Page 3 of In A Faraway Land

“Sure, I can. I’m Gretchen goddamn Mirabaud.” That was the name on her passport, which was the name and face of Dieter’s ex-wife, a face that was so startlingly like her own that neither passport control nor immigrationhad given it a goddamn second look. “There’s a US green card in there. I can get a job if I want to.”

“Doing what?”

Flicka von Hannover hadn’t figured that out yet. No one was hiring real, live princesses to do princess things. “Something.”

“You can’t just walk around Las Vegas.”

“Millions of other people do.”

“Not actual princesses who are being hunted by their ex-husbands who—”

He trailedoff, and Flicka filled in all the words he might have said in her head.

Her ex-husband who loved someone else, always had, and had been using Flicka as a cover.

Her ex-husband who had hit her.

Her ex-husband who had shot at her.

Her ex-husband who had raped her.

Flicka peered more intently at the tiara, careful to clip only the tiny wires binding it to its frame. “I’ll be all right. It’seasier to hide in a crowd than in a closet.”

“Who the hell told you that?”

“You did, in case I ever got separated from my security.”

“Well, I was wrong. Hide in a damned closet,” Dieter said. “Ican’tlet something happen to you.”

“I don’t want to hide in a closet. I’m sick and tired of hiding.”

Flicka snipped the last wire, and the Laurel Tiara slumped onto the table with a faint whisperof metal and stones on wood. Without the steel frame holding it in shape, the tiara was designed to collapse into a necklace, a simply beautiful necklace that Flicka had worn to balls and opera openings and even a fiftieth wedding anniversary party once.

As a necklace, it would be less recognizable, even if someone were into royal-watching. A diamond tiara might invite too many questions aboutwho she was and where she got it. The Laurel Tiara had been created in the late 1850’s by one of her ancestors just before they had lost the Hannover throne due to an unlucky pick of sides in the Austro-Prussian War.

And now, Flicka was pawning it.

And she’d been offered only a thousand dollars for the priceless heirloom.

Like Hell.

She leaned over the pawn shop’s glass counter where a wholelot of inferior jewelry and some coins glittered. Dust floated in the sunbeams. “It’s worth far more than that. Those are real diamonds.”

“You don’t have the certificates, so you can’t prove that they’re diamonds, not paste.”

Dieter stood over by the door, keeping an eye outside for anyone who might be watching. The pawn shop lady had looked nervously at him but had stopped when she had seenthe necklace, which now held the woman’s full attention. The Laurel Tiara was worth more than the rest of this pawn shop put together.

This pawn shop operator thought she could haggle. Flicka had negotiated agreements with corrupt African officials who’d skimmed millions of dollars off the aid programs meant to save their citizen’s lives. This woman wouldn’t know what had hit her.

Flicka said,“You and I both know that those are real diamonds.”

“But you can’tproveit.”

Flicka lifted the limp tiara from the woman’s veined hand, turned it upside down on the glass showcase, and pressed on it.

“No need,” the woman said quickly. “All right, you and I know that they’re real, but the shop’s owner is going to be pissed if there aren’t certificates.”

The Laurel Tiara had been fashionedbefore diamond authenticity certificates existed, of course, but Flicka didn’t say that.