Page 30 of Claimed

“So?”

“So, what better way to promote the new archaeological wonder of Alaçati than to have it as part of my video blog tour of the expo? It’s the latest and greatest development for the city, it’s got the wow factor with those vistas from the mountainside, and it’s being overseen, I’m sure, by Omir. So, he’ll get all the acclaim his heart desires if we promote it. As long as it’s anywhere close to being ready, it’s a no-lose situation for him. And once we’re there, maybe we can see how we can break into the asylum-prison place, or whatever it is. Easy peasy.”

“I suspect it will be anything but.” Nevertheless, Stefan couldn’t discount her words entirely. He needed more information—and he needed his men to gather it. He signaled to the server for their check and considered Nicki anew. “These are good ideas. Logical. It’s helpful.”

The smile she flashed him confirmed his earlier concern. It wasn’t that Nicki was starved for attention. She was brash and active, always ready for the next challenge. She sought attentionand she got it. But she didn’t get attention for certain things—her mind, her logic, her discernment. Maybe that bothered her more than she realized.

They walked leisurely back to the boat, the camera over Stefan’s shoulder. As he’d expected, his men were waiting for him when he returned—all of them.

Even better, the two he’d assigned to the park had more information.

“Possibly a sighting. It was too long ago to be certain,” Tamas said, in English for Nicki’s benefit. “A full year.”

“So quite close to the crash event.”

“Very close,” Tamas said. “But he was here, closer to the city than we’d expected. And the woman who spoke with us knew it was June, because it was the beginning of the tourist season. She said his manner was definitely that of a falling-down drunk man. He’d been beaten up pretty badly, but though he staggered around, he didn’t have any broken bones that she recalled. He was big and strong, and she and her children stayed away from him. The next morning, the trucks came, and everyone hid—but not this man. He simply watched them pull up. When they approached him, guns drawn, he cowered down, covering his head with his hands.” Tamas grimaced. “He seemed crazy to this woman. And the account fits what we’ve heard elsewhere.”

Stefan said nothing for a long minute. “This was June,” he commented finally. “He’d been missing for maybe two weeks then, nothing more. How had he not been found by a search team? Was he disfigured?”

“We don’t think so,” Tamas shook his head. “The woman recognized him from the picture. Said his nose was out of joint and there was old, dried blood in his hair, but the eyes were right, the hair and the height and weight.”

“It’s enough to go on,” Stefan said. To think that Ari could have been here all this time, as Nicki had put it well—rotting in aTurkish detainment center, forced to work by hauling rocks and dirt away from a monument while his own family lived in luxury not a half-day away.

The queen wouldn’t be the only one who’d have difficulty accepting that reality.

“We need to get into that asylum,” he said. He turned to Tamas. “Find out everything you can about it. Who owns it, what it’s officially being used for. Ask our contacts if there are any known unofficial uses for it we should be aware of. The squatters know it as a work camp, but what other theories are out there? We need to be prepared for them all.”

Tamas nodded. “We’ll have satellite imagery of the site and the adjacent ruins later tonight, as close as we can get to it. We’ll also scout out methods of ingress and egress, who visits and for how long, what deliveries, etc. There will be a way in.”

“There will.” Stefan turned to Nicki. “And now, we have to get ready for a party. Be sure to pack whatever you need into an overnight bag as well. As tourists go, we’re giving Alaçati the full treatment.”

Twenty-One

Nicki straightened her dress down her legs, unusually awkward with the thigh-high length. The racy dress would be frowned on in central Turkey, she thought—but in the coastal resort towns, attire was much like that in any European city. And normally she had no problem showing off her legs. She’d earned them the hard way, and she strode with strength and confidence. But the vivid blue dress had been chosen by Lauren, along with the strappy sandals, and the silky, swishy style felt foreign against Nicki’s skin.

“Nerves,” she muttered. She hadn’t been paying attention to eating regularly and staying hydrated, so that wasn’t helping either. But her videos were all queued and ready for release, and she’d scheduled them to drop over the next twelve hours. No one could accuse her of not doing her job.

Now she stood in the lobby of the most prestigious hotel in Alaçati waiting for Stefan, who’d sent her on ahead while he cobbled together all the information he could about the new attraction on the southern ridge of the city. There was little officially said about the ruins, but that hadn’t stopped him from leaning on his unofficial sources. From those accounts, it was an early Christian-era church, made yet more interesting by theclearly pagan temple remnants beneath it. The combination, though common enough, would add an intriguing twist for tourists to the resort town. There was definitely money to be made.

A flutter of activity made her glance up, and sure enough, it was Stefan causing the commotion, crossing the open lobby as if he owned the place. He was perfect in his suit, somehow seeming formal though the jacket was casually cut, and his soft buttery trousers were summer weight perfection. He wore no tie and his white shirt was open at the collar, but that didn’t take away from the aristocratic figure he cut as his long strides ate up the distance between them.

“Nicki,” he said as he reached her, his gaze sweeping over her. He offered no further comment, though as he took her arm and curled it into his.

“Is it too short?” she murmured as they moved to the elevator bay. “It’s too short, isn’t it?”

“There’s no such thing as too short on your legs,” Stefan said, his impossibly polite accent at odds with the roughness of his voice. “I suppose I have Lauren to thank for it.”

Nicki grinned, and the tension eased between them, allowing her to catch her breath. “She thought you’d approve.”

“She’s a woman of unparalleled discernment. Here we are.”

They stepped into the elevator and rode the full distance to Omir’s penthouse suite. When the doors opened, the party was in full swing, and Nicki relaxed a notch further. She was used to navigating the noise and bustle of a large group of people.

And she had plenty to work with, here. Easily a hundred people crowded the network of connected rooms, and all the rooms spilled out onto a wide, equally populated veranda. The hotel, one of the tallest in the city, had a commanding view of both the mountains and the sea, and Nicki gravitated toward the outdoors even as Stefan’s hand pressed on her arm.

“We had another separate verification of a man matching Ari’s description being taken by city police,” he said quietly. “With the promise of money, the squatters yielded the few trinkets they’d taken from his stash in the woods. One of them was an altimeter component.”

“Oh,” Nicki said, her eyes wide. “He made it this far. If he…maybe…”