Kapitel 101: Chapter 101

"What do you mean, the crown isn't there?"

Marc gritted his teeth as he spoke into his cell phone just before noon the following day. He looked across the room to where Aldara was brushing out her wet hair after her shower. She sat on his bed cross-legged in just a pair of boy-short panties and a matching blue cotton bra. The ensemble shouldn't have been sexy but on her it was downright seductive.

"Somebody trashed her room," the voice on the other end patiently repeated. Pauline LaRoche was one of the calmest, most unflappable gargoyles Marc had ever met, which was why she made such a good attorney. "Her passport and visa are torn but recoverable, her wallet is empty and there's no crown anywhere in her luggage. I went through her cabin myself to make sure she hadn't hidden it somewhere. Nothing."

"But you've gotten her things and you're flying them up now?"