A Secret Life

by Laura Peyton Roberts

  But the view through the windows of the packed elevator was nothing compared to the sight that greeted them when they got out. The third-level viewing gallery was almost nine hundred feet above the city, and wide open to the clear blue sky. A mild spring breeze ruffled Sydney's hair as she dashed from point to point along the sun-warmed metal railing, trying to absorb the city from all four sides. Paris spread beneath her like a gift, more beautiful than she had imagined. She felt like throwing her arms open wide and shouting to the tiny mortals below.

  Noah wove his way through the crowd to reappear at her side. “Like it, huh?”

  “It's . . . amazing,” she finally answered. “Completely incredible.”

  “We can probably spare enough change for the telescope,” he teased. “They say that on a day like this you can see for forty miles.”

  Sydney gazed through the powerful blue telescope, thrilled when she identified the Arc de Triomphe all by herself. Noah stood close by, pointing out the massively domed Sacré Coeur church and other famous sights, his shoulder grazing hers as she twisted the telescope back and forth. He seemed to know everything about the city—landmarks, street names, history. Sydney found herself getting lost in his voice, surprised by how safe she felt. With Noah at her side and tourists all around her, it was amazingly easy to forget the reason they'd fled the hotel.

  “What do you say we get down from here and find someplace else to eat?” Noah asked when she'd completely exhausted the view.

  “Are you still hungry?” she asked guiltily, having forgotten Noah's disappointment over missing the tower's restaurant.

  “You ought to be hungry too,” he said. “If you're not, eat anyway.”

  She saw the sense in his argument. With everything about their mission suddenly up in the air, they might need the strength later.

  “You know where I'd love to eat?” she asked. “At one of those sidewalk cafés, the kind you see in the movies.”

  Noah smiled, and for a moment she thought he was going to accuse her of extreme tourism again. But all he said was, “We can probably manage that.”

  The café they found a few blocks away was exactly what Sydney had dreamed of, with cloth-covered tables arranged on the wide, tree-lined sidewalk and crowds of people strolling by. Waiters in white aprons bustled back and forth, bringing sandwiches and salads and bottomless cups of café au lait.

  “I was hungrier than I thought,” Sydney admitted, polishing off her last bite of tarte tatin, a sort of upside-down apple pie.

  “Me too.” Noah checked his watch. “We still have some time to kill. Do you want to see the Louvre?”

  “Are you kidding me? Yes!”

  They paid their bill, Noah's ridiculously accented French coming in useful once again, then hired a cab for the short ride to the famous art museum.

  “All this is the Louvre?” Sydney exclaimed as they got out of the car. “It's huge!”

  Noah grinned. “Don't expect to see it all today.” And then he reached out and took her hand.

  Sydney tensed with surprise. A deep breath later, she allowed her hand to relax into his. After all, they were supposed to be a married couple—he was just making it look real.

  Anyway, it's not like holding hands with Noah is torture, she thought as they walked toward the center of the enormous U-shaped museum compound. He may be a brutal boss, but he's still a pretty good guy.

  Besides, the more she got to know him, the more certain she became that life had kicked Noah around some. She didn't know how, and she didn't know why. She just felt it in him somehow—that still-raw wound buried down at his core. If they ever learned to trust each other, they'd have a lot to talk about.

  Without realizing what she was doing, she squeezed Noah's hand. He squeezed back. Her eyes snapped to his as she jolted back into the present. Had she given her feelings away?

  But Noah simply smiled, not making anything of it.

  Why would he? she thought, relieved. Noah was worldly, experienced—not a bit like the immature college boys she'd met so far. Holding hands was no big deal to a guy like him. To her, on the other hand . . .

  The entrance to the Louvre was through a large, modern glass pyramid in the center of a courtyard surrounded by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century stone buildings. The glass-walled structure seemed both overlarge and out of place, an iceberg in the warm waters of the neighborhood wading pool.

  “This pyramid . . . ,” she said tentatively as Noah led her inside it. “It's kind of . . . new.”

  “You're not the only one who thinks so,” he told her. “There was a huge stink when they built this thing.”

  “Is it permanent?”

  Noah gave her an ironic half-grin. “Nothing's permanent. So what do you want to see first? How about the Mona Lisa, tourist girl?”

  Sydney removed her sunglasses and perched them on the brim of her hat. “Lead the way,” she said eagerly.

  For the next couple of hours they toured the art museum's collection of famous sculpture and paintings: da Vinci, Michelangelo, the Dutch masters, Goya, and so many different French painters that their names all blurred together. Sydney saw medieval and Egyptian antiquities, artifacts from Greece and Rome, antique furniture and jewelry, and even the underground foundation of a medieval French fortress that had been leveled hundred of years before to make way for other buildings at the site.

  “You're right. We're never going to see it all today,” she told Noah at last. “I'm getting vertigo.”

  “But how are your feet holding up?” he asked. “That's what really matters.”

  “Are we walking somewhere else?”

  “Come on,” he said. “I'll show you.”

  Outside the art museum, the late afternoon air had cooled noticeably. Sydney untied her sweater from around her shoulders and pulled it on as she and Noah strolled through the formal garden in front of the Louvre, crossed the street, and found themselves in an even bigger one.

  “This is the Jardin des Tuileries,” Noah informed her. “Something else on every tourist's must-see list. You're just checking off the sights today.”

  He was making fun of her again, but Sydney not only didn't care, she slipped her hand back into his as they walked up the wide central boulevard bisecting the formal gardens.

  In front of them, three fountains played in three separate round pools, and to their left flowed the Seine, tranquil and green in the afternoon light. Sydney and Noah walked on without talking, just one contented couple amid so many others. When they came to a big fountain in their path, Noah put his arm around her to guide her in his direction. Far from tensing up this time, Sydney leaned against him as if they were truly in love. It all seemed so perfectly natural, she almost forgot they were spies.

  Eventually they skirted a second fountain as well, but Sydney's attention was already focused ahead, on a massive stone needle pointing straight to the sky.

  “What is that?” she asked, turning her body closer to Noah's as she pointed.

  “An Egyptian obelisk. We're going to walk right past it.”

  “You know this whole city, don't you?” she blurted out, curiosity finally getting the better of her. “How many times have you been here?”

  “A few,” he said with a shrug. His expression didn't invite further questions, and Sydney didn't ask.

  They had to cross a busy street to get to the obelisk, but when they finally stood at its base, Sydney stared up in awe. The tapering four-sided needle from Luxor was covered with hieroglyphics cut three thousand years before. Towering over the Place de la Concorde, the square where it stood, it seemed, like so much of Paris, a few degrees larger than life.

  “Everything's special here,” she sighed as she and Noah continued on their way. “The entire place is magic.”

  “Let's hope so,” Noah said with a wink.

  She smiled uncertainly, unsure what he meant. He's probably talking about the mission. A little luck wouldn't hurt right now.

  But the way he'd b
een escorting her around all afternoon, doing whatever she wanted, acting as if he genuinely liked her . . .

  All this peace and love is only our cover, she reminded herself. Don't make anything of it.

  But still . . .

  “The Champs-Élysées,” Noah announced as they entered a broad, tree-lined street. “Are your feet sore yet?”

  “They're fine,” she lied, wishing she'd worn her running shoes.

  L'avenue des Champs-Élysées, the most famous street in Paris, was known for its width, for its origin at the Arc de Triomphe, and, perhaps most of all, for its shopping. Sydney and Noah walked awhile longer, past palaces and gardens thick with trees, before arriving at a huge, multispoked intersection and, ultimately, the shopping district.

  On the section of street before them, life seemed to spill out of the buildings onto the broad pedestrian walkway. Cafés placed their tables in the thick of things, letting foot traffic flow around them. People dined and shopped, or greeted friends and gawked at the sights. Some were there just to be seen, dressed to a degree that would be absurd in L.A. but seemed just right in Paris.

  “Wow,” said Sydney.

  Noah put his arm around her again as they wove down the crowded pavement, evidently pleased with her response. “Not bad, huh? I've always liked it here.”

  She still wanted to grill him on the subject of how many times he'd been to Paris, and why, and for how long, but she restrained herself somehow. For one thing, he obviously didn't want to talk about it. For another, she wasn't sure she and Noah were up to the personal questions stage yet.

  And when we are, I'll probably start with that scar, she decided, sneaking a sideways glance at his face. Noah's profile was blunt, his nose and chin both rounded, and there, under his jawline, snaked the scar that intrigued her so much. I'll bet he got it on a mission.

  It gave her a thrill to imagine, although she hoped she wouldn't end up with a similar souvenir. On Noah, it looked good—visible proof that he'd been through something dangerous and come out on the other side. It made her feel safer to know that he could fight his way out of a corner.

  “Here we are,” he said abruptly, steering her hard to the left, toward the front of a small but ritzy antique shop. “I need to stop in here a minute.”

  His arm slid off her shoulders, leaving her to follow him in or not. Sydney wandered in behind him, entranced by the items for sale all around her.

  From what she could see of the inventory, the shop specialized in antique writing desks and pens. Noah had already reached the counter in the back, where he stood waiting to speak to the clerk, but Sydney walked slowly through the displays, enchanted by both the standing writing tables and the ingenious folding lap desks full of drawers and compartments for parchment, quills, and sealing wax. She ran her fingers over an especially beautiful rosewood box, admiring the burnished brass hardware and wishing she could buy it as a keepsake of her first real mission.

  The clerk put down the telephone and greeted Noah in French.

  “Yes, hello. I'm Nick Wainwright,” Noah responded in a low voice. “You have an item I special ordered?”

  “Ah, Mr. Wainwright!” the clerk replied. “It is here.”

  The man bustled off and returned seconds later with a large square box, already gift-wrapped, in a fancy paper shopping bag.

  Sydney moved closer to the counter just in time to see Noah take out a huge wad of cash and pass it to the man uncounted. The clerk smiled and pocketed the money. No one mentioned a receipt.

  As Noah turned to leave the store, Sydney fell into step behind him.

  “What's in the box?” she asked eagerly.

  He flashed her an exasperated look, but recovered his cool quickly.

  “That's for me to know and you to find out,” he teased in his fake-husband voice. “Maybe it's for your birthday.”

  9

  NIGHT WAS FALLING AS Sydney and Noah exited the taxi that had carried them back to the Seine. Lights sparkled on the river, a thousand tiny reflections from the buildings, bridges, docks, and numerous boats that still cruised the dark waters. Most of the vessels were large and crowded with tourists on sightseeing trips, but Sydney also saw a commercial barge and some smaller, faster craft, which she assumed belonged to local pleasure seekers.

  Noah motioned for her to follow him down a dock to the water's edge.

  “Come on,” he said. “We're taking a boat trip.”

  “From here?”

  The dock Noah had chosen was neither crowded nor well lit, and only a few small boats had tied up alongside it. “All the big tourist boats are over there,” she added, pointing across the river.

  “We're looking for something a little more . . . private,” he told her impatiently. Turning away, he walked hurriedly down the dock, his large paper shopping bag knocking against his leg with each stride, and Sydney had to rush to catch up.

  From the moment they'd collected his package at the antique shop, Noah's attitude had changed. He was tense again, impatient, brusque—the guy she hadn't much liked that morning. But this time she realized something: His attitude wasn't aimed at her, it was all about the mission. Once Noah's mind was on the job, there didn't seem to be room for anything else.

  Noah stopped at the first boat where someone was visible on board and barked out a question in French. The man paused in the middle of polishing a hatch, staring as if Sydney and Noah were crazy. Then he shook his head and waved them away. Noah continued down the dock, undeterred.

  “What did you say to him?” Sydney asked, trotting to keep up, but Noah just kept walking.

  At the very end of the dock, a gray cabin cruiser bobbed in the wakes from passing boats, the peeling paint on its hulls a remnant of happier days. A man reclined in a folding chair on its deck, drinking wine straight from the bottle.

  “Bonsoir!” Noah called to him. “Ça va?”

  The man peered at them through the gathering darkness, then rose unsteadily to his feet. His clothes were torn and filthy, and a dark wet stain spread across the front of his shirt.

  “He's drunk,” Sydney whispered, disgusted.

  Noah smiled without humor. “And poor. Two points for us.” Leaving Sydney on the dock, he jumped aboard and began a conversation.

  Whatever Noah was saying, the man seemed to like it. He interrupted and protested a lot, but his eyes had begun to glitter with ill-concealed hope. Moments later, Noah took a wad of bills from his pocket and pressed them into the man's hand. The old wino glanced at the money, then tried to exit the boat so quickly he almost fell into the Seine. He passed Sydney on the dock, his odor overwhelming.

  “Bonsoir,” he said with a leering wink before he stumbled off into the night.

  “Come on. Get in,” Noah said urgently, offering Sydney his hand.

  She grabbed it and climbed aboard. “What did you do? Buy the boat?”

  “Let's just say that if he finds it back here tomorrow, he'll consider it a bonus.”

  “But we are bringing it back. Right?”

  “Don't know yet. How are you at steering one of these things?”

  “You're not serious.”

  He gave her another of his I'm-on-a-mission looks. For everyday things like meals and sightseeing, Noah was charming and relaxed. But when it came to his job, he was wound tighter than a French knot.

  “You are serious,” she declared, resigned. “Fine. Show me how to start the engine.”

  Sydney's experience with boats was limited to rowboats, canoes, and a single day of speedboat training with SD-6. But the Seine was a big river, and Noah had rented what looked like a pretty slow boat.

  Once I get it pointed in the right direction, how much can really go wrong? she reassured herself.

  Noah started the cranky engine, then went below with his package. Sydney heard him rummaging around in the dark, swearing under his breath, while she stowed loose items up above. She would be steering from the deck, looking forward over the low roof of the boat, and she didn
't want any old wine bottles rolling under her feet.

  “I can only imagine what it smells like down there,” she called to Noah through the gangway hatch.

  A light finally switched on and Noah appeared at the base of the short ladder. “You don't want to know. So are we out of here or what?”

  Sydney crossed her fingers. “I'm ready if you are.”

  Together they cast off the dock lines, and Sydney steered the boat into the river. Noah relaxed visibly as they left the shore, leaning against the outside of the cabin.

  “You don't have to take us all the way out to the middle,” he said. “Stay to the right and just crawl along. We're not in a hurry anymore.”

  “Why are we on a boat?” Sydney finally dared to ask.

  “That package we picked up is the monitoring device for the bugs and cameras you planted. Everything they've recorded since we left Monique Larousse is waiting to be downloaded, and I need a safe place to do it. Somewhere we won't be disturbed. Or watched.”

  He glanced up and down the river. Full darkness had fallen, and there were no other boats nearby.

  “This ought to be all right. Except for the smell,” he added. “By the time I'm done down there, I'll need to burn these clothes.”

  Sydney smiled. “Poor Noah.”

  “Whatever. Listen, don't get too far from the shore, but don't get too close, either. I don't want anyone sneaking up on us that way. Keep your eye out for anything and everything, understand?”

  “I will.” Her grip on the wheel was still white-knuckled, but she was growing more confident by the second.

  “All right. I'm going to set up below. Call me if you see anything.”

  “Don't worry.”

  By the dim light Noah had on in the cabin, Sydney could now peek through the gangway to see him clearing a small central table of countless nights of takeout, old rotting food in soggy containers. She nearly gagged just imagining the odor, but Noah was undeterred, throwing everything into the boat's little sink. He pushed a pile of dirty clothes off the adjacent bench onto the floor and sat down to open his box.

  The monitoring device he removed looked like a laptop with a pair of large padded headphones. Putting the phones on, Noah hunched over the glowing computer screen and started typing. She could see his profile, but not the monitor, and soon she gave up trying. Whatever he was doing, he would probably be at it a long time. Meanwhile, she had a boat to steer.