Tracy was mostly silent as she and Johan made their way back through the palace to the ballroom in the public wing. Her mind was racing with possibilities, both in terms of where Princess Marina was and where things were going with her and Johan. Admittedly, kissing him in the middle of an investigation was a bit over-the-top, but he was hot as hell when he was working to solve a mystery.

They’d almost reached the ballroom when he glanced sideways at her, then did a double-take. His mouth twitched into a grin. “What’s that look for?”

Tracy realized she was grinning herself. A lot. She shrugged. “I’m just having fun is all.”

“Fun because my aunt is missing and might be involved in illegal activity?” He arched one eyebrow at her, but his grin stayed in place.

“Fun racing around, getting to the bottom of things with you,” she answered, then added, “We make a good team.”

“We do,” he admitted.

They turned a corner, and the sound of music and talking that had been a distant buzz flared to a lively roar.

“We should do it more often,” Tracy went on, forced to raise her voice as they stepped into the crowded ballroom. People were dancing, including the queen and Dr. Hayes, staff members were serving refreshments, and the party was in full swing.

“We should track down errant family members and criminals more often?” Johan teased her, searching out his brothers as he did. He must have spotted them, because he took Tracy’s hand and led her to one side of the room.

“We should work together more often,” she said. “Like, every day.”

His grin turned downright sultry. “Are you proposing to me?”

A flash of nervous energy zipped through her. She’d been going more for making things official between them. Anyone with eyes could see they were together, though they hadn’t actually had “the talk” yet. But marriage? To a prince.

Her shivers and breathlessness stopped when they reached Alek and Toni.

“Did you find anything?” Alex asked.

Arne was dancing with Emma, and Viggo and Marcia, cleaned up and dressed perfectly, were over by the refreshment table, helping Stefan fill a plate with snacks. But Mack and Gloria were close enough to drop their conversation with an elderly couple, and Kristoff and Cassandra were making their way over from the other side of the room.

“Aunt Marina isn’t in her quarters,” Johan said once everyone was gathered.

“Which means she’s not in the palace,” Alek sighed.

“Not anywhere?” Gloria asked with a suspicious frown.

“Someone would have seen her,” Alek said.

“Where could she be, then?” Kristoff asked.

“That’s not all.” Johan skipped his brother’s question, charging right into, “Have any of you ever heard of Storm Holdings, Ltd.?”

A round of blank looks met his question.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Alek asked.

“We didn’t find Marina in her apartments, but we found a few other things that are…interesting,” Johan said.

“There were documents for Storm Holdings on the desk in her office. Whatever it is, it’s making a tidy profit off sales of oil to Africa.”

“I still don’t see what that has to do with Aunt Marina not showing up to the wedding,” Kristoff said.

“Is it possible that someone from Storm Holdings went after her for some reason?” Cassandra asked, eyes wide with worry.

“It’s possible,” Johan said, rubbing his neck, “but I think there could be other answers as well.”

“Like what?” Alek crossed his arms.

“Did you know your aunt might still be dating Earl Herman Lindqvist?” Tracy asked.

She was met with shocked expressions.

“She can’t stand him,” Kristoff said. “Not since their break-up.”

“There’s a photo of the two of them together somewhere in France, looking extremely cozy, on her bedside table, and it’s from this year, recently,” Tracy said.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Kristoff said.

“Unless it does.” Alek let out a breath and dropped his arms. “Lindqvist was arrested early this morning, and Marina went missing at the same time. Maybe she went to bail him out or get to the bottom of things.”

“We should check the police station,” Kristoff said.

“And Lindqvist’s house,” Tracy added. “If they really are together, they might be there.”

“Good thinking.” Alek nodded.

“I still don’t understand what the holding company has to do with any of this,” Cassandra said.

“It might not be connected at all,” Johan said. “But something isn’t right about it.”

“Agreed.” Alek shifted his shoulders, taking on an air of command. “Someone needs to head down to the police station.”

“We can do that,” Mack offered, glancing to Gloria.

“And we can go check Lindqvist’s house,” Tracy offered. Johan sent her an approving nod.

“Perfect,” Alek said. “And we’ll—”

He was interrupted as someone tapped on a microphone. Their attention was drawn to the dais at the front of the room. The dancing had stopped, and one of Dr. Hayes’s sons stood behind the microphone, smiling. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you could gather ’round so that we could celebrate the happy couple.”

Alek let out an impatient breath. “Speeches. I have to make a speech.”

“That’ll be the perfect distraction,” Mack said. “Draw it out as long as possible, then maybe people won’t notice that we’re gone.”

“In the meantime, we’ll check things out as quickly as we can,” Johan said.

A round of nods and smiles of encouragement followed before the group broke up. Alek headed toward the dais as Tracy, Johan, Mack, and Gloria rushed to the door. Out of the corner of her eye, Tracy spotted Kristoff making his way over to Viggo, Marcia, and Stefan, presumably to fill them in on the situation.

“Let’s all try to be back here within an hour,” Mack said as they reached the family’s parking garage beneath the palace. “The reception will still be going for a while, and you two really should make an appearance.”

“Maybe.” Johan sent his brother a wry grin, then opened the door of his BMW.

It took no time at all to drive out to the street. The crowds that had been out celebrating earlier had thinned. Traffic was down because of it, so it took less time than Tracy would have imagined to get out of the heart of the city and on the road out of town. Lindqvist’s estate was just beyond the city limits, where the countryside began to roll and look pastoral, but where there was still a slight metropolitan feel.

“Do you think it’s safe to park right out in front like this?” Tracy asked as he cut the car’s engine just beyond the gates to the estate.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Johan shrugged, climbing out of the car. “Lindqvist was arrested and Marcia is at the reception. The only other person who might be here to see us snooping is Aunt Marina, and she’s the one we’re trying to find.”

“Good point.” Tracy grinned and fell in by his side as they approached the gate. “See, we do work well together.”

He met her grin with a wink. “I never said we didn’t.”

Lucky for them, the gate was open. It was a tall, imposing thing made out of wrought-iron, but to Tracy, it looked like it was the kind of gate that was kept open and was mostly for show. The entire mansion looked showy. It wasn’t quite as massive as some of the great European estates she’d toured on past vacations, but it was three stories with at least two wings. A wide set of stairs led up to a small patio, then more stairs led to the imposing front door. She could easily imagine grand, Victorian ladies sweeping out of their carriages to attend balls and supper parties hosted by Lindqvist’s ancestors.

“So, do we just knock?” Tracy asked once she and Johan were standing in front of the door.

“I guess so.”

He knocked, then rang the doorbell. Deep inside the house, chimes sounded. But everything else was silent. The house gave off a feeling of being empty. They stood still for several seconds just listening. Johan tried the doorbell a second time, but with the same results.

“She probably isn’t here,” Johan said. “We should head back to the palace.”

He started down the stairs.

Rather than follow him, Tracy edged sideways, looking in the first window beside the door. “You can’t give up so quickly. The lights aren’t on.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Johan called to her from the bottom of the stairs. “It’s barely past noon.”

“And just because no one answered the doorbell doesn’t mean nobody’s home.”

She studied the window, attempting to grip it from the bottom to see if it would open. The house was well-preserved, but no one had replaced the windows in decades, maybe centuries. The thick glass was wavy, which told Tracy it had been hand-blown instead of manufactured. Which meant that even if she couldn’t get the window open from the outside, she could break the glass to get in.

“What are you doing?” Johan asked from right behind her.

Tracy glanced over her shoulder at him, the thrill of the mystery making her giddy. “Figuring out a way to get inside.”

“By breaking in?”

“Yeah, if we have to.” She abandoned the window she’d checked to cross to the other side of the door. The window on that side was the same, giving a slightly different view of the front hall.

“Tracy, you can’t just go breaking into someone’s house.” Johan followed her.

“We have to find your aunt,” she argued. “And I want to see if this Lindqvist guy has pictures of her the way she has of him.”

“I don’t see how that would help things.” She could feel Johan frowning behind her, even if she couldn’t see him. “We’d be better off heading back to the palace to check in with the others.”

As he finished, Tracy braced her hands against the window glass and pushed up. To her surprise, the window clicked and crept open just enough for her to get her fingers around the edge. Someone had forgotten to lock it, which meant she was able to swing it open wide.

“Well, that was lucky.” She turned to grin at Johan before raising a leg to climb through the window—which was no easy feat in the dress she’d worn for the wedding.

“Wait!” Johan called after her. “You can’t break in. It’s too risky.”

“I’ve already broken in,” she argued. “And there’s no risk to it. The house is—”

As soon as her feet hit the floor on the other side of the window, loud alarms began to blare. In the distance, dogs started barking.

“Okay, maybe that wasn’t such a great idea,” Tracy shouted over the din. “But we probably have about five minutes to search before the cops get here.”

“No!” Johan climbed through the window and grabbed Tracy’s arm before she could dash up the stairs to check out what she could of the house. “It’s too risky. You have to stop taking needless risks like this.”

“Needless?” She stared incredulously at him. “Don’t you want to find out what your aunt is up to and how Lindqvist is connected?”

He scowled at her, but instead of answering, he pulled his phone from his back pocket and clicked the screen a few times. As he held it to his ear, he searched the front hallway. He spotted the security control panel at about the same time as she did, and they both dashed toward it.

“Viggo,” Johan shouted into his phone. “If Marcia is with you, ask her what the password is to turn off the alarm at her father’s house.”

Tracy’s brow shot up. She was glad Johan had thought to call for that. She couldn’t hear the reply, but when they reached the controls, Johan flipped open the panel and quickly typed in a series of numbers. Instantly, the blaring noise stopped. Tracy breathed a sigh of relief.

“Yeah,” Johan said into his phone, frowning at Tracy. “Yeah. She’s not here. At least not that we’ve been able to discover yet.” He paused, then said, “That’d be great. We’ll be through here as fast as we can.” He hung up, slipping the phone back into his pocket, and frowned even harder at her.

“Good news?” she asked, caught between feeling sheepish under his obvious disapproval and being impatient with his sudden streak of over-caution.

“Marcia is calling the police to let them know it’s a false alarm over here,” he said.

Tracy let out a breath, shoulders sinking. “Thank God. That makes things easier for us.”

“It makes it easier for us to walk out the front door instead of crawling through windows to go back to the palace.” Johan nodded to the door and attempted to take her hand to lead her there.

“No way.” She avoided his reach and headed for the stairs instead.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He switched directions to follow her.

“What if your aunt is hiding out somewhere in this house? Don’t you want to see if we can find anything that links the two of them even more?” she asked as she charged up the stairs.

“Not when it’s this big of a risk.”

She reached the top of the stairs and turned to him. “How was it not a risk to search your aunt’s apartment but it is to search in here?”

“Because Marina’s apartment is inside the palace. A palace that my family has owned for generations. This house isn’t ours. It’s breaking and entering. Who knows what hidden security measures Lindqvist has?” His scowl was set so deep it made his whole face dark.

“Come on, Johan. Live a little. It’s not like we’re stealing anything.” She glanced down the hall to the right and left, then marched away to the right.

“This isn’t about living or not living. This is about trespassing on someone else’s property,” he said as he followed her.

“Lindqvist was arrested for kidnapping Dr. Hayes, right? So the police are probably on the verge of searching the house anyhow.”

She heard him let out a breath behind her and could feel the shift in his energy as they moved forward. “All right. But for that exact reason, we’re not touching anything. Just looking for Marina.”

“And if she’s not here, then it won’t matter anyhow,” Tracy said as she peered through an open door into what looked like an upstairs sitting room.

Johan didn’t answer. She could tell he was upset about the whole thing. But as sorry as she felt that he was upset, it wasn’t about to stop her from investigating. Her journalist instincts had kicked into overdrive since searching Marina’s apartment, since learning that she was missing, actually, and she felt as though she had a duty to see that through, no matter the risk.

The house truly was empty, though. They searched the hall, looking into rooms and finding little more than unused guest rooms and storage. It wasn’t until they reached the end of the hall and opened the door into what was clearly Lindqvist’s bedroom that they found anything of note.

And what they found made Tracy’s jaw drop to the floor.

“There’s the answer to that question,” she said softly as she stepped into the room and looked around.

Marina had had a small photograph of her and Lindqvist on her bedside table. Lindqvist only had landscape paintings decorating his room, but the dresser was scattered with women’s jewelry. Women’s shoes sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. And when Tracy peeked into the walk-in closet, it was as full of women’s clothing as it was with men’s. Most telling of all, the same scent of flowery perfume that had pervaded Marina’s bedroom filled Lindqvist’s.

“This is Aunt Marina’s necklace,” Johan said from the dresser, picking up a thick, gold chain with a jeweled broach. “I recognize her shoes too.”

“The clothes?” Tracy gestured for him to come see the closet.

When he did, he let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s like she lives here.”

“Maybe she does,” Tracy said, glancing around the room again. “Or maybe she splits her time between the two places.”

“They’re definitely still together,” Johan said.

Tracy didn’t reply. Her attention had been snagged by a leather-bound portfolio sitting on a small table under the window, beside an overstuffed chair. She edged her way around the bed to pick it up and open it.

“I thought we weren’t touching anything,” Johan said, disapproval in his tone.

Tracy gasped as the contents of the portfolio stared back at her. “You’re going to be glad I did,” she said.

Johan strode around the bed and glanced over her shoulder at the documents in the portfolio. It was some sort of dossier for a trip to Abidjan, Côte D’Ivoire, including bills for a resort in Grand-Bassam, and visas with both Lindqvist’s name and Marina’s. Everything was dated four months ago.

“French,” Johan said as though he’d figured out the key to the mystery. “They speak French in Côte D’Ivoire.”

“Yeah?” Tracy said. A second later, she grasped the connection. “The picture by Marina’s bed. The sign in French. That wasn’t a beach in France, it was in Côte D’Ivoire.”

“And the business Storm Holdings is involved with in Africa too.”

“Côte D’Ivoire,” Tracy said to finish his thought. They exchanged knowing looks. “Do you still think your aunt could be investigating Storm Holdings over wrongdoings?”

“With Lindqvist in a thong?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. “My gut says no.”

“So does mine.” She closed the portfolio and put it back on the table. All sorts of uncomfortable feelings were spreading through her. “Johan, I know it’s all just circumstantial evidence, but what you said about the kind of money your family earns, the jewelry your aunt owns….” She paused to lick her lips. “I think she must be connected to that Storm Holdings somehow.”

Johan let out a breath. “She has to be. But how?”

“Does she have the power to make sure their illegal activity is kept under the radar?” Tracy asked. “Could they be paying her a kickback?”

“That would explain why she’s keeping track of their finances.” Johan nodded.

“Lindqvist must have something to do with it too,” she went on. “Where does he get his money?”

“It’s old money,” Johan said. “But other than that, honestly, I don’t know what kind of investments he might have.”

“Would Marcia know?”

He shrugged. “If anyone would, it would be her.”

“Then let’s get back to the palace and ask her.” She started toward the door.

“Now you want to go back to the palace?” He followed, hurrying her along.

“Now we have the kind of information that we needed to get in the first place.” She paused when they reached the top of the stairs and turned to him. “You might want to alert the cops to seize Lindqvist’s computers and stuff when and if they investigate.”

“I’m sure they will anyhow,” Johan said as they headed downstairs.

“Yeah, but make sure they know about—”

She was cut short as the sound of barking echoed from the far end of the hall. They reached the bottom of the stairs in time to see three Rottweilers, their teeth bared and their eyes alight with excitement, staring at them from the end of the hall. At least one of them was growling, and they all looked ready to attack.

“Go, go, go!” Johan said, shoving her toward the door.

Tracy shrieked as the dogs leapt into motion. Normally, she liked dogs. They were cute and playful. But not when you’d broken into their house, apparently. Johan rushed to the door, but Tracy bolted for the open window. She scrambled through as Johan grabbed the hat stand beside the door and threw it at the dogs. It wasn’t much, but it gave him just enough time to leap through the window before the lead dog snapped at him.

As soon as he was through the window, Tracy slammed the glass shut. By some miracle, it didn’t break, and the dogs didn’t try to scramble through after them.

“Come on.” Johan grabbed her hand and rushed down the steps and out through the gate to the car with her.

The dogs continued to bark up a storm behind them as though saying, “Yeah, that’s right! This is our house and you’re not wanted here!”

Even after they leapt into the car, shut the doors, and Johan turned on the engine, Tracy’s heart continued to hammer. “Whew, that was close!”

“Risks,” Johan panted. “That’s what happens when you take unnecessary risks. That could have been a lot worse.”

She winced as he peeled out onto the road, heading back into Solrighavn. “Yeah, but we found the information we needed.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he glared straight forward, focused on driving.

Tracy sat back in her seat, hand over her heart. “Now all we have to do is figure out what the information means.”