The Prince Next Door. Sue Civil-Brown

      “Hah. When I told him there was a man in his apartment and offered to call the police, he refused. Said he would handle it himself.”

      “Hmm.” Ariel once again frowned. “That’s a strange response.”

      “I think he’s a rogue. A dangerous rogue.”

      Ariel nodded. “Probably a pirate. He looks like he’s fresh off the boat from Marseilles, doesn’t he? What with the peg leg and the eye patch and all….”

      Trust youth to make an older person feel stupid, simply by pointing out the absurdity of the obvious. “Okay, maybe he’s not that dangerous. But something’s not right about him. You mark my words.”

      Ariel, once again attacking her sundae with a gusto that would have shamed wolves, paused to speak. “Well heaven forfend that there should be anything not right about someone. Those perfect people are so hard to come by.”

      “Okay, you win. He’s probably a perfectly ordinary, dime-a-dozen junior executive.”

      “Anything but, I hope! God, how boring would that be?” The girl took another heaping spoonful of ice cream, laden with nuts, syrup and sprinkles. “But there’s a lot of room between boringly ordinary and dangerous rogue.”

      Serena gave the girl her most serious look. “I,” she said, her voice weighted with significance, “am on vacation.”

      Ariel looked up, chocolate staining one corner of her mouth, her unusual eyes suddenly looking very puckish. “And you can’t go on that naked cruise.”

      “Clothing optional,” Serena corrected her.

      Ariel shrugged. “Same thing.” She ate another huge spoonful of ice cream. Serena wouldn’t have guessed Godiva could go down quite so fast.

      “It’s vacation,” Serena said again, ominously.

      Ariel nodded. “And you need to get into trouble.”

      “Right.”

      “Okay.” That charming smile speared again. “A little trouble.”

      “Certainly not enough to get me arrested.”

      “Well, you didn’t get arrested last winter when I suggested you take that job playing Mrs. Santa Claus at the mall.”

      “Only because I didn’t commit murder.”

      Ariel laughed. “You sure raised a ruckus, though.”

      In spite of herself, Serena had to smile.

      “And,” Ariel added, “I’m sure there are quite a few parents who now take child-rearing more seriously.”

      “I hope so, for the sake of civilization. But that won’t do this time, Ariel.”

      “No, of course it won’t. It’s the wrong time of year.” Ariel put down her empty bowl. “I suppose you want to spy on Mr. Maxwell.” Her eyes danced. “He does have a job, you know.”

      Serena felt her stomach sink. She didn’t want the man to have a job. That would ruin all her fun. How boring it would be if he were a loan officer. “How did you find that out?”

      “I asked him,” Ariel replied complacently. Her eyes started dancing. “He’s an international art dealer.”

      Serena’s eyes widened with joyous anticipation. Her heart leaped. “Do you have any idea how many illicit activities that could cover?”

      Ariel laughed. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

      “Afraid? Why?”

      “I didn’t really mean afraid. Just that I guessed you were going to say that.”

      “Oh.” Serena settled back, satisfied. “Well, you know I don’t want to get you into any trouble.”

      Something passed over Ariel’s face, at once amused and wise. “I won’t get in any trouble. Have I gotten into any trouble yet?”

      “Not that I’m aware of, but there’s always a first time.”

      Ariel rolled her fey eyes. “This won’t be it,” she said, as if the future were as clear to her as writing on the wall. “I know how to take care of myself. You might get into trouble, though.”

      “That’s the point.”

      Ariel leaned forward gleefully. “But it might be more trouble than you’re looking for.”

      “Pish-tosh,” Serena said with a wave of her hand. “I can take care of myself, too.”

      “So how are you going to start?” Ariel asked. “Wiretapping? Spy cameras?”

      Serena frowned. “That would be illegal. No, I’m just going to follow him. And so are you.”

      “But that’s boring.”

      Serena had to agree. Especially in this heat. “Well then, what do you suggest?”

      Ariel’s eyes danced. “You have to meet him.”

      All of a sudden Serena had an inkling that she might be in for real trouble, and not of her own making.

      “I’ve already met him,” she said, remembering the encounter just a few minutes before.

      “No, I mean meet him when you don’t look like a condo commando.”

      “Was it that bad?” Serena asked, having spared herself the indignity of a mirror before she washed up.

      “Arnold Schwarzenegger would have quailed,” Ariel replied. “‘More flies with honey than vinegar’ and all that. So, you have to meet him.”

      “If I must.” Unfortunately, Serena could think of no other plan that didn’t involve wandering all over town in the heat trying to stay out of sight, an activity she suspected she would not be very adept at.

      “Don’t worry,” said Ariel. “I’ll take care of it.” Serena wasn’t at all comfortable with that notion.

      CHAPTER TWO

      PABLO MENOS RETURNED to the consular office from his meeting with Darius Maxwell hot and seething. Hot from the climate, seething from the encounter.

      His position as deputy for administration to the consul-in-residence for the country of Masolimia had its perks, but living in Florida was not one of them. Even this late in the year he still longed for the cool mountain country of his home, a flyspeck in the Pyrenees between Spain and France.

      In keeping with the size of Masolimia, the consular offices were a storefront in a run-down strip mall entirely too close to the Port of Tampa. In short, not the best neighborhood. Train tracks ran right behind them, and on a far too regular basis all conversation was drowned by the deep thrumming of locomotives practically driving through the offices.

      Not that the consul cared. He was rarely around.

      The glass door swung closed behind him, its little bell ringing a note of alert, and modestly air-conditioned air washed over him. In a half hour or so, he might actually cool off.

      Juan Mas, his underdeputy, was sitting at his battered desk reading a comic book. He barely looked up. “¿Qué pasó?” he enquired, bored.

      “It was terrible!”

      That got Juan’s attention. A small man with a beard that defied the sharpest razor, giving him a perpetual five-o’clock shadow, he finally really looked up from his comic book. “Huh?”

      “Exactly,” Menos said, going to stand under the nearest air-conditioning vent, hoping to dry out the Hawaiian shirt that was sticking to him everywhere. How did people ever manage to live in this horrid, humid swamp?

      “He called the police?”