The Prince (14 page)

NORTH

The Present

Nothing had changed. Kingsley couldn’t quite believe that after thirty years, absolutely nothing had changed. The road to Saint Ignatius still wound through the most desolate, dangerous countryside he’d ever encountered outside of Europe. The trees still swaddled the school like an evergreen blanket. And every last building looked like a church.

“How long has it been,
mon ami?
” Kingsley asked Søren as they exited the back of the car Kingsley had hired to drive them to their alma mater.

“Five years, perhaps.” Søren stood in the middle of the quad and looked around. “I came when they buried Father Henry.”

“In his garden?”

Søren smiled. “Where else?”

“Five years…a long time.”

Nodding, Søren slowly turned around and gazed up into the forest that surrounded them. “I try not to come too often. It’s…uncomfortable to be here now, considering.”

“Je comprende.”
Kingsley did understand. When his father died, Søren had inherited nearly a half a billion dollars from him. The inheritance had been his father’s last chance to turn Søren away from the priesthood, knowing his son couldn’t keep that kind of money and still
be
a Jesuit. So Søren gave it away. Every last penny. And Saint Ignatius benefited hugely, to the tune of nearly twenty-five million dollars. “With so much wealth, you think the school would look like a palace now.”

“Father Henry put most of the money into a trust to take care of the boys who were wards of the state. There have been improvements to the facilities—subtle ones. But Father Henry never wanted the school to look ostentatious. Conspicuous displays of wealth offended him.”

“Interesting opinion for a Catholic.”

Søren glared at him. “We’re not having the Saint Peter’s Basilica argument again.”

“I’m getting you a pair of red leather shoes for Christmas. Why should the Pope have all the fun?”

“I miss beating you sometimes, Kingsley. I truly do.”

The two of them walked toward the main building that housed the offices of the monsignor, Father Thomas, and the other priests. Kingsley kept his eyes on the door and his mind away from the past. He’d indulged far too much in memories on the plane trip here. It was in the woods surrounding this school that the boy, Kingsley Boissonneault, had died, and the man who would become Kingsley Edge had been resurrected.

And it was here that his sister, Marie-Laure, had died, never to be reborn.

“Try not to think of her, Kingsley,” Søren cautioned. Kingsley would have killed him on the spot for that bit of advice but for the almost tender concern in his voice.

“It’s impossible not to. She was all I had after my parents died. The day they took me from her…”

Kingsley forced the memory back and away.

“I had bruises for weeks,” Kingsley said, his fingers twisting into fists.

“From Marie-Laure or from me?”

Kingsley looked sharply at Søren. The priest tried everything to avoid talking about that night they’d become lovers. And yet now, suddenly…Kingsley composed his features. “From Marie-Laure the wounds took three weeks to heal. From you…”

“From me?”

Kingsley gave him a grim grin. “I shall tell you when they do.”

Søren exhaled heavily and opened his mouth to speak. But the door of the main building opened and a man in a full cassock came bustling out toward them.

“Father Stearns,” the priest said breathlessly as he shook Søren’s hand. “I had no idea you were coming.”

“So nice to see you again, Father Marczak. We’re only here for a short visit. This is Kingsley Edge, a friend and another former Saint Ignatius student.”

“Very nice to meet you, Mister Edge.”

Kingsley shook Father Marczak’s hand and nodded. He was in no mood to mask his French accent today and had no patience for all the questions his accent inspired. Better to keep silent. He’d learned in his days as a spy that the less he said, the more others said to him.

“What brings you both here today? Father Thomas is at a conference and I’m afraid I’m a poor substitute.”

“We’re here for reasons of nostalgia only. Please don’t trouble yourself. We simply wanted to see the school again.”

“Of course. We’ve made some improvements recently, thanks to your generosity. New plumbing. New heating units. The roofs have been replaced on all the buildings…you can’t imagine how much we appreciate—”

Søren raised his hand to silence the thanks. Kingsley knew Søren would come to the school much more often if it wasn’t for all the effusive gratitude he had to deal with every time he visited.

“I’m only happy that I could help the school carry on its work. This place saved my life.”

“And you saved the school.”

“Then we should call it even,” Søren said, and Father Marczak smiled in acquiescence.

“Of course. I’ll be in Father Henry—I mean, Father Thomas’s office. If you require anything, don’t hesitate to find me. Feel free to roam the school. The boys love having their classes interrupted by visitors.”

“Thank you, Father. Speaking of visitors, have there been any of note lately?”

Father Marczak gave them each a curious look but didn’t ask for clarification. “No. Not really. A few students have visited in the last few weeks. And, of course, parents of prospective students wanting to see the school.”

“None of them seemed unusual at all? Suspicious? I only ask because I received an unsigned note on Saint Ignatius stationery asking about the school.”

Kingsley glanced at Søren. For a priest sworn to keep the Ten Commandments, the man could lie with the best of them.

Father Marczak shrugged. “Really, no. We did have a single mother a week ago. Asked many questions about the school—more than any of the other parents combined. Many questions about the history of the school and the students who’d graduated—what they did now, what they’d accomplished.”

“Did she speak with an accent?” Søren asked, and Kingsley furrowed his brow. Where had that question come from?

“No accent that I noticed,” Father Marczak said. “Lovely woman, really, if you’ll forgive me for saying that.”

Søren glanced at Kingsley.

“Thank you, Father. We’ll be sure to see you before we leave.”

Father Marczak shook their hands again and returned to his office.

“We should ask him more,” Kingsley said. “What she looked like, where she said she was from…”

Søren shook his head. “Too dangerous. Either the woman he spoke to is not involved in this—and likely she isn’t—or she is and would have told him enough lies that his answers would be useless.”

Kingsley couldn’t argue with his logic. “Then what shall we look for,
mon père?
Where shall we go?”

“The photograph of us…it would have been archived in the library.”

“The library it is, then.”

Inside the library Kingsley discovered that much of Søren’s father’s money had found its way here. Their time at Saint Ignatius, the library had been a cold, sparsely furnished space. Cheap metal bookcases had been filled with decaying religious tomes. Threadbare chairs had sat on even more threadbare rugs. But when they stepped into the room now, they could have been transported to the Vatican library. The metal bookcases had been replaced with dark oak bookshelves carved with biblical scenes and symbols. Easily four times as many books filled the shelves. Elegant sitting areas were scattered about the length and width of the building. Iron chandeliers dangled from the ceiling and sent smiling light down on the boys who sat in those expensive armchairs with books and computers on their laps.

“Oh la la,” Kingsley said, laughing. “A library or a palace?”

“A library should be a palace. You do read, don’t you, Kingsley? I mean, something other than your own files?”

“
Bien sûr.
I read the novels your pet writes. It pleases me to read them and see how much she steals from my world to put in hers.”

“It is her world, too, need I remind you?”

“It
was
her world. And she left it.”

“She’ll be back. I know she will.”

Kingsley smiled and sighed. “Lovely to know that I’m not the only one of us who engages in wishful thinking. Yes, she’ll come back to you…the day you come back to me.”

Søren said nothing else to him as they headed to the archive room. Kingsley took that as a victory.

They spent an hour digging through the student archives. Christian’s other photos he’d taken of the school still remained in their boxes. Kingsley took a few pictures and slid them into a portfolio.

“What are you doing?”

Kingsley grinned. “Who knows? We could get fingerprints,
peut-être?
”

“I’d rather not get your police connections involved in this.”

“Very well, then. I’ll call the FBI.”

Søren glared at him. Again. If he didn’t stop glaring at him, Kingsley was going to kiss him right there in the library in front of fifty Saint Ignatius students. And that might raise an eyebrow or two.

“I don’t see that any other photos are missing. Christian numbered all fifty of them. Ours was thirty-three. This box has one through twenty-five in it. You took twenty-six and twenty-seven from the other box. Just our photograph was gone.”

“How would the thief even know to look for it?”

As soon as Kingsley asked the question, he knew the answer. He tapped the top of each box and looked at Søren.

Søren exhaled and turned his eyes to the ceiling.

“Of course,” he said. “It has to have been another student. One of our classmates. How else would the thief have known about the photos?”

“A student or one of the priests,” Kingsley reminded him.

“We’ll go to Father Marczak and ask for the names of the students who were here with us. Maybe something will come to mind. I don’t recall having any unpleasant encounters with any of them.”

“You wouldn’t. They were terrified of you.”

“You exaggerate.” Søren left the library and headed toward Father Marczak’s office. Kingsley followed him to the quad, then stopped and looked up into the trees.

“I was a student here for all of two weeks when Christian told me you’d killed a student at your last school. I say ‘terrified,’
mon ami,
because everyone
was
terrified. I do not exaggerate. In fact, I might be understating the situation.”

“I don’t even know how the story of what happened in England got out. I told one of the Fathers when I came here—Father Pierre. He acted as my confessor until he died, a few months before you came.”

“He told?”

“No, he wouldn’t. I would trust a priest to keep my secrets as much as I would trust a corpse.”

“Perhaps your father told a priest, and a student overheard.”

“Possibly. He did like to brag that his son had killed a boy. Come. Let’s talk to Father Marczak.”

“Non,”
Kingsley said, still staring into the trees. “You go hunt your ghosts. I shall go find ours.”

He strolled toward the tree line with more confidence than he felt. With his first footstep into the woods, a twig cracked under the sole of his boot and the memories of the night he’d run through these very trees came back to him.

Christian had told him that Søren had killed a student at his old school in England. That knowledge hadn’t scared Kingsley, it had merely intrigued him, made him desire Søren more. But that night as he ran through the woods, Søren hard on his heels, he had known real terror. And yet, as hard and as fast as he ran, in his heart he had wanted to get caught. He ran so Søren would chase him. He ran because he wanted to be taken. He ran hard and ran fast, yes. But not as hard and fast as he could have.

A rustle of leaves alerted Kingsley to a presence behind him. He didn’t look back at Søren, but knew the priest followed now, as he had followed him that night.

“Why did you chase me?” Kingsley asked, still not turning around.

“Because you ran.”

“Do you know why I ran from you?”

“Because you wanted me to catch you.”

Kingsley laughed and didn’t deny it.

“Did you know you would rape me when you caught me?”

“Are we really calling it rape?” Søren asked, his voice tinged with dark amusement.

“What else shall we call it?”

“It’s hardly rape when you wanted it.”

“You didn’t know that at the time, though, did you?” Kingsley passed through the trees that had whipped at his flesh that night and torn his clothes. Did they remember the night as well as he did?

“You stared at me constantly, followed me everywhere I went. You watched me sleep, Kingsley.”

“How did you know that?”

Kingsley shivered as Søren’s laugh rippled through the woods.

“I watched you watch me.”

Today Kingsley managed to avoid the thorn bush that had cut open his forehead and sent blood dripping into his eyes. When he had returned to Saint Ignatius after summer break, he had learned every inch of the woods that surrounded the school. But nowhere on the thousands of acres he’d roamed and memorized had he seen another thorn bush. Only here, guarding the clearing where he’d lain underneath Søren and let the boy he loved destroy him.

“When did you know you wanted me?” Kingsley asked as he entered the clearing where he’d died and bled and been born again. “I wanted you before I even saw you. When I heard the first notes of Ravel coming from the chapel.”

“Father Henry told me a French student would be coming to Saint Ignatius. I’d never played Ravel before. I thought I should play something French so you wouldn’t feel so homesick.”

Kingsley looked at Søren and said nothing. Søren merely looked back at him.

Closing his eyes, Kingsley remembered that day in the chapel, a petrified Matthew at his side trying to warn him to leave Stearns alone. Kingsley should have listened, would have listened but for one thing...

“I loved you because of the Ravel. Had you played any other piece I would have thought you merely handsome and fascinating.”

Søren gazed up at the sky. “Then I’m glad I played it.”