The Surprise Princess

by Patricia McLinn

  “No.” She shook her head for emphasis. It had started spinning and the shake didn’t help. Department of State? Hunter Pierce? “Some business with Coach Draper, of course, but—”

  “No. My business is with you, Ms. Davis. I asked for Coach Draper in an effort to protect your privacy.”

  Her breath wouldn’t come out. “M-my …?”

  “Let’s cover the formalities first. That might eliminate any need to … extend the conversation.”

  Breath whooshed out audibly. “Yes. I’m sure we can clear this up and all get back to work.” She tried to smile.

  It must not have been her best effort, because he looked even more solemn. But all he said was, “Your parents were Bob and Anna Davis. Your full name is Katharine Mary Davis.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Portland, Oregon. I have my birth certificate. It’s all in order.” Why had she said that? A memory flashed, standing at a counter as a child, looking up, her mother handing over a paper to someone unseen. Her mother’s hands shaking as she said, Here is our Katie’s birth certificate. It is in order.

  And then a more recent memory. In the attic. No … no. She’d decided. There was too much at stake.

  “Your family moved here to Ashton when you were two?”

  “Yes. How did you kn—?”

  “And both your parents are now deceased.”

  “Yes. But—”

  He held up a hand, stopping her words. He looked from her to Carolyn and back. “Before we go any further, I must ask you each to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

  He took out crisp documents from his pocket, spread one open in front of each of them and placed a pen on the table.

  Katie skimmed the language once and was going back over it. “This is— This is serious.”

  To her surprise, Hunter Pierce’s eyes lightened and she could swear he almost grinned. “Yes, Ms. Davis, it is.”

  “I will not pledge not to tell my husband,” Carolyn said. “Not if Katie’s interests are involved.”

  “If he will also sign a copy, I think we can accommodate that, since both of you appear to serve in the capacity of advisers to Ms. Davis.”

  Carolyn added a phrase to the document then signed. Hunter Pierce didn’t look pleased about Carolyn’s insertion, but said nothing as he folded the paper and waited for her.

  Katie had a notion of saying she wouldn’t sign. But now that Carolyn had signed, what reason could she give other than a voice in her head shouting Run, run, run away and hide?

  She signed.

  The man from the Department of State folded her sheet and slid both into his pocket.

  “Now, what is this about?” Carolyn asked calmly.

  “With all the coverage in recent months about King Jozef and his long-missing granddaughter reports to our offices and other interested parties have flooded in. Reports we’ve received about a young woman in Ashton, Wisconsin have particularly interested us. Not only because of a match with certain descriptors, but also because this young woman had stayed almost entirely under the radar. Remarkably so.”

  He looked at her as if expecting a response. She was also aware of Carolyn’s eyes on her. She licked her lips. “Reports? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you?” he asked mildly. Then his face and tone became completely serious. “Tell me, Ms. Davis, have you ever had reason to think you might be Princess Josephine-Augusta of Bariavak?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  She wanted to say more, to produce words that would end this now and forevermore, but her throat spasmed closed. Words jammed up against the block like stampeders at a locked door.

  “What makes you think Katie might be Princess Josephine-Augusta?” Carolyn asked, as if this were a rational conversation.

  “We’re not saying she is, you understand. It would require an investigation to confirm.”

  “Yes, we understand all those cautions. But you wouldn’t be here, the State Department wouldn’t be interested in Katie, if you didn’t have some basis for thinking it is possible.”

  “Carolyn, you know this is impossible.” Katie produced a credible chuckle. She raised both palms to Hunter Pierce in bemusement. “Impossible.”

  “There are physical similarities as well as—”

  The door opened and Coach C.J. Draper strode in. “What’s going on here?” He moved like a much younger man, despite the mangled left knee that had pushed him out of the pros and into coaching. Gray lightly streaked his mop of hair, but that didn’t age him much either.

  Carolyn reached out a hand toward him. “C.J., close the door, please.” He did. “This is Hunter Pierce, an agent with the Department of State’s Security Service. Hunter, this is my husband, C.J. Draper.”

  The other man stood to shake hands. “Coach Draper. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. I’ve followed your career and teams for a long time.”

  “Thanks, but you’re not here for basketball, are you?”

  “No, sir. Ms. Davis—”

  “C.J.,” Carolyn interrupted, “they think Katie might be a princess.”

  “Princess? She’s an empress. But that doesn’t mean you get a mid-year raise,” he added to her, squeezing her shoulder before backing up to sit beside Carolyn. “No princess renegotiations. In fact, since princess is a demotion from empress, you should give some of this year’s raise back.”

  “C.J.,” Carolyn said as only she could say it. “This is serious. Hunter was about to tell us why he – why the Department of State – thinks she might be this missing princess.”

  “What missing princess?”

  Carolyn spurted a little puff. “The granddaughter of King Jozef of Bariavak, who was kidnapped as an infant during an uprising about thirty years ago, an uprising that earlier had killed his son-in-law. His daughter – the baby’s mother – died shortly after the kidnapping. The baby has never been found. It was generally assumed she was killed by the fleeing rebels who kidnapped her. But speculation about her started again late last year when the king was at Washington, D.C., events with a young woman who bears a strong resemblance to Bariavak’s royal family. That young—”

  “Wait a minute. How do you know so much about this, Carolyn?”

  “Because our daughter has been talking of almost nothing else since the story broke.”

  “What story? All she’s been talking about is— Oh. This happened around the first of the year?”

  “Yes.”

  “That explains it. Heading into the meat of the conference schedule. I wasn’t paying attention to any news.”

  Katie wanted to fling her arms around C.J.’s neck. Amid all this talk about a princess, he remained the same.

  He continued, “I remember Steph talking about Washington. I thought it was weird she was so interested in politics. A princess makes a lot more sense. Especially a missing princess. But I thought she said they found this missing princess. Lose her again?” He shot at Hunter.

  “No. She wasn’t—isn’t—”

  Carolyn stepped in. “The young woman some people speculated was the king’s long-lost granddaughter had befriended the king and kept him company during the holidays. She became so close to the king, in fact, that he is going to give her away when she marries Hunter.”

  Of course. That’s why he’d looked familiar. How had Katie not remembered after the hours she’d stared at those pictures? The pictures of the king of Bariavak with April Gareaux, some including the man she was going to marry – Hunter Pierce.

  “Have I got that right?” Carolyn asked Hunter.

  He grinned, revealing an entirely different man beyond the serious agent. “You hit the high points, ma’am.”

  Carolyn smiled back at him. “The high points of the official story, but is it the whole story? Or the real story?”

  “Ma’am,” he said, making it clear he wasn’t going to divulge anything beyond that official
story.

  She nodded her understanding. “Congratulations to you and April Gareaux. We hope you’ll be very happy.”

  “Thank you.” He looked confident that they would be.

  C.J. spoke up. “Okay, but what makes you think our Katie’s this missing princess?”

  “I’m not.” None of them paid attention.

  “That’s what Hunter was about to tell us when you came in, dear,” Carolyn said.

  “I can tell you that similarities have been noted. Similarities of looks with the Bariavak royal family, for instance.”

  “She and your April do look very much alike,” Carolyn said.

  “We don’t.” This time everyone turned to Katie. Perhaps she’d been too emphatic. “She’s lovely and polished and sophisticated. I don’t look anything like her.”

  “Surface.” Carolyn dismissed the surface as only someone naturally lovely and polished and sophisticated herself could do. “Bone structure, coloring, and features are strikingly similar.”

  Katie tried a dry laugh. “I don’t think April Gareaux would appreciate hearing that.”

  “April agrees with the professor. She’s seen your picture.” A twitch eased the neutrality of Hunter’s mouth. “She’d also tell you the polish came lately. In addition—” His face went neutral again. “—there’s the Bariavak Hand. It’s a strong trait in the royal family.”

  Automatically, Katie covered her left hand with her right. But C.J. and Carolyn had been seeing that hand for years, and clearly Hunter Pierce knew about it before he arrived. So what sense was there in reverting to that childhood habit? None. She deliberately removed her right hand.

  “It shows up in the general population,” she said.

  “April Gareaux has the trait, doesn’t she?” Carolyn asked.

  “Yes. It runs in her family. Did Bob or Anna Davis have the trait?” Hunter didn’t wait for Katie to answer. “No. Neither of them.”

  “It’s a recessive gene.” She had done a school research project, curious about the peculiarity of her left little finger being as long as her ring finger.

  “We would go back another generation or two to check if the gene runs in the Davis family—” The way he said Davis spread unease over her. “—but we can’t because there is barely any record of your parents until they arrived in Ashton with you as a child.”

  “That’s not right. There are records from Portland. Before that, they immigrated. Though there was a lot of confusion in the country they came from because there’d been—” She broke off abruptly.

  “A failed rebellion?” Hunter supplied.

  “They never talked about it. Where they came from or the past. They said I was an American and that’s what counted. I agree.”

  “They never told you where they came from?” C.J. asked.

  “No.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact, but she heard defensiveness in her voice.

  “You must have wondered.”

  Her parents had not encouraged wondering. “There clearly were very bad memories for them. I didn’t want to make them unhappy.”

  Hunter Pierce cleared his throat. “There are no records in Portland until two years before they moved here. Not of Bob Davis or of Anna Davis. No family, no records of immigration to the United States. There are discrepancies in other records, such as the Social Security numbers they used.”

  “Maybe they were in witness protection. You know, they’d been in the mob but turned state’s evidence.”

  “C.J., this is not funny.” Carolyn spoke to him but was looking at her.

  “It’s a little funny to think of our on-the-straight-and-narrow Katie being born into the mob.”

  “It makes as much sense as me being a princess,” Katie said.

  “There are questions that need to be answered, Ms. Davis.” Hunter Pierce looked at her steadily.

  “Okay, you have discrepancies in records that might indicate Katie’s parents were not Mr. and Mrs. Davis from Portland, but what do you have – beside a trait you acknowledge pops up in the general population – that makes you think Katie might be this princess?”

  “Good question, Carolyn,” C.J. said.

  Hunter inclined his head slightly, acknowledging her point. “Mostly circumstantial indications.”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance, the Davises showing up in the United States not long after the rebellion collapsed. For instance, a cell of Bariavakian rebels had safe houses and support in Portland. For instance, medical records show the blood types reported for Mr. and Mrs. Davis could not have produced a child with Katie’s blood type – a blood type that is the same as Princess Josephine-Augusta’s.”

  “Did you know that? About your parents’ blood types and yours?” Carolyn asked her.

  She could only shake her head. “How do you know their blood types?” she demanded of Hunter.

  “Took some digging. Apparently neither believed in doctors. But we finally found them on employment records. That was also where we finally found photographs of Bob and Anna Davis, who apparently also didn’t believe in photographers.”

  He said it with a hint of wryness, but it was true.

  One Christmas she had begged for a camera. After she’d gone to bed, she had heard them arguing about it in their odd language. She could tell from their tones that her mother was pleading that she be allowed a camera. Her father had refused. It ended with the sound of a blow. The next morning the side of her mother’s face was swollen and bruised. Katie never again mentioned a camera to them.

  She became aware of the others watching her. She cleared her throat. “They didn’t care for photographs. Or doctors. But that’s no reason to—”

  “There’s more. In Bariavak there was a man named Davogner Bordanic and his girlfriend, Annika. The names are interesting – Davogner Bordanic becomes Bob Davis. Annika becomes Anna Davis. No, you’re right, Ms. Davis,” he said before she could even produce words, so he must have read her objection from her expression, “that’s not proof, either. But the coincidences are beginning to add up.”

  He drew another paper from his pocket, unfolded it, then put it face down on the table.

  She couldn’t look away.

  “Here’s another coincidence. Davogner and Annika disappeared. They were definitely not among the rebels arrested or imprisoned. They were not among those who died in the rebellion. They were last heard of in Bariavak five months before Bob and Anna Davis first appear in any record of any kind in Portland. That last sighting in Bariavak was immediately before the kidnapping. Only after the rebels’ defeat did anyone know of Bordanic’s involvement with them. That’s significant for two reasons. It turns out he was fairly high up in their hierarchy yet he could have slipped across the border, unlike the known leaders. It also turns out that his girlfriend Annika worked in the royal palace. When King Jozef’s daughter Sofia gave birth to Princess Josephine-Augusta, Annika was assigned to the nursery staff.”

  Carolyn made a small sound beside her.

  “Which brings us to another coincidence of names. Princess Josephine-Augusta’s full name is Josephine-Augusta Katrina Mariana Sofia. Katrina Mariana. Katherine Mary. It was customary for the nursery staff to call her Katrina.”

  Katie’s chest burned. But still she could not take her eyes from that paper.

  “Then there is this.” He flipped it over. “This is one of only two photographs of Davogner Bordanic we have.” He tapped the photo on the left, pointing out the grainy face of one man in a crowd. “Eight years later, this is a photograph of Bob Davis from the files of his employer here in Ashton.”

  C.J. whistled softly.

  She insisted, “You can’t determine anything from old photos like those. You can barely see the face.”

  “They’re certainly suggestive,” Hunter said calmly. “Granted, the best way to determine the truth is with a DNA test. Unfortunately, we don’t have certifiable DNA from Princess Josephine-Augusta. Nor of Princess Sofia, or even her mother. Testi
ng a maternal grandfather isn’t ideal, but—”

  “No.”

  “It’s not an invasive test—”

  She pushed back her chair.

  “Katie—”

  Carolyn reached for her, but the chair blocked her. C.J.’s knee slowed him. Hunter was on the far side of the table. She was out of the door before anyone could stop her.

  Brad was there, just outside. She tried to sidestep him, but he stepped the same way and she bumped into him. His arms came around her. Those wonderful, strong arms. For a moment, she let herself sink into him, let herself take in his scent, his warmth.

  “Katie.” His hand smoothed her hair. The way she’d seen him do with C.J. and Carolyn’s kids after they skinned a knee.

  The way he’d soothe a child.

  She pushed away, using the momentum to get past. “Tell C.J. I’m taking the rest of the day off.”

  ****

  The walk to her front door seemed longer than usual.

  Probably because she’d spent hours wandering.

  Walking the campus had been her refuge since childhood. First, tentative forays from her neighborhood to the edges of Ashton University, then deeper and deeper. She’d found her way to the Meadow, the campus’ heart. Its soul was Lake Ashton. Where the Meadow met Lake Ashton was her favorite refuge.

  Today, though, the spot hadn’t brought its usual peace. She’d been blindsided, thinking danger came only from the items in the attic.

  Planning how to handle this, she’d walked and walked and walked, even when snow began to fall.

  Maybe tired legs explained why she didn’t dodge fast enough when she heard wind stir the huge Norway spruces that marched alongside the front walk, protecting the small frame house from view from the street. Snow that had dusted the trees into Christmas card scenes showered icy pellets on her head.

  That was fitting.

  ****

  A noise jolted Katie’s heartbeat.

  It took only an instant to recognize it as her phone, but she’d already jerked in reaction, knocking the suitcase lid closed.