Thirty-one
Please, please go into the bedroom.
Jolie didn’t. The floor creaked outside the bathroom and I closed my eyes, wishing I could disappear. The whistling entered the bathroom, and I cringed. I heard a zipper.
Oh no. I shuddered as he relieved himself. Brief thoughts of whacking him over the head with the crowbar passed through my mind but then he zipped his pants back up. I held my breath and silently prayed. I begged forgiveness for anything and everything. The last argument I’d had with my mom before she left, my snobby disdain for Spy Games, and my treatment of the clients, for not being a better friend to Aimee by asking more personal questions, and for eating the last package of Oreos Dad had brought over from the States, and then telling him a mouse had gotten to them. If I made it through this, I’d confess to everything.
My breaths were short and shallow, but when his chapped hand with hairy knuckles appeared over my head, they stopped altogether. I don’t usually notice hands. But this one could be my downfall, and it hovered inches from my face. I closed my eyes, waiting for him to grab my ponytail and drag me out. Instead, the knob squeaked and the pipes shuddered to the life. Two seconds later, tiny pricks of freezing water struck my face, arms, and pierced my clothing. I gasped for my breath. A shower? He was taking a shower? His pants landed on the floor outside me. Oh crap!
Water streamed into my mouth and dripped into my ears. Terrible foreboding images flashed through my brain, scarring me forever. I did not want to see a pastry chef, this pastry chef, in the nude, with everything all hanging in the freeze. I mean breeze.
Someone rapped on the door and shouted. They sounded rushed and upset. I prayed again. My lips moved in silent confession as I tried not to choke on the water. This time, I confessed to all my deep, dark hidden secrets, like not telling Dad the truth about Malcolm and our date when it happened, and stealing his tracking devices to spy on Peyton.
“Zut alors!”
The water shut off. Jolie pulled on his pants. My body trembled violently.
The girl on the other side of the door kept yelling through it. Jolie spit out directions and rushed out of the bathroom. Something had happened. The hand of God in their lives. To save me. And I was supposed to be the hero.
They clomped down the stairs, and I sucked in air like I would never breathe again. Hairs were plastered to my head, and I felt like a drowned rat. I probably looked like one too. I listened for the front door, and then waited for what seemed like hours, shivering, trying to get warm.
When the house quieted and the panic faded, I crawled out of the tub, not caring about leaving my wet footprints. Everything clicked. The jacket. The Harry Potter music. The girl’s voice. I rushed down the tiny hall, barely staying on my feet and crashed into the girl’s room. While fumbling through her desk, I thought back on the family pictures hanging in the living room. Many were old black-and-white photos of unsmiling ancestors. But many showed the growing up of a girl with blonde curls.
I swayed on my feet, goosebumps popping out on my already-cold and shriveled skin. How could this be? I ripped open a second drawer, fighting back tears, looking for more current pictures. Finally, I found the tip of one poking out underneath a deck of cards. I pulled the photo out. My heart splintered.
Aimee and Jolie stood, with their arms around each other, smiling, happy, close. Aimee and Marie weren’t prisoners. They lived here. With Jolie. They were family.
I couldn’t rip my eyes away from the photo. My friend smiled adoringly up at her grandfather. The crinkle in the corner of her eyes that I always loved when we joked about Spy Games brought a tightness to my throat. The picture slipped from my fingers and I slumped to the floor, blinking away tears. Our entire friendship was a lie.
Did she even care about me? Us? Memories flashed of my times with Aimee, whispering secrets, laughing over silly things like the ugly hat some person was wearing at the table near us. I’d felt guilty because our relationship seemed focused on me. When she’d disappeared, I’d partly blamed myself for not asking more questions and digging into her life more, like a friend should. But maybe, just maybe, that was how she’d wanted it.
No questions. No deep conversations—unless they were about me. No visits to her real home here with Jolie “the great” Pouffant. I couldn’t even begin to think about the implications of this information, and the ripple effect it had in what’d happened since Malcolm and I were first shot at. I didn’t want to think about it. I couldn’t.
Everything seemed to close in on me—the puffy pink pillows on her bed, the cute kitten posters on the wall, the flowered wallpaper. I scooted back across the wooden floors, ready to run, escape, and eat donuts for the next two hours. After scrambling to my feet, water still dripping from my hair and clothes, I ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. On the bottom step, my foot slipped in the river following me, and I fell flat on my face.
In front of a giant hole in the floor.
Jolie’s dining area off the kitchen had morphed into a gaping hole. My eyes widened as I took in the room. The table was turned on its side and shoved in the corner, the chairs stacked, and the carpet rolled back. I got to my knees, crawled over to the bell-shaped hole, and peered into the inky black darkness.
Warm, musty air, thick and heavy rose up from the hole. A rusty metal ladder clung to the side of the rocky wall. Did Jolie and Aimee go down there? Why? I knew what I should do. I should get my freakin’ ass out of there and walk—no run—straight to my dad and tell him everything. I mean everything. But what secrets were they hiding down there? This might be my only chance to find out the mystery surrounding my close friend, or ex-close-friend. And more importantly, how it was all connected to my family and me.
I couldn’t be foolish about plunging into a dark pit that probably didn’t lead to a nice, lighted cellar. Light. I needed a flashlight. All the spy gadgets and granola bars in my backpack wouldn’t help me in what were probably the catacombs under Paris. Weren’t these secret entrances totally illegal? I opened their kitchen drawers completely guilt-free and dug around until I found a flashlight.
After one last glance into the dark hole, I sent up a pretty shallow prayer and wondered if I’d ever see daylight again. Time to suck it up. I climbed down and down. My backpack weighed a ton and dripped water with every step. My legs trembled, and my heart pounded as the light from Jolie’s kitchen disappeared.
I clenched the flashlight in my teeth and kept peering down, but the ladder didn’t seem to end. Dizziness overwhelmed me, but I fought it off with every foot of the stone circular wall that passed. What did they store down here? Prisoners? Stolen gold? Extra pastries?
Finally, I reached the bottom. A narrow hallway opened up before me. I tiptoed through it, terrified with each step that a rat would run over my feet or worse I’d bump into a skeleton or something. The dull, flickering flashlight cast weird shadows and barely penetrated the darkness.
The passageway was short and opened into a small cavern. Niches carved into the walls held candles with small flames lighting the way. Water seeped from the limestone walls. A thick tree-trunk-like pillar of stone held up the ceiling, and the room branched off into two different hallways. I followed the one lit with candles and shoved the flashlight into my backpack for later.
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.