Page 60 of In Shining Armor

She slugged his arm.

He opened the door using the keypad, and they went inside. He flipped closed the several locks on the door while Flicka looked around.

The tiny flat had a couch and television in the living room. Over on the side, a few cabinets and table with two chairs served as a kitchen. Two open windows let in the late afternoon sunlight. Sheer curtains blew in the summer breeze, a flutter of a breeze in the warm apartment. One door at the back led somewhere else.

Dieter slung his backpack on the couch and surveyed the room.

Flicka wandered through the tiny apartment, dragging her shoes on the scuffed floor. Behind the door was a small bedroom with one bed.

Good.Dieter would be close by during the night.

She dropped her purse on the little table in the corner. The glittering gold bag thumped on the wood.

The pieces of her phone were still in there.

“Dieter,” she said, still thinking.

“Yeah?” He had edged over to the window and was teasing the sheer curtains closed.

“Wulf must be going nuts.”

Dieter nodded. “I can’t imagine Alina suddenly going missing. I’d be out of my mind.”

“He might think that Pierre killed me.”

He nodded. “It’s crossed his mind.”

“I need to tell him that I’m all right, that I’m not dead.”

Dieter sighed. “Yeah, but I don’t know who Pierre has turned inside theWelfenlegion,so it’s not safe to contact him.”

“A mass text, then. Not just to Wulfram, but to a hundred different people or more.”

“They’ll have a hundred electronic trails, all pointing right back here.”

“I’ll use your phone, then.”

“If you use my phone, they’ll know we’re together and trace me. That’s worse. If you use a burner phone, he might not believe it’s from you.”

“Can’t your guys do something about that? Surely Rogue Security has some computer guys.”

“Of course, we do.” He stared at the sunlight shining through the sheer, white curtains. “Yeah, maybe I can get them to do something technical. Let me talk to them.”

He called someone while Flicka used the tiny bathroom and washed her face. God, she hated hiding and running away like this, and she hated that back in Montreux, her brother must be quietly going insane.

As she scrubbed off the chalky makeup, her face emerged, still red and swollen around her nose and eyes in the mirror.

The devastated anger in her eyes didn’t look like herself at all. Flicka von Hannover was serene and collected as she swanned from meeting to meeting, blithely making the world a better place.

The woman in the mirror looked like she wanted to crawl under the sink, sob, and fade out of existence. She might kill a few people before she did it.

Who was Flicka if she wasn’t a rich bitch who ordered everyone around and demanded money for charities while enduring no hardship herself?

The green-eyed blonde looked back at her with an angry, wounded stare.

Flicka patted her face dry and went to see what Dieter had found out.

As soon as she came in, he poked his phone, hanging up a call. “We can get a message to Wulfram that you’re okay. It’s going to come from a thousand different points around the world. I’m not sure he’ll believe it, though. He’ll think Pierre or whomever is trying to throw him off.”