“Enchanté,” he said to her. “I’m sure.”
Roux grinned, but it wasn’t her normal smile. It was the smile she got when someone paid attention to her, when they noticed her. It was real and warm and I almost felt like I should look away, like Roux and Ames should have this moment for themselves.
Ryo, apparently, felt differently.
“So you’re here,” he said. “Finally. And Maggie’s here, along with her two rogues. Can we please get to work?”
“Right,” Ames said, plopping down between Élodie and Roux. “So. Maggie. We heard you almost got shot. Good work not dyin’.”
“Um, thank you?” I said.
“About that,” Jesse said, his hand cupped around his coffee mug. “So we’re all cool just sitting in front of these large windows?” He pointed at the arched windows that lined one of the kitchen walls. “No one’s worried about a follow-up attack?”
“They’re bulletproof and tinted,” Élodie said. “Please do not worry.”
“Yeah, no offense,” Roux said, “but I’ve heard that before. Let me guess: the Collective put the windows in. Because if so, that won’t make me feel any safer.”
“The Collective,” Ames scoffed. “You still trust them after all they did to you?”
Roux and Jesse both looked at me, and I took a deep breath.
“I don’t know what to believe,” I said, “but it would be a lot easier to figure out if you told me what we were doing here and who you were.”
Ryo, Ames, and Élodie all looked at one another. “We used to be part of the Collective, too,” Élodie said. “Until they tried to turn us, then erased our identities.”
I felt both Roux and Jesse look at me.
“And some other things,” Ames added, pulling off a piece of chicken with his fingers.
“Care to elaborate?” Jesse asked.
“It’s complicated.”
“You know what’s complicated?” I said. “Flying all night to Paris after someone opens fire on your family. That’s complicated.”
Ames grinned and pointed at her and Élodie. “You two, you love to make it all woo-woo-y.”
“Well, it’s not like we explain it that often!” Élodie protested. Her hair was in her face, and she twisted it back into a hasty bun. “We don’t have open membership, Ames.”
“Can we back this up a moment, please?” I interrupted them. “Let’s go back to that ex-Collective part.”
“That’s the best part,” Ames agreed, then popped the chicken in his mouth and leaned so far back in his chair that I was afraid he would fall.
“I’ll start,” he said. “They recruited me when I was in high school in Dublin, said I had a gift for mechanics and locks and such.”
I tried not to bristle with jealousy.
“And then when I turned eighteen, they wanted me to go further, do more dangerous things.”
“Which you probably loved,” Élodie muttered.
“’Course I did!” Ames grinned. “But there’s dangerous and then there’s what they asked me to do. Spying on other members of the Collective, hunting down people who tried to leave.” He shrugged. “That’s not what I do, mate. I don’t turn on friends. When I said no, they tried to kill me. So I ran.”
He told the story like he was describing a trip to the supermarket. Jesse’s posture was ramrod straight next to me, Roux’s eyes were wide, and I realized that I had my hand over my heart.
“Tell ’em your story.” Ames nodded at Ryo. “That’s a good one.”
“I was in Tokyo,” Ryo said, rubbing his hand over his face. I wondered how much sleep they were getting. “The Collective came to me and interrogated me about Élodie for hours.”
“I was in Dakar, in Senegal,” she interjected. “I had no idea about any of this. Things had been so slow with work lately, you know. The Collective said we should take some time, go visit our families. They just wanted to separate us.”
“But you two were already together?” Jesse asked.
Ryo nodded. “Since we were fifteen. We went to boarding school in Paris.”
I thought of my parents and said nothing.
“The Collective recruited us, too, just like Ames,” he continued. “But they said Élodie had turned and I couldn’t get ahold of her at all.”
“They did the same thing to me,” Élodie said. “They said that Ryo had gone rogue, that he had stolen evidence, and they wanted me to help find him. But I knew he had not done anything of the sort.” Her eyes blazed with anger and her fingernails were digging into the wooden table. Ryo must have noticed, too, because he reached over and covered her hand with his.
“So we ran,” Ryo said. “And apparently the Collective didn’t like that very much.”
My mind was spinning at a furious pace, trying to keep up with the story and the connections to my life. “When was this?”
“The beginning of summer,” Ames said.
“Angelo,” I said, and all three of our new friends nodded. “He got you out.”
“He smuggled me out of Dakar,” Élodie said, “and got Ree into Paris.”
“Ree!” Ames snickered, which made Ryo turn red.
“Why do you have to call me that?” he muttered to Élodie.
“Ignore that sai sai,” she said, nodding at Ames. “He is an idiot. Angelo should have left him in Dublin.”
“But he didn’t, so the story has a happy ending!” Ames grinned, then looked at us. “So you’re the safecracker,” he said, pointing at me. “What do you two do? Angelo never mentioned that you might be joining our little soirée.”
Roux just smiled at him. “I deal in sarcasm, punching people, and ordering takeout.”
“I specialize in being a civilian who manages to find himself in life-threatening situations,” Jesse replied. “It’s a natural talent. Oh, and apparently I speak French, too.”
Ames, Élodie, and Ryo all gaped at us. “You’re civilians?” Ryo cried. “And they tried to kill you, too?”
Jesse nodded. “Blew up the building and everything, but Angelo got us out, too.”
“This isn’t the first time someone’s tried to kill us, actually,” Roux replied, helping herself to some cheese and bread. “Last year, Maggie had to break into this guy’s safe and he was chasing us but I punched him in the nose.”
Ames let out a laugh and looked at her in admiration. “I’d have loved to see that.”
“Stick around.” Roux shrugged. “I come in pretty handy.”
“You’ll never get tired of that story, will you?” I said, and she shook her head and smiled at me through a mouthful of bread.
“Well, we are safe here, at least for now,” Élodie said. “This is Angelo’s home, he brought us here. And the tunnels, of course, they are safe, too.”
“You know about the tunnels?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
Roux raised her hand. “Can we pretend that some of us haven’t heard about these tunnels?”
“Good idea,” Jesse added.
“You don’t know about the tunnels?” Ames said, looking serious for the first time in our conversation.
“My parents told me about them,” I said, sitting up in my chair. “You’ve been in them?”
Ames took a pencil out of his pocket and started to lightly trace the eraser end across the table. “There’s a network of tunnels underneath Paris. Sort of the flip side of our City of Light, yeah? The tourists love it. But they’re messy and damp and cold. Still, though, fun for the whole family.” He grinned and I saw Roux grin back.
Oh, boy.
“But we use them a little … differently,” Ryo continued as Ames and Roux continued to make googly eyes at each other. There was a soft lump sound under the table, and Ames winced and shot Ryo a dirty look as he rubbed his shin.
Élodie rolled her eyes. “You two take forever explaining this,” she said. “I’ll do it.” She set her cup down and looked squarely at Jesse, Roux, and me. “When we went to school here, we use
d the tunnels under Paris to set up film festivals and art shows, and we snuck into old cultural buildings to repair them without the government’s knowledge.” She sat back in her seat, satisfied. “See? I did it in one sentence.”
“What do you mean, you repaired them?” Roux asked. “What, like you fix their lights or something?”
“Or something,” Ryo and Ames chorused.
“There are some buildings in Paris that will get attention,” Ryo added. “The Louvre, for example. It’s a massive tourist site and it has the Mona Lisa, of course, so the government will always pay for repairs.”
“Its security is absolute crap, though,” Élodie added.
“True,” Ames said. “But Ryo is right. It’s in fine condition. But we think that maybe there are other things that are also worth a bit of our attention. So we fix them up, show them a night on the town, and we do it all without even a thank-you. Rude, I know, but hey.” He let out a sad sigh. “Being a merry band of artistic criminals has its own special set of perks.”
“So you repair things and you use the tunnels to access buildings?” Jesse asked.
“Mostly, yes. We set up shop in different buildings.” Élodie smiled to herself. “We used to have this little saying: If it’s already been created, it must be possible to re-create. That is what we wanted to do, re-create parts of Paris. But then we joined the Collective and we came back and found that all of the work we had done in school was destroyed.” She looked so sad. “We forget that not everyone sees things the same way, but they are the idiots. You can appreciate the past and still have an iPhone, you know. It is not difficult.”
“Did you—I mean, do you know my parents?” I asked them.
“Your parents are so cool.” Roux sighed dreamily. “Can we swap, please? Or can they just adopt me?”
“Oh, we’ve never met,” Ryo assured me. “We’ve only met Angelo.”
“He used to provide a bit of financial backing,” Ames said. “For tools and such. And a nice establishment to stay in every now and then. We’re very picky about our chandeliers, as you can imagine. No thief worth their weight in gold would settle for any old bulb.”
Jesse smiled to himself and ran a hand over his eyes. “Maggie.” He sighed. “We’re never going to get bored, are we?”
I ignored his comment, though. I had never missed my parents as much as I did right then.
“Now it’s our turn for some questions,” Élodie said. “What did you do to piss off the Collective? Because if you’re here with us, there’s a reason.”
“What did Angelo tell you?” I asked, not sure of how much to say. I had tucked the gold coins into my pillowcase, hidden from everyone else, but I could still feel their weight in my hand, the way they clinked together.
“That you might be here one day,” Ryo said. “He didn’t mention your friends, obviously.”
“A very nice surprise,” Ames added, smiling at Roux. “And you, too, Jesse, of course.”
“Hey, no offense,” Jesse said, smiling a little. “Feel free to keep eye-flirting with Roux. You’re not hurting my feelings.”
Roux groaned. “You’re such a mood killer, Jesse, seriously.”
“So you must have something of Dominic’s,” Ryo guessed. “Seeing as how you’re the official safecracker of the group.”
“I have several of his things that he wants back. But he stole them from someone else.”
“Plural? Them?” Élodie asked.
I took a deep breath and dug my hands into my pockets. “Are you sure you want to know about this? Because if you do, we have to all be in this together.”
Ames gestured to the table. “We already are. Breaking bread in Paris is a sure sign of team loyalty.”
I stood up. “Be right back,” I said, then came back a minute later with the velvet pouch. “Go ahead,” I said, handing them to Élodie. “Be my guest.”
She took it and shook the coins out, her eyes widening at the sight of them. “Are these … ?” she started to say.
“Yes,” I told her, knowing the recognition in her eyes. “They are.”
Ames’s eyes lit up when he saw them, but Ryo just furrowed his brow. “The double-eagle gold coin,” he said. “How do you know these aren’t fake?”
“The fact that someone sent a crew of hitmen to try and kill us after I took them was kind of a tip-off.”
“Shame, really,” Ames said. “The Collective used to be so admirable.” He picked up one coin, then rolled it over the back of his fingers before making it disappear into his palm. “Oops,” he said, then made it reappear. “Gotta work on that one.”
“How much are these worth?” Jesse asked. “Like, roughly?”
“About seventy million dollars,” I said, and Roux leaned away from the table like the coins might suddenly bite her. “Roughly.”
Ryo let out a low whistle. “And Dominic wants them back, I assume?”
“Yep,” I said. “And since the Collective accused my parents of stealing the coins, my family and I probably won’t be too safe if that happens. Not to mention your safety, as well.”
“Right, so we’re all dead, then,” Ames said cheerfully. “Drink up!”
“So what we do?” Roux asked. “Call him up and say, ‘Hey, let’s arrange a trade.’” I knew she was kidding, but she had a point.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve always taken things, I’ve never had to give them back before. And these are technically stolen material,” I added, and Ryo nodded along with me. “Angelo said that they were taken from the US Mint in 1933, so that’s partly why they’re so valuable. The Secret Service has arranged stings to get them back before. So there’s that, too.”
“The fun just keeps coming, doesn’t it.” Jesse groaned. “What else, do they explode? Are they really tiny grenades?”
I made a face at him and he gave me a goofy smile in return. “No,” I said. “They’re just gold coins. That people really want. A lot.”
“Has Dominic asked for them back yet?” Ryo asked me.
“Well, I don’t know, we’re not exactly on speaking terms right now,” I said. “I mean, I lost his cell, then I e-mail him and it takes him three weeks to write back, then the next thing you know it’s finals week and I’m just a mess.”
Élodie smirked at Ryo. “I like her.”
“What I meant to say,” Ryo said, bumping Élodie’s leg with his knee while giving me a sarcastic look, “was that he’s going to find this place and come calling. It’s more of a when than an if, innit?”
Ryo had a point. “Probably,” I admitted.
“Angelo will know what to do,” Ames said, picking up another coin and rolling it around on his left hand this time. “He’ll make demands through someone.”
“He called when you were sleeping, by the way,” Ryo said. “He said that Dominic is not in Paris. Yet, anyway. That’s all he knew. He knows you have the coins, though, and without you, he doesn’t get them. So we’re all right now, at least for a day or two.”
I felt a small twinge of jealousy when Ryo said that Angelo had called, but I let it slide. “I can’t imagine Dominic is happy about that,” I muttered. “I don’t think he’s used to having his toys taken away.”
“Yes, the Collective doesn’t like to lose,” Ames said, the first time I had heard a trace of any anger in his voice. “Look at Colton Hooper. He spent ten years trying to kidnap you.”
“You heard about him?” I asked, and they all nodded.
“Can I just say that breaking his nose was so satisfying?” Roux chimed in. “Because I did. There was blood everywhere, like, gushing out—”
“Roux,” I said, still wincing at the memory. Blood was not my strong suit.
“Good on ya,” Ames said, smiling at her.
And then Roux did something I have never seen her do before: she blushed. It was faint in the low light, but her cheeks pinked up and she ducked her head away. Ames just kept smiling at her and I looked away, suddenly feeling like I nee
ded to give them privacy.
“Can I see the tunnels?” I asked tentatively. I wanted to see where my parents had been, their old home back when they were my age. I wanted to feel connected to them in this crazy new world of ours where nothing felt safe at all.
“Yeah, enough about the Collective!” Ames declared. “We already know what our guests here do, breaking locks and noses and bread and everything in between. Let’s show them how we travel through Paris.” He held out his hand to Roux, who took it like he was holding out a lit firecracker. “It’s time for a little show-and-tell.”
Chapter 30
“If you think I’m going down there, you’re crazy.”
Roux stood with her arms crossed in front of her, shivering a little in Ames’s coat. I was standing next to her, wearing one of Élodie’s sweaters while Jesse had his hoodie zipped up to his throat. “You don’t exactly get to pack when you’re on the run,” I told Élodie when we slipped out the back door of the building, avoiding the front door entirely and instead going through a basement door that had the same archaic lock on it. Ames opened it in less than a minute, using a tiny tool that fit in his palm, and I watched in amazement as he clicked through all four locks as Jesse laughed under his breath.
“You need to teach me how to use that thing,” I said, trying not to look too impressed.
“Relax,” Ames said, patting me on the shoulder as we went through the door. “I might be able to pick locks, but you’re still the safecracker.”
The six of us went down the street toward a Métro entrance, but instead of entering the underground station, Ryo took a right and went easily through what looked like a janitor-style door. Élodie followed him, and we followed her and found ourselves suddenly in a tight space that left little room to breathe and even less to move. It was slightly damp and very cool, much cooler than outside, and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the light.
“Is it a bad time to mention that I’m claustrophobic?” Roux asked, her voice small.