A Spy Like Me (20 page)

I crept along the best I could, avoiding the
mud. A layer of dust clung to my wet clothes and face. With every
step, I strained to hear voices. But I heard nothing, only my
ragged breathing and muffled footsteps. I trailed my fingers along
the small hills and valleys of the wall. Then I heard the
unmistakable voices of Jolie and Malcolm. Arguing.

Except it was in French, damn it.

Malcolm being down here didn’t surprise me at
all. Jolie and Malcolm were thick as thieves, evil twin brothers. I
shut out my broken and confused feelings and focused on the moment.
I needed a plan.

Think. Think. Eventually, they’d return and
go back up the ladder to Jolie’s kitchen. Had Malcolm been with
him? Or was there a separate entrance and Malcolm met him? I needed
to hide, so after they left I could figure out what the hell was so
important they had to conduct business five or seven, maybe ten
stories underneath their cute little cottage.

Several small pillars of stacked stones were
in the cavern, but nothing was wide enough to hide behind except
for the hole in the wall behind one of them that was big enough for
me to crawl into. While their angry voices drifted from the other
room, I crept across the floor, weaved between the pillars, and
reached the hole. My skin crawled like a zillion ants were marching
over my body. What was in here? Did animals live down here? Like
zombie rats that had morphed into larger creatures with sharper
teeth?

Their voices drew closer. I practically dove
into my hiding place, elbows and knees slamming into the knobby
surface. My head banged into the rock-hard ceiling, and I bit my
tongue to avoid crying out. I crawled to the back of the hole and
curled into a ball, hoping, praying, they wouldn’t see me. The
crowbar in my backpack jabbed into my spine.

Malcolm and Jolie passed by like ghosts from
the past, their shadowy images looming over my hiding place. And
out of the darkness, Aimee appeared. Her hair seemed a bit on the
fritz and her face was pale, but she was there! She was safe! A
part of me wanted to crawl out and give her a big hug, letting her
know I’d never believed that stupid cover story, and say she’d have
to be a lot smarter to fool me in the future. She continued to
talk, a crease appearing on her forehead.

Jolie lifted his arms in exasperation.
Malcolm shifted onto one leg and kept glancing at the passageway
like he wanted to exit stage left. But why? Crawling, like vermin
in the deep, dark, hidden places of Paris fit him perfectly. My
eyes were drawn to the way his hair fell below his eyebrows. His
lips were pressed together as if he wanted to speak his mind. His
face was pale, almost sickly, like he was nervous. Go Malcolm. Tell
them you’re through with them! I wanted to send telepathic messages
to his brain convincing him to make better moral decisions. A black
T-shirt matched his black jeans. He looked quite the spy. His hand
rested on a coiled rope on his belt.

I looked twice, wanting to pull out my
flashlight. The rope glimmered in the soft light. But ropes don’t
usually take on a gleam in candlelight. Blood rushed to my face as
I realized it wasn’t a rope, but a whip. An Indiana Jones whip. My
jaw tensed and my teeth ground together as I held back the urge to
vomit all over their feet. There must be a practical reason Malcolm
would need a whip down here. For example, maybe they found a large
rodent-like creature with fangs. Or maybe Malcolm was practicing to
become a cowboy and go back to the States and compete in rodeos. I
mean it’s not like you can practice that kind of thing in daylight
without someone suspecting you had a prisoner locked in your
basement.

Oh, crap.

A prisoner. A whip. And he carried a small
tool chest in his other hand, probably filled with corkscrews,
pliers, and nail files. Construction tools were candy to someone
like Malcolm. Someone like Malcolm. Jolie was paying Malcolm to
torture a prisoner? Why? What kind of trouble could a pastry chef
get into?

I studied the yellowish hue of Malcolm’s
face. Was he the tough guy he pretended to be? Or had he gotten
involved in something he couldn’t get out of? The splinters that
used to be my heart broke into more splinters. Malcolm had never
made me promises. So we’d shared a few kisses. Big deal.

He entered the conversation and motioned
toward the hallways. They split off. He headed down one tunnel, and
Jolie and Aimee the other. But before Jolie swept from the room he
blew out all the candles. Just what I needed. Creep factor.

I pulled out my handy dandy flashlight and
flicked it on, ready to go rescue a prisoner. A scream rose into my
throat as I bit down on my hand. The gaping eyes of a skeleton,
embedded into the stones, stared at me from the ceiling. A creepy
crawly feeling attacked my body until I jumped into action. The
knobby stones dug into my knees and I shined the light down at
them. Bones and more bones. Knees and elbows of the dead poked
through. I remembered feeling the hills and valleys of the walls.
Bones. I breathed in and out trying not to cry and puke at the same
time. I flashed my dim light against the walls. I caught the
reflection of gaping jawbones, nasal cavities and skulls. I was in
a crypt!

I scrambled out of my hiding place, which was
more like a tomb of some kind. I shuddered in an attempt to shake
off the imagined feeling of bony fingers tracing down my spine or
tickling my toes. The breath of past souls on my neck pushed me
into the next room, where I promptly dropped to my knees not caring
about the dead body parts in the walls. They couldn’t hurt me. A
sob formed deep in my chest. A chair sat in the middle of the
floor. An empty chair. With frayed ropes around it.

Was the prisoner dead? Had they been arguing
about how to get rid of the body? I remembered the crease on
Aimee’s forehead. She would have more than a crease if someone had
died. Maybe. I smiled. Maybe the prisoner escaped. That was why
they went down the tunnels. To search for the prisoner!

My body shivered as my wet clothes pressed
against my skin. I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of the
chair, the frayed ropes, and the cavernous room. A sudden image
popped into my mind—as if ever since I saw the empty chair, my
brain had been working in the background, humming, buzzing,
searching for clues from the past week and a half. I remembered the
fear in Mom’s eyes when she talked to me at the Eiffel Tower. That
felt like a century ago. Had she been hiding from Jolie? Maybe he
knew about the package and the instructions to shoot him, so he
grabbed Mom and tortured her for information. And that’s why
Malcolm infiltrated Spy Games and my family. Because Mom wasn’t
talking. My fingers curled into a fist. I wanted to punch him in
the stomach.

Footsteps echoed from the tunnel. I’d punch
him later. His muffled voice called out to his partners in crime. I
needed to get the hell out and put the puzzle pieces together over
a creamy latte and powdered donut. But I couldn’t go back the same
way. I had no choice but to run through the tunnels and hope I
didn’t get lost.

Without looking back, because I didn’t want
to slam into a wall, I sprinted through narrow tunnels and
low-ceilinged caverns. I brushed against limestone walls and
sloshed through squishy mud. My legs moved with the fear of a whip
wrapping around them at any second, or kissing my back. I kept my
eyes trained right in front me because I had no desire to see the
faces, or the lack of faces, of the dead staring at me, telling me
I’d never find a way out, that I was doomed to wander these
catacombs and eventually join their skeleton crew.

I wasn’t exactly in
run-from-your-possible-killer-through-the-catacombs shape. And
every time I stopped to heave out a couple of breaths because the
thick air seemed to suck it from me, I heard them. Muffled
footsteps. Panicked French from more than one person. They were
after me.

I ran. Every footstep jarred my body. The
walls blurred. Sweat dripped into my eyes and stung. What would
they do to me? If they tortured me, I couldn’t be as strong as Mom.
I’d cave at the first sight of the pliers heading toward my teeth
or at the first snap of the whip. But if it was information on Mom
they wanted or her secrets, I wouldn’t be able to tell them. Then
they’d take it the next step and break all my fingers, one by
one.

A sob rose up from my chest causing my throat
to burn. A pool of light shimmered up ahead. Escape! I stumbled the
last few steps to a circular set of stairs going up, up, and up. My
legs still ached from my climb up the tower in the Notre Dame.
These steps made those seem like chocolate cake. Never ending. I
pushed and pushed.

This was absolutely crazy. Why had I ever
complained about posing as an art student at the Louvre or dealing
with wannabes like Peyton? Spy Games was nothing compared to the
real thing. And I wasn’t even a real spy, just a determined
teenager. Almost at the top, voices echoed from below. Malcolm and
Jolie. I stopped, my foot in midair. With my hand cupped around my
ear, I turned toward the voices.

“
C’est reediculus
!” Jolie peppered
Malcolm with words.

They continued back and forth, their words
coming out in surges as they made their way up the stairs. I should
go, but listening was too tempting. I heard my name and
Extravaganza. Great. Talking about me again. Really. I’m not that
interesting.

Jolie hmphed. Malcolm kept talking. He said
my name again, and I dug my fingers into the stone wall. What else
would he share about me? He didn’t know that much.

He slipped into English. “You don’t have to
worry about her. Classic case of a girl. Abandoned by her mommy.
Trying to make up for it by pretending to be Martha Stewart.”

I hid my gasp. Is that how he thought of
me?

Malcolm continued. “She has some skill from
working for her dad. But overall.” He paused, probably to breathe.
“She is not capable of infiltrating your organization.”

Jolie’s voice grew louder and more suspicious
but he didn’t switch over to English.

Malcolm laughed out loud between wheezes. It
turned my insides. Malcolm was someone different for everyone. For
Dad he was the loyal staff member, knowledgeable in all areas. For
me he was the flirty coworker and loyal friend—or he acted like it.
For Jolie? A hired spy.

As they kept talking, I stood straighter,
trying to control my rage at Malcolm’s cheap shots at me. At his
lies. At his cowardice in not taking the high road but rather doing
Jolie’s dirty work.

The conversation dwindled, and Malcolm asked
in a threatening voice. “What would you like me to do with her?
You’ve barely tapped into my skills since hiring me.”

And then Jolie spoke in English, loud and
clear. “Get rid of her.”

I gasped. I know, it’s so cliche, but it’s
not often I hear a real death threat. Forget Peyton. He was a
little lost lamb grazing in a meadow filled with wild flowers. A
pompous jerk and a tad bit too emotional. But he would never make
death threats on innocent teen girls.

That’s when I realized Jolie and Malcolm had
stopped conversing about their evil plans of elimination. No voices
echoed up the stairwell. Finger by finger, I pulled my hand away
from the wall. Slowly, I lifted my foot off the stair and backed
up. The stair shuddered.

I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood.
What if they exterminated me right then? Stuck me in a freezer.
Permanently? Would Malcolm do that? When their steps pounded below,
I dropped any pretense of a subtle get-away. I burst up the stairs
like there was only one pastry left on the shelves. Up, up, and up.
Legs burning and pain shooting through my chest. At the top, my
shoulder banged against a door as I fumbled with the knob.

I flew through the passage with no idea where
I’d end up.

The hallway. The dirty cobwebby hallway. I
sprinted down it and up the small set of stairs. Freedom was close.
I whipped open the door leading into
Les Pouffant’s
. The
maitre d’
stared at me from down his long, pointy nose.
Angry French voices followed me, footsteps thumped. I slammed the
door shut. I had to get out of there. As in last week.

The manager grabbed my arm. All the chefs
turned and stared at me with their beady eyes. Their arms froze in
position with frosting tubes in their hands. I must look like a
total catacomb-zombie-freak, covered in drying dust and grime. They
advanced toward me, so I did what any panicked girl caught spying
on a famous French pastry chef would do. I kicked the guy in the
shins. A girl’s toes are her best weapon! He let out a howl and in
the process let go of my arm. I ran from kitchen, pushing waiters
and chefs to my right and left.

“
Zut alors
!” and other French niceties
got lost in the crashing of pans and dishes.

Cakes splattered against the wall.
Cream-filled pastries smeared into perfectly manicured French
mustaches. I left them behind and sprinted out the front door.

Young couples in love cast strange looks like
I was a bit cuckoo. And maybe I was.

“
Arrête
!” Someone yelled behind
me.

Of course, I had no plans of stopping.
Darkness shadowed the tables and the streets. I ducked under the
old-fashioned-looking lights with large bulbs strung across the
outside of the shop. I tried not to bump tables and knock over the
vases holding roses as I weaved between them. I fled the scene,
wishing I’d run all those fivers and tenners Dad had asked me to
do. My breath wheezed out like an old air-conditioner on its last
life. I dodged and ducked tables and Parisians out for a stroll.
The doorways of cute little boutiques blurred past me as I ran.