Sealed with a Lie (14 page)

“You do?!”

“Yeah. I tracked down the architects who built the Jolie headquarters. And hacked into their files.”

“Well done, Matthis.” Evan gets up, then claps him on one shoulder, while Gustav saunters up to peer over the other one, his hair dripping onto the keyboard.

Me, I just hope that the knot in his towel is secure. I don’t want to see any more of Gustav than I do already. Not that it’s a bad view . . . his arms are nicely muscled and his chest is broad, sprinkled only lightly with dark hair—

“Would you get dressed, you loathsome frog?” Evan asks pointedly.

Gustav’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. Then he makes a derisive noise. “Bah. I would rather be loathsome than
English
,” he retorts.

It’s another pig-snort moment for me.

Kale’s lips twitch, and Rita laughs. “Well, I’ve gotta fly! Need to pack. Can’t wait to see you!” And she waves good-bye. Then the two of them are gone.

I close the laptop and we all look at each other.

“This is fantastic,” I say to Evan and Matthis. “Because, short of hiring SEAL team six to launch a commando raid on Jolie, we were out of options. But I have to wonder how Rita’s managing to get a last-minute plane ticket, leaving tonight? And she’s very mysterious about it.”

Evan shrugs. “The Jordans may have a private plane.”

I stare at him. “No, I don’t think so. They’re rich, but not
that
rich. And even if they do have a plane, it’s not like they’d just hand it over to their daughter. . . .”

He eyes me blandly. “Well, it sounds as if she’s got a ride somehow. Do you think she’ll bring Kale? Maybe even Luke, if the Gulfstream is roomy enough?”

“Luke? Huh?” I shake my head.

“Don’t you miss him?”

I shrug. “It doesn’t matter if I miss him or not. I’m telling you, there’s no jet.”

“Whatever you say, darling.” Evan yawns and stretches his arms over his head, lacing his fingers together and leaning back. He glances at his watch. “I think I’ll take a nap for an hour or so, before we head back for more surveillance on Jolie.”

I’m truly mystified about how Rita’s getting here.
Last-minute international flights can cost thousands of dollars—not to mention that Rita won’t fly anything but business class. No riding in economy seats for her . . .

And why would Evan think she’d bring Luke? That’s just weird. It’s not like she and Luke are good buddies. I wonder again whether Luke and I have or haven’t broken up. Maybe I should call him and apologize—but no, I have nothing to apologize for! He’s the one taking another girl to a dance.

I banish all thoughts of Luke and focus on the problem at hand again. If Rita can’t get here, and I really doubt she can, then there’s one logical solution: I will go on the internship interview, impersonating her. I’ll need a crash course in the biochemistry of cosmetics—but we can do that over the Internet.

My hands start to shake yet again as I think about calmly walking into Jolie, Inc. and stealing this stuff from their laboratory. What if I can’t? What if I get caught?

I curl my hands into fists. I can’t get caught. It’s as simple as that. Because failure is not an option. Charlie’s life is on the line.

I close my eyes and do my very best to send him reassurance, somehow. Through brain waves, or the power of love, or some kind of magic—I’m not picky about the method.
I love you, Charlie. Don’t lose hope. I’m going to get you back.

We’ve had a long night of yawning surveillance at Jolie, Inc. when the weak winter sun comes up. All it tells us is that there are two daily shift changes and no night staff, though there are janitors who come in the early evening and armed guards patrolling the perimeter of the building all night. The security system is primo. The only way into the place is by invitation. Even Gustav is impressed, and he’s dismantled not only the security systems of more than one large museum, but the one at Jolie’s own Munich branch.

“Zut alors,”
he says, shaking his head.
“Je ne c’est pas.”

We go back to the hotel, where he and Evan watch a twenty-four-hour news channel on TV and Matthis loses himself once more in the blueprints, focusing on the laboratory side.

I chug coffee while trying to educate myself about
botanical biotechnologies on the websites of various cosmetics companies—particularly Jolie’s.

“Did you know,” I say casually to the guys, “that Jolie started their biotechnology unit in the French countryside after they got the idea to take stem cell cultures from roses? They obtained some kind of extract from the cultures that helps with skin regeneration.”

I get a couple of man-grunts in response.

“And they derived another product from xylose, which they got from beech wood, of all things.” Who knew? I’m fascinated, despite not being a big science buff. So I keep reading. I figure I’ll need to be able to chatter about this stuff when I go on the interview at Jolie. Rita’s going to text us soon with the day and time—it could be as early as this afternoon.

“Wow . . . over the years, they’ve developed this product called Revive to the point where it works as well on aging skin as laser treatments. That’s pretty cool. . . .”

Despite my real interest, my head is throbbing from too little sleep and too much caffeine, so I close my eyes and lean back in the too-comfy armchair for just a second, or so I think. . . .

I’m jolted awake by a firm knock on our hotel room door. Evan gets up to open it, and in walks Rita, followed by Kale. I’m positive that I’m dreaming. I must be.

“Hey, kids!” she says. “Wake up!” Rita looks as if she just stepped out of
In Style
magazine. She’s wearing the same red-and-black glasses, but she’s changed her spike-heeled boots for short, flat biker ones more suitable for travel. Her jeans are ripped to the point that they show a
lot of smooth dark skin, even in this brutal cold.

She sports very little makeup, but her lips are a flagrant, stop-sign red—the same red that’s in the glasses, of course. And she’s wearing my favorite mismatched earrings: one diamond stud filched from her mom’s jewelry box, and one long, dangly silver handcuff. Rita always makes a fashion statement and always carries it off beautifully. I’m not sure how she does it—I would look like an idiot if I tried to wear some of the same things.

Gustav takes her in from head to toe and then zeroes in, with laser focus, on the exposed skin showing through her jeans. “Bonjour, Rita!” he says with his dirty smile.

“Bonjour, Gustav.”

“Enchanté,”
he says, clasping her hand. He’s about to raise it to his lips when Kale steps into his space and holds out a large paw.

“Duvernay.” He nods.

At least he didn’t pee on Rita’s leg to mark his territory, but this is pretty close.

“Inoue.” Gustav frowns and eyes him with far less interest than he did Rita. Finally he drops her hand, takes Kale’s, and shakes it. “You, I am not quite as delighted to meet, but zen, you are not as . . . how you say? Cute.” He delivers this line with a wink at Rita.

She giggles.

Kale only gives him a cool stare.

Evan says, “Gustav, don’t you have something better to do than flirt?”

He takes a moment to think about it and rubs at the scruff on his chin that Evan so despises, then grins.
“Mais, non.”

“Are you guys actually here?” I struggle out from under my laptop and stand up.

“Yes! Can you believe it?” Rita gives me an exuberant hug. She smells faintly of Joy perfume (her mom’s) and, weirdly, peanuts. Maybe from the plane.

I turn to Kale, who I swear is taller—and broader—than the last time I saw him. Is that possible? He’s got dark circles under his eyes, and he looks a lot more rumpled than Rita in his plain Levi’s and gray hoodie sweatshirt. He gives me his sweet, low-key smile and holds open his arms. “Hey, Mighty Mouse,” he says. “Good to see you.”

I step into them and am instantly locked in a cage of human muscle. Kale and I have taken martial arts classes together for years. He calls me Mighty Mouse after an old cartoon series that his dad showed him. It features a mouse as Superman, and he says I remind him of the character because I’m small but lethal in karate.

Kale himself isn’t that tall—only five feet eight inches—but he is rock solid. I’m not kidding, the guy could bench-press a Volkswagen.

“I can’t believe you guys are here!” I exclaim. “How? Those last-minute tickets are crazy expensive. . . .”

Rita shrugs this off. “What matters is that we made it,” she says. “Right, Kale?”

He nods.

They greet Evan next, and then Matthis, whom they only know from Skype.

“So.” Rita reaches up and tightens her ponytail, then cracks her neck. “My interview is in less than five hours,
so we really need to get a game plan together.”

I open, then close my mouth. “Well, but . . . I thought that I’d go . . . you know, as you. I’ve been doing research on cosmetic biotech companies and memorizing phrases like ‘the architecture of skin tissue’ and ‘jasmonic acid derivate.’ ”

Rita takes off her glasses and peers at me while she cleans them on her shirttail. “No way. I’m all about this mission, Kari. You know I love anything to do with style—and that includes cosmetics. I didn’t take Honors Biology and second-year chemistry for nothing either. I am actually the perfect candidate to go on this interview. In fact, assuming they don’t catch me stealing red-handed, I think I’ll do this internship for real!”

I gape at her. “Are you sure?” I cast a sidelong glance at Kale, who looks very unenthusiastic about this plan. But he says nothing.

“Yep.” Her expression turns serious. “So . . . I’m almost afraid to ask, but have you heard anything else from the kidnappers? Have they let you talk to Charlie?”

I close my eyes. I’ve tried to block the sound of Charlie’s screaming from my head, but I can still hear it.

“Sorry,” Rita says quickly. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s okay. . . .” I fill her in on the last interaction I had with the mechanical voice, the one with the noise of the band saw in the background.

Evan breaks in. “I think they’re just trying to scare you, Kari.”

“Yeah? Well, it’s working.”

“I don’t think they’re actually going to harm him. The band saw—it was just a tactic.”

“Well, they did something to him to make him scream like that!” My voice cracks. “That wasn’t just for shits and giggles.”

Rita puts her hand on my arm. “Calm down, Kari. Nobody in his right mind could hurt a kid as cute as Charlie.”

“Who says these people are in their right minds? We have no idea! What kind of weirdo wants an ingredient from a cosmetics company? Seriously? What are they planning to do with it?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“Rita, let me be the one to go on the interview,” I beg. “We can’t screw this up—”

“Wow, Kari. I don’t really like the implication here, that I’m not as good as you are.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that there’s so much at stake here for Charlie—”

“That you’ll be twice as nervous as me. Plus, if Mrs. d’Haussonville decides to look in on my interview personally, she will be expecting a half-Indian girl who looks like my mom: in a word,
me
. Larita Jordan. And I have the right background to be a good candidate, plus my French and German are a hundred times better than yours, plus you have all the fashion sense of a scarecrow—”

“Thanks so much,” I say, stung, even though I know she’s right.

“Truce, ladies.” Evan steps in, probably seeing the outrage and hurt on my face. “Kari, let Rita go on the
interview. She’s not going to be breaking into the laboratory right then and there. Her objective will be something far more simple: to grab security codes with a scanning device, or if at all possible snag an employee’s badge. She’s up to that. Okay?”

I sit back down in the armchair and draw my knees up to my chest, hugging them tightly. I glare at them moodily. Finally I nod. “But what if they scan fingerprints or something to get into the secure areas?”

Evan looks at Rita. “Then grab someone’s coffee mug or tape dispenser on your way out . . . something like that. Even a notepad would probably do. Anything with a surface that a print might adhere to.”

She nods. “I can do that. I’ll take a big handbag.”

Evan nods. “And while you’re there, do you suppose you can get us access to the security cameras?”

Rita purses her lips. “If I can just get a moment alone with a security guard’s computer, then I can upload a virus to it that will get us into the system later. But it may be tricky.”

Matthis lifts his head. “I have an idea on that. . . .”

He’s so quiet that it’s easy to forget he’s in the room with us.

“What’s that?” Evan asks.

“Jolie still does some testing of cosmetics on animals, though they have gotten better about it. So if some radical protesters happened to come by and create a ruckus outside, security would be obligated to check it out.”

“Brilliant!” Evan smiles for the first time in a couple of days. “Right, then. Gustav, Kale, and I will march for
the rights of, ah, pit bulls not to wear lipstick.”

“That’s actually not funny, Evan,” I say. “Product testing on animals is a real issue.”

“I stand corrected and suitably chastened. Perhaps we can rescue some when we go into the lab for the secret ingredient.”

I evaluate him for any signs that he’s patronizing or mocking me, but he seems serious.

While the rest of us keep going over the building schematics and try to troubleshoot, Rita brushes up on some of the cosmetics and biotech stuff I’ve found at various websites, and then takes a shower to freshen up after traveling all night. She dresses in a sharp black-and-white Chanel jacket she snagged from her mom, a cobalt-blue cashmere sweater, and black trousers with her spike-heeled boots. Her makeup is subtle but expertly applied, and her big, roomy bag is Louis Vuitton.

She drapes a jumble of different necklaces around her neck in a combination I’d never put together—but it looks fabulous. And hidden on one of them, on the back of a semiprecious gem, is a microphone so that we will be able to hear everything she does. In each of her earrings is a small camera that will record every step of her journey inside Jolie, Inc.