License to Thrill (10 page)

“Great. Do you want anything?”

“Ta, but no. Go on—I'll cover for you.”

“Thanks, Siobhan.” In a flash Theresa was out of her seat and motoring down the hall, visions of chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, and chocolate chocolate dancing before her eyes. As she made her way down the hall she kept extra vigilant. She hoped no one would see her sneak in and get suspicious. As a guy passed her in the otherwise empty hallway she nodded uncomfortably. Her palms were sweaty, trembling. She needed a chocolate fix
bad
.

She burst through the kitchen doors and made a beeline for the fridge. But as she sifted through it her spirits sank. There was nothing rich and sinfully delicious in sight. There wasn't even anything brown. She
did
find, to her amazement, some bottles of nail polish, a few prescription drug vials, and even a crystal vase.
Not
the kinds of things regularly served at the commissary. She felt as if she'd stumbled on someone's stash of goodies.

Ding!
went the brilliance bell in Theresa's head. A kitchen is an awfully good place to hide something that isn't food related, she realized. Maybe I should have a look around while I have the place to myself. If Caylin found a
date book in a fuse box, why couldn't she find a top secret disc in the kitchen?

She started with the cabinets, pulling everything out and feeling along the bottom of large cans and bowls for anything suspicious. She even felt along the shelf paper but to no avail. Next came the drawers. Still no luck.

Once she had removed nearly all the refrigerator's contents onto the kitchen floor for inspection, she panicked. She
definitely
heard the commissary door open. Oh no, she thought, terrified. Who could it be—and how exactly was she supposed to explain away the mess? She hoped it was just someone cleaning the commissary tables, but she couldn't rely on hope anymore. In a total frenzy she scrambled to cram everything back into the fridge. A carton of eggs opened in the mayhem, and one crashed to the floor.

“Oh,
pretzels
,” she mumbled. As she searched for a paper towel she heard someone clear his throat loudly. She held her breath and looked to her left. Immaculate brown hair, a tall, toned frame, golden skin—Jonathon Nicholson!

“Who the heck are you?” Jonathon demanded, his tone nasty.

She lowered her gaze, feeling like a reprimanded schoolgirl. “Emma Webster,” she answered. “Voice mail technician.”

“What are you looking for?” he asked suspiciously.

“My, uh—” she stammered.

“Yes?” he demanded.

Her heart hammered, and her eyes began to water. “My, uh, asthma medication,” she muttered, remembering the asthma inhaler cam in her purse. “I brought it to work, and Ms. Dalton said she'd stick it in the kitchen for me, but now I can't find it anywhere.” She weakly picked up the prescription vials she'd found to support her fib. “And I—am—having—a—hard—time—breathing.”

Theresa began to fake an asthma attack, gasping for breath as hard and convincingly as she could. Her best friend back home had asthma, so she had witnessed a few attacks.

Jonathon's eyes grew wide. “Oh, my gosh, sit down. Do
you need a paper bag to breathe into or something?”

She motioned to her purse, which he brought over to her double quick. She quickly retrieved her inhaler cam from the bottom of it, put it in her mouth, and pushed down. Instead of releasing medicine like a real inhaler, it snapped a pic of Jonathon. Up dose, his eyes looked puffy—so much so, she was tempted to ask him about it.

Once she got the snaps she needed, her “asthma attack” miraculously ended. “Whoa, looks like I'm getting my air back,” Theresa said, breathing an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Thank you so much for your help.”

“No problem.”

Theresa waved, deciding to leave the refrigerator items on the floor, egg and all, for extra effect. “Well, bye.”

“Bye,” Jonathon said, giving her a questioning look as she departed.

Did I make him suspicious? she wondered anxiously as she tried to mentally process his look. No, maybe . . . maybe he's just worried about me! The idea made her swoon—half in enchantment, half in amusement. Imagine a coldblooded killer getting all weakhearted over a girl with asthma!

•  •  •

“So he looked all upset, and his eyes were red,” Theresa relayed that night in 1423.

“I might know why,” Caylin said, waving a printout. “This just came in from The Tower. Alfred called again at fifteen hundred hours and told Jonathon if he didn't get his disc by the conference, his father was going to be killed. Transcript right here.”

“Oh, my gosh, no wonder!” Theresa exclaimed. “I'm such a jerk. That's when I was in the kitchen. Siobhan was covering for me, and she must have patched his call through!”

“Don't worry about it,” Jo said. “It's a good thing you did—otherwise we wouldn't have found out this info.”

“You know, you kind of have to feel sorry for the guy,” Caylin commented. “He's totally in over his head.”

Jo snorted. “He's a total scumbag. He puts his own father's life on the line for a pile of dough.”

Theresa shrugged, not sure what to think. His swollen eyes had definitely looked as if they'd shed some major tears, so maybe he was genuinely upset. But if he was so upset about it, why was he going through with it?

“Well, no matter what we do or don't think about Jonathon,” Caylin began, “the pressure's on to find this disc. At least Theresa was making an effort to find it today, unlike the rest of us. We've gotta move, and we've gotta move now.”

“The key word is
green
,” Theresa reminded them. “Is there anyplace in the embassy related to the color green? The kitchen's out, but maybe some of the rooms have green walls.”

“Maybe it's hidden in a green book in the library,” Jo said.

“Or a greenhouse, if there is one,” Caylin suggested.

Theresa chewed her nails. “Too many possibilities. My brain's going to crash just thinking about them.”

“Well, we've got to get on this double quick,” Caylin said. “We lost our steam after that night at Meltdown, but we need to get it back. I, for one, have a surprise in my backpack—Jonathon's trash. I snagged it today when I was cleaning.”

“Oh, joy,” Jo muttered. All this talk about William Nicholson's possible fate gave her an ugly feeling of déjà
vu, and the thought of digging through his loser son's trash did nothing to improve her mood.

“Hopefully there's nothing too gross in here,” Caylin said, crossing her fingers as she laid out some newspaper on the coffee table and placed the bag on top. “Jo, would you do the honors since you have the longest nails?”

“Whatever,” Jo griped, slicing the bag with a long red nail.

Caylin dumped out the contents. A receipt from a corner deli, a half-empty bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips, a banana peel, a coffee cup, some crumbled-up junk mail, and some miscellaneous scraps of paper. Nothing terribly exciting.

“Any of this look useful to you guys?” Theresa asked.

Jo sifted through the lot with disdain. “Hardly.”

“Hey—look at this business card,” Caylin said, snatching it up. “It's a nearby hotel. Maybe he stayed there so he could have some privacy.”

“So he could make private phone calls, perhaps,” Theresa suggested. “You know, so his father wouldn't overhear him?”

“There's only one way to find out,” Caylin announced. “Pass me the phone,
por favor
.”

•  •  •

“Five Sumner Place—may I help you?”

“Yes, you may,” Caylin began, putting a stuffy spin on her working-class Louise accent. “This is Veronica Carey, Jonathon Nicholson's secretary, and I believe he recently stayed there. If it's not too much trouble, I just need to confirm the day and time he checked out for his expense report.”

“Very well, Ms.—Carey, was it?” the clerk said.

Caylin smiled confidently. “Yes. C-a-r-e-y. And while you've got the file handy, could you check and see if he made any calls? He never writes any of this stuff in, it's a bloody mess, and I'm left to sort through the fallout.”

The clerk laughed. “My boss is like that, too.”

Caylin heard the sound of computer keys clicking and crossed her fingers.

“Let's see,” the clerk said, “he checked in yesterday at nine p.m. and out this morning at seven forty-five a.m. And there were four calls, all to the same international number.”

“What country?” Caylin asked, hoping she wasn't pushing her luck. “I have to file them under different codes, you know.”

“Hold on just a moment, please,” the clerk said. “I'm looking that up for you.”

Caylin held her breath.

“Ms. Carey?” the clerk asked. “That international country code indicates the call was placed to Laqui Bay.”

Caylin stifled a gasp. “Ta,” she said in shock before she hung up the phone.

“Any luck?” Jo asked halfheartedly.

“You're not going to like this one bit,” Caylin began, her heart pounding. “But the call was made to Laqui Bay.”

“What?”
Jo shrieked, her eyes wide with disbelief.

“No way.” Theresa shook her head. “This is incredible! You mean
the
Laqui Bay?”

“Like there's another one?” Caylin quipped with a snort. “Listen, if there was a different island called Laqui Bay, they should be searching for a new name double quick.”

“Seriously,” Theresa breathed. “I mean, it'd reek to
be mistaken for the place responsible for bombing that jet last year—”

“Or for taking all those hostages in that awful subway incident—remember?” Jo added.

“Or for threatening world security by claiming possession of nuclear missiles,” Caylin suggested with a serious nod.

“That's right!” Theresa snapped her fingers. “Hey, maybe that threat was just wishful thinking. Maybe it was jumping the gun—”

“Until they got their hands on the warheads list,” Caylin finished. “Well, if they think it's that easy, they've got another thing coming.”

“I don't know,” Theresa said, glowering. “If we think we can take on Laqui Bay, I'd say
we've
got another thing coming.”

“Get out of my office and
never
come back!”

“What?” Caylin screeched, terror coursing through her veins as the brick solid figure of Jonathon Nicholson confronted her after one single baby step into his office.

“You heard me—out. From now on I'm doing my own cleaning.” He stormed over to the door and held it open. His dark eyes shot sparks at her, virtually daring her to protest.

“What's your bloody problem?” she asked, hoping to get at least one tiny morsel of information out of him. If he was busting her, anyway, what would it hurt to push?

“It's none of your
bloody
business,” he hollered with a sarcastic, mimicking tone. “Now get out and stay out.”

As Caylin followed his orders her head spun with worry. If he had finally realized she was the babe with the bugs,
he could blow the mission—and possibly the entire world—sky-high. Either that or he'd just knock her off himself. Either way she was one dead dame.

At lunch Caylin ran to the Ritz to see if Uncle Sam had been in contact. The following message was in the laptop's incoming mailbox:

J.N. office transmitters discovered this morning 8 a.m. followed by suite 8:15. Static received on all stations. Lay low until video conference tonight.

—Uncle S.

So Jonathon
was
buggin' over the bugs, Caylin thought with a sinking heart as she headed back to the embassy. She skulked into the utility room and jumped about a mile in shock. Fiona sat in wait for her, an evil look on her face. “Do you know anything about these silly devices found in the Nicholsons' offices and suites?” she demanded.

“What . . . devices?” Caylin asked innocently.

“The ones found in the Nicholsons' offices and suites,”
Fiona repeated slowly, as if she were speaking to a kindergartner. “Surveillance stuff. Spy gear.
Bugs
, I think they're called?”

“I have no clue what you're talking about,” Caylin said with an edge of offense. “You know, Jonathon went off on me this morning, and I was wondering what his blimey problem was.”

“That's it,” Fiona said, cracking a smile. “I got the riot act myself, so don't feel bad. The suites are now off-limits to the cleaning staff, as are the Nicholsons' offices. Less bally work for us, right? And I hear they think some translator did it, anyway, so there's really no need to worry. But I had to ask.”

Caylin nodded understandingly, trying her hardest not to look upset. A translator? she asked herself. That could only be one person . . . Jo!

•  •  •

Jo sipped her carrot juice and drank in the afternoon sunshine, a precious rarity. Pentland's, an outdoor café near the hotel, was the perfect place for a lunchtime getaway. The commissary's Wednesday meal du jour, bangers and
mash, was hardly anything to write home about, and she really needed the private time. She wasn't used to being around people 24/7, being an only child and all. When her aunt and uncle had adopted her, they had given her the space and solitude she had grown accustomed to. Two things she hadn't had much of since coming to London, that was for sure.

“May I join you?” a familiar voice asked, breaking into her thoughts. Her skin tingled as she looked up from her journal to see Antonio, a charming smile playing on his lips.

“Okay,” she said, figuring she could easily sacrifice her private moment for a flirt sesh. As long as she didn't let it get
too
intense. “How's it going?”