The Conspiracy of Us

by Maggie Hall

  I held my breath.

  The doorknob jiggled hard.

  Silence.

  Then a crash.

  I jumped away. One more crash—a shoulder or a foot slamming into the door. The thin wood splintered down the middle.

  I tried to scream, but nothing came out.

  He wouldn’t be going to that much trouble for these dresses. He must not want to leave any witnesses.

  And I was trapped.

  “Aimee! Elisa!” I forced out. My voice sounded tiny in the emptiness, and there was no answer. Besides the jagged rhythm of my own breath and the tinkle of the music, the shop was deathly silent. Oh God. He might have gotten to them already.

  The whimper that came out of my mouth didn’t even sound like me.

  One more thud and the man’s foot cracked through the center of the door.

  I whipped around, frantic, the adrenaline shooting through me bringing the dressing room into focus. The gleaming mirror, the pink velvet armchair. The smattering of crimson feathers from the red dress that had fluttered to the carpet and fanned out like bloodstains. My own reflection, a small girl with dark hair falling over her shoulders in waves, whose wide, panic-stricken eyes didn’t match her exquisite dress.

  Someone was trying to kill me while I was wearing a ball gown. This didn’t happen in real life. But I was pretty sure I wasn’t dreaming, and this wasn’t an action movie. The door cracked further, and bile rose in my throat.

  If this was a movie, I would at least try to defend myself.

  A tall vase of lilies sat on a table next to the armchair. I ducked behind the chair and grabbed it, the dreamy scent of the flowers surrounding me as I dumped them on the floor, drops of water splattering my bare feet. I held the vase like a baseball bat.

  The man yanked away a cracked section of the door, making a hole large enough to reach through to the lock. The door swung open.

  He didn’t run at me, didn’t yell, didn’t glance down the stairs to see if anyone had heard my screams. The cold calculation in his eyes was more frightening than rage would have been. Like the eyes of a hunter. Whatever this was, it wasn’t just a robbery.

  The heavy vase trembled in my hands. “Get away from me!” I screamed.

  He toppled the armchair with a casual swipe of his hand. I brought the vase down as hard as I could. It shattered against the side of his head, and I dodged.

  I wasn’t quite fast enough. His knife sliced into my shoulder. A scream ripped out of my throat, but I sprinted past him, finally hitting the cold glass of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the opposite side of the room.

  I clutched at my shoulder. Blood seeped between my fingers and dripped onto the white carpet. The crunch of the hunter’s feet on the shards of vase forced me to tear my eyes away from it.

  He was between me and the door. He wouldn’t miss next time.

  I ducked behind the metal garment rack of rejected dresses and pawed frantically through them for anything I could use to protect myself. I found nothing but vibrant silk and beading, so enchanting a few minutes ago, now mocking me with its uselessness.

  The man was halfway across the room. As a last resort, I yanked at the garment rack itself to see if I could pull out a pole or anything to use as a weapon. But when I leaned on it, it moved. It was on wheels, and an idea popped into my head. It wasn’t a very good idea, but it was the only one I had.

  When he was just a few feet away, I gripped the end support and shoved the rack as hard as I could.

  It smashed into him. The metal vibrated in my hands, and the whole rack toppled with a crash.

  I darted toward the door as a flare of silver snaked out from the mound of brilliant fabric. I dodged the knife, and he missed.

  Blood thundered through my veins, propelling me down the stairs. “Help! Aimee! Elisa!” I screamed. “Help!”

  Now I wished my shopping trip hadn’t been so private. Silent, faceless mannequins gazed up at me from the sales floor. Beyond them, though, was the foyer and the door that led out of the shop.

  If I could get outside, I could get away.

  That square of sunlight pushed my legs faster. Almost there. Almost there!

  A few steps from the bottom, my foot caught the gold dress’s mermaid hem. I grabbed for the railing, but it was too late. My feet flew out from under me, and I launched through the air. I barely had time to throw up an arm before my head smashed into the ground.

  Pain exploded in a thousand glass shards in my brain. I lay on the ground, crumpled, choking. Air wouldn’t go into my lungs. Run! my mind screamed. Run! My body wouldn’t listen.

  I forced myself to my hands and knees, and the blood running down my arm streaked a perfect river of red between a black tile and the white one next to it. My vision went blurry at the edges.

  “Help,” I sobbed to no one. “Please.” I clawed at the floor and forced myself not to pass out. If I passed out, I was dead.

  The clang of heavy footsteps on the stairs turned the pain in my head to wild panic. I crawled to a couch and clung to it, dragging myself dizzily to my feet as the killer reached the bottom of the stairs.

  The room spun like a carnival ride. He stood between me and the front door. I scanned the store frantically, and under a staircase in the back, another door glowed like a mirage.

  I was afraid I’d collapse if I let go of the couch, but he started toward me from the bottom of the stairs.

  I ran.

  The back door was a million miles away.

  There was a shout, and a display a few feet from me exploded, shards of glass slicing my skin. I screamed and dropped to the ground, scrambling under a table piled with scarves and out the other side. I hadn’t even realized he had a gun. Another kick of adrenaline pumped through my aching body, and I pushed my legs faster.

  I couldn’t tell how close he was now. The only sound I could hear was my own desperate breath.

  Then there were footsteps all around, right behind me, almost to me. More yelling.

  He’d caught up. He had me.

  I braced myself for one last frantic, futile dash, but strong arms grabbed me from behind.

  “Let go!” I screamed. “Let go of me!” I lashed out against him, dug my nails into his skin, tried to rip his hands off me, but we were falling, on the ground, struggling. If I could grab the gun and point it away from us—but he wouldn’t let go.

  I was about to die.

  No sense of calm came over me, no rush of memories flew through my head. Strangely, the only face that swam in front of my eyes, the voice I heard yelling my name, was Jack’s.

  I heard a grunt and drew one last breath, squeezing my eyes shut.

  Nothing happened.

  I was still alive.

  “Avery!” My eyes flew open. I had heard my name. “Avery! Stop! You’re safe!”

  I quit struggling. The arms encircling me loosened enough for me to focus on his face.

  It was Jack.

  I hadn’t been imagining it. How he’d gotten here I didn’t know, but Jack was here, and I was alive.

  My face was pressed into his chest. He cradled my head above the floor and held both my wrists in his other hand, trying to keep me from scratching his eyes out. I stared up into his face—flashing silver eyes, mussed dark hair—and for a second, I was back in my calculus class last Monday morning, pretending not to stare when he walked in the room.

  “Jack—what?” I choked out. If Jack was holding me, where was the killer? Then I saw the gun in Jack’s hand, and, even though I didn’t think I’d heard another gunshot, I put together what had probably happened.

  He pulled me to sitting and looked me over, taking in the cut on my shoulder.

  “Stay here.” He let go of me and hurried away, his gun drawn.

  He’d saved my life. A dizzying rush of relief washed ove
r me and tears were running down my cheeks and I was gasping. I was alive.

  I pushed up onto my knees to see where Jack was going, to get him to come back. I didn’t want to be alone.

  I froze when I saw the head.

  The head of the man who had tried to kill me, no longer attached to his body. His head was at my eye level, wire-rimmed glasses still perched on his nose, blood dripping from his severed neck.

  I scrambled backward, but slipped and fell in a pool of dark blood, the killer’s and my own.

  I followed the arm holding the head up to the thin, angular face and shock of light brown hair of a boy about my age, who peered at it with a bland curiosity. He tossed the severed head across the floor like a bowling ball and grimaced at a bloodstain across his chest. “Merde,” he said. “This was my favorite shirt.”

  I got slowly to my knees again, my gold dress soaked through with crimson. The boy stood above me, polishing blood off a huge knife.

  He grinned at me, and I stared into his eyes. Purple eyes, just like mine. Then I vomited onto his boots.

  CHAPTER 13

  Don’t do well with blood, I see.” The boy helped me limp to the white couch in the foyer.

  My knee hurt so badly from the fall down the stairs that I wanted to curl into a ball and cry. But then the throbbing in my head overpowered it. Then the blood still oozing out of my shoulder. Then the body. The headless body on the floor, and the sick coppery smell and the music: the ridiculous chime of the Bach playing over the bloodbath like some kind of twisted parody.

  I leaned on the armrest but winced away from a small, bloody handprint—my own handprint—which contrasted gruesomely with the white upholstery.

  “Why would he try to kill me?” I whispered.

  “A mistake, cherie. He was Order. Must have thought you were someone else.”

  Order. Like Madame Dauphin and those men had been talking about. I knew it hadn’t felt like just a robbery. But it also hadn’t felt like a mistake.

  The boy lit a cigarette, then offered me the pack. I shook my head. “You are Avery, I presume. I am Luc.”

  Madame Dauphin’s son. I’d overheard someone asking about him earlier at the Louvre. His cologne was almost strong enough to overpower the scent of blood. How was it possible he was so nonchalant? Celebrities and politicians and ball gowns—fine. That was everyday life for some people. But politicians and Prada and murder?

  Luc blew a stream of smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “I was looking for Stellan. Where is he, by the way? Luckily, I heard you scream from down the block. Nice lungs.”

  A commotion sounded from the back of the store, and Jack came out of the other room. He had the other man who worked here, Frederic, in a choke hold, pressing the gun to his side when he struggled, all while nudging Aimee and Elisa along in front of him. I perched on the edge of the couch, but just then the door opened, letting in street noise.

  Everyone turned as heavy footsteps came into the foyer, then stopped dead. Stellan’s eyes widened as they flicked to the body, to the blood, to me, and finally to Jack, hovering over Frederic and the girls.

  He met my eyes. I blinked once, twice, and he came savagely alive. He was across the floor in three long strides, glaring first at Jack, then down at Frederic.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, and yelled again, in French. “Ce qui s’est passe? What the—” He broke off into another language, which sounded like Russian.

  “The Order tried to kill Avery.” Jack’s quiet anger was almost more frightening than Stellan’s rage.

  “Tried to kill—” Stellan’s gaze shot to me. He reached down to Frederic and yanked at his collar, exposing a tattoo on his chest, of a circle split by two lines. Then he pulled out his dagger and drove it into Frederic’s chest.

  Frederic coughed once, and then his body slackened and fell to the ground, his blood mixing with the stain already spread across the floor.

  “No,” I tried to say, but it came out as a strangled gasp. Elisa wailed. Stellan ignored us both.

  “How the hell did this happen?” he said to Jack. He pulled out the dagger. “How did the Order get in here?”

  “You were supposed to be watching Avery.” Jack hauled Aimee and Elisa up by their arms and moved them away from the spreading pool of blood.

  “Like I knew they’d come for her!” Stellan said. “Unless you’ve been lying about who she is, there is absolutely no reason for this.”

  Elisa spoke in rapid, garbled French. Stellan pointed the bloody tip of the knife at her.

  “Don’t!” I found my voice and tried to stand, but had to grab on to the couch to keep from falling. “She didn’t do anything.”

  Stellan whirled on me. The beautiful, arrogant boy I’d been talking to in the car was now a beautiful, arrogant boy with a knife in his grip and blood on his hands. “Why did he try to kill you?”

  “What?” I choked in disbelief. Was he angry with me? “I have no idea! Why did you kill him?”

  He stalked across the floor until he towered over me. “Did you not get the tried to kill you part?”

  “He didn’t. The other guy did.” I tried to yell, but my voice broke.

  “And this one was Order, too.”

  “So why didn’t you question him? Or lock him up? Or—”

  I quaked, looking from the headless body to the newly dead Frederic and back.

  “You don’t reason with the Order,” Stellan spat. Blood dripped off his dagger, and he held it like he was about to plunge it into someone else.

  Jack pushed between us, his hands on Stellan’s chest. “Stop,” he said. “It’s the Order’s fault, not hers.” After a second, Stellan’s arm dropped to his side, but his eyes never left my face, even after Jack let him go.

  Luc stood up, running a hand through his messy hair, his lanky shoulders more tense than they had been a few minutes earlier. “If I may propose a theory. The Order learned we would have family members here today, in whatever way they’ve been learning of all our movements. They planned another strike. They may even have wanted me.” He paused and took a long drag of his cigarette, and I thought again of that conversation. The Order. Attacks. “It seems our guest was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  From the other side of the room, Aimee piped up again.

  “She says these two”—Luc gestured to the bodies with his cigarette as he translated—“came a few hours ago. Said the other branch of the store sent them. The girls thought nothing of it until Frederic tied them up in the back room.”

  Luc had to be right—the men wanted someone else. But then again, that was what I’d thought at prom.

  “Doesn’t matter now.” Luc put out his cigarette on an issue of Vogue on a side table. “Get these girls out of here so we can have someone clean up this mess.” He said it like milk had been spilled on the kitchen floor.

  My hands started shaking.

  Luc flipped through a rack of coral-colored dress shirts. “Would you call these pink or orange, cherie? Pink is not my color, but I need to change for dinner. I’m starving.”

  It took me a second to register what he’d said. “What?”

  “There’s an adorable bistro around the corner, or that little cafe on Rue de Rivoli,” he continued.

  Stellan, too, wiped blood off his dagger with nothing more than a scowl. Jack, at least, was covering the bodies.

  I blinked. “What is wrong with you?”

  Luc pulled a shirt off its hanger and cocked his head to one side.

  “People are dead.” My breath rasped. “Who cares if the shirt’s pink?”

  Luc draped the shirt on the rack. His face softened. “Cherie, I apologize. This all is new to you. I must appear so callous. You’ve got to understand—killing Order members is not the same as killing normal people. Even if he hadn’t hurt you, if you knew all they’d
done to our families, you’d understand.”

  I shook my head. I wouldn’t understand. I didn’t understand.

  Across the room, Jack dropped a patterned scarf over the killer’s head and stood. “You should get cleaned up,” he said. I shook my head again.

  “There’s a bathroom upstairs,” he said pointedly. I bit my lip, hard. I could tell he thought I was about to lose it. Maybe he was right.

  “Show me?” I whispered. He started to point up the stairs, but I steeled myself. Jack would give me some answers. He had to. “Show. Me.”

  He frowned, but nodded. On the way to the stairs, he flipped through a rack of floral sundresses and pulled one off its hanger. “Here. Put this on.”

  I held the dress by the tips of my fingers. “I can’t just take this—”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He climbed ahead of me up the stairs.

  I stared at the dress. It did matter. It mattered that this dress cost more than my entire wardrobe at home. Probably more than we paid for a month of rent at home. But to these people, it didn’t. It didn’t matter that there were two dead bodies on the floor downstairs and that I could have been a third. That beheading someone—in one of the fanciest boutiques in Paris—was nothing more than a minor delay of your dinner plans. And that someone had attacked me, right as I learned that I had family who associated with some of the most powerful people in the world, and that it hadn’t felt like a case of mistaken identity.

  Just how much had my mom been hiding? Was it possible that she’d kept my father’s family from me because of more than hurt feelings?

  Jack opened a door off the hallway.

  “Please,” I said. He held the door wide open with one arm, peering in like he was making sure it was safe. “Tell me what’s going on. Was this really a mistake? Luc said it was nothing.”

  He looked both ways down the hall, chewed his lip, then finally met my eyes. “Clean up, and then we’ll talk about it. But no, it’s not nothing. And I don’t think it was a mistake.”