Royal Wedding Threat (17 page)

Guards met them on the main floor. “The last of the guests have left the building.”

“Good. Do a final sweep of the building to make sure all the doors are
locked and latched, then head for the palace. We’ll need you there.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jason led Ava to a back hallway. He contacted Paul as they walked.

“I’m two blocks away,” the guard informed him. “I have a straight shot to the alley door. Let me know when you’re ready.”

Since they were alone in the back hallway, and since Jason knew it would be many more long minutes before
all the guests made their way to the palace, he decided it was his best opportunity to ask the question that had been burning inside him throughout the entire ceremony.

“What are your plans once the weddings are over?”

Ava smiled up at him. “I’m going to take my shoes off and soak in a warm bath.”

“That sounds relaxing.” Jason cleared his throat. “I was thinking more about what
you’re planning to do once Anastasia’s wedding is over. The royals have you booked through that event—but what do you see yourself doing then?”

Ava nibbled her lower lip as she met his eyes in the dimly lit hallway. “They had asked me to stay on as the royal-event coordinator. I’ve not yet given them an answer, and in light of the threat against my life, well...” Her voice faded and she looked
down at the floor.

Jason’s heart pounded as he guessed what she might be about to say. But even that didn’t prepare him for hearing the words.

“I think it would be safer for everyone in Lydia if I went back to the States tomorrow.”

“No.”

Ava looked up at him, her eyes wide with surprise.

Even he hadn’t expected to voice his disagreement out loud, but the word had escaped
like a breath from a physical blow.

“What?” Ava looked confused.

“I don’t think that will solve anything. You’ll still be in danger. I can’t protect you there. I can’t go with you.”

“My presence here endangers everyone—the royals, innocent bystanders, the guards, you.”

“Me?”

“You were hit by a car protecting me. You’ve been at my side every time I’ve left the palace. It’s
not safe for you. I can’t—”

To Jason’s chagrin, her words were cut off by a transmission to his earpiece. “All of the guests on our list have safely arrived. The way is clear.”

“We’re clear,” Jason informed Ava.

“Let’s go.”

“We don’t have to be in a hurry—” He hoped to finish their conversation, to convince her to stay before she entertained the notion of leaving for even a
moment longer.

“I feel terrible about being absent from the reception this long. We can talk in the car, if you like.”

“Yes. Of course.” Jason pressed the button that allowed him to speak to Paul via earpiece. “We’re ready for you.”

“I’ll be there in twenty seconds.”

“We’ll be waiting.”

Ava stepped toward the door ahead of him. She seemed eager to escape their conversation,
which worried him. Why was she so intent on leaving? What were her feelings toward him? He knew he didn’t want to lose her. Even if her killer was caught and she was safe to return home without any threat of danger, he still didn’t want her to leave.

But she seemed completely intent on going.

“Ava.” He stopped her, placing one hand over hers as she gripped the slam bar that would unlock
and open the rear alley door. “Wait until Paul arrives with the car.” Then, pressing the talk button, he asked Paul, “Are you here?”

“Waiting on cross traffic. I thought most of the crowd had left, but—”

While Paul’s voice buzzed in his ear, Ava, either misunderstanding that Paul hadn’t yet arrived or simply eager to escape their conversation, leaned against the slam bar just far enough
to disengage the lock, though the door remained shut.

“Ava,” he chided her, pulling back up on the bar.

But he was too late. In that brief moment, someone on the other side tugged the door outward. Sunlight poured in through the crack.

Jason pulled the door back, tugging on the slam bar with all his strength while Paul prattled on in his earpiece about how slow the traffic was moving.

The party on the other side tugged the door open toward the alleyway. They clearly wanted in.

“Who is it? Do you need something?” Jason asked, praying inwardly that the person on the other side wanted in for innocent reasons. Maybe a guest had forgotten something—but all the guests were already at the palace.

No one answered his question. The person simply tugged all the harder on
the door. Jason braced his feet and pulled back with all his might, moving the latch to within a hairbreadth of engaging with the lock.

A massive tug on the other side pulled it open an inch or more—not far, but far enough that whoever was trying to get in was able to lodge a stiff object in the opening, preventing it from going closed.

Jason reached for the object, prepared to push
it back, when he recognized exactly what it was.

The barrel of a handgun.

In one swift move, Jason wrapped an arm around Ava’s waist, practically plucking her from the ground as he lunged back down the hallway toward the ninety-degree turn and the protective cover offered by the thick stone walls. He prayed they’d make it out of sight before the door opened behind them.

Shots rang
out behind him as Jason all but threw Ava ahead of him around the corner and dived after her. He heard at least two sets of footsteps landing hard on the stone floor as their pursuers ran after them.

“Gunmen in the cathedral,” Jason yelled into his earpiece as they ran down the next length of hallway toward the church offices. “Repeat—gunmen are in the cathedral.”

SEVENTEEN

A
va slowed her steps as they reached the end of the hallway. Her instincts told her to try to escape the building, to reach the guards who were surely still outside, somewhere in the near vicinity, but the hallway that led to the front doors had its start near the door where the gunmen had burst in. They couldn’t go that way.

The only other route was to go through
the sanctuary.

“This way.” Ava pulled Jason through the small back door that led into the chancel. The front of the sanctuary was filled with flowers and extinguished candles, the scent of their smoke still lingering in the air. The room was dark, with only faint shadows of sunlight penetrating the stained glass.

They shuffled forward hesitantly. Ava glanced down the back of the sanctuary.
The orchestra’s chairs and music stands still cluttered the space in front of the organ pipes. The forty-eight floral displays, each of them twice as tall as Jason, were to be taken around to the local nursing homes and hospitals the next day, but for now they loomed like fragrant giants bowing in the empty church.

Jason whispered, “They’re right behind us. We have to run for it, but stay
low.”

They hurried down the chancel, toward the carved wooden knee wall that separated the front of the sanctuary from the pews beyond. Ava sized up their options. The center aisle would be the fastest route to the front doors, though it would put them in clear sight. The side aisles stretched so very far away on either side, with thick columns all but blocking their path at even intervals.

But the columns would offer them cover.

They passed the knee wall and Ava turned to head toward the side aisle.

“The center is faster.” Jason pulled her in that direction. “Running targets are difficult to hit,” he assured her.

Trusting him, Ava followed. They darted alongside the knee wall, headed for the wide shallow steps where the wedding party had stood throughout the ceremony.
From there they could reach the aisle and make their way to the front of the sanctuary and out the front doors to safety.

“Stay low,” Jason whispered, his words nearly buried by the sound of a door slamming open behind them—the same door they’d entered through.

Jason pushed her down, out of sight next to the knee wall, and huddled over her as an all-too-familiar voice echoed through
the sanctuary. He held his gun ready in his other hand. Ava could only assume he’d wait to shoot until he had a clear shot, rather than risk giving away their position.

“Where did they go?” It was Tiffany’s voice, sounding angry and slightly breathless.

“I don’t see them now, but they came through this door. They’re in here somewhere. Let’s split up.”

In spite of the pounding of
her heart that made it difficult to hear, Ava was certain the man who responded was not her father. Good. Tiffany wasn’t working with her dad.

Unfortunately whoever she was working with seemed to know what he was doing.

“Check behind all the flower displays. They’ve got to be hiding. They didn’t have time to reach the back doors.”

He was right. They hadn’t had time to reach the
doors—in fact, they were as far from any door as they could get, in all but the dead center of the enormous room.

Ava held her breath. Judging by the sound of Tiffany’s and her accomplice’s footsteps, every sound was amplified by the high-vaulted ceilings. Ava could hear the two of them making their way across the apse, checking behind each candelabra and floral display as they went, making
their way closer, ever closer to the place where she and Jason crouched, hidden only by the low engraved wooden wall.

Once Tiffany and the other gunman got close enough, they’d be sure to see her and Jason crouching there. Based on the shots they’d fired into the hallway as they’d forced their way inside, Ava didn’t figure either of the pair would hesitate to shoot them on sight.

Jason
squeezed her arm. She turned her head just slightly. Was he giving her a signal? They didn’t dare try to move. Their footsteps would echo through the room. Tiffany and her accomplice would pick them off before they got halfway down the aisle, moving target or not.

From far away, she could hear the hollow echoes in the distant narthex. Surely Jason’s men had returned. Were they struggling
to open the doors they’d locked behind them when they’d exited the building to head for the palace? She wondered which of them had a key, if any. Praying silently, she willed them to find a way into the building, to step inside the sanctuary, to find Tiffany and her accomplice and capture them before it was too late.

But the distant booming died away to silence.

One set of shuffling
footsteps moved closer through the floral displays. The other echoed from farther back in the apse, near the organ pipes, where the members of the orchestra had left their chairs and music stands.

Suddenly a loud clattering noise filled the chancel. Jason tugged her forward, running, ducked low, alongside the knee wall toward the other side of the chancel.

Music stands continued to fall
behind them, and Tiffany berated her partner for his clumsiness. Ava thought quickly as they ran. There was another small door on the other side of the chancel, its wood the same color and style as the ancient wooden paneling that lined the front of the sanctuary. It led back to the hallway through which they’d entered the chancel.

It wouldn’t take them to the front doors, but it would get
them out of the sanctuary and away from the gunmen, for a short while, at least.

Ava dived for the small door, throwing herself against it, stumbling through with Jason right behind her. She gasped a breath as the door swung shut behind her.

“That way!” Tiffany screamed, her voice filling the quiet sanctuary. “Through that door.”

“Where now?” Ava asked, at a loss. Her wedding-planning
duties had required her to be familiar with the sanctuary and the main entrances and exits, but she didn’t know as much about these back hallways or the other secrets of the vast building.

Jason glanced down the hall. “We’ll never make it to an exterior door from here.” He tugged her by the hand down a narrow hallway that bent past the offices.

Ava wanted to ask where they were going,
or if Jason even knew what they’d find at the end of the hallway, but she didn’t dare speak. They rounded a bend in the hallway just as the door behind them slammed open again, and Tiffany’s voice echoed down the corridor.

“They went this way!”

From the sound of the vengeful woman’s voice, Tiffany must have caught a glimpse of them before they disappeared around the bend in the hall,
because the sound followed them and footsteps pounded after them.

“Stay back,” Jason whispered, pushing her against the stone wall behind him as he leaned just far enough around the corner to shoot. He got two shots off before the gunmen fired back.

“Aah!” Jason’s gun flew wide, shot from his hand. He glanced at the fallen weapon. He’d have to go out in the open to retrieve it, and the
gunman would be upon them in a moment, and obviously the man was an excellent shot to have shot the gun free from Jason’s hand. It was too risky.

Jason pushed her farther down the hall. “This way.” He led her to a thick door. He didn’t hesitate but pushed them through it, whispering, “Stairs. Careful.”

Ava could see nothing in the utter darkness. A dank chill rose to meet them as they
descended by feel. Ava leaned on Jason’s arm, depending on him to catch her if she missed a step in the darkness. She’d never been down this way before, but she’d heard rumors of the place and could guess where they were heading.

Cold air hit her as they reached the bottom, and she nearly stumbled over her own feet, half expecting another step down, but finding nothing in the darkness.

Jason pulled out his phone and hit a button to illuminate the screen, providing just enough dim glow for them to see the space before them. The crypt ran underneath the cathedral for what had to be the full length of the building, though the light from Jason’s phone didn’t allow them to see nearly that far.

They hurried forward while his phone provided them with light.

“There’s a
way out on the other side—the stairs come up under the stairs to the balcony.”

Ava had seen the door before, and once even peeked inside, noted the spiral of steps descending into darkness and quickly closed it again. She hadn’t wanted anything to do with the spooky space then, but now that stairwell was her only hope. If they could reach it quickly, they might be able to escape the building
before Tiffany and her accomplice caught up to them.

Jason’s phone went dark again, but not before Ava had caught a glimpse of the layout of the subterranean mausoleum. The central corridor traveled down the middle of the vast underground space, with large chambers of vaults on either side. These stone rooms were divided by massive walls—vaults that contained the bones of the leaders of Lydia
long dead.

The chambers themselves hosted statues and marble plaques, the still, human forms nearly as large as Ava and Jason, their eyes staring blankly ahead. Ava shivered. Even in the darkness she could picture their frozen forms, their faces almost lifelike, their hands holding scepters or Bibles or reaching out with empty fingers as though to grab anyone who brushed by too closely as
they went past.

Given the darkness, Ava and Jason crept forward with their arms outstretched ahead of them, moving as quickly as they dared without bumping into anything. Behind them, Ava could hear the sounds of their pursuers descending the steps. They’d soon be in the crypt, and Ava knew she and the captain weren’t yet halfway through the lengthy underground corridor.

“Watch your
step. That’s the bottom,” a male voice muttered far behind them.

Ava wished she could sprint forward to the stairs somewhere ahead, but if either Tiffany or her accomplice turned on any sort of light, they’d spot them in an instant and surely shoot them just as quickly. In fact, she felt a little surprised their pursuers hadn’t found a light source yet.

“In here,” Jason whispered close
to her ear as the pair behind them muttered about needing light. The captain tugged her sideways, and they slid along a wall of burial chambers, ducking behind what felt like a large marble statue.

Faint light glowed from far down the corridor. Tiffany or her partner must have pulled out a phone. Ava realized that she and Jason were out of sight for now, ducking low as they were in one of
the branching chambers. But the stone room had only one exit—the way they’d entered, through the central passage. As long as Tiffany remained in the corridor, Ava and Jason were trapped.

“What’s at the other end?” Tiffany asked as the light glowed stronger, moving down the central hallway.

“I don’t know.”

“Go look.”

Footsteps echoed, light grew stronger and then Ava watched
as a man, cell phone clutched in one outstretched hand, hurried along the passageway toward the spiral stairs that opened up to the narthex above.

“There’s a door,” the man called back once he reached the end.

“Where’s it go?”

“I don’t know.” Thumping echoed through the crypt. “Nowhere. It’s locked.”

“Then they couldn’t have escaped that way,” Tiffany summarized. Her light
faded and returned. “These are burial chambers. Do any of them have exits in them?”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“How do you know? If any of these rooms have an exit, they could escape.”

Ava held her breath as the cell-phone lights dimmed and brightened while the pair ducked into side rooms looking for escape routes.

“We saw them come this way. If there’s no way out, they must still
be in here,” the man mused softly.

“But if there’s a way out, we need to find it quickly.” Tiffany sounded almost frantic.

Suddenly Ava heard a musical note sounding from far too close. Jason clapped a hand against his phone, silencing it almost an instant after it began to ring.

With a sinking heart, Ava realized his men must have tried to call him—from what she’d been told, his
earpiece wouldn’t work deep in the cathedral because of the thick stones. He’d alerted the guards to gunmen in the cathedral. Of course they’d tried to contact him, little knowing that by doing so, they’d given away their presence to the gunmen.

“Was that your phone?” Tiffany asked.

“Nope. Yours?”

“No—it had to have been theirs. They must be in here!”

The man chuckled gleefully.
“We’ll find them.”

“Search each room carefully, one by one. You start at that end. I’ll work from this end. They could be hiding anywhere. Check all the dark corners. If you see them, don’t wait for me. Just shoot.” Tiffany made a grumbling sound, then muttered, “She’s even harder to kill than her mother was.”

Fear and sorrow clawed at Ava’s heart. So Tiffany had indeed killed her mother.
Dan’s story had been true, his theory correct. And just as surely, Tiffany would find her. There was no way out of the mausoleum now, not with Tiffany and her partner blocking escape from either end.

The most Ava could hope for was that Jason’s guards would capture Tiffany as she tried to escape the cathedral afterward—otherwise they might never realize precisely who’d killed her, and Tiffany
would get away with murder.

Again.

Ava clutched Jason’s arm as he held her tight against him behind the statue that hid them. He held her so close she could feel his heart beating hard, its pace almost as frantic as hers.

Regret sliced through her with cutting claws, each one a painful reminder. Jason was going to die because of her—and not just because she’d lured a heartless killer
to Lydia but because he’d insisted on protecting Ava himself. He’d been too brave, too determined, too honorable. If he’d run and left her to face Tiffany alone, he would have at least escaped alive.

But of course, Jason would never do that. Her heart pinched inside her as she realized how deeply she truly cared for him. She’d realized days ago that he was a better man than her former fiancé.
She’d once planned to marry Dan. Jason’s personality fit her so much better, and yet she’d never even told the captain how she felt.