Sealed with a Lie (19 page)

It’s hard to say who looks more repulsed—her or Gustav.

“And who will pay my dentist’s bill to remove zis chip later?” he demands.

Evan yawns. “I’m sure you can steal something priceless and then pawn it. All in a day’s work for you.” He turns to me. “Kari? Any fillings?”

I shake my head. I got my dad’s teeth, and they’re close to perfect, amazingly enough. No braces, no cavities, no fillings.

“Anything metal on you at all?”

“My watch. That’s it.”

Evan frowns. “Too obvious.”

“I know where you can put it,” Rita says. “You have underwire in your bra, right?”

Suddenly there are four interested pairs of male eyes
focused on my chest. I feel my ears turning pink, then my neck and face. “Um, yeah.”

“Well, they’re not going to make you take that off,” she points out.

Is it my imagination or do all four pairs of male eyes go a little glassy?

“Brilliant,” Evan decides. “Right, then, Kari. Give it to Matthis.”

It’s Matthis’s turn to blush, now. “Uh . . .”

Rita stands up. “Give me the superglue.” She gestures to me to follow her into the bathroom, and I do, gladly.

“Alors,”
Gustav announces to nobody in particular, “I would, of a certainty, not need a GPS to find Kari’s bra.”

Kale chokes.

Matthis stares at the ceiling.

Evan gives Gustav a withering stare.

I ignore him and close the bathroom door on his smutty grin.

It turns out that there’s another reason Evan has booked this particular hotel: We don’t have to call a cab to go anywhere. A short walk along a winding path through the Monchstein woods leads us higher up the mountain, to a Museum of Modern Art. There’s a fabulous restaurant there with more killer views of Salzburg. I look around at spectacular lighting fixtures made of antlers, floor-to-ceiling windows, and colorful contemporary furniture that pops against the white snow on the
terrace and the blue-tipped mountain peaks of the Alps.

Under different circumstances, I’d have fallen in love with this place.

We don’t do the food justice at dinner because we’re all wound so tight, but we have to kill some time, so we sit there and toy with it. Gustav complains that he has to eat with only one side of his mouth because the GPS chip on his tooth feels so odd, and he’s afraid he’ll somehow dislodge and then swallow it. I can’t say that anyone has a huge amount of sympathy for him. He still has a lot to make up for, after what happened at Jolie the other night.

I’m so nervous that I barely swallow two forkfuls all evening, even though the others try to force-feed me. I’ve been scared before—don’t get me wrong. There was a time, a few months back, when I was worried sick about my parents and whether they were alive or not.

This is a whole different level of fear. It’s not for me or Gustav. It’s for Charlie.

This must be what it’s like, sort of, to be a parent. To know that you’re responsible for the well-being of a kid who is totally dependent upon you. To know that you’d lay down your own life to keep that kid safe.

When we’re done pushing stuff around our plates, Evan pays the check and leads us downstairs in the museum to, of all things, an
elevator
that drops us all the way down the mountain. We emerge from it right on the streets of Old Town.

From there we mingle with the crowds overflowing the holiday markets, and it’s surreal to walk past all
the stalls and shop windows filled with bread baked in animal shapes; sculpted marzipan; dirndls and lederhosen; rubber duckies in Mozart wigs; miniature violins; carved wooden ornaments; hand-painted beer steins . . . after a while my eyes glaze over and it becomes one big commercial blur. Luckily, it’s only a short walk to a café near the river that Evan’s found. It’s situated not far from the Schiff boathouse on the Salzach.

At ten minutes before midnight, Gustav and I put on our coats, scarves, and gloves. Despite the layers, I feel naked without my usual spy gadgets—I’ve left them back at the hotel because I know the kidnappers will search us. No lock picks. No scanner device. Worse, no gun.

I feel as if I’m about to face a firing squad. I finger the vial of
jungbrunnen
in my coat pocket and hope that nothing goes wrong.

Rita and Kale hug me. Matthis gives me a two-fingered salute.

I turn to Evan. “Promise me something.”

He nods.

“Promise me that if this all goes bad and blows up, you will do whatever it takes to find Charlie and get him back safely.” I look up into his gray-blue eyes and fight the weird urge to trace the line of his jaw with my fingers.

His eyes seem to darken for a moment. Then he cups my face between his hands and drops a kiss on my forehead. “I promise.”

Gustav and I head out the door of the café, turn
right, and walk along the icy, cobblestoned street. It’s freezing cold, but there are still a few other couples and groups of friends out, singing carols, walking home, or moving on to party somewhere else for the evening.

Gustav takes my arm and threads it through his. “At last, I have you to myself,” he says with a leer and a waggle of his eyebrows. But it seems forced. I try to play along just to distract myself.

“Um, yeah. At last.”

“Ze question is, what to do with you?” He squeezes my hand.

“I have a great idea,” I say. “Don’t get me killed.”

“
Alors
, there is very little romance in a corpse,” he agrees, nodding. “So, Kari—”

“Gustav. No offense, but can you not flirt with me, or even speak, right now? I’m about to come unglued.”

“Unglued?
Q’est ce c’est
?”

“It’s just a figure of speech, Gustav. It means I’m really nervous.”

We turn the corner and approach the boathouse. And there, waiting as promised, is the big black Mercedes SUV, windows tinted dark and motor idling. There are two figures in the shadows inside. I wonder if they’re the last people I’ll ever see on this earth, or if I’m just being paranoid.

The person in the passenger seat is a woman. She opens the door, slides out with one hand in her coat pocket, and says, “Get in.” I’m certain that she’s holding a gun inside the pocket. She looks familiar . . . where have I seen her before?

“We’re not going anywhere with you,” I say.

“Get in, or your brother dies.”

I clutch Gustav’s arm. He eyes me somberly and inclines his head toward the car. We have no choice—he knows it, and I know it.

“Get in!” the woman says, stomping her feet in the cold and clearly losing patience.

Where
have I seen her before?

I figure it out as I climb into the backseat of the Mercedes. She was on the Metro platform, that day in Paris when I felt that Charlie and I were being watched. The businesswoman in the navy coat with the yellow scarf. So it wasn’t just Lisette Brun watching me.

Gustav climbs reluctantly into the other side; then the woman joins us in the back.

The driver presses the automatic door lock. There’s something vaguely familiar about him, too . . . but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in person before. Maybe I’ve seen a photo?

My own pulse thunders in my ears. I try to keep my breathing under control, but it’s quick and shallow.

“Both of you, untie your scarves and open your coats,” the woman orders in English with an accent that I can’t place. “Then lift up your shirts.”

We comply. It’s not every day that I have to expose my half-naked body to two strangers and an oversexed thief, but who cares at this point?

True to form, Gustav gets himself a good eyeful.

Really? At a time like this?

Satisfied that we’re not wearing wires, the driver
demands the
jungbrunnen
. I hand it over. He examines it, nods, and pockets it.

“Let me talk to Charlie now,” I say.

The woman ignores me and demands our cell phones.

Gustav explains that as he was, up until very recently, a guest of the state, he doesn’t have one. She leans over and pats him down just to make sure.

I give her my phone, which she tosses unceremoniously through the window and into the Salzach River. Then she tells me to put my hands behind my back and zip-ties them. She does the same to Gustav. Next, she blindfolds us. I force myself to stay quiet and submit, even though every iota of my body screams to kick her ass. I could knock her unconscious with a single, well-aimed blow from my foot.

I remind myself that it would only get Charlie killed.

Though Gustav has remained outwardly cocky, his breathing has gone quick and shallow, just like mine. So he’s as scared as I am. There’s something very sinister about these two people.

The Mercedes lurches forward, and we drive for what seems a long time—at least half an hour. We stop at some kind of checkpoint, where the driver speaks German to the guard. It’s all I can do to stop from screaming that we’re being kidnapped, that these people have my brother, too, and to call the police.

Again, I remind myself that it will only get Charlie killed.

A dank, mossy, almost moldy smell has rolled in through the lowered window. We’re near water. The
woman opens the back door near Gustav and orders us out of the car, then up a ramp. I hear water lapping and rolling underneath us. We’re boarding a ship.

“Where’s Charlie?” I demand.

“He’s here.”

“Then bring him to me. We had a deal.”

“Oh, yes. We have a deal, all right,” the woman says, her tone heavy with sarcasm.

I stop cold.

“Move!” The woman shoves me.

Now.
This is my one moment to make a break for it, before she gets us all the way onboard. We’re clearly being double-crossed and taken hostage.

But while I may be able to break free, I can’t save Gustav. He’ll be shot. And they will kill Charlie, too. I can’t take the chance.

With a sense of impending doom, I trudge all the way up the ramp. At the top, someone takes my arm and hustles me across a deck—I can feel wind blowing across my face and through my hair—then into a narrow corridor that leads to some even more narrow metal stairs. We head down, down, and down some more.

I hear an electronic beeping noise that sounds as if someone’s unlocking a door.

“Kari!” sobs my brother.

“Charlie?!” I turn my head toward his voice.

Then someone shoves me hard from behind, and I go flying. I collide with my brother, who wraps his arms and then legs around me as I bang into a wall.

I want to hug him tightly—my own little koala bear—as I slide down the wall, into a heap on the floor. But my hands are still zip-tied behind my back.

My jailer cuts the plastic bonds, thank God, then retreats and locks the door behind me.

I throw my arms around Charlie and squeeze him until he squeaks in protest. Tears stream down my face, rolling under the blindfold. “You’re okay,” I say. “You’re
okay
.”

“Kari, let go now,” he says after a few moments.

“
Are
you okay?” I ask, loosening my grip on him and pushing up the cloth over my eyes.

“You just said I was,” he points out with a wobbly grin.

“But
are
you?” I look him over from head to toe. He’s grimy and his clothes are dirty; he smells pretty ripe. He looks tired and thin. But he has all his fingers.

“Yeah, I guess so.” He peers back at me. “What about you?”

“Sure, Charlie Brown. I’m great.” But I look around at the “room” we’re in with growing trepidation. I cannot imagine what these cells are used for normally, and I’m not sure I want to know. We’re in a box made entirely of five-inch-thick glass. It’s transparent and heavily reinforced and evidently soundproof, because we can’t hear a thing outside. On the exterior, next to the door, is a lock accessible by a key card.

Inside is a thin, grungy mattress, a wool blanket, and a pillow that is so gross I’m actively afraid of it.

Gustav has been tossed into an identical box right
next to us. He lies still for a couple of minutes, and I’m afraid that maybe he fell when they shoved him and hit his head. I try banging on the box but get no reaction—I don’t think he can hear.

There are five glass cells in a row where we are. Across a passageway, there are five more. There’s an older gentleman with white hair and a white mustache in one of them. He’s got a black eye and some cuts and bruising along his unshaven jaw. He’s sitting slumped against the back wall of his cube. His clothes—tweed jacket, white shirt, dark trousers, good leather shoes—are expensive, but like Charlie, he looks as if he hasn’t had a shower in days.

Gustav finally sits up, pushes off his blindfold, and looks around. He sees us and lifts a clearly discouraged hand in greeting. I do the same.

“Who’s that?” Charlie asks.

“Gustav. He’s . . . a friend. He came with me to get you out.”

“Oh.” Charlie grimaces. “Guess that didn’t work so well.”

My brother is the master of understatement.

Gustav peers across the passage. The moment he sees the old gentleman, he jumps to his feet and starts banging on the glass like a wild orangutan.

The old dude finally turns his head, peers at Gustav, and jumps up, waving wildly. Tears roll down his cheeks, and he presses his hands and forehead against his own box. These two clearly know each other—and in fact, Gustav resembles him. Same eyes. Same cheekbones.