A Spy Like Me (4 page)

Dad took full advantage of everyone’s gawking
stares. He glanced around as if a hundred men in black suits with
ear buds were about to burst through the door. It was all part of
the act.

“We have a serious situation.” His deep
booming voice bounced off the walls and echoed between the rafters.
“A high profile executive has been taken for ransom. It’s your job
to follow the clues and save him. Before it’s too late.”

The warehouse door screeched open, and
everyone looked. Malcolm entered.

Malcolm? He was alive! Joy burst through my
veins and flooded my body. A zillion-ton weight lifted off me, and
I felt like I could float off the beam if I let go. We needed to
throw confetti and drink lemonade because I wasn’t a murderer after
all.

Malcolm strode across the room and I drank in
the sight of him, his moving limbs, his chest rising up and down as
he breathed! He settled into the back of the crowd, cool and
composed.

The instantaneous burst of joy over the fact
I wasn’t a murderer faded, and my blood went from simmering to
boiling. All this time, I believed he could’ve been dead. He
could’ve called, texted, or thrown pebbles at my window. Anything!
He probably didn’t show up to work at
Les Pouffant’s
just to
torture me.

I leaned slightly forward to catch a look at
his guilty face. I felt a spinning sensation before I realized I
was falling forward. I desperately reached for Aimee, swinging my
arms wildly. She caught the edge of my shirt, but gravity ripped it
from her hands. Air whooshed around me and I forgot all proper form
in free falling. My stomach dropped. Images of me going splat on
the cement floor flashed through my mind.

My whole body jerked, and it felt like my
arms were going to be ripped from their sockets. I stopped,
suspended in the air about ten feet from my rafter, high above the
heads of the wannabes who were so into my dad they didn’t notice a
thing. I swung back and forth, dangling from a wire. Gray held the
line, and I silently pled with him to pull me back up. Clearly, he
needed to develop his skills of telepathy.

Sweat tickled my armpits and dotted my
forehead as the cement and the heads of the people swung back and
forth in my vision. Malcolm became a blur. I was stuck until it was
time to drop. I’d look like a loser, but I didn’t care. Solid
ground. Nice, hard cement under my feet. That was all I cared
about.

Dad continued with his speech, obviously not
aware that with one slip of Gray’s hands, his one and only daughter
could become a floor decoration. “You’ll have to work together or
it will be very hard for your team to succeed—”

I blocked the rest out. I just wanted to stop
swinging like a monkey.

“And here’s the staff to help you with your
spy mission today. Give a hand to Nancy!”

Crap.

Nancy swooped past me to the cheering of the
crowd. Dad boomed out their names as they dropped down. Frankie.
Then Aimee. Of course, they all performed perfectly. One leg down,
one leg bent in the wire hook, one arm holding on, and one arm out
(kinda cheesy if you asked me). They all landed with grace and
style.

And then there was me.

Dad cleared his throat after an awkward
silence. Blood rushed to my face, mostly because I was tilting
forward.

“And folks, here’s Savvy,” he said

Gray slowly let out the line and my body
lowered, one painful yard at a time. My limbs hung useless, the
halter riding up between my legs. I begged the spy gods to whisk me
away, somewhere, anywhere.

The ground drew closer, and I tried to get my
feet to land first. But I just ended up flopping around like a fish
on a hook. After minutes of ultimate humiliation, I hovered inches
from the ground, close enough to kiss the dirty cement. A part of
me wanted to, and I swear I heard a snicker. Maybe it was
Malcolm.

Aimee helped me to my feet and guided me over
to the rest of the staff. I walked past the macho man and noted his
name: Cliff Peyton. Frankie winked at me. I refused to look at
Malcolm, and I didn’t have to look at my dad. Disappointment rolled
off him in Tsunami-like waves. I wanted to burst out that I’d
tried, but the guy I thought I’d killed just showed up alive.

I grabbed the easel and paints for my next
part of Spy Games and left before anyone could tell me what a spy
dork I was and that I should set up a cart and sell friendship
bracelets for the rest of my life.

As I traveled to the Louvre, I needed a
release, something to focus on besides the major-Malcolm-rage
ripping through me. That distraction came in pieces of colored
candy. After shoving a handful of Skittles into my mouth and
stuffing the package back in my bag, I strode into the humongous
courtyard of the palace of medieval kings. It surrounded me on
three sides, with turrets, arched entranceways, and fancy stone
work that made me want to wear a bustle and carry a parasol. Every
time, no fail, it sent a thrill through my chest, but all I could
focus on was the metal tray pressed against my skin.

My homemade bulletproof vest.

That’s right. After my humiliating fall from
the rafters, I shoved that baby right back into place before
leaving the warehouse.

A wind blew through, and I held the beret
against my head as I gripped my art supplies. Every few seconds, I
couldn’t help but glance around for anyone suspicious holding a
sniper rifle. I hurried through the early crowds and into the glass
pyramid, smack dab in the middle of the courtyard, which leads
downstairs to the information desk and into the museum. A special
tag allowed me to bypass buying a ticket. Sweet deal.

Aimee and I played informants. At the Louvre,
I passed off an envelope to the spy teams filled with crucial
information in exchange for money. She worked the Eiffel. There was
something very satisfying about collecting stacks of green. It
wasn’t real money, of course, but it looked it. If someone found a
stack lying on the side of the street, they wouldn’t know it was
fake until they were tracked down and thrown in jail for
counterfeiting.

Walking through the hallways that would soon
be bustling with tourists, I headed to the Vien Room on the second
floor. In a flash, my easel was set up, canvas ready to go, and
paints in hand. I loved being the first in the large room, enjoying
the company of the masterpieces on the wall. Only a small bench
with black padding decorated the room. The paintings more than made
up for the lack of fancy furniture. These quiet moments alone were
the hardest because inevitably they gave me time to think. And the
only thought crossing my mind was that someone shot at me the night
before.

Inspired by the old masters and with a shaky
hand, I added a few brilliant strokes to my half-finished
masterpiece of a naked angel with wings—a cherub kissing the
forehead of a half-clothed female. I blew it a kiss.
“Magnifico!”

“That’s bloody nice work,” a male voice with
a hot English accent said behind me. “Been working on it for a long
time?”

I peeked over my right shoulder. A young man
with long bushy hair covering his eyes set up his easel near mine.
Great. A real art student. He’d never understand my job. And I
wasn’t in the mood to explain.

“If you need any tips on the naked part, let
me know. Maybe I could be of help.” He didn’t even try to hide the
innuendo. Perv. I bit back my retort and focused on the wings,
squiggling my brush down the canvas, and I hoped he wouldn’t spot
me for what I was—a total fake. He turned his back to me with a
toss of his scraggly hair.

With my eye on my watch and my arm poised to
paint, the first spy group entered the room. They stuck out like a
finger painting next to a Van Gogh, their rainy day trench coats
and sunglasses screaming
wannabe
. Huddled in a group by the
opposite doorway, they searched for the struggling art student
(a.k.a., me). By the end of the four hours they’d be knocking out
bad guys in a cutthroat race for the prize.

“Oo la la! What a gorgeous painting!” With a
dramatic flourish, I finished off the wings. “Just being here among
the masters fills my soul with love.”

“Do they always dress like that?” The art
student nodded toward the amateur spies as one of them crossed the
room. He pushed his hair away from his face and revealed his
familiar face. Malcolm! He was wearing a wig!

“What are you doing here?” I muttered out of
the corner of my mouth while keeping my eyes glued on my wing,
which looked slightly like a burnt marshmallow.

He stopped painting and turned his gray eyes
on me. “Not even a ‘glad to see you’re alive’?”

“Glad to see you’re alive,” I managed,
controlling my rage. While I thought he might be dead, he played
jokes!

At that point, I almost reverted back to
kindergarten coloring and painted a bright yellow sun in the sky,
because the spy team had split up and were asking anyone with a
scarf wrapped around his neck, the prepared question. How could
they not recognize the girl who fell from the ceiling with the
safety straps riding up her butt? I was right in front of them.

I pulled out my ponytail to help them
recognize my long dark hair and jacked my voice up an octave. “I
study painting under the great Gloria Van Deusel. And she is ze
most wonderful teacher. I just love painting and being an art
student so much.”

Malcolm snorted. “You might want to work on
that accent.”

“Your fake British accent isn’t much better.”
I shot back. I wanted to ask him how he managed to escape the night
before and if his arm was okay, but I couldn’t stop the angry words
from spilling out. “I thought you were dead.”

He narrowed his eyes but didn’t have time to
explain because a wannabe spy approached him and not me. All my arm
waving and mixtures of Italian and French had been pointless.

The older woman, with long, graying hair up
in a bun, tapped him on the shoulder. “
Excuse moi
?”

Malcolm thickened his accent and branched off
into the subtleties of shadowing techniques. The lady glanced back
at her team and shrugged. They waved her on and pointed toward
me.

And then because I was afraid Malcolm would
screw it up, I leaned over and said, “I can help you, Miss.”

She read from a note in her hand. “Do they
sell blueberry scones?”

I gave my scripted line. “No, but there is a
cafe nearby where you can find a cream puff.”

Then I dug into my satchel and handed her an
envelope. I dropped my satchel on the ground behind me and
continued to paint while she dropped the money rolls into my
bag.

She rushed back to her group, waving the
envelope in the air. Good thing our national security wasn’t on the
line, or we’d all be dead. Something to talk to Dad about.

I smoothed down my artist’s smock and worked
on mixing the right shade of green for the grassy hillside. “I
can’t believe you followed me here,” I whispered. “Haven’t you
caused enough trouble?”

“Me?” Malcolm didn’t look at me but mixed his
paints. “The least you could do is say you’re sorry. I’m pretty
forgiving.”

With each stroke of my paintbrush, my rage
simmered, bubbling, ready to explode. “Seriously? After the stunt
you pulled this morning, I’m not the one who should be
apologizing.”

After that we both turned to our easels. I
painted the same blade of grass over and over, basically ruining my
painting, and Malcolm’s arm whipped back and forth across the
canvas in jerky movements.

The next team that came through did better,
until they shoved the money roll into my satchel. As soon as they
turned to leave, Malcolm jabbed his paintbrush at me. Pecan brown
splattered across my face.

“What stunt?” he demanded. “At least I didn’t
take your clothes off and tie you up.”

I ignored the slam. “What stunt?” My throat
ached but I held back the sob. “The one where you told me to run
from the shooting and then never met me again. I didn’t know if you
were dead or alive. You didn’t show up to work and then sauntered
into Spy Games like a king. That stunt.”

I had to completely turn away before I
throttled him. Tears burned.

The hard tone in his voice softened. “I
didn’t realize you cared.”

“Of course, I cared, I left my date bleeding
to death with some madman on the loose.”

“I told you it was just a grazing.” His voice
dropped lower and he nudged me with his elbow. “Admit it. You think
I’m cute, don’t you?”

It was my turn to splatter him with paint.
“Hardly.”

“Though you do have an odd way of showing
it.” He rubbed the red marks on his wrists from the ties.

I refused to feel guilty. “At the time I had
my reasons.”

He placed his oil paints onto the stool next
to him and stepped closer to me. “Aren’t you the least bit
interested in what happened?”

“I’m glad you’re alive. But no!” I grabbed my
bag from the floor and used it as a shield.

A guard sauntered across the room, close
enough to listen.

Malcolm put his hands on the bag and tried to
keep me from backing away. “You can at least let me explain!”

I pulled back, hard, and pushed him away with
my right foot.

“Never!” Tears burned and the emotion of the
night before and this morning caught up to me.

He fell back on his butt, except he never let
go of my bag. I lunged for the handle, and we fought in a
tug-of-war. With one final yank, I ripped it from his hands. The
momentum pulled me back and I flailed my arms for balance. Green
bills fluttered in the air as I lost my hold.

Tiny rainbow-colored pebbles seemed to float
in the air around us. Shock crossed Malcolm’s face and he paled.
The guard raced forward. I cringed as the candy hit the floor like
an avalanche and skittered across the tiles to the far reaches of
the room.