waiting were discarded. Tina crossed the street and followed the woman.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
RENEE WAS AT the Piccadilly Station in minutes and ran down the stairs. Most of the human traffic seemed to be flowing out of the station, rather than into it, and Renee had to push her way past crowds of people decked out in Santa hats festooned with British flags. They were all on their way to stake out a spot to greet her the next day on her way to the Abbey. Renee felt a great sense of guilt that she would not be able to give them the show that they wanted.
She waited for the next train and got on the second car as Bretton had directed. Could he see her or was this part of his game, a way to maintain control? Did it matter if she got on the second or third car, or if she even took the train at all? The train car was almost empty; few people were travelling in this direction at this time of night. She slouched in her seat so no one would be able to get a good look at her, but after a couple of stops, she was the last one in the car. The phone in her pocket shocked her out of her musings.
“Travelling?” said the smooth voice on the other end.
“Yes, where am I going?” said Renee.
“Take it to the Caledonian Road Station and call me then.” The line went dead.
While she was still staring at the blank screen of the phone, her pocket buzzed. It was Harry’s phone. She glanced at the number flashing on it. Above it was the name: Chase. Her heart leapt, but she froze in indecision. If anybody could help, it was Chase, but Bretton had warned against telling anyone. It rang and rang and Renee knew that her window of opportunity was quickly closing.
She answered it.
Her words came out in a jumble. “Chase, Bretton has Cassandra. He said if I tell anyone he’ll kill her!”
“Where are you?” Chase’s voice crackled on the other end. The line wouldn’t last much longer.
“I’m on the Piccadilly train and just passed Covent Garden.”
The line went dead. Bloody thick Tube walls, Renee thought angrily. Why couldn’t the construction be shoddy like in America? She didn’t know if she had said too much or not enough. Chase would be able to put it all together; she prayed he had heard her when she had said that no one could know.
The train sped along its
tracks and when it reached Caledonian Road she exited onto the empty platform. Only one other person got off there. The snow was beginning to fall swiftly; it would be a white Christmas, after all. She pulled out Harry’s phone, but it was locked, as was Roberts’s phone. She prayed Chased would call again. She didn’t dare try to notify anyone else. Just as she was about to put them away, Roberts’s phone rang.
“Walk out of the station and turn left on N Road. I’ll tell you when to stop,” said Bretton and hung up.
Renee shivered. He must be able to see her and that chilled her to the bone. She pulled her coat tight around her and felt the comforting cold metal of the pistol press into the small of her back.
The area looked industrial. Brick buildings with metal garage doors. There were a couple of apartment blocks and a few windows had strings of twinkling holiday lights in them, but it only added to the forlorn feeling on the street. She kept walking. Many of the street lights were burned out and more than one window was missing its glass. At one point she paused and stuffed Harry’s phone down her boot; if she was going to get mugged out here, she didn’t want to lose both phones.
Travelling from central London to this borough felt like passing from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez, only colder and with a bigger language gap. Her eyes darted everywhere, but there was little to see in the darkness. Signs in Arabic script gave her no indication of what was behind doors protected by metal grates. She started to get the horrible feeling that Bretton had lied to her, had sent her off in a false direction while he went on with whatever horrible plan he had formulated. Her stomach clenched and she thought she might throw up. Oh God, please let Cassandra be ok!
A hand clamped over her mouth and an arm wrapped around her neck. She was jerked almost off of her feet and dragged into an alley to where a van was parked behind a dumpster. The back door opened and she was pushed inside and her wrist was handcuffed to a handle on the wall. A hand reached into her pocket and pulled out Roberts’s mobile phone. “You don’t need this anymore.” Bretton checked her other pockets and then slammed the van door shut. It had all happened so quickly; not more than a few seconds had elapsed and she hadn’t even been able to get out a good scream. The front door opened and closed, the ignition turned, and the van began moving.
“You can stop walking now,” said Bretton and laughed.
“Where’s Cassandra?” Renee demanded.
What she had mistook to be a pile of blankets moved a bit.
Renee let out a scream. “Cassandra!” Bretton reached back and struck her across the face. The cuff cut into her wrist when she fell backwards.
“You don’t want your dynasty to end prematurely, do you? Scream again and I’ll end both of you.”
Renee put her free hand to her face and felt the forming bruise. Her shackled wrist made it difficult to maintain her balance. She tried to reach where Cassandra was gagged and rolled in a blanket, but couldn’t. Her mind worked frantically. There were no windows and it was pitch black inside the vehicle. She tried to count in order to keep track of how long they had been travelling, but lost track after nine hundred. It felt like hours. She wanted to check the phone stuffed down her boot, but knew the light from it would alert him immediately. At one point, she thought she felt it buzzing. At least there was a signal out here. From her position she couldn’t see out the front windshield, but she could tell when they left the paved road, and bounced uncomfortably as the van went over rough terrain, throwing her against the wall several times. For Cassandra’s sake she kept silent.
After an unknown amount of time on the uneven road—fifteen minutes? two hours?—the van came to a halt. Bretton threw open the doors and hauled out Cassandra first. He came back a minute later, unlocked Renee’s handcuff and dragged her, stumbling and blind in the darkness, to a building that smelled like a mildewing barn. He pressed a gun into her back and Renee inhaled sharply because it almost hit the pistol she had hidden under her coat. It was her only defense. Bretton switched on a dim light and Renee saw that she hadn’t been wrong about it being a barn. There were no animals, but in one of the stalls was the form of a small person.
“Cassandra!”
Renee broke free from Bretton and ran to Cassandra, who was tied up and gagged. Renee tore off the gag and crushed Cassandra to her. “Are you okay?” Cassandra nodded weakly, but there was terror in her eyes.
Bretton strolled forward, pistol in his hand. “Such a charming pair you make. No wonder the country fell in love with you two. Such love. Such devotion. And to rise like a phoenix from the wastelands of the American backwater to the very heights of royalty is nothing short of a fairy tale. It’s such a shame.” Bretton stood over them shaking his head, never moving the gun that was pointed at them.
“What is a shame?” said Renee, her voice hoarse. She knew the answer, but wanted to draw her time out on earth a little longer, to feel Cassandra in her arms just a few more minutes.
“That the search for an heir will have to start all over again.”
“They’ve already ruled you out, Bretton. Murder does that, you know. There’s no point to this.”
Bretton didn’t seem ruffled. He thought for a moment. “Perhaps you’re right. There is an alternative, though. I might be ruled out, but my heir would not be.”
“Heir? What heir?” Renee was genuinely confused.
“The one you will produce for me.”
For a moment Renee was too stunned to speak. “You’re insane,” she whispered, horrified.
Bretton’s scar stretched across his face when he smiled. “Too many people mistake excellent planning for insanity. You’re not the first. Most people can only see a few weeks or maybe a few years into their futures. A five-year plan for their mutual funds. Such rot. But I see the big picture. I don’t think in terms of years; I think in terms of generations!”
Renee gasped. “It was you who bombed the Royal Grand Reunion!”
“What?” said Bretton, his eyebrows knitted together. “What’s that noise?”
He turned suddenly around as if listening for something. An owl swooped out of a dark corner causing him to duck. Renee took that brief opportunity to stash her gun under some hay. Cassandra saw the movement and her eyes got big, but Renee shook her head slightly to indicate that Cassandra shouldn’t do anything since her hands were still bound.
Bretton returned his attention to them. “A child of both Montshire and Bretton blood would certainly be the royal heir. Unpolluted and undisputed.”
“I’d get rid of it!” Renee blurted out.
“But you wouldn’t. Like I said, I’m a planner and I planned for that contingency. I’d keep an insurance policy.” He turned his pale eyes on Cassandra.
Renee clutched Cassandra to her. “If you touch her I’ll kill you!”
Her mind raced at how to get off one good shot at him. He raised his gun at her and pointed it directly at her forehead.
“If you don’t settle down, neither of you will live. Like I said, the sweet princess would be an insurance policy that I wouldn’t cash in unless absolutely necessary. She would be perfectly safe. You could rest assured that she would be treated with all due accord that her station affords.” Bretton leered. “If you like, we can invent an illness for Cassandra where she would be kept out of the limelight at an ‘undisclosed location’ for, say, the period of two years, by which time you would have given birth and the country would have accepted the new child as yours. You can invent any father you like. That blonde chap in the photograph might do. You two looked awfully close in that photograph, even though he seems to have slunk off.”
Renee tried not to take it personally that Chase, indeed, seemed to have slunk off. He hadn’t so much as tried to call her since she had last seen him at Parliament and he hadn’t answered any of her calls.
“So many things can go wrong with that. Anything can happen,” she said.
“Well, you’ll have to make sure it doesn’t,” snapped Bretton. “No miscarriages, no acciden
ts, and no ‘congenital illnesses’ or the little heiress will miss out on her inheritance. A life for a life, as they say. Or maybe I’ll just keep her. I’m sure she’ll turn into a lovely woman just like her mother. She has the same beautiful neck.” Bretton’s eyes glinted. Cassandra burrowed into Renee’s arms. She was shaking. “What do you say, Your Majesty—a child who you’ll love in order to save a child that you love?”
Renee couldn’t see a way out. There was no exit except the one past Bretton, Cassandra was hobbled by her bindings, and she was facing a modern weapon with a magazine of bullets versus her museum piece with a single bullet that very well might crumble into dust. If she did what Bretton wanted, they both might live.
She nodded.
“No, mom!” Tears streaked down Cassandra’s face.
“A wise queen,” said Bretton and before her eyes could even process it, Bretton had yanked her to her feet and thrown her against a wooden rail, pressing himself close to her. She tried to push him off—she could feel him grabbing at her clothes and pulling her hair. His breath was against her neck and then his lips, which felt more like a mad, hungry attack for as soon as he kissed her neck his need became frantic and grunts punctuated his attempted assault on her. She managed to get an elbow under and threw all her force into it. Bretton staggered back from the thrust to his solar plexus. He breathed heavily and his pupils were almost fully dilated with only a thin rim of pale blue around them, giving him the appearance of a crazed animal.
“I’ve changed my mind. I’ve thought of a more satisfying conclusion,” he said.
Renee tensed.
He leapt at her like a panther. Renee tried to duck and run, but he caught her around the waist. His hands found her neck and she felt his fingers wrap around it as if to caress her and then he began to tighten his grip. Renee clawed frantically at his hands and arms, but he was too strong. She thrashed and writhed to get away, but her struggle seemed only to excite him more. Stars started to pop in front of her eyes as she struggled to draw a breath.
