CHAPTER 26
“Lunchtime! Yes!” Grace said as she and Eve were ushered into a sitting room in the palace the next day. A buffet table held a platter of finger sandwiches, a tray of artfully arranged tapas, and an assortment of cookies and miniature cakes.
When they had returned from the hospital that morning, they had been introduced to Carmen Molano, a stern, older woman with black hair and a black dress, who was in charge of preparing them for the announcement about Grace the next day. She had inspected their meager wardrobe and put together what she deemed appropriate outfits for them. The dark plum dress that Grace had worn for her first meeting with Luis passed muster, while Eve once again would wear her blue silk sheath. The royal photographer had been called in to approve the clothing and discuss hair and makeup. Then they had practiced waving because Grace would be presented in person to her new subjects on El Balcón de la Verdad, the Balcony of Truth, called that because the ruler was sworn always to speak the truth when he addressed his people from there.
Throughout it all, Eve worried about Luis. He had walked with a firm stride to the hospital elevator that morning, dressed in navy trousers and a light blue shirt, flanked by three bodyguards and Mikel. Yet the angles of his strong facial bones had jutted sharply under his drawn skin, and his face had held a gray pallor. He’d smiled as he lifted a hand in farewell, but it had seemed strained.
She desperately wanted to check on how he was doing, but Carmen had informed them that Su Majestad was working in his office and not to be disturbed. Not that Eve would have dared to insist on seeing him, but Grace was concerned about her father as well.
Grace piled food on a plate and plunked down in an armchair. “I’m surprised Carmen isn’t here instructing us on how to eat a sandwich.”
“I suspect it would involve a knife and fork,” Eve said, adding paper-thin jamón to her own plate.
“Being a brand-new princess is exhausting, but the food is good,” Grace said, wolfing down a finger sandwich in two bites.
Eve sat beside her daughter and put her plate on the side table between them. “Sweetheart, things are moving very fast now. I want you to stop for a moment and really think. Are you one hundred percent sure that you wish to be acknowledged as Luis’s daughter? Because once the announcement is made, your life will never be the same.”
Nor would Eve’s, but that was secondary to her child’s happiness.
“You mean because I might be poisoned?” Grace asked. “Or kidnapped? I know you’re worried about that.”
“I won’t lie. I am concerned about your safety,” Eve said.
“Mikel caught the man who poisoned Dad,” Grace pointed out.
“But not before your father almost died,” Eve said, the terror twisting her heart again.
“I’m not the king or even the crown prince, so I think I’ll be less of a target,” Grace said.
Eve winced at the last word, feeling the jab of it in her gut.
Grace must have seen it because she leaned over to touch Eve’s forearm. “Dad told me that Gabriel and Raul were extremely drunk when Gabriel got kidnapped, and they had stupidly ditched their bodyguards. I will be more careful, I promise.” She gave Eve’s arm a little squeeze. “Besides, I could just as easily get trampled by a crazed horse at vet school. Or bitten by a rabid fox.”
“I know, sweetie,” Eve said with a sigh. Grace was still young enough not to believe in her own mortality. “But what about the other issues? You’ve now seen firsthand how careful your father has to be about his private life.” Guilt about the photo on the beach poked at her again. “You can’t even see a doctor without having it be news.”
And that was why Luis was not allowing himself to recuperate as his body needed to.
“It’s going to be a big change, and some of it isn’t so great.” Grace ate another bite of sandwich as she considered. “But I balance it against the good I can do for animals. As a vet, I could help maybe a couple of hundred animals. As a princess, I can help thousands, maybe even millions, if I can get international attention. How amazing is that?”
“Amazing indeed.” Eve hated to follow that with another ugly topic, but she needed to know how Grace was handling it. “There’s another concern, though. No matter what false trails Mikel lays, or how many denials Luis issues, someone, sometime will find out that Odette is your biological mother.”
“Probably Odette herself will tell them,” Grace said, a flicker of disgust in her voice. “She is fine with kidnapping and mutilation—so I’m sure she would have no qualms about ignoring her promise to me.”
“I’m so sorry.” Eve hated that Grace would carry the knowledge of her birth mother’s sins for the rest of her life. “You should not allow her crimes to cast shadows over your own life.”
Grace made a pushing motion with her hand. “That’s not it.” She turned a face of misery to Eve. “I tell myself I should be grateful that Odette didn’t raise me herself. What kind of person would I be if she had? But it’s hard to be rejected by your criminal psychopath of a biological mother. Not even such a damaged person wanted me as her child.”
Eve’s heart nearly ripped in two. She leaped out of her chair and knelt in front of Grace. “She didn’t reject you because you were damaged. She did it because she is so damaged that she is incapable of loving anyone, not even the most amazing daughter in the world.” Grace choked out a sob. Eve gave her hands a gentle squeeze. “Do you know how often I have blessed your birth mother for giving you to me? Every single day! How ironic that I am so profoundly grateful to a terrible person, but she did at least one good deed in her life.”
Eve drew back to lock her gaze on Grace’s tear-streaked face. “I’ve never told anyone else this, but the first time I held you in my arms, I felt more than just gratitude and love. I felt a profound connection with you. I felt that you were meant to be my child, but my body couldn’t carry you, so you borrowed Odette’s, just to get you onto this earth. She was only a vessel. I was always your real mother.” Eve stroked Grace’s damp cheek. “Sorry if that sounds a little crazy, but I believed it then, and I still do.”
“Mom, you’re the sanest person I know,” Grace said. “I like your story better than mine because it feels true here.” She touched her chest over her heart. “If anyone tries to claim that Odette is my mother, I will tell them how wrong they are. My one and only mother is Eve Howard from Ames, Iowa.”
Eve used her napkin to blot the tears as Grace’s words wound around her own heart. “Never forget that, sweetheart. You have strong roots.”
Grace mopped her face and took a deep breath. “I needed to get that straight in my head. And that’s why I need you here in Caleva with me.”
Which required that Eve uproot her life and move it to a foreign country. Hadn’t she longed for adventure when she was a teenager? Here it was, and she was terrified. Her worry for Grace might be so pressing because it was intertwined with her own anxieties.
“Okay, you’ve convinced me that you know what you’re getting into,” Eve said, knowing when she was beaten. “From now on, it’s full speed ahead into your future.”
“And yours.” Grace’s face was solemn.
If only her daughter knew how hard it was going to be for Eve to see Luis and not be able to touch him. Eve curled her fingers into fists on her lap.
Grace gestured to Eve’s untouched plate. “You should eat. Who knows when they’ll allow us a meal break again since this afternoon is about rehearsing for our official appearance.”
It was useful to have young people around. They focused on the necessities of life.
Luis leaned back in his desk chair and closed his eyes. His speech was complete. Grace’s shorter speech was ready for her approval. Bruno had set up the press conference, and Mikel was organizing security for the royal family’s appearance on the balcony.
Now that events were well under way, exhaustion dragged at every inch of his body, and he longed to collapse on the soft, comfortable couch beckoning to him from just across the room.
Someone knocked on the door. Luis forced his eyes open and sat up straight. “Come in.”
His brother came through the door. “Luis, hermano, I just heard that you were here.” Lorenzo stopped in front of the desk while he scanned Luis. “You don’t look well. Why are you not still in the hospital?”
“Because I felt recovered enough to be bored.” Luis tried to brush off his brother’s concern with levity, but he was touched nonetheless. “And I couldn’t take the chance that the media would find out where I was.”
“Ay, imbécil! You are going to end up back there, only worse,” his brother said, glaring at him. “At least go lie down in your habitación.”
“I can’t,” Luis said, not bothering to try to keep the fatigue out of his voice. “I have run out of time and must announce my daughter’s existence to Caleva. That’s why I’ve called the whole family to the palace tonight. The announcement will be made tomorrow.”
Lorenzo sat. “At least it is a happy occasion that drags you out of bed. But what about your poisoner?”
“I want that kept quiet for now. Such ugliness should not cast a shadow on the joy of Grace’s presence.” Luis let his head rest against the chair’s back. “Mikel has brought the perpetrator back here and has questioned him. I expect his report soon.”
“I want to be present to hear why this madman tried to murder you.” Lorenzo’s voice held anger.
“You are welcome to join the briefing.” Luis would have put it off himself until he had the energy to muster some of the same fury, but Mikel’s hard work deserved a prompt hearing.
“Have you eaten?” Lorenzo asked, his gaze on the plate of tapas sitting on Luis’s desk.
“My stomach still feels like it got kicked by a mule,” Luis admitted.
Lorenzo winced in sympathy.
There was a knock before the door opened to admit Raul and Mikel.
“Se?ores.” Mikel’s bow acknowledged both Luis and his brother.
“Pater, Tío.” Raul lowered his head in a respectful greeting before he took the chair next to Lorenzo’s. He waited a beat and asked, “Shouldn’t Grace and Eve be here?”
Luis had considered that. “They have enough on their plate preparing for the announcement tomorrow. Once that is over, we will bring them into the loop.” With a carefully edited version of the facts, if necessary. Eve was already worried enough about Grace’s safety.
Mikel remained standing, a laptop and a folder tucked under his arm.
“What have you found out?” Luis asked him.
Mikel placed the folder on the desk. “If I may summarize?”
Luis nodded.
“Felipe Camacho’s twenty-two-year-old daughter began dating a U.S. sailor from the military base. She became pregnant, and the two decided to marry. Camacho is very conservative. He found it shameful that his daughter was pregnant without being married.”
“Ah, that’s why he felt the need for a return to decency and morality,” Luis said, the man’s words coming back to him.
Mikel continued. “He blamed the sailor for seducing her and refused to allow the young man in his home. At the same time, he attempted to confine his daughter to the house so she could not see her lover and so that no one would know she was pregnant.”
“That’s not conservative,” Raul muttered. “That’s medieval.”
Luis thought of Grace. Never would he treat her in such a cruel way.
“Not surprisingly,” Mikel continued, “the sailor assisted Camacho’s daughter in escaping, they married, and the daughter moved to the United States to be near the sailor’s family, where the baby was born. She has refused to let her father visit his grandson.”
“Who can blame her?” Lorenzo said.
“Unfortunately, her refusal drove Camacho off the deep end,” Mikel said. “He developed a deep hatred of the U.S. military presence in Caleva, and he holds Su Majestad responsible for it. That led him to concoct an elaborate plan to poison you, Se?or.” Mikel paused for a moment. “I believe it was a way to sublimate his anguish at losing his daughter and grandson.”
“Which he brought on himself,” Raul said without sympathy.
Luis understood the man’s agony at being separated from his child and grandchild, but he felt no sympathy for him.
“First, he got elected to the Consejo de los Ciudadanos because he felt that would be the best way to gain access to the palace,” Mikel said. “He attached himself to the group of malcontents who would be most likely to meet with you, in this case about the naval base’s lease since it’s in his district. He is a professor of mathematics at the university, which allowed him to use the school’s chemistry laboratory. There, he created the poisoned pages in the book, using thallium rat poison that he obtained from Eastern Europe.”
“A book?” Lorenzo asked.
“He presented me with a recently published volume about fencing history and strategy,” Luis said. “He even recommended particular chapters to read. I wonder if those pages held the most poison.”
“It was inspected via the usual security measures, including testing random pages for harmful substances,” Mikel said, his voice without inflection, but Luis saw the hollowness of failure in his eyes. “The poisoned pages were not among those tested in the initial inspection.”
“An elaborate plan indeed,” Lorenzo said. “The man must be highly intelligent in a twisted way.”
“I’m almost flattered,” Luis murmured. “And a little surprised.” Camacho didn’t seem like a criminal mastermind.
Mikel’s lips tightened. “Camacho claims he did not wish you to die, so he infused only scattered pages with the thallium. He just wished you to suffer some of the pain that he felt.”
“His intention is unimportant,” Lorenzo snapped. “He poisoned the king.”
“He will be tried and sentenced, Lorenzo,” Luis said. “With the full force of the law. But not until after we have introduced Grace to Caleva. Let joy reign first.”
“That completes the summary of my report,” Mikel said. “I would be happy to answer any questions.”
“Questions can wait until I’ve read the report,” Luis said, eyeing the couch again.
Lorenzo and Raul understood the meeting was at an end and stood.
“May I speak with you privately, Se?or?” Mikel asked.
Luis swallowed a groan. “Of course.”
His son and brother said their farewells.
Mikel set his laptop on the desk and flipped it open. “I would like to play you part of the recording of the interrogation.”
“By all means,” Luis said as Mikel swiped at the laptop’s screen.
“This is taken from the camera that records the prisoner head-on so that facial expressions and body language can be analyzed later,” Mikel explained as he started the video.
Felipe Camacho sat in a cone of light with dimness surrounding him. His mane of white hair hung limply around his face, and he sat slumped in a metal chair, his handcuffed hands resting on a metal table.
Mikel’s voice came from off-camera. “You call yourself a patriot, wanting Caleva to be only for Calevans. Yet you attempted to murder your king, which is not the act of a loyal Calevan. Why?”
Camacho’s head snapped up. “No! I did not try to murder him! I only wanted him to feel the daily pain that I feel. He would not die. She promised me that.”
“She?” Mikel asked. “Who is she?”
Luis’s fatigue vanished as his attention was riveted on the man in the chair.
Camacho shook his head, his lips pressed together.
“Who is she?” Mikel’s voice was implacable. “She caused you to nearly commit regicide. You owe her no loyalty. Who is she?”
But Luis knew. And it explained the complexity of the scheme to poison him.
“I don’t know,” the prisoner said. “I never met her. She never told me her real name.”
“How did she contact you?” Mikel asked.
“I met with a group of people who were looking for candidates for the consejo. Candidates who want change in Caleva. I told them my daughter’s story so they would understand my commitment.” Camacho’s handcuffs rattled on the tabletop in his agitation. “Several days after my interview with them, I received an email at my university address. It was signed just Isabella.”
Isabella. The name of the infamous Queen of Caleva who had hurled her half siblings off the heights of Acantilado Alto. Odette and her mind games.
“You conspired to murder your king via email?” Mikel’s question dripped with incredulity.
“Of course not. I am not stupid.” Camacho was insulted. “We used a dead drop and handwrote our communications.”
“And how did she persuade you to poison the king?”
“She knew about my daughter. How I have suffered. She, too, has lost a daughter, so she understood my need to exact payment.”
Such a lying, manipulative bruja. Rage boiled in Luis’s chest.
“Whose idea was the thallium?” Mikel asked.
“Isabella’s. She knew where to obtain it and that it could be absorbed through the skin, since poisoning Luis’s food would be nearly impossible. She suggested using a book, and I found exactly the right title to pique the king’s interest.” Satisfaction vibrated in Camacho’s voice.
“I also made the calculations about where to place the poisoned pages in the book,” Camacho continued. “Even if he read two chapters at a time, he would only receive enough poison to create discomfort, not death.”
“How did you know he would read only a chapter or two at a time?” Mikel asked.
“He is the king, a very busy man,” Camacho said. “He would not have the leisure time to read the entire book at once.”
“Did you not consider that he might page through it, rather than reading it chapter by chapter?” Mikel prodded.
“He would receive no benefit from glancing through it,” Camacho said. “Su Majestad is an expert fencer. He would wish to learn from the book, not just look at the pictures.”
Luis shifted in his chair. He had paged through the volume repeatedly because he had been distracted by his feelings for Eve. How ironic that he had nearly killed himself that way.
Mikel stopped the recording. “The rest is more of the same.”
“It was Odette,” Luis said, fear and fury spinning through his brain. “She has her tentacles deep in that group of malcontents in the consejos. We have to find and shut down her conduit to them.”
Mikel nodded stiffly.
“You did the right thing in not sharing this with the others,” Luis said, drumming his fingers on the desk as he considered the implications of a public trial. “We must tread very carefully.”
“Thus far we have no proof of Odette’s involvement,” Mikel pointed out.
“I do not doubt your ability to unearth it,” Luis said. “I’m just not yet sure how I wish to use it.”
Mikel cleared his throat and pulled an envelope from his breast pocket but did not offer it to Luis. “Se?or, I wish to apologize for the breach in security, both at the prison and here,” he said, his voice tight. “This is my letter of resignation. My hope is that you will not accept it. Not because I deserve another chance, but because I will redouble my efforts to prevent such a terrible event from occurring again.”
Luis waved Mikel’s apology and letter away. “I don’t want your resignation.”
“Why not? It is my job to prevent harm from coming to you.” Mikel’s eyes burned with regret.
“A crazed intruder once got into the Queen of England’s bedroom. U.S. presidents occasionally get shot,” Luis said. “We are targets, and sometimes a madman or madwoman will get through even the most rigorous defenses.” He held out his hand. “The letter, please.”
Mikel frowned as he gave the envelope to Luis. His security chief’s expression lightened when Luis tore the envelope in half and then in quarters before dropping it into the shredding bin.
“I need to pay another visit to Odette,” Luis said. “We must come to an understanding. Set it up for early tomorrow morning and keep the visit between the two of us.” The anger-fueled adrenaline was draining away, leaving him aching and exhausted.
Mikel bowed, picked up his laptop, and exited without a word.
Luis pressed a button on his desk that signaled he should not be disturbed. Then he went to the couch, arranged a couple of pillows at one end, and stretched out on the cushions with a groan.