Twenty-two
The flood of television crews swung their attention to Jolie spread-eagled on a bed of pastries, and it was all I could do to swallow the vomit rising in my throat. I shot someone. Holy crap! I murdered a famous pastry chef in a foreign country. Or I seriously hurt the guy. I didn’t want to stick around to find out.
My legs gave way, and I stumbled backward. If someone had noticed my presence and the backfire from the camera-turned-weapon, I could end up in prison. All my dreams of college, becoming a rock star, and someday baking the perfect chocolate chip cookie disappeared. The cold reality of prison bars, orange jumpsuits, and stale bread crusts sank into my bones. I shivered. But I had my answers.
Mom was possibly a cold-blooded assassin.
My mom, the one who baked cookies on occasion, the one who put Band-aids on my cuts, the one who’d left years ago. She was a killer. And now I was too.
Like mother like daughter.
No wonder she wasn’t here. Or if she was, it was just to make sure I finished the job. Not to chat with me.
I needed to take the money and run. Far away. But where? I had no clue. I only knew I couldn’t stay here. I turned and strolled back to my table, arms swinging like I was taking a walk in the park, like I didn’t just possibly murder a man. Back at my table, I shoved the camera into my bag and slung it over my shoulder. So far, no one was after me.
Except my highly trained Spy Games eye caught a man slithering through the crowds. He wore a white apron, a poofy chef’s hat, and he carried a tray. When he neared the entrance to Les Pouffant’s, he slipped inside. Extremely suspicious since the shop was closed.
Maybe killing Pouffant was a distraction so he could break in. If I was about to go into hiding, I wanted to know why. Someone had used me. Did Mom know about all this? Or was she an unsuspecting pawn simply following directions? After a quick glance around to make sure no one was looking, I hurried away from the chaos and toward the shop, following the man in the apron.
I ducked under the flowered trellises hung over the doorway. The shop was closed due to the Extravaganza, and the man wearing the apron had broken the lock. I slipped inside after him.
The succulent, sweet smells were deceiving. A place that held such wonderful pastries like cream puffs, layered cakes, brioche, and macaroons couldn’t be the backdrop for murder. The shop was quiet and dark. I crept into Pouffant’s lair and searched under tables and in the cleaning closet but nothing seemed out of place. Where did the man go?
I walked around the glass cases and into the kitchen. A door to the right was cracked open. I tried to convince my heart to leave my throat and go back to my chest, and then I opened the door all the way. Stairs. A musty smell tingled my nose. The hairs along my arm rose. With light footsteps, I went into what felt like the underworld with no clue what demons I would find.
I held my breath on the stairs, afraid of creaks, but then let it out at the bottom. A narrow hallway, dingy and filled with cobwebs, led to a door at the end. It was open. I crept down the hallway but stopped abruptly at the smell curling from the open door. I shuddered at the dank atmosphere that reminded me of scary movies and zombies. What did a pastry chef like Pouffant keep in his basement that was worth thousands and smelled like that? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
Voices echoed from beyond the open doorway. One voice stood out in particular, a voice that I’d grown accustomed to, one that had nudged its way into my heart. Malcolm’s. I knew he worked here but what the hell was going on? What did Malcolm know? Was he the chef who’d sneaked into the shop?
Their voices drew closer, and I sprinted back the way I came. I hightailed it up the stairs, and back in the shop. I had two paths. Out the front door, entering my life as a fugitive, or hiding in the shop and finding answers. Crouching low, I darted across the room and ripped open the nearest door and slipped inside. Man, it was heavy.
A shock of freezing air engulfed me. Hairs instantly stuck out across my arms and down my legs. An endless supply of signature cakes frosted to perfection waited on shelves to be delivered to some gala event. I turned to open door number two, but voices filled the room.
I was stuck in the freezer.
With the door open a crack, I held onto every wisp of warmth I could get. I kneeled and peered out the opening. The maitre d’, dressed like a butler with a ponytail and narrow face, smoothed the collar of his tuxedo with precise movements. He stood by a pillar with ivy wrapped around it and faced Malcolm. Wasn’t the butler always guilty? If he found me, he could smother me with decorated cakes. Or worse, he could lock me in a freezer.
“Zut alors!” he said, and then a flood of French spewed from his mouth.
Malcolm spoke in low tones, his voice barely reaching me. I couldn’t hear the words, never mind understand the French.
The butler’s voice rang out, harsh and angry. Did he work for Jolie, too? Did either of them know about Jolie? Images of him unmoving on his bed of pastries sneaked into my conscience. I might’ve killed a man. In cold blood.
They continued to talk. Columns of my smoky breath rose in the air and dissipated in front of me. I searched boxes on the shelves, and they all had the same name embossed on the sides. Jolie Pouffant. The guy was the French version of Betty Crocker.
Their words shot through the air like gunshots pinging back and forth at each other.
The butler eventually had to stop and take a breath. He switched over to English. “And what about the prisoner?”
Prisoner? As in Aimee? My spine tingled. Or my Mom?
Malcolm growled. “I’ll persuade the prisoner to talk. Isn’t that why you hired me?”
The butler grumbled in French first, then said, “And what about the girl?”
Malcolm interjected, speaking clearly. “Trust me, she’s an innocent in the whole thing.”
Were they talking about me? My heart contracted so fast it pounded against my chest. I was sure it would echo into the other room and possibly down the street. Even in the freezer, a hot flush spread across my skin, causing goosebumps to rise on my goosebumps.
The butler spoke, “Oui, oui. You say that but wasn’t this Peyton fellow supposed to keep the girl distracted, and away from here and Jolie? You planted the fake evidence. You led her to the cliffs. Yet she is here.”
My body turned rigid. My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands, breaking the skin. Peyton? Everything rushed back. In Peyton’s apartment, it was Malcolm who brought me the rope. At Parc des Buttes, it was Malcolm who found the prisoner site with the same frayed rope. Had he set me up? I remembered his brush off. Was that guilt?
They switched back to French, and I desperately wished I’d paid more attention to my French lessons in high school. I tried to pick out what few words I might recognize. With my eyes closed, my brain struggled to understand and remember. One word repeated. La mere. As in mother. Were they still talking about me? And my mom?
My mind whirled, and I had to suck in air in shallow gasps so they didn’t hear me. I pressed my head against the icy metal of the door. The numbing cold spread. I wished I could turn off my heart and hide it in layers of ice.
What would they want with my mom? Or me?
The butler spoke again, in a cold clear voice. “Get the information from your girlfriend. Or I will.”
My teeth chattered. My fingers and toes were slightly numb. The walls of the freezer seemed to close in on me. If they didn’t leave soon, I’d have to open the door and reveal myself. And if I did that, I shuddered to think. They’d probably stick me in a box labeled cream puffs and leave me to freeze.
Please, please, I prayed. Leave.
As mini icicles formed off the tip of my nose, chairs scraped on the floor. My eyes flooded with tears and I sent a silent message to my pinky toes to hold on for just a bit longer.
At last, when they left through the front door, I clumsily crawled onto the wooden planks of the floor. Heat wrapped around me, but the shivers came from deep in
side. I rubbed my stiff hands across my arms and legs, but I didn’t have time to lay here and thaw. I had to run. Fast.
I stumbled through the streets for home. Moments with Malcolm tore at me. Tender moments, laughing, and flirting. He’d acted like he liked me when clearly it was all a ruse. Anger rose above my fear. My eyes widened, breaking the frozen tears that were still in my eyelashes.
Malcolm had transformed from cute waiter to clueless spy to double agent, hired to gather information on me. And they must have kidnapped Aimee to do it.
The next day, I was downing my fifth cup of coffee when someone knocked on the door. On a normal day, a knock at the door wouldn’t freak me out, but yesterday Pouffant had hinted I was getting troublesome, and he didn’t seem to be the type of person to fool around. I grabbed the largest frying pan we owned and crept toward the door.
With one hand on the doorknob and one on the ultimate weapon of death, I called out in a shaky voice, “Who is it?”
“Hey, it’s Malcolm. Open up.”
Did I welcome in a cute guy who had been hired to spy on me? Duh, no. But if I didn’t act normal, he might suspect I knew and then…what if they sent someone to snuff me out early? No way was Malcolm a hired gun. He wouldn’t hurt me. He couldn’t. I might be just an assignment to him, but he wouldn’t take my life. I hoped.
I opened the door, letting in a blast of cooler air as Malcolm walked through. I quickly shut the door and gulped.
“What’s up with the pan?” he asked.
I flipped it around, a gigantic smile on my face. I looked back and forth between the pan and Malcolm. “Eggs. Scrambled eggs. I was hungry.”
“Right.”
Totally lame answer, but it was better than the truth that I was prepared to take someone out with it. I crossed the living room into the kitchen and eased the pan onto the stovetop, then positioned myself behind the kitchen table. Distance. I needed to keep our distance so I could think clearly. “What brings you here? Did my dad ask you over again?”
He showed me his stuffed backpack. “Thought we could head to a quiet little park somewhere.”
“Yeah, not in the mood. Sorry.” I stayed behind the table. “And we don’t have a real good history in public.”
“True. We can stay here.” He turned his back to me and reached into his backpack. Two seconds later, he twirled around and blew into a party horn, the loud blast knocking apart my suspicions. “Heard you made it through to the Extravaganza finals.” He grinned.
What? Surprise must have showed on my face.
“You didn’t stick around long enough to hear the results?”
“No. Not with the big commotion going on. I got out of there.” And I was freezing my ass off while learning you were a spy. That was all. “So what happened anyway?” My voice cracked. Images of Pouffant landing on top of his pastries popped into my mind, the squished cakes, the smeared frosting, and the gasping crowds. This was where I’d learn if I was a cold-blooded murderer or not.
A Spy Like Me Page 23
