Page 108 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold
“Because either you took the ring out of the safe or someone took it out for you. So which is it?”
“I... I don’t remember.”
“You remember everything!” she shouted, but King was shaking his head.
“I didn’t take it out.”
“Where are your cameras?” Alex spat.
“What?”
“Don’t tell me this place isn’t wired to the nines.”
“Not on the inside.”
She didn’t believe him. “King.”
“This is my home, Sterling. Or it was.”
“Fine.” Alex crossed her arms. “Then show me your exterior cameras. Let’s see who came calling while you were gone.”
“No one can get into that safe but me—not without blasting it to bits, which clearly didn’t happen, so...”
“So why wouldyoutake it out?”
“I wouldn’t! I would keep it in there. Just like I’ve kept it in there since the safe was installed five years ago.”
“Either you took it out before you left for Vegas—”
“No.Never.” He was shaking his head. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Or someone got in here without your knowledge, probably after you left. So what is it, King?”
He looked like there were a thousand things he could have said and not one he dared to utter. So he just turned and said, “Come on, let’s go look at the cameras.”
***
Alex thought she knew that castle. She’d spent almost a week roaming the halls and dancing in the kitchen—soaking in the tub. But she’d been half dead and half in love and, surely, between those two things, she had plenty of excuses for being mostly stupid.
So she could almost forgive herself for forgetting about the room at the end of the hall, but as soon as they turned the corner, she remembered.
“Wait.”
“What?” King asked, but Alex was already heading toward the door.
“We don’t need the ring.We need Nikolai.”
“I know.”
Now she was getting giddy. “And the world’s foremost authority on Nikolai used to work right—”
“Wait!” King said, but it was too late. Alex was already turning the knob and throwing open the door—
To chaos.
It was still his father’s room. The walls were still covered with his father’s ramblings and research. But it was different now because there was a new layer on top of the old madness—a year’s worth of newspaper clippings and photographs. Notes and manic scribbles—
Stay in Europe (somewhere she speaks the language?)
