Button Holed (19 page)

Oh yeah, it would be easy to find him, even in a crowd. In fact, he was so recognizable, I wondered why he wanted to meet in a place so public, but then, I wasn’t used to the workings of the rich-and-famous world. Look at how Kate had let the paparazzi follow her like dogs after a meat wagon.

I know, I know. An icky metaphor, but true is true.

“What do you think?” I scanned the crowd around the pier’s famous Ferris wheel, looking for limos, crowds of adoring onlookers, or the flash of a jewel-encrusted crown. When I didn’t see anything even vaguely like it, I glanced at Nevin.

Yes, he had insisted on coming along. Didn’t it figure, the one and only time in my life I was likely to have a date with a prince, and I had a chaperon. With a gun.

“He’s not here,” I grumbled. It had taken us longer than we’d anticipated to make our way through the crowd, and it was a couple minutes past seven. “He’s on a tight schedule. He’s come and gone. I’m not going to be able to talk to him.”

“Relax.” Nevin looked relaxed enough for the both of us. I guess he’d been to this sort of clandestine meeting before, because he insisted on stopping for cotton candy. So he could fit in, he said. “My guess is princes work on a different time clock than the rest of us.” He ripped off a chunk of the sticky pink confection and popped it in his mouth. “I’ve got an appointment with the guy at ten tomorrow morning over at the Ruritanian consulate. You want to bet he keeps me waiting?”

“Yeah, but they’ll serve you tea and crumpets while you do.”

He poked the cotton candy toward me.

I made a face. “Too sugary.”

“I’m a firm believer in sugar.” It was the most personal thing he’d ever said, and I wrote it off to the casual atmosphere and the summer breeze off the lake. “Sugar’s good for you, and besides—” Nevin swallowed whatever he was going to say along with the last of the cotton candy, brushed his hands together, and tossed the paper cone that was all that was left of his treat into the nearest trash can. “There’s a guy over there watching you,” he said. Trying not to look too obvious, he tipped his head to his left.

I glanced to my right. The guy in question was obviously watching us. He was wearing sunglasses and standing just this side of the line of people queuing up to ride the Ferris wheel. He was tall and probably dark-haired, though it was kind of hard to tell since he was wearing a White Sox baseball cap. He was also wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt that said “Cubs Baseball” on it.

Talk about mixed metaphors.

Only a complete moron—or a prince from another country who didn’t know the first thing about Chicago sports—would commit that fashion faux pas.

Nevin stepped back and waited at the nearest hot-dog cart. I crossed the pier to meet the prince.

It wasn’t until I was five feet from Roland that I wondered if I should bow. Or curtsey. Or something.

He saved me the trouble by sticking out a hand. “It was kind of you to come at such short notice.”

He was wearing a gold ring that looked like it weighed five pounds. There was a seal with a lion on it, and I wondered if I was supposed to kiss it, but I opted to shake his hand instead.

His voice was icy when he said, “But I did not tell you to bring along a friend.”

I knew he was talking about Nevin so I didn’t even bother to look his way. “He insisted.” I left out the part about how Nevin was a cop. “You know how guys can be.”

“Yes, this I do know.” For a moment, a smile relieved his serious expression. At the risk of sounding like one of those tabloid reports about Roland, yes, it was brighter than the lights that twinkled from the Ferris wheel. “In my country, it is considered chivalrous for a man to do things such as accompany a woman to assure her safety. Here . . .” His shrug said it all. “You American women, you would do well to be a little less self-sufficient. The real secret of having a man fall madly in love with you is letting him think you need him.”

Oh, I wasn’t so sure about that. One smile and a couple sentences in those rounded, aristocratic tones and I was already falling madly in love.

I shook away the thought. There was no use making a fool of myself. He was probably sick of women falling all over him, and besides, it wasn’t my style. “You said you wanted to talk.”

“Yes, but what I have to say, it is private.” He stepped back and waved an arm toward the Ferris wheel. It was the first I realized there were two hulking guys in pin-striped suits standing with the operator. The people in line behind them didn’t look the least bit happy when we were ushered to the front of the line. The wheel was full. The operator waited until all the passengers were off and we got the next car. As we entered it, the two burly guys stepped in front of the ride. Obviously, nobody else was getting a turn. Not until we were done, anyway.

Once we started our ascent, Roland took off his sunglasses. “You have been canny, Ms. Giancola. You say little to the press about your experience with my dear Kate. I hope when you publish your book about the experience, you will be kind enough to leave this meeting out of it.”

“I’m not going to publish a book.”

His eyes were the color of emeralds. Big, expensive, glittering emeralds.

“You are not looking to make a profit from this unfortunate experience?”

“I’m not looking to do anything but find out where this button came from.” There wasn’t exactly a whole lot of room in the Ferris-wheel car, but I managed to pull the pictures of the boxwood button out of my purse. “Was it Kate’s?”

He had years of good breeding behind him, so rather than tell me buttons were far too plebeian a thing for Kate to be interested in, he simply raised his eyebrows.

“I didn’t think so.” I put the photos back where I’d gotten them. “The button was in my shop,” I told him.” Under Kate’s body.”

He looked away but not fast enough to hide the spasm of pain that crossed his face. “My poor darling. I begged her to let me accompany her on this trip to Chicago for the filming of her movie. She said no, that I needed to attend to the wedding details back in my country. Perhaps if I had been there . . .”

It might have been of the royal variety, but it wasn’t all that different from the guilt I’d been feeling at not being at the Button Box when Kate arrived. I comforted him with the same words people had been using to try and make me feel better. “If he didn’t kill her that night, it only would have been some other time. I don’t think there was anything anyone could have done to protect Kate.”

“But why?” We were high in the air now with the city spread out around us, glistening and gorgeous, but Roland was lost in memory, his gaze fastened to the vast expanse of Lake Michigan beyond the Plexiglas window that enclosed the Ferris-wheel car. “Why would anyone—”

“I was hoping you could tell me that.”

He snapped his gaze to me. “You are not with the police.”

“No. Of course not. But I found Kate. In my shop. And—”

“Yes, of course.” He nodded. “You are vested in this mystery. You have every right to be. But you are also a friend of Hugh Weaver’s, are you not?”

Either the prince read the tabloids and remembered every little tidbit mentioned there or he had a crackerjack intelligence team. Guess which one I was betting on.

“You know my Kate and Mr. Weaver, they were having an affair?”

Another fact there seemed no point denying. “I didn’t know you knew.”

“Yes, of course.” He brushed aside the thought as if it were as insignificant as one of the gnats that flew outside the window. “A woman as beautiful as Kate, she is bound to have a past, yes? I knew this from the moment I met her. I knew she and Mr. Weaver were involved, and yes, I knew she continued the affair, even after we were engaged.”

“And you were angry.”

He barked out a laugh. “My dear Ms. Giancola, a man of my position has no need to get angry. I do not have the time for it. But Hugh Weaver . . .”

From what I’d seen of Hugh when he talked to me about Kate at his hotel, I knew
distraught
was a better word than
angry
. Not that it made much difference in the grand scheme of murder.

“Sure, Hugh might have been angry at getting dumped,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean—”

“Oh, come now, you cannot deny it. He was mad with jealousy. What man wouldn’t be? The most beautiful, the most wonderful, the most kind and generous woman in the world had just chosen me over him.” Roland lifted his chin, a way of adding
of course
without saying it. “My sources tell me Mr. Weaver, he does not have an alibi for the night of the murder.”

Was the prince looking for me to somehow corroborate Hugh’s guilt? “Even if I knew,” I said, “I couldn’t—”

“No, no. No one is asking you to say anything against your friend.” We were at the highest point of the Ferris wheel, and the prince looked around. “It is beautiful, isn’t it? I wish I had more time to explore your country and this city, but I must return to Ruritania. I was here only this weekend, only for the memorial for Kate. The world is no longer such a beautiful place as it was when she was in it.”

“She won’t be forgotten.” This seemed appropriate, and far more politically correct than reminding him that not everyone thought Kate spread sweetness and light everywhere she went. Roland obviously believed she did, but then, I guess that’s what love is all about.

Of course, that didn’t mean I couldn’t pry. Just a little.

“Her assistants—”

“Silly girls. I told her to get rid of them long ago. She wouldn’t need them once we were married. My papa, His Majesty King Leopold, he would have provided Kate with a staff once she was officially a member of the family.”

“And the assistants would have lost their jobs.”

“You think this is a motive for one of them to kill her?” I actually might have if Roland didn’t make the very idea seem stupid by laughing. We were nearing the ground, and he slid on his sunglasses. “I had every intention of providing for them,” he said. “Quite handsomely.”

“But there was nothing you could do to compensate Hugh.”

Our slow revolution was at an end, and we bumped to a stop. One of the big guys opened the car door, and Roland motioned me to get out first. Ignoring the rumbles of displeasure from all the people still waiting, he took my arm and walked me away from the ride. “Kate, she said nothing to you before . . . Did she have a message for me? Or did she say something about the person who did this terrible thing to her?”

I didn’t need to see his eyes to know he was in pain. At the risk of creating an international incident, I put a hand on his arm. “She was already dead when I found her,” I told him. “She never said a word.”

Oh, he made it look nonchalant enough, but Roland had apparently had this sort of thing happen before with commoners. He stepped back just far enough to be out of my reach. “And your friend, Hugh, what does he say?”

“That he didn’t do it. That he’s broken up about what happened. That—”

“He was paying someone to follow her.”

“I know.”

“And yet you believe he is innocent.”

“I believe . . .” Prince or no prince, what did the man expect me to say? Since I didn’t know, I patted my purse. “You’ve never seen that button before.”

“I told you I have not.”

“And you don’t think it was Kate’s.”

“I told you it was not.”

“And you think—”

“It does not matter what I think.” He said that in a way that made it clear that of course, it mattered. He was a prince, after all. Roland lifted his chin. “What matters is the truth, and the truth is that Hugh Weaver was mad with jealousy.” Roland snapped his fingers and as if by magic, the two bodyguards appeared. “Hugh Weaver killed Kate,” he said. “I am sure of it. You can tell him for me, Ms. Giancola. You can tell him I will see him pay for his crime.”

Chapter Twelve

THE LAST PERSON I WAS IN THE MOOD TO SEE WAS KAZ.

Out on West Schiller, I didn’t so much breeze by him as I did stomp. Even that was too subtle for Kaz. He fell into step beside me.

“I was just coming to see you,” he said.

I wouldn’t have stopped at all if there wasn’t a delivery truck blocking the street I needed to cross. “Don’t,” I grumbled.

When I darted around the truck, Kaz darted with me. “Don’t come to see you? I don’t need to. Not anymore. I’m seeing you now.”

“Don’t push me, Kaz.” The look I shot him should have told him I was serious.

Which gave him zero excuse for grinning. “You’re cute when you’re mad,” he said.

“No. I’m not.” We made it safely to the other side of the cross street and I continued on my way, heading toward the Button Box. It was Tuesday morning, early, and I had a copy of the day’s newspaper tucked up under my arm. I swear, I could feel it burning a hole in my skin. “I’m not in the mood to be messed with,” I told Kaz.

“I can see that.” Apparently not well, because he leaned over and peered into my face. “What’s up, Jo? You’re fuming.”

I was surprised he recognized anger when he saw it. I pulled the newspaper out from under my arm and waved the front page under his nose. “This is what’s up. Hugh Weaver’s been arrested for Kate Franciscus’s murder.”