Knowing that, she should have just pacified him and hung up, but she couldn’t, not if there was even the remotest chance that he was telling the truth. “You’d better not be lying to me about this, Willy,” she warned. “If I drive all the way to Boulder and this turns out to be just another Elvis sighting, I swear I’ll never take one of your calls again.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you. I know how you feel about the royals. I wouldn’t make this up.”
Deborah would have told her she was a fool to even consider believing him, but there was something in the old man’s tone that she couldn’t ignore. If he was telling the truth and the prince really was alive, this would be the biggest story of her career.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she promised. “Okay?”
Across the phone line, he sighed in relief. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
Even though Eliza had been to Willy’s cabin several times before, she was amazed every time she managed to find the place. Located high up in a deserted canyon that was far off the beaten path, the cabin was all but lost in the thick stand of snow-covered trees that surrounded it on all sides. Anyone who hadn’t known where it was could have driven right past it without even seeing it.
Pulling up before it in her red Jeep, she knew better than to knock at the front door. She didn’t know what had happened to him in Vietnam—he shut down at the very mention of war—but he’d been living in seclusion for the past thirty years. He only allowed a select few people into his life, and even then, it was on his terms. He never talked to anyone who knocked on his front door.
She could feel his eyes on her, and wasn’t surprised that he was watching for her. He might have withdrawn from the world, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know everything that was going on around him. If anyone invaded his space, he knew it.
Striding through the snow around the side of the house to the back door, she knocked twice, waited a beat, then knocked again. She knew from past experience that even though he was expecting her and was well aware of the fact that she had arrived, he wouldn’t answer the door if she didn’t knock correctly…because she might be an imposter sent by the government to arrest him.
And this was the man she trusted to give her the story of a lifetime.
Amused at the thought, she watched the door slowly open and wasn’t surprised when he glanced past her to the forest of trees behind her to make sure no one had followed her. “It’s all clear,” she assured him. “There’s no one here but you, me and the squirrels.”
Not taking her word for it, he checked behind her and was apparently satisfied. Opening the door further, he motioned her inside. “I thought you’d never get here. Look at this.” And before she could thank him for inviting her in out of the cold, he shoved something soft into her hands.
Surprised, she frowned down at what appeared to be a dirty rag. Then her eyes focused on the embroidered patch that was sewn onto it. A lily with crossed swords. The Sebastiani family crest. It was grimy and weathered, but she still would have recognized it anywhere.
Her heart slamming against her ribs, she glanced up sharply at Willy. “Where did you get this?”
“In the woods about five miles from the crash site. It’s the prince’s, isn’t it?”
Without a word, Eliza spread out the cloth and saw it was a scarf. A light blue cashmere scarf that she had seen around the prince’s neck in a picture of him taken just days before his plane crashed last year. According to published reports, his mother, Queen Gwendolyn, had had it specially made for him and there wasn’t another one like it in the world.
It was then that it hit her. Willy hadn’t lied. There was no way a scarf belonging to the prince would have ended up five miles from the crash site unless it had been around his neck. Dear God, he really was alive!
Light-headed with excitement, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Prince Lucas was alive. And thanks to Willy, she had the story, she thought, stunned. Who would have thought it?
Given the chance, she would have given him a bear hug, but she had a feeling that probably would have sent him into apoplexy. So she smiled at him instead and said, “It certainly appears to be. Let’s sit down, Willy, and you can start from the beginning. When did you find this? Did you find anything else that belonged to the prince? Who else have you told?”
“Stop the presses! Prince Lucas is alive.”
Striding into Simon Maxwell’s office, Eliza wasn’t surprised when her boss responded to her announcement with a snort of disbelief. Gruff and cynical, with a personality that was as caustic as sandpaper, Simon didn’t believe anything until the facts were laid out before him in black and white. “Yeah, right. And I’m the queen of England. I thought you were working on a real story, Red. You don’t get paid to write fairy tales.”
At any other time, Eliza would have snapped at the hated nickname he invariably used to tease her, but not today. Not when she was walking on air and feeling so darn good about herself and her job. Thanks to Willy, her position at the paper had never been so secure. She had a story to kill for and Ms. Nepotism was nowhere in sight. Life didn’t get any better than that.
Beaming with triumph, she reached into her oversize purse, pulled out the scarf, and dropped it on his desk. “The way I see it, LaGree, there’s nothing better than a happy ending. Take a gander at that if you don’t believe me.”
Simon hated his nickname as much as she did hers, but he hardly noticed. His eyes on the scarf and its golden crest, which he was as familiar with as she was. Motioning to the lone chair in front of his very messy desk, he growled, “Sit down. It looks like you’ve got something to tell me.”
That was all the encouragement she needed. Plopping down into the chair, she immediately launched into the story, leaving nothing out. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the happy ending—yet. “I know he’s alive, Simon. He’s got to be! This is proof he walked away from the crash site.”
“Not necessarily,” he argued, playing devil’s advocate. “An animal could have dragged it away.”
“And built a campfire?” she tossed back. “Willy said he found the scarf near the remains of a campfire five miles from the crash.”
Put that way, Simon couldn’t argue with her. “Who else knows about this?”
Not surprised that he’d asked the same question she had, she grinned broadly. “Just you and me and Willy. The king and queen don’t even know yet. Willy was afraid to tell the authorities.”
She didn’t have to tell him why. Willy’s reputation with the cops was well known by every reporter in Denver. A slow smile sliding across his chipmunk cheeks, Simon leaned forward just to be sure he’d heard her correctly. “Are you telling me that the king and queen don’t know there’s new evidence that their son is alive?”
Her blue eyes sparkling, she nodded. “You got it in one, LaGree.”
“Then you’ve got to go to Montebello and tell them!”
Whatever Eliza was expecting, it wasn’t that. “What?! But don’t you think we should tell the police?”
“And let them leak the story to every Tom, Dick and Harry who writes a gossip rag? Hell, no! Go home and pack your bags. I’ll make the airline reservations and get you some spending money. You’ve got to move fast. I want a play-by-play of everything that happens. Everything!” he stressed. “The king and queen are going to wig out when they find out the Prince is alive—”
Throwing instructions at her like darts, he never noticed that Deborah Jones had stepped into the open