Perfect. She texted back, What does that mean for me?

Relax. He may have sold it off already. We’re still working on it.

Relax? Not possible. She stopped, peering into a window at a little café. Her eyes went wide as a thought came to her.

Leo had come from inside the palace. She was sure of that fact—because the door had opened at her back, and he’d appeared behind her.

If that was true, then how could he have pushed Claude over the balcony railing and gone back into the palace only to reemerge again, all before the body was found?

Every hair on the back of her neck stood at attention as one thought came crashing down upon her, He couldn’t have.

And that meant that someone else must have murdered Claude.

Maybe Leo was working on his own. Maybe Claude was working with someone else, and that person had gotten into a fight with him, possibly about not getting the necklace from her, and killed him. But who?

Everyone had looked at the necklace with interest. It had caught a lot of attention. Especially since she was the first person to be allowed to wear it at the ball. The sheer idea of giving something that expensive to just anyone to wear was actually kind of . . . crazy.

Insane.

Her mouth opened slightly. I was only wearing that necklace because of . . .

When the answer came to her, her breath caught in her throat. At that moment, she was looking at her reflection, not noticing that there was a man in the café window, about to eat a croissant, giving her an evil eye. She quickly averted her eyes and broke into a run.

She had to get back to Versailles.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Diana grabbed the first cab she was able to hail, thanking the superb cab-stopping skills she’d acquired from living in New York. She climbed inside and shouted, “Versailles!”

The man in the driver’s seat looked at her with suspicion, then sighed and began to pull away from the curb at a far too leisurely pace for Diana’s liking.

“Step on it!” she barked, drumming her fingers on the armrest as she sat at the edge of the seat.

He gave her a dirty look in the rearview mirror. She cringed.

“I mean, please. I’m in a rush.”

The shaggy-haired guy rolled his eyes and seemed to go slower. He even stopped at a red light most New York City drivers would’ve easily sailed right through. Yes, likely, dressed as a tourist in jeans and a t-shirt, she didn’t have the look of someone who had pressing engagements. She gnawed on her lip, counting the moments for the light to change.

When it did, and he crawled ahead at a snail’s pace, she leaned over and said, “Look. I think I know who murdered the guy at the Versailles ball. You know? The ball?”

The driver’s eyes narrowed. “Le meurtrier?”