Secrets of a Prince (The Princes of New Sargasso #3) - Carol Moncado Page 0,60

folder. “It was found in a black lock box of some kind.”

Her brows furrowed. “I don’t have a black lock box of any kind. Do you have a picture of it?”

“Just a minute.” He picked up his phone and called someone, asking to have the investigators sent back in.

A minute later, they had returned to their seats.

The king flipped through the papers in the folder as he told them what she’d said. He turned one page around to show her.

She studied the photo carefully. “That’s my mother’s. I was never allowed to touch it. It has some sort of fancy combination lock that I never knew how to open. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never even touched that box. Not since I was seven and got yelled at for half an hour about respecting my mother’s things.”

Once again, the investigators shared a look. “Good to know,” one said.

She closed her eyes and thought hard about something niggling at the corners of her mind. “I think it has a secret compartment on the bottom. Like it pops open. I have this super vague recollection of seeing it do that, but many years ago. I think my mother may have been the one doing it.”

One of the men made a call to someone else about it then turned back to Minnie. “What else do you remember?”

Minnie shook her head. “That’s it. I think my mum said it belonged to her family and that it should be mine someday, but I forgot all about it.”

Maybe there would be something in the bottom compartment that would clear her. She knew Joss believed in her, but the realization that the king did set her mind at ease.

Now if only her shoulders would get the message.

There had to be some way to definitively clear Minnie of any wrong doing.

Joss didn’t know what it could be, but there had to be a way.

Didn’t there?

Maybe there was something in that compartment that would clear her. Or maybe her father’s fingerprints were all over the inside of the lock box but hers weren’t there at all.

Had they run fingerprints on the box itself? Joss blurted out the question before he could stop himself.

“I’ve asked for those results,” the investigator told him. “But they weren’t given to me earlier like they should have been.”

“When will you have the results?” Joss pressed.

The man checked his phone. “I should have known by now. I will be looking into why it wasn’t done earlier like it should have been and why I don’t have it yet.”

Unless Joss was very much mistaken, heads might roll depending on what the answers were.

“Ma’am, is there anything else you can tell us about your father? About anything you might remember?”

Minnie shook her head. “Not that I can think of. I’ve wracked my brain and can’t come up with anything I haven’t already told you.”

The investigator’s phone rang. He left the room and talked to the person on the other end of the line.

“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Minnie whispered to Joss, tears evident in her voice.

“I know.” He held her hands. “We all know that.”

The investigator came back in and sat back in his seat. “That was an interesting call,” he told them.

Minnie hands seemed to shake under Joss’s.

“First, there were no fingerprints on the box except for one partial that isn’t yours but could be your father’s. There’s not enough to be certain, though. They’re looking at the compartment on the bottom now.”

There seemed to be a slight releasing of tension in Minnie’s shoulders.

“Second, we have another witness willing to turn state’s evidence. He’s confirmed that you were never a part of it, but that your father always had plans to frame you as part of it. He says he can prove it. We’re still working on that part of it.”

“So I’m in the clear?”

Joss understood her hesitation.

The investigator hesitated. “As soon as his story checks out, it’ll be official.”

“We have to dot the i’s and cross the t’s,” his father said. “Right now, we do have to wait for the confirmation of his evidence, though I think we all know that you had nothing to do with this.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“It’ll take a bit of time,” the investigator warned. “But, off the record, even though I agree with the king, we still have to go by the book.”

“I understand.” The tension didn’t completely leave Minnie, not when it wasn’t quite official.

“We’ll notify you as soon as it’s confirmed,” he told her.