"What do you mean, the crown isn't there?"

Marc gritted his teeth as he spoke into his cell phone just before noon the following day. He looked across the room to where Aldara was brushing out her wet hair after her shower. She sat on his bed cross-legged in just a pair of boy-short panties and a matching blue cotton bra. The ensemble shouldn't have been sexy but on her it was downright seductive.

"Somebody trashed her room," the voice on the other end patiently ...