Page 111 of Happily Ever After

Murders and Suicides

Flicka von Hannover

I never wanted it to end like that.

A pulse of air passed over Flicka’s face.

A spike of sound drove into her ears, slamming pain into her head.

Dieter twisted, spinning as he fell to the white marble at her feet.

Pierre was falling backward, a fine, red mist haloing the top of his head.

“No!”Quentin Sault’s voice echoedin the sunlit, golden room.

A gun clattered on the floor, steel on stone. Brimstone stank in the air, stinging Flicka’s nose like harsh chemical fumes.

She was running and sliding to her knees beside Pierre Grimaldi, horrified by his unseeing eyes. His strong hands flopped. “Pierre,no!No, you didn’t!”

Quentin Sault landed beside her. “Your Highness, no,no.Get up.Get up.”

Flicka glancedback. Her father was standing, his bright blue eyes wide, looking at the body and gore. “Oh, no.”

Dieter pushed himself up on one elbow.“Jesus.”

Flicka fumbled in her trousers pocket for her cell phone. “We have to call nine-one-one. We need an ambulance.” Without thinking, because they were in Germany, her thumbs hit the numbers one-one-two, and an emergency dispatcher answered the phone.She said, “We need an ambulance. We need oneright now.”

“Yes, ma’am. We are dispatching an ambulance. Are you—are you atthe Marienburg castle?”

“Yes. We’re in the sitting room. It’s upstairs. You come in the front gates, and it’s up the stairs to the left, and—”

The metallic odor of blood overwhelmed the sulfurous sting of gunpowder in the air, so strong that it felt like it coated her tongue.She couldn’t speak.

Dieter was talking into his cell phone, too. “Rogues, we need medical services at the primary location immediately. Two more personnel, dispatch to the castle entrance to receive and direct civilian emergency medical personnel.” He hung up. “The Rogues will meet them at the gate.”

Flicka said to the woman on the phone, “People will meet you at the gate to guide you up.”

“What is the emergency?” the woman on the phone asked.

Her father glanced up, and Flicka followed his gaze to two small, black half-spheres embedded in the ceiling. He said, “At least there’ll be no question about what happened.”

Two men slammed open the door behind the chairs and rushed over to her, carrying a toolbox of some sort. They dropped to the floor beside Pierre, shoving Flicka towardhis legs. One began chest compressions on Pierre, while the other inspected the top of Pierre’s head, grimacing as he muttered,“Elands.”

“Gunshot wound,” Flicka said into the phone, her voice breaking at the inadequacy of that term to describe the scarlet mess flowing on the snowy floor and the darker clumps mottling the fluid. White bone studded the carnage like islands rising out of a seaof blood.

“Will our personnel be in danger? Do you need police? Are you safe?”

“He shot himself,” Flicka said, her throat strangling the words. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks and dropped on her slacks. “He killed himself. I can’t believe he killed himself.”

“Are you safe?” the woman asked again.

“Yes,” Flicka said, trying to concentrate on the question and make an answer. “Yes, we’re allsafe. No one is shooting. No one is holding a gun. He shot himself. Why would he do that?”

“Medical personnel are en route,” the woman said.

The phone fell from Flicka’s numb fingers and pattered on the floor. “I’m so sorry.”

Hands grabbed her shoulders, pulling her away from the horror.