Ransom For A Prince. Lisa Childs
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and swallowed hard when the boss answered immediately.
“Is it?” the man asked.
“We were not able to get close enough to tell,” Dmitri admitted.
“Why not?”
“We had interference,” he reluctantly explained, “from one of the royals.”
“Which one?”
“The one who held the press conference offering the reward. Prince Sebastian Cavanaugh. I had a shot. Should I have taken it?” Dmitri asked, turning to glare at the driver.
A deep chuckle emanated from the phone. “The prince is no threat.”
“He has military experience.” Dmitri recalled learning from the conference. He had posed as one of the reporters and then hung around with them afterward on the off chance that she might come forward for that reward. The prince had done what they had not been able to. He’d drawn her out of hiding.
“A prince with any real military experience?” The boss snorted. “I’m sure he never left his barracks without his security detail. He is no threat.”
“But we lost our tail on her because of him,” Dmitri said. Despite his efforts, Nic had been unable to keep the Hummer from passing them. Was it because, as Nic had grumbled, the Hummer was just more powerful than the van? Or was it because the prince was more powerful than Nic or the boss would admit?
“The plan was to use him to find her,” the boss reminded him. “Follow the plan. Follow the prince. He’ll lead you to her.”
“And once we have her?”
A chuckle rattled over the cell phone. “Then you will kill Prince Sebastian Cavanaugh, of course.”
“Of course…”
Dmitri stared through the dust-smeared windshield at the Hummer in the distance. As the prince rounded the rear of the vehicle to approach the driver’s side, sunlight glinted off the weapon he held.
Maybe the boss was right. Maybe the prince’s military experience meant nothing. But the tightening muscles in Dmitri’s gut told him that when the time came, Prince Sebastian Cavanaugh might not be all that easy to kill.
WITH HANDS TREMBLING, Jessica slid the dead bolt closed. Then she peered through the sheer curtain over the window in the door. Nothing had pulled into the dirt driveway behind the Suburban, but there had been vehicles following her. First the van. Probably the reporters from the sheriff’s office.
She shuddered at the thought of their cameras catching her on film to be broadcast everywhere…
She’d also heard another engine—one more powerful than the van’s. Then the crunch of metal grinding against metal had echoed throughout the valley. Due to the winding road, she hadn’t caught a glimpse of an accident in her rearview mirror—unlike the night of the explosion when the flames and wreckage had been unavoidable. She wished she hadn’t seen what she had that night. So today she hadn’t been about to stop to find out what had happened or even to find out who was following her.
She was damn sure she knew to whom one of those vehicles belonged. Prince Sebastian. Had he been involved in a crash?
A pang of concern stabbed her heart, and she gasped. While she didn’t trust him, she would hate for him to be hurt—not because she personally cared what happened to him, though. She just hated the thought of anyone getting hurt.
Except one man.
“Someone follow you back from the resort?” Helen asked, peering over Jessica’s shoulder.
She sucked in a breath. “Where’s Samantha?”
“In her room, cleaning up like you told her. She’s such a good kid—always minds her mama,” Helen said with so much pride that she could have been the little girl’s biological grandmother instead of just her honorary one.
Her breath escaped in a ragged sigh. “If only I’d do what I tell myself to do…”
Helen chuckled. “You’re a good girl, too, Jessica. What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t go to the resort,” she admitted.
“You went to town.”
Choking on regrets, she could only nod.
Helen squeezed her shoulders. “That was a lot of money.”
“I didn’t collect it,” she said. “I didn’t tell him anything.” Sure, the prince had seemed genuinely concerned about his friend, but she knew too well that concern—even love—could be faked to mask someone’s true nature or agenda.
“So that’s why you’re worried he followed you back here?” Helen asked, continuing to stare down the long gravel driveway. It was so long that they couldn’t see the road, though. Someone could have turned off behind her, and she would not know.
“I don’t think he was the only one following me,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For bringing trouble back to the ranch.”
“I don’t see any cars out there, honey.” Helen stepped back. “You must have lost them.”
“For now,” Jessica said, turning away from the door. “But someone in town might have recognized the Suburban, and if he—or anyone else—asks around…”
“They’ll know where to find you.”
“At the Double J. I knew Samantha and I would have to leave here someday, but I’d hoped to do that before I brought trouble to you.” She shouldn’t have stayed in one place for so long. When she’d first run away, she hadn’t stayed anywhere for more than a few weeks. But then she’d had Samantha, and the little girl had needed a home. “After everything you’ve done for me, that’s the last thing I ever intended to do.”
Helen shrugged off Jessica’s concern. “Because the bottom of the J rotted off, it’s the double T. Double Trouble, honey. Trouble’s been here long before you showed up in Wind River County. Trouble will end here, too.”
That was what Jessica was afraid of…
“SO THE VAN’S GONE?” Antoine asked, his voice sharp with frustration as it emanated from the speaker.
“It took off.” He shouldn’t have let it, but he’d had no justification for shooting out the tires or windows. So he’d refrained from firing his weapon, even though his finger had itched to pull the trigger.
Hell, he’d probably had no justification for running the van off the road in the first place. Sure, it hadn’t let him pass, but drivers in the States were different than drivers in Barajas. There was road rage here. And there was also royal rage here in Wind River. Perhaps they had recognized the Hummer as belonging to COIN security detail and that was why they’d driven as erratically as they had. But Sebastian suspected the driver hadn’t acted out of road or royal rage but had had another agenda entirely. Plan B?
Prince Stefan Lutece had learned from a forensics expert that the bomb had been intended for all of them and that when it had failed, whoever was behind the assassination attempt had moved on to plan B. Whatever that was…
“You probably scared the hell out of some reporters,” Antoine remarked. “I hope.”
“I’m sure they’ll leave her alone now.”
Sebastian seriously doubted that they would leave the woman alone or that they were just reporters. When the window had rolled down a crack, sunshine had glinted off the metal of the barrel of a gun. Even though he’d more often stared down the barrel of a long-range sniper rifle, he had recognized when he’d been staring into one.
“If they were reporters, they would have asked me for a statement, would they not? Reporters have been