Marilyn Pappano - Romancing The Crown - Lorenzo and Anna - The Man Who Would Be King / The Princess And The Mercenary

“So you’re undercover? Like the CIA?”

“Not quite,” she replied, smiling, “but close enough. The duke doesn’t want anyone else to find the prince before he does and possibly hurt him. That’s why I need to ask you a few questions for him, if that’s all right.”

“I dunno,” he mumbled, ignoring Lorenzo completely. “Depends on what you want to talk about. You don’t think I hurt the prince, do you?”

“Oh, no!” she assured him. “Thanks to you, his family knows he’s alive. No one is blaming you for anything. But we do need to know exactly where you found the scarf. There may be other clues at the campsite that tell us more about the prince and where he may have gone when he left there.”

Hesitating, Willy cocked his head at her. “You’re going to put this in your story, aren’t you? All about your search for the prince? Are you going to mention me? Will my name be in the paper?”

Expecting the question—he asked her the same thing every time he gave her a tip—she shrugged. “That depends on you. I know how you value your privacy, and I wouldn’t want to do anything to destroy that. I can either mention your name or just refer to you as an unnamed source. The choice is yours.”

When he considered his options, Eliza couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. There was a part of him that longed for fame and fortune, but the war in Vietnam had scarred him, and as much as he yearned for publicity, his fear of people—and the government, in particular—sadly ruled his life. Not surprisingly, he said, “I think I like the sound of an unnamed source.”

“That’s fine,” she replied easily. “But in the meantime, where did you find the scarf, Willy? We can’t do anything until we know that.”

“I just want to make sure I’m not going to get in trouble,” he hedged, shooting Lorenzo another wary look. “I don’t like the law, and if they find out I was hunting without a license up on Walnut Ridge, they’re going to send someone after me.”

“No one will know except you and me and the duke,” she promised. “And we’re not telling anyone. You know you can trust me, Willy. And the duke has no reason to wish you harm. He’s very appreciative of your help. Because of you, the king and queen now know there’s a good possibility that their son is alive. You gave them hope. Now help us find the prince. Where’s the campsite? Up on Walnut Ridge?”

Nodding, he said, “It’s on the backside of the ridge, about a mile straight north from where the forest service road forks. You can’t miss it. It’s back in a stand of aspen not too far from Elk Creek.”

“And where did you find the scarf at the campsite? Was it just laying on the ground by the deserted campfire or what?”

He shook his head. “It was hanging on a dead tree branch a few feet away from the campsite. I think it got caught there when the prince got scared for some reason and ran away.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Eliza saw Lorenzo roll his eyes, but he thankfully didn’t say anything. If he had, Willy would have shut up like a clam and scurried back into the woods. “Why do you think he was scared, Willy? Was there some sign that he might have been in some kind of distress when he abandoned the campsite?”

“Not that I could tell,” he replied honestly. “But the creek’s not that far from the campsite…or where the prince’s plane went down. I figure he wandered alongside the creek after he crashed and eventually built himself a campsite on the ridge. Some of the people looking for him had to figure the same thing.”

It made sense. After the prince’s plane had finally been found, the FBI and local police had scoured the woods for several miles in every direction of the vicinity of the crash, searching for Lucas. It was the others, however, the fortune hunters and nutcases who had been lured to the crash site by the false rumor of a reward offered by a Hollywood gossip magazine, that worried Eliza the most. If any of them had decided to follow the creek in search of him, they might have surprised him into running. The question was, where would he have gone from there?

Glancing over at Lorenzo, she expected him to be at least somewhat impressed with Willy’s theory, but judging from his set expression, he was reserving judgment. Disappointed, she told Willy, “You might be right, but we won’t know until we see the campsite. Tell me more about the scarf and the log it was caught on. Where was it in relation to the campfire?”

“On the north side,” he said promptly. “Maybe about ten yards away. If he was trying to get away from someone, that was the easiest way to go. It’s rough country up there. There are cliffs on either side, and the creek’s impossible to cross.”

“So you think he went north?”

He shrugged. “He didn’t have much choice if someone was trailing him from the south. It’s the only way out.”

As far as theories went, it was as good as any other, and only time would tell if he was right. Sensing Lorenzo’s impatience to get on with the search, Eliza said, “Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we? Thanks for your help, Willy. We couldn’t have gotten this far without you.”

“I know what it’s like to be missing,” he said simply. “It’s the loneliest, scariest feeling in the world.”

There’d been a time in Vietnam when he’d been missing in action and on his own in the jungle, and the shadows of that still lingered in his eyes, decades later. For a long second, he just stood there, reflecting. Then he quietly turned and disappeared into the trees.

Staring after him, Eliza couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, but there was nothing she could do for him, nothing he would let her do for him…except give him the space he needed. So she didn’t call him back, but turned to Lorenzo instead. “Well, what do you think? Could the prince have headed north?”

“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe not. It’s too soon to tell. I prefer to make my own conclusions once I’ve investigated the campsite.”

Personally, Lorenzo didn’t put much stock in anything Willy said. The man obviously had problems. He didn’t seem quite in touch with reality, and if Lorenzo hadn’t seen Lucas’s scarf with his own two eyes, he never would have believed it was found by the old man. Did the abandoned campsite even exist? He hoped so. They’d find out soon enough.

They started the search at the spot where Lucas crashed his plane into the side of the mountain. The last time Lorenzo had been there, it had looked much different. The crash had only happened days before, and the shock had still been fresh. When Lorenzo had seen the wreckage for the first time, he’d sworn he could smell the prince’s pain and horror as he’d realized he was going down. In spite of the fact that Lucas’s body hadn’t been discovered in the wreckage, Lorenzo had felt little hope that he would be found alive.

Time, however, had a way of healing all wounds. The fuselage and debris that were all that was left of the small plane had blended into the mountainside, and the snow nearly covered that. Anyone seeing the site for the first time would have thought the crash happened decades ago instead of just last year.

And this time, Lorenzo really believed Lucas had somehow managed to survive the crash. Oh, he hadn’t changed his opinion about Willy, but he knew his cousin. He loved life and wouldn’t have let go of it easily. If anyone could survive not only a plane crash, but the wildness of the Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter, it was Lucas.

“Where is the forest service road Willy mentioned?” he asked Eliza as she stood solemnly beside him, surveying the scene. “How would you get there from here on foot?”

Considering a moment, she frowned. “I’d head northeast as long as I could, then cross the creek and head north. I don’t think the prince could have made it any other way if he was hurt. It’s too rugged.”