The Eye of the Wolf (39 page)

Will smiled slightly. “Okay, so
where is the original crown?”

Mikayla shrugged. Her fingers
traced along the scepter that rested next to the crown. “I don’t know, Will,
but it must be important to have been taken right out of the case.”

As her fingers traced the
scepter, images of Dejeune on the floor, blood pooling, scissors glinting in
faint light raced through her brain. His mouth worked, trying to form one word.
Mikayla frowned and focused her mind, her eyes on the sharp edges of the
scepter. Blood bubbled from Dejeune’s lips as one word escaped his lips as
death consumed him. “Wolf.” Mikayla said softly, her fingers resting on the
scepter, its gold shining in the dim light.

Will brought the flashlight to
her face. A shiver danced down his spine. “What?”

Mikayla raised her face, her
eyes were wide. “Wolf. That was what he was trying to say. He was trying to say
‘Wolf’.”

“Who, Mikayla?” Will took her
arm and shook her gently, trying to pull her from the spell she seemed to be
under.

“Dejeune. He said ‘wolf’ before
he died.” She shuddered as her mind cleared and she was yanked back into the
present. The rain on the roof of the museum seemed abnormally loud and
goosebumps broke out across her flesh. She hugged herself, rubbing her arms
furiously.

“Are you sure?” When she
nodded, Will locked the case swiftly and dragged her across the floor to the
office. He disappeared inside momentarily and then returned to her side. He
dragged her sluggish feet across the marble to the door. After a swift peek out
the door, he slid out pulling her behind him. The flashlight disappeared into
the sleeve of his rain jacket and they blended into the crowds thronging the
street.

It was only after the darkness
and silence had settled again that the shadow behind a pillar moved. It moved
on silent feet towards the exit. The prince and the American weren’t the only
thieves, especially now that the diary of King Malachi had been found.

“All right, Mikayla, what is it
in that diary that told you about the crown?” Will demanded. He was dry and
warm and in no mood for secrets or games. He wrapped her feet in a blanket and
rubbed the life back into them as she sipped hot chocolate, hair wrapped in a
fluffy towel. If he hadn’t been aggravated with her, he might have found her
irresistibly adorable; however, he was irritated.

Mikayla took a sip, leveling
her gaze over the rim of her mug. His hair was mussed, as always, she mused,
and his cheeks were pink from the cold rain that was steadily drowning
paradise. She knew she could probably distract him from the idea of the diary,
but she found that she didn’t really want to. She wanted to tell him. She
wanted to share with him and bring him into her world.

She pulled her feet free and
walked across the room to where their wet clothes were piled. From her rain
coat, she pulled free the diary and returned to her spot in front of the
fireplace where a fire was crackling merrily. She snuggled back into her
blanket  and welcomed Will as he slid under the blanket beside her. He
slipped an arm around her shoulder and cuddled her close despite the annoyance
that sizzled in his system. He was warm and inviting against her cool skin.

Mikayla untied the leather
thong that held it closed. She moved her fingers along the vellum pages until
she came across the marker she had placed in the diary. In a clear voice, she
began to read.

I promised my grandmother that I would do away
with the Eye of the Wolf. I swore to her that I would eliminate the curse upon
our family. I hesitated, however, because never did I believe that a jewel
could be evil. Only people and Satan are evil. I now believe that the Eye of
the Wolf is evil.

My knights and I put down the
insurrection. Askan was murdered by his own followers. I believe he became
greedy and ceased to be the strong leader that I believed he was. The loss to
us was immense, however. I lost a great many of my best knights in the final
battle. Now there are many mothers without sons, wives without husbands, and
children without fathers. All of this death simply because of a fist-sized
sapphire.

Today, I fulfilled my promise
to my grandmother, Elena. I made the Eye of the Wolf disappear; however, I
could not destroy it. I could not destroy a beautiful jewel that God made. I
have hidden it so that future generations, where greed and jealousy do not rule
shall be able to find it.

I have hidden it in a
sanctified place, where God shall oversee the sapphire, blessing it and wiping
away its sin. I have left three markers on the island, telling those future
generations where to find it so that the love that made it shall set it free
from its prison. However, if no one is to find it, then it shall wait for
eternity, just as we all go to our eternal rest eventually, to wait for the
next coming.

I will peace to come to my land
now that this thing of evil is gone. I will it and I demand it. May God bless
us with peace now that the wars are through.

Their heads jerked up, and the diary slipped to the
floor at the pounding on the door. It was the shout of “Police!” that surprised
them more. Mikayla clutched at Will’s hand as he stood from his seat on the
couch beside her. He gave her one squeeze that was meant to comfort before
releasing her hand. With his own heart pounding, he scooped up the diary and
shoved it under a cushion, hiding it from view. He swallowed and took Mikayla’s
sweaty palm in his own, leading her to the door. Her breathing was harsh and
shallow.

“What do they want, Will?” She
whispered as his fingers wrapped around the door handle and began to twist.
“What if they are here to arrest me?” She nibbled on a already torn fingernail,
aggravating it until it bled.

Before swinging open the door,
Will gave her one last look that told her he wouldn’t let that happen. He
opened the door with a bright, cheerful smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Inspector! What brings you out on such an awful day?”

Will swung the screen open for
the police inspector, a short, round man who was balding on top. Small, round spectacles
perched on his nose, the rims losing a battle against the flabbiness of his
cheeks. He was a nervous man who didn’t seem to enjoy his job any more than the
people he often dealt with. He didn’t like being there, not on this errand. He
tucked his small, child-like hands in the pockets of his gray overcoat and
rocked on the balls of his feet. He looked from Mikayla to Will, noting the
towels that had been discarded on the floor and the pile of wet clothing at the
bottom of the stairs. He clicked his tongue as he slowly unwrapped a piece of
his favorite mint chewing gum. Since giving up smoking two years before,
chewing gum had become a staple in everything he did. Right at that moment, he
longed for a cigarette, but instead, he slipped the gum between his lips and
chomped noisily. He slipped the overcoat off and hung it on the guardrail to
the upstairs of the house. The officer who accompanied him did the same.

Inspector Harrison moved into
the living room leaving the police officer next to the door. In some cases,
this would have been to prevent the suspect from escaping. In this case, it was
just habit. Inspector Harrison knew Mikayla Knight wasn’t going anywhere; she
just didn’t seem the type to have committed this type of crime, especially now
that he had looked further into her background and saw her squeaky clean record
and spoken with her superiors at Georgetown. He couldn’t believe that she would
kill the king of a foreign country and then murder the resident
preservationist, plus knock herself unconscious. The pieces didn’t fit.

The inspector settled himself
in one of the chairs facing the couch, crossing one leg over the other. He
watched as Mikayla moved carefully back to her seat on the couch; her legs and
hands were shaking regardless of how much she tried to stop the shaking. Prince
William seated himself on the arm of the couch beside her, his hand gently
massaging her neck. He found it interesting that the heir to the Amor throne
would involve himself with a murder suspect, but then again, he didn’t really
consider her a suspect. If he really thought about it, the prince was more of a
suspect than she was.

“Well, Inspector Harrison, what
can we do for you this afternoon?” Will smiled across at the man who had the
power to ruin the life of the person he loved the most. He was cordial, but
there was a coolness in his voice and his demeanor that Harrison picked up on
immediately.

Harrison turned his attention
from the prince to the young lady seated on the couch across from him. Her eyes
were everywhere but his face. She picked nervously at a hangnail on one of her
hands. There was worry in her eyes, eyes that had struck him as beautiful the
first time he had had to look in to them and read her the charges that would be
brought against her. Now, a week later, there was no progress in her case
except for more evidence brought forth against her. Internally, he shook his
head. Sometimes, he really hated his job.

Inspector Harrison cleared his
throat. “Doctor Knight, I apologize for interrupting you this afternoon, but I
must ask you some questions, if you don’t mind.”

Mikayla nodded, her eyes still
moving about the room. She saw nothing except the face of the inspector, soft
and understanding, and the face of the police officer, hard and unyielding. She
swallowed and tried to focus on the face of the inspector, her mind
continuously replaying the moment he had told her the charges to be brought
against her. She tried for a tentative smile, but it came across as more of a
grimace.

“Doctor Knight, could you tell
me where you were today between the hours of eleven o’clock and two o’clock in
the afternoon.” He pulled from his Hershey chocolate brown suit coat a pen and
a small notepad. He flipped to an empty page and prepared to take notes.

Mikayla glanced up at Will and
then back at the inspector. She cleared her throat. Her words trembled out. “We
went downtown for lunch. After we had eaten, we wandered around taking in the
sites along with the tourists. There was a concert in one of the parks.”

The inspector jotted down her
answer and then looked at her again. “Where did you eat lunch?”

Mikayla chewed at her lip, her
mind thinking of the name of one of the restaurants in the downtown area where
lots of people might have sought refuge in the rain. Before she could speak,
Will’s voice piped up. “We ate hotdogs from one of the vendors who had sought
refuge under the tent where the concert was being held.” His fingers massaged
the back of Mikayla’s neck, applying pressure, forcing her to smile again and nod
slightly.

Inspector Harrison skipped his
pen across the paper, taking notes. He laid the notebook on his knee and capped
his pen. He looked across at the couple on the couch, the intimacy obvious.
“The reason I ask, Doctor Knight, is that someone broke into the museum today
between those hours. One of our cars wandered by, just to check, and found the
tape broken.” He held up a hand before Mikayla could speak. “Nothing was taken
and nothing was disturbed. I was just wandering if you had remembered something
from that day.”

Mikayla shook her head. She
held her hands out in a gesture of helplessness. “Not really, Inspector, except
that Monsieur Dejeune was alive when I found him. He died in my arms right
before I was knocked unconscious.”

Inspector Dejeune nodded and
wrote that down. He didn’t look up but continued to ask questions. “Doctor
Knight, I am to understand that you were hired by the royal family to write the
history of Amor. Was there anything that you discovered in your research that
would lead someone to kill, or to want you out of the way”

Mikayla looked up at Will, her
eyes wide with nervousness and fear. Should she tell him? Should she reveal the
search for the Eye of the Wolf? Will shook his head vaguely. “I’m not really
sure, Inspector. I don’t really know what I found since I hadn’t synthesized it
into anything coherent before it was stolen.”

The inspector made noises as he
wrote the information down. “And when again, Doctor Knight, was your research
stolen?”

Mikayla related the information
to him, reliving her experience of climbing the hidden staircase that wound its
way into the Secluded City. She answered his questions as calmly as she could
knowing that the truth was the best answer even though she had already lied to
him. She had been the one to break into the museum. She had committed a crime,
but she hadn’t committed murder.

Will watched and listened. His
hand moving lightly over her back. To the inspector, he looked as if he were
just listening, but inside his mind, everything that was said was recorded,
remembered for later use. Questions formed inside of his mind, but he couldn’t
ask those questions because it would have revealed to the inspector information
that he wasn’t ready to reveal. There was more at stake here than he was ready
to admit to himself.

Inspector Harrison nodded his
head and wrote a few more things down. Whether the prince and his lady friend
had admitted it or not, he knew they were hiding things, but he also knew that
she wasn’t guilty. Now, all he had to do was prove who was. He snapped the
notebook closed and slipped it back into the pocket of his jacket. He slipped
his raincoat back on. “Well, Doctor Knight, Your Royal Highness, I suggest you
keep in touch. I believe you will be called before the judge before long,
Doctor Knight. I hope we can resolve this before the anniversary ball. I would
hate to disturb the celebrations by dragging one of our tourists before the
court.”