Rachelle McCalla - Royal Heist

What was wrong with his radio? Galen didn’t have time for troubleshooting. Their pursuer was a mere half block behind them, maybe less.

They crossed a bisecting street. Ruby’s apartment lay one long block ahead of them. Galen dared to look over his shoulder as they darted across the intersection, hoping to see that they were far enough ahead of the man to safely reach Ruby’s apartment. A shadow passed under a streetlight at the corner behind them, disappearing in the other direction.

“Where is he?” Ruby gasped between breaths.

“He’s gone.”

“What?”

Ruby’s steps slowed. Galen, likewise, stopped running to listen. Silence. Had the man given up?

“I think I saw him dart around that corner away from us.” Galen shook his head, still listening closely. He heard a distant sound, which might have been footsteps, but it was difficult to tell as he and Ruby both sucked in deep breaths after their panicked run.

“I hear—” Ruby began in a whisper.

But Galen heard it, too, and pulled out his earpiece so he could hear more clearly. The sound of approaching footsteps had returned, but now they seemed to be coming from the side street opposite the corner around which the man had seemed to disappear.

How had the man gotten across the street? Was it some sort of trick, or another person entirely?

Galen formed a plan quickly. He wanted to ID the perp, if possible—but he couldn’t let Ruby stay out in the open. A deep alcove beckoned from the doorway of the nearest building.

“In here.” Galen nearly lifted Ruby off her feet as he swept her behind the protecting stone enclosure, positioning himself in front of her, ears attuned, one eye peering just past the rim of the stonework.

As he’d suspected, a massive man darted out from around the opposite corner, his face distorted by a semitransparent, tight-fitting elastic garment. The man glanced about as he ran, then skidded to a stop fewer than twenty yards from them.

Galen ducked his head back.

Ruby clung to the light blue shirt of his royal guard uniform, looking up at him from very close range, her expression trusting in spite of the fear that haunted her eyes. This close, he could feel her warmth and smell the light perfume she wore. He turned his attention from her to the street, refusing to think about how it felt to have her practically in his arms.

Ordinarily he’d have backed away, honoring her wishes to keep a formal distance between them. He didn’t have that option, not with their pursuer moving toward them as the big man searched out his lost prey.

The doorway where they hid was set back one yard or more from the stonework facade, the decorative archway providing a narrow nook for them to hide, out of sight from anyone looking directly at the building, provided they pressed flat against the adjoining wall.

“He’s looking for us,” Galen explained, his voice barely a breath as he tried to compress himself as flat as possible against the wall without crushing Ruby. She too shrank back as they listened to the man approach, but Galen could still feel her heartbeat slamming into his.

A gruff voice rumbled from the street. “Where’d they go?” A pause. “Not anymore.” A stream of curses was followed by, “Not tonight.”

The sound of footsteps faded into the night.

Galen waited a few more tense heartbeats, then peeled himself away from the wall. He needed to distance himself from Ruby, especially since he wanted to pull her into his arms to hold her close and keep her safe. Instead, he looked out into the night. The orange glow of streetlights illumined all that was left of the evening.

“What happened to your guards?” Ruby asked in a tiny whisper. “I thought you were going to call them?”

As she spoke, Galen heard footsteps—this time coming from the direction of the palace wall. He recognized the familiar dark slacks and pale blue shirt of the Lydian guard uniform.

“Linus!” he called out.

The guard turned, relief on his face as Galen stepped from the doorway, pulling Ruby out after him.

“What happened? I was listening for you, but when I checked the radio, all I got was static.”

“He must have jammed the system.” Galen was still trying to sort out what had happened. “He may have been wearing an earpiece, as well. Even though he appeared to be alone, he was talking to someone.”

“An accomplice?” Ruby’s voice, sounding small and vulnerable, pulled Galen’s attention from his fellow guard to the woman he’d promised to protect.

Galen stared at Ruby as the full impact of her words hit him. It was worse than he’d feared. Not only was someone targeting her specifically, but they weren’t working alone.

Cold dread filled Galen as he looked at Ruby’s innocent face and wondered what she was up against. He needed to figure it out—quickly, before the men did anything to hurt Ruby.

And he needed to convince his boss that he knew what he was talking about when he requested more men for the next evening, and every evening until these men were caught. And in the meantime, he’d have to stop staring into Ruby’s jade-green eyes or he might easily give in to the impulse to pull her close to him.

FOUR

Ruby stepped through the pedestrian gate ahead of the guards and headed toward the royal guard headquarters, a three-story brick building located on the palace grounds across the courtyard from the garages. Before she and the guards reached the building, the vehicle gate opened and a car pulled through.

“That’s Kirk’s car,” Linus noted.

The coupe rolled toward them and Princess Anastasia leaped from the passenger door, rushing at Ruby and embracing her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Ruby felt grateful for the hug, but embarrassed that her friend had interrupted a rare evening out on her account. “You’re supposed to be on a dinner date.”

“We hadn’t ordered our food yet. I was worried about how you were faring, so I asked Kirk to call the guards. They told us what happened. I feel responsible—you came to Lydia at my invitation, and now you’ve been attacked twice.”

“Only once, technically.” Ruby stepped back toward Galen as she explained, “We were chased this evening, but thanks to Galen’s quick thinking, the man didn’t catch us.”

“Unfortunately, we didn’t catch him, either,” Galen lamented.

“No, but we may have learned a few things.” Linus led the way to the royal guard headquarters. “Let’s get those observations on record before either of you have time to forget any details.”

Kirk and Stasi followed them inside. Once they were all seated around a table in the conference room, Ruby and Galen recounted everything they could recall, from the moment Galen spotted the figure smoking outside the studio. But when they reached the point in the story where Galen had tried to radio for help, Linus stopped to clarify.

“What happened with that transmission? The royal guard has been using these earpieces for three years, ever since they hit the market. They’re supposed to be the best of their kind. We’ve never had a problem before.”

Galen shook his head slowly. “I don’t know enough about this technology to guess how they did it. Can we call Simon in here?”

Moments later, the royal guard’s technology expert for the evening shift stood among them, nodding as Galen recounted the trouble with the earpiece kits.

“It had to have been deliberately jammed,” Simon concluded after hearing the facts. “Given that you’d just used it with no trouble, I’d say he waited until his accomplice was chasing you before jamming the signal.”

“It had to be an accomplice?” Ruby didn’t like the thought of a team working against her using sophisticated equipment—especially when she didn’t even know why. “One man couldn’t have jammed the signal while chasing us?”