A Spy Like Me (15 page)

Malcolm choked on a grape. He pounded his
chest, tears in his eyes, until the coughing attack stopped.

“Who knows?” I continued. “He may have shot
at us at the park and possibly on our date.”

The more I thought about it, the more likely
it seemed. Pouffant clearly didn’t like my family or me.

After breathing deeply, Malcolm raised an
eyebrow. “But that was a week before the Extravaganza. He wouldn’t
even have heard of your existence.”

“True, but still.” On the outside, Malcolm’s
rationale made sense. I mean, a week ago, I hadn’t even heard of
Jolie or the prize money. But I also knew that from our very first
date Malcolm had an interest in my family. Heck, he probably
kidnapped Aimee so he could take her job. Clearly, Jolie knew about
me. And they both knew something about my family that I didn’t, or
they were delusional. What I would give for some truth serum to
slip into his champagne.

“You’re right. He couldn’t have known,” I
said.

He gently pulled me into him. My head rested
in the crook of his neck, and he twirled my hair between his
fingers. Every single muscle in my body tensed, wanting to strangle
the guy or whack him over the head with the frying pan. I breathed
deep. Control. Nice and easy. Would anything distract him from his
mission? I lifted my head slightly and brushed my lips against his
neck. His vein pulsed and his breathing quickened. As expected, he
gently pushed me away.

“You’re killing me,” he said.

“
Moi
?” I asked innocently.

“What did you discover about your mom? You
can’t leave a guy hanging.”

I planted small kisses on his neck, moving up
to his jaw. “Hmm. You don’t really want to talk about my parents,
do you?”

He responded by lifting my chin with his
finger. His gray eyes searched my face, moving from my eyes and
lingering on my lips. He moved closer until our lips were inches
apart.

I whispered, “After she returned from a trip,
I looked through her stuff and found some secret documents. I think
she was some kind of,” I paused as his eyes grew wider, “spy.”

His eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Did
you find anything else?” He gently kissed my lips as if he really
didn’t care about what I was talking about.

Each brush of his lips against mine was
turning my brain to mush. Tiny sparks of heat spread from the touch
of his fingers on my skin. I struggled to find the right words,
because I didn’t want to burst his spy bubble, but I also didn’t
want him spreading lies about my family. Or killing me because he’d
gotten the information he needed.

I kissed the soft spot below his ear and
mumbled, “Actually, I’m just joking.”

He jerked away, breaking from our light
kisses. His hands dropped from my arms as if my skin were
poison.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Before answering, I decided it was wise to
move within grabbing range of the frying pan and pour some
champagne. I’d gotten the information I needed. He didn’t care
about me, and that stung.

“My mom isn’t a spy.” I forced a giggle. “She
was like every other work-consumed Mom in America. The only thing
she ever exterminated were the dust bunnies under our couch.”

“Good one.”

The next thirty minutes, I kept the banter as
light as I could, considering I wanted to tie him up and leave him
somewhere butt naked. Finally, he packed up to go, stating he had
to work at
Les Pouffant’s
. More like go back and report.

“What? Leaving so soon?” I said. “We haven’t
even talked about my dad yet.”

I bit my lip right after the words left my
mouth, and we locked eyes, the silent questions coursing between
us, both of us wanting to know what the other one knew and willing
to do anything to get it. I was safe until he managed to extract
from me the info the
maitre d’
wanted. And if the
maitre
d’
worked for Jolie, then that meant the great Jolie Pouffant
wanted to know. That was when I decided it was my turn to spy. On
Malcolm.

He might hold the answers.

While Gray rambled on about the business, I
hid behind my latte.

We were huddled around a big white plastic
table in the warehouse, and the chill rising off the cement floor
and leaking in through the windows set my teeth to rattling. I
rubbed my arms and blew into my hands to warm my fingers. Though
chilled on the outside, a fire burned in my belly. I felt like a
large black cauldron with all the memories of the past couple weeks
churning, bubbling, and boiling. The lies. The messages. The
trickery. I had lost touch with the truth. And Malcolm sitting
across the table looking oh so suave and knowledgeable just added
fuel to the fire.

My head pounded. Clues, images, and snippets
of conversations swirled in and out of my brain. If Jolie and
Malcolm had nothing to do with Aimee’s disappearance, then what had
happened? Her grandmother’s cottage was abandoned, the neighbor
warned me to stay away, and I had no leads.

As Gray finished up his end of the meeting,
Dad shuffled papers ready to embark on a long list of to-dos.

“So.” My voice echoed in the large room but
still sounded small and wimpy. I cleared my throat and spoke
louder. “I don’t think Spy Games’ clients are all that impressed
with our dramatic entrance.”

Frankie smirked. Nancy gave me her motherly
smile. Gray ignored me. So did Dad. Malcolm studied me.

“Your dad explained it to me,” he said.
“Sounds like fun. I bet clients love it.”

I pictured Malcolm tied up in a chair while
bat turds dropped from the rafters into his hair. With that image
in mind, I said, “I had a conversation with a client and she
mentioned it was kind of show offy.”

Okay, that conversation never happened, but
no one had to know.

Dad cut in. “The entrance stays.”

I pictured walking over to Malcolm with a
power drill in one hand, ready to torment him, and the fear on his
face when he broke down crying, admitting his guilt. Every once in
a while, Malcolm tried to catch my eyes, but I refused to play his
game. I refused to be another toy in his chest.

“Savvy?” Dad asked.

Everyone was staring at me. “Yes?”

“What do you think? Will that work?”

A blush crept across my skin. I had to cover.
I couldn’t disappoint him. “Yup. Great idea.”

A part of me wished I knew what I was
agreeing with. Dad can brainstorm some pretty wacky ideas. Like
dropping from ceilings. But I couldn’t ask him to repeat it. He
wanted me to be the perfect Spy Games staff. Enthusiastic.
Attentive. In control.

The rest of the meeting, I imagined the
different ways to torture Malcolm. Except, it made me miss Aimee.
I’d never felt so far away from helping her as I did right then,
sitting through a meeting, with her replacement at the table. It
was like she’d been erased from the earth and no one cared.

“Does anyone here even miss Aimee?” My voice
was louder than I meant it to be.

Dad took control. “Savvy, of course we do.
But we’re happy she’s living her dreams.”

“You believed that note?” I looked into the
eyes of my co-workers, pleading for someone to take my side.

Gray spoke up. “Why wouldn’t we?”

I pushed my chair back, causing a terrible
screeching noise that sent shivers up my back. “Because she never
said good-bye. She never talked about it. And that’s not like
her.”

“How long did you know her?” Malcolm
asked.

In my snootiest voice, I said, “Six
months.”

Malcolm leaned back. “It takes years to know
someone. Most people are putting up a front of how they’d like
people to view them.”

“What? Did you take psychology?”

He seemed embarrassed to be fighting over
words with me. “Actually, I’ve taken two courses online.”

Great. We had something in common.

He looked around at all the staff. “Given
that six months is only a fraction of the time needed to fully
understand someone or have them share secrets, we have to assume
Aimee is telling the truth.”

Dad rubbed the scruff on his chin, clearly
impressed. My limbs trembled. How could he? I’d told him all about
Aimee. We’d spied on Peyton together and searched Aimee’s
apartment. I thought he’d agreed with me. But that was before I
knew he worked for Jolie, before he set the kidnapping up to look
like Peyton was guilty, and before he tried to exact information
from me over a living room picnic.

How could Dad believe Malcolm over me? Tears
threatened. The embarrassing kind. I couldn’t take it anymore.

I slammed my hand on the table, then
instantly regretted it as pain shot every finger. “Aimee’s in
trouble.” Then I turned and left before Dad could put me in chains
and ship me off to Siberia.

I spent the next day fuming that Malcolm had
tried to seduce me for info on my family and then jerked me around
at the staff meeting. So not cool. While silently cursing at him, I
prepared for Operation Take Down Malcolm.

“Where you going, Savvy?” Dad asked from his
slumber on the sofa.

Not sure how dads do that. Mine can snore
away, mouth open, drool spilling, and still know what’s going on
around him.

“Heading out for a run.”
And a little bit
of espionage.

I smoothed down my black shirt over my black
pants. I looked a little bit like the wannabe spies I mocked, but I
wasn’t going to dwell on that.

“Okay. Sounds good. I’m going to, um,
continue working.” He picked up a folder to review.

Yeah, right, I laughed to myself. “I might
stop by Malcolm’s to review some Spy Games rules.”

“How’s he coming along? Will he be a good
replacement?” He lowered the file, his eyes fixed on me. “I had a
good feeling when I hired him. We were lucky.”

Right. Just the word
replacement
turned Aimee into a piece of Tupperware. “He’ll be just peachy.”
As long as he doesn’t kill me.

On my way to the Metro, I let the cool air
clear my mind. I’d give anything to talk to Aimee. She’d tell me in
a flash if this were ludicrous or brilliant. She’d laugh at the
irony. Of me. Spying. Not only on Peyton, but now on Malcolm. For
so long I’d ignored all the times Dad tried to chat up the Spy
Games life. And here I was, going off on another spy mission.

Looking for Aimee could be considered spying,
but I’d never felt in any real danger. This Pouffant guy, on the
other hand, was obsessed enough with my family to plant a spy in
our lives and to shoot at me—or hire someone to shoot at me.
Twice.

Malcolm’s darkened window mocked me. What
does a guy like him do in his spare time? I hadn’t really talked to
him since he’d tried to question me about Mom, which had totally
flopped on one hand, but on the other hand, revealed his true
colors. A shade called double agent.

After walking up to Malcolm’s apartment, I
stopped and pressed my ear to the door.

Silence. I knocked, ready to run if I heard
any movement. Nothing. I wiggled one of Dad’s fancy devices in the
keyhole and the lock popped. With a slight turn, the door
opened.

I slipped in like a night shadow.

I swept through Malcolm’s apartment like a
small whirlwind, opening drawers, rifling through closets. There
had to be something. A phone number. A picture. A diary. Or maybe
chocolate chip cookies from his mom. If the story about his family
were true. I stormed through his bedroom, closets, and kitchen
looking for something, anything. About Aimee. About me. About
Jolie. Something to tie the pieces together.

After about half an hour, I plunked down at
the table. I had to stop thinking like Nancy Drew, searching for
clues in the cupboards. He was too good to leave information about
my family exposed or to leave a picture of Jolie’s prisoner under a
magnet on his fridge.

I sunk into one of his kitchen chairs. Who
was Malcolm? I mean who was he really?

“Why, Malcolm?” I closed my eyes, willing the
walls to whisper his secrets.

I started thinking about his connection to
Jolie and their connection to my mom, but then my thoughts turned
to the gray flecks in his eyes and the curious way he studied me.
His burning touches on my arm and the gentle whisper of his lips on
my skin. I shook the memories away.

A laptop. That’s what I needed. Better yet, a
cell phone, but he was too smart to leave that lying around. I
opened the closet doors and shined my flashlight into it. This was
where he’d kept our disguises. Maybe he kept laptops in here
too.

Nothing.

I stopped rushing around and let my eyes
wander the kitchen, taking in everything slowly, not missing an
inch. And there it was. Sitting next to the coffee maker. His
laptop. How had I missed it?

I gently opened it and pressed power. Someone
like him would have passwords, right? I tried everything. Email.
Internet. Everything was locked down. He was good. I opened a
folder left on the desktop. Immediately a document popped out at
me. Bent. My. Last. Name. He had a file on me. The mouse hovered
over the file. All I had to do was click on it. But did I really
want to know what he had on me? On my family? Hell, yeah. I clicked
on the file.

No pictures of me walking across a street
like I expected. Or my mom at the Eiffel in her disguise. Or even
my dad, hair slicked back, wearing shades. Instead there was a
picture. A man with a clean-shaven head, wearing orange robes. A
monk? I scrolled down but the text was complete gibberish.
Encrypted. I couldn’t read it if I tried. My life had been reduced
to a bunch of squiggles.

Suddenly this high-pitched giggle from
outside Malcolm’s door cascaded over me like confectioner’s sugar.
I ran to the door and peeked out. Malcolm was stumbling up the
stairs with some blonde slut hanging off him. His roving hands
encircled her waist, and he kissed her neck as they lost their
balance and almost fell. They paused halfway up the stairs, and he
whispered in her ear, nuzzling her neck. Seriously. Get a room.
Except, they were about to get one. In Malcolm’s apartment.