§ § § -- January 28, 2002

Inside the house, Gordy tried not to shiver; he had almost felt a chill wind brush against him in the wake of Christian and Leslie's departure. He gave Roarke a dazed look and protested, "Mr. Roarke, they wouldn't even let me try to explain!"

Roarke's expression wasn't quite hostile, but he wasn't very encouraging either; Gordy supposed he shouldn't blame the man. After all, this directly involved his own family. "Surely you understand why," Roarke said quietly.

"I never meant to do that to them," Gordy insisted frantically, coming into the study to face Roarke head-on. "I mean…I even investigated that magazine and asked them why they wanted the pictures! They said it was for a legitimate story!"

Roarke regarded him thoughtfully, with some sympathy and a good deal of regret. "You must realize what this looks like to Christian and Leslie," he said gently. "To Christian especially, being the public figure he has always been."

"But it's not," Gordy said stubbornly, desperate to be understood. "Mr. Roarke, I don't do that to my friends—not to anybody! Somebody at that magazine lied to me!"

Roarke glanced at the lurid cover, then at Gordy. "Do you have any sort of proof that will back you up?" he asked.

"I can get it," Gordy burst out, so frantic that he gave no thought to exactly how he intended to do so. "That magazine used me, Mr. Roarke. They—" He stopped, noting Roarke's cool gaze. "You don't believe me any more than Christian and Leslie do, do you?"

Roarke smiled slightly. "I am willing to be persuaded," he said.

Very surprised, Gordy stared at him for a long moment, then relaxed fractionally, a little hope flaring to life. "You're the first person on the island who's looked at me with anything other than contempt since this morning," he said. "I'm starting to wish for a hole to jump into. I admit, I don't have a lot to support my story. I've got the original letter they sent me with the offer for the photos, and I still have the e-mail message they sent me telling me what the pictures were supposedly gonna be used for. That's about it, though. Do you think that'll be enough?"

"It's a beginning," Roarke said, "however small. If I could perhaps examine these items, that may be of some help to me. Once I have seen them, we can go forward from that point and try to decide if something further can be done."

"Got it," Gordy said. "Thanks, Mr. Roarke, this means a lot to me." He took off at a full-out run through the French shutters, the better to get back to the Ring Road faster.

He stopped in town long enough to drop in at the bookstore and peruse the magazine rack; there was a large selection there, from some thirty countries in North and South America, Europe and Asia, as well as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Many of the European ones, particularly the Scandinavian publications, carried Astrid Franzén's story as front-page news; some from England, Canada and the States did as well. It was a relief to see that none of these used his photo of Christian at least. Gordy set his jaw and collected all the periodicals he could see that bore the singer's or Christian's name, even though many of them were in languages he couldn't read, and toted the lot to the cashier. He found himself standing behind someone familiar—a pale-blonde woman with vividly green eyes. As he stepped into line behind her, she glanced back at him, then looked again…and he could almost see the ice form over her face.

"Looking to see who else used your shots of poor Christian?" Maureen Harding asked in a quiet but frigid voice.

"No, that's not it," Gordy said. "You know, I'd try to explain, but nobody's going to listen to my side of things, so I'm not even gonna bother. Go right ahead and believe whatever you want." He was angry enough to lash out. "But I am gonna clear my name, one way or the other." He broke their gaze and looked away, trying to signify the close of the discussion; but he could feel Maureen's eyes lingering.

"How do you think you can clear your name of anything involved with this?" she asked. "Are you saying you didn't know what they were going to do with those photos?"

"Yup," said Gordy tightly. "I'm gathering evidence. You might tell your husband he may be getting a call from me, because I might just decide to sue."

Maureen shook her head slightly. "Well, it's Grady's job to be impartial," she said, "but it sure isn't mine. And you'll just have to excuse me for having trouble believing anything you have to say right now." Gordy scowled as she turned away, getting in the last word after all. He had a long way to go to prove his innocence.

The cashier gave him an odd look; clearly she, too, recognized him. Gordy's return glare dared her to say a word; she remained silent throughout the transaction. He returned to his bike, climbed aboard with his bagful of magazines and struck off for home.

It was a relief to get there, away from censorious, hostile eyes. He dropped the bag on the sofa, rummaged in the cabinet for a bag of potato chips, and ensconced himself before his computer. He had access to his newspaper e-mail from home, so in a few minutes he was logging into that account and going through the old messages, looking for the reply to the one he had sent the day after reading the original offer. Presently he found it, opened it and reread the text, then bit his lip. "Thank you for your inquiry, Mr. Strassner. It's our hope to be able to accompany a short piece about Prince Christian, around his and his wife's first wedding anniversary, with your photographs. We are planning a feature article that will make mention of their first year of marriage…"

Gordy groaned softly. That was ambiguous wording for sure. Well, he needed all the evidence he could get; even ambiguity could help. They had never specified exactly what the article was going to be about. He printed the message, leaving it in his account but forwarding it to his private e-mail as well so he'd have an extra copy if he needed it.

Then he opened the original magazine and leaned back in his chair, absently munching on chips while he read the article. It revolved around the revelation that "native Jordsonian punk rocker Astrid Franzén has discovered that she has the HIV virus", going on to include a "partial list" of the many men she had dated, or at least been seen with, through the past eighteen or twenty years since her career had taken off in her home country. Gordy grew more and more amazed as he read; there were some twelve or fifteen names listed, including a couple of actors, a movie director, a television personality from England, at least half a dozen musicians who were well-known for their womanizing reputations—including a goth-rock singer by the odd stage name of "Ricko Sicko" whose band Gordy himself remembered listening to for a while in the early 80s—two politicians' sons, a prominent journalist…and Christian.

Christian's name had been left for last in the list so that the next couple of paragraphs could focus on his involvement with Astrid. Gordy's eyes widened when he read them. So Christian had dated the woman at one time; that explained the headline at least. But he didn't like the suggestive slant of the remarks: "…Yes, you read that last name correctly. Without question, the most unlikely of Franzén's escorts was Crown Prince Christian, the youngest of the four children born to King Arnulf I and Queen Susanna. Then 31, Christian met Franzén in a Sundborg nightclub with a fairly wild reputation, and somehow the two hit it off and were seen frequently around the city for the next five months. The royal family was curiously silent about Christian's escapade with Franzén, but media speculation was rabid. When Franzén moved on to chase Sicko, lead singer of At Death's Door, Christian dropped out of sight and the media gave up on him. He is now married to third wife Leslie, the daughter of Mr. Roarke of Fantasy Island; attempts to reach the former prince for comment were thwarted or went unanswered.

"Is it possible that the prince was infected by Franzén? Even more shocking—could he have passed the disease on to her? Prior to meeting Franzén, Christian had been involved with only three other women: his first wife, Norwegian socialite Johanna Rollefsen, who was killed in a train derailment in July 1980; oil-empire heiress Ingela Vikslund; and Swedish film starlet Maria Dahl. Little is known about these relationships despite many attempts to research the former prince's background for this story. Christian and his current wife, married in January 2001, recently were seen at a party for their first wedding anniversary, as shown in these exclusive photos…"

Gordy swore aloud and shook his head. Now they were suggesting that Christian might be the reason the singer was ill? As little as he knew about Christian's dating history, it just sounded wrong to him. He couldn't pin down exactly what it was about Christian that made him feel that way; maybe it was the fact that he'd always been such a private person, so much so that whenever he was seen stepping out with some woman, it had probably been front-page news in Lilla Jordsö for weeks on end. He stared at two of his own shots of Christian and Leslie, sitting together at a table with a couple of their friends visible in the background, each one with an arm around the other and looking very happy. "Y'know, Christian," Gordy muttered aloud, "you oughta sue this rag."

That reminded him of his remark to Maureen Harding about possibly contacting her husband to file a suit of his own. He wondered how feasible that really was. So far he hadn't been paid for those pictures, but now he didn't care if he ever was. It would feel like tainted money to him. On the other hand, he could always sue for failure to compensate…or would that look all wrong too? Gordy groaned and massaged his forehead, trying to forestall the headache he could feel coming on. Everybody had been accusing him of selling out, and if he sued for lack of payment, it'd be true. He did, at least, still have the negatives; but in today's highly technological world, he had to wonder what that was worth anymore.

Tired of potato chips and looking for something more substantial, he wandered back into the kitchen and poked idly around in cabinets, carrying a British magazine with him and dividing his attention between it and his search for sustenance. The British publication put an even more lurid slant on the thing than the New York one had done; the author of its piece had a sort of "nudge-and-wink" style that made Gordy grind his teeth. Various other publications treated the whole thing with widely differing degrees of gravity, but they all essentially repeated one another. By the time he got around to a small tabloid about the size of a Reader's Digest issue, a periodical that in fact came from Lilla Jordsö, he was disgusted and discouraged, with the feeling that it wasn't even worth trying to clear himself. Nothing had given him any useful information; he had been able only to ascertain that nobody else had used his pictures for their stories.

He couldn't read jordiska, of course, but there was little doubt that this magazine said nothing any different from any of the others. He glanced at the various pictures—this time, there was a full-page shot of Christian and the singer during the time they'd been dating, with Franzén grinning slyly and Christian wearing a slightly annoyed smile—before he happened to see something odd across the bottom of one page and paused to get a better look at it. It was a website for Astrid Franzén.

An idea began to take shape in Gordy's head and he got back online, then typed the name of the site into the search bar and hit the "enter" key. It took so long for the site to come up that he suspected it must be getting countless hits generated by all the recent press. He was willing to be patient, though, and waited it out, at one point grabbing his cell phone and calling in an order for pizza, which arrived before the site had finished loading.

Finally he was in, and he checked out the various features. The site, it developed, could be read in English, Spanish, French, German or jordiska, and contained a biography of the singer and assorted photographs, mostly of her in concert. Gordy wondered what language she sang in; until this morning he'd never heard of her. He scrolled down the main page and scanned the bottom…and there, in tiny print, was the pseudo-English-looking word elektropost. What on earth did that mean? It was probably jordiska, which meant the only person who'd be able to translate it for him was Christian—who, of course, wasn't speaking to him. Gordy peered at it, frowned, then shrugged to himself and clicked on it just to see what would happen.

To his great amazement, a blank e-mail message came up, with an address already entered in the top bar. Gordy's fledgling idea took sudden flight, and in a burst of inspiration he began to type.

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Gordy Strassner and I am acquainted with Christian, the former prince of Lilla Jordsö. The current issue of an American publication used some photos I took of Christian and his wife, Leslie, at their first-anniversary party here on Fantasy Island, whose newspaper I work for.

I just saw the magazine today and discovered the real subject of the story my pictures were used for. I'm not sure what other publications are saying, but this one suggests that maybe it was the prince who was the reason Miss Franzén is ill. I'm pretty sure that isn't the case. I'm thinking about suing that magazine for fraudulent use of my photos, but frankly I'm not the only one who'd have reason to sue. Prince Christian definitely would, and I guess Miss Franzén would too.

I don't know if Miss Franzén herself would see this. If she is reading this: please, I'd really appreciate a response. Christian and his wife both think I sold them out, and that's just not true. It would do them a lot of good if you could speak out and let the truth be known. Me, I gotta fight my own fight, but it'd make me feel better if you could tell these media hounds to lay off Christian. He doesn't deserve this.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely, Gordy Strassner

He read the message over a couple of times, changed some words, then sent it and fell back in the chair, taking a big bite out of a slice of pizza. It was a long shot, to be sure, but he was willing to try anything now.