Thirty-two
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. 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 kiss. 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.
Footsteps echoed from the tunnel. 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-through-the-catacombs shape. 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 Jo
lie. I stopped, my foot in midair. With my hand cupped around my ear, I turned toward the voices.
“C’est reediculous!” 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 and 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. Did he care about me at all?
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. “Take care of her.”
I gasped. I know, it’s so cliche, but what did he mean? “Take care of her.” Was that a 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? He said he wouldn’t hurt me, but I couldn’t take my chances. 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.