Sealed with a Lie (8 page)

“What were those numbers?” I ask in low tones.

“Code for ‘training mission.’ That will reassure them that there’s nothing going on.”

“Oh.”

At last the Person On High In Charge of Porters calls them and strikes the fear of God into them, and we are taken to a German Interpol office of some kind. We’re shoved into an office suite there, where a kindly older gentleman seems amused at the sight of my hair. I’m
finally inspired to go and look at it again—which is a big mistake.

I twist, turn, and contort to check out the full extent of the damage in the Interpol office’s bathroom mirror. Most of my hair is one length and streams past my shoulder blades. Then there’s the large hank of it that’s ripped jaggedly across and only about six inches long. Nice. I can only imagine how hard Cecily Alarie would laugh if she could see this.

I’ll need some hair extensions—or at the least a wig or a hat. Oh, well. Frankly, I’m a lot more worried about Charlie than I am about my hair. And I guess it could be worse: The woman could have ripped it completely out.

Honestly, my face looks worse than my hair. I’m not sure what we can do about
it
—just smear it with makeup, I guess. And like I said, I don’t care.

“Kari?” Evan’s voice calls through the door.

“What?” Despite the fact that I have bigger worries, I’m not happy he’s seen me looking like this. But it’s better than Luke seeing me this way. Right?

“I think it may be possible to French-braid your hair so that it covers the part that’s—” He hesitates.

“Missing?”

There’s a weird snorting sound.

“Are you
laughing
?” I fling open the door. He’s doubled over, nose pinched, gasping for air in between chortles.

My mouth works.

Matthis makes himself small.

I lunge at Evan and pound my fists into him—any part I can reach.

“Ow! Damn it, Kari—”

“You. Do. Not. Get. To. Laugh.” I keep pummeling him. Maybe my reaction is out of proportion, but I have a lot of leftover adrenaline from that fight. “Not. Funny!”

He laughs so hard that tears run down his face. “Yes it is . . . oooof . . . sorry . . . but it is!” He finally twists and captures my wrists and forces me back against the wall.

That
makes me so mad that I think about spitting in his face.

“Don’t,” he warns.

Boy, do I want to work up a good loogie. It would look awesome right in the middle of his forehead.

“Don’t,” he says again.

“Let go of me.”

He shakes his head. “I’m restraining you for my own good.” He stares down at me for a long moment. “Besides, you’re not the ugliest girl I’ve ever had against a wall.”

I’m speechless.

He grins provocatively. “In fact, you’re rather hot.”

This gives me a perverse thrill that I’m instantly ashamed of. And I
so
do not know how to respond. So I take refuge in arguing with him.

“I’m
not
hot. My hair is torn and my lips look like they got stuck in a vacuum cleaner and
none
of this has anything to do with finding Charlie, so—”

Evan brushes his lips over my swollen ones.

Wait, did he just do that?

Then he releases my hands and turns away.

I almost slide down the wall.

Suddenly the door to the suite opens and a no-nonsense gray-haired guy in a suit walks in, looking down at a file and then up at us. “Andrews, Karina? Kincaid, Evan? Matthis, Clearance?”

“Yes.” Evan speaks for us all.

Which is good, because I still don’t think I can.

“You can go,” the German man says without further explanation or introduction. He pulls our passports from the file and hands them to us after a quick perusal of each. “Interpol vouches for you.” He frowns down at the file once more. “However, Mr. Matthis is to check in regularly with his parents on his progress during the, ah, chess tournament.” The blandness in his voice is commendable.

Matthis blushes, of course. Pushes up his glasses. Fidgets.

Gray-Hair continues. “And Ms. Andrews, you should drink plenty of fluids and have some chicken soup for dinner. To aid in your recovery from the flu, of course.”

I clear my throat.

“I’ll make sure she does that,” Evan says with an easy smile.

“Very good.”

Matthis glances at me, then Evan, as if to say,
can we get out of here now?

“Well, then,” says Gray-Hair. “How delightful to have met the three of you, despite the circumstances.”

“Oh, no,” Evan assures him. “The pleasure’s been all ours.”

And with that whopper, we’re ushered to the door and into a waiting taxi.

We ask to be taken the short distance back to the Stuttgart train station, and from there we resume our trip to Munich. We pray that we don’t encounter any more mystery attackers—or Interpol again, especially given our odd agenda.

Next stop: disguises. Munich is a big city, a great city for a disappearing act. I don’t know what I expected of Munich, but it wasn’t beauty, grace, and charm. Evan has the cab take us to a small, quiet hotel off the beaten path that’s only a few minutes’ walk to the city center at Marienplatz.

Despite my increasing anxiety about Charlie’s well-being, I can’t help but notice the stunning, soaring neo-Gothic city hall—and I can’t reconcile the appearance of this building with its name, the Rathaus. It just doesn’t sound right.

While we don’t have either the time or the inclination to sightsee, I make a mental note that someday, I’d like to come back here.

Evan seems to read my thoughts. “Lovely, isn’t it? A pity we can’t stop in at the Alte Pinakothek or the Residenz or the Schloss Nymphenburg.”

I shrug.

“You’ll have to return in summer,” Evan adds, “and go to the English Garden. It’s breathtaking, and you’ll
find surfers at the rapids in the river. Though you may stumble across the odd naked person sunning himself on the grass, which is a bit alarming.”

I give him an incredulous look, and he shrugs. “Most Germans think nothing of it.”

I’m trying to imagine a bunch of nudists on the mall in Washington, DC, as Evan leads us into the Augustiner Bräu, the oldest brewery in Munich. In the States, there’s no way they’d let us in, but in Europe the drinking age for wine and beer is sixteen.

We don’t order anything but food and coffee, though. We’re not here to party. We’re here to steal—excuse me,
borrow
—a car and get out of Dodge.

We sit on benches at long, low, rough-hewn wooden tables. Over a lunch of sauerbraten, sausages, and some much-needed hot soup, we take stock of our surroundings. Unfortunately for our cash flow, this is a pretty upscale area, full of galleries, jewelry stores, and boutiques.

Evan shakes his head. We won’t be able to find what he has in mind here . . . or will we? Over our protests, he leaves Matthis and me to our café au laits and disappears for about half an hour. When he returns, he’s carrying an old mesh shopping bag with a wad of clothing inside. And an oversize artist’s portfolio.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“You’ll see. Come on. Let’s change and then find the nearest American hotel.”

Evan drags us—yes, even me, though I protest—into the men’s WC. There are separate locking stalls
(without gaps at the top or bottom like US bathroom stalls). Since someone has clearly targeted me and knows who I’m traveling with, it’s time to change my appearance.

Evan pulls his strange wad of clothing out of the shopping bag and starts to distribute it.

“Where did you get this stuff?” I ask.

“I broke into a small house nearby and raided the closets,” Evan says in a nonchalant tone.

Why am I not surprised? “Of course you did.”

Matthis gets a simple, dark blue cap embroidered with the logo for Bayern football—or soccer, in American terms. Evan switches out his blue metallic eyeglasses for knockoff Ray-Bans—though poor Matthis complains that he can’t see—and trades out his neon-green sneakers for old white tennis shoes that Matthis says have no “character.”

“That’s the point, mate,” Evan says. “We need to fade into the woodwork.”

For me, there’s a blond wig with bangs that’s not exactly flattering, a purple knit cap, burgundy lipstick that makes my fat lips look even bigger, and big Jackie O glasses. I also get a long, puffy gray coat (ugh) with a gray wool scarf, high-heeled black boots, and a grayish python-print hobo bag.

I come out of a stall after changing, and Evan is standing there texting on his smart phone. I take three steps in the boots and almost fall—have I mentioned that high heels are not my thing?

Evan looks up and shakes his head. “You really are
going to flunk deportment, aren’t you?”

I glare at him. “Did you know that high heels were originally invented—by some French douche bag, I think—for,
men
?”

Evan shrugs, then smirks. “Well, it’s a sign of intelligence, then, that we managed to pawn them off on women.”

“No, I’ll tell you what it’s a sign of,” I begin, but he locks himself in another stall to change into his own disguise. And he makes the mistake of thinking that the walls are more soundproof than they are, because he also makes a call. When Matthis, who’s been washing his hands, turns off the water, we can overhear what he’s saying.

“Cecily, I’m deadly serious.”

I freeze. Evan is talking to my redheaded nemesis and his friend with benefits. And clearly she’s part of our current problems.

“You’d better retract any statements you’ve given to management at GI,” Evan says hotly. “This isn’t about you or your ego—this is about getting a kid
killed
if you don’t keep your bloody mouth shut.”

I feel sick. He means Charlie, that much is obvious.

I realize what’s happened. Abby has confided in Cecily, of all people. Hoping to impress her. And Cecily saw an opportunity to score at GI; prove that she’s a badass just like her Interpol Agent parents. What damage is Cecily doing? And why?

“Back off, Cecily,” Evan grinds out. There’s a pause.

Then, “Are you really asking me that?”

Another pause.

Matthis and I look at each other.

“Cecily, your parents may be the Superman and Wonder Woman of Interpol when it comes to crimes against children, but you yourself have no experience, and you are not going to acquire it at the expense of Charlie Andrews’s life. Understand?”

Evan’s tone is scathing. He may be attracted to Roux (what guy wouldn’t be?), but he clearly doesn’t like her much.

“Now. You’re going to go to the head office and tell them that you’ve made a mistake or gotten bad information. Yes, you bloody well are. Or I will reveal your colossal cock-up on the Renaud case to
everybody
. Really? Try me. This isn’t a bluff; it’s a promise. And stay the hell away from Abby. We all know you’re just using her, and it’s cruel.”

There’s not much more to the conversation. I quickly turn on the water at a different sink and pretend to wash my own hands, pretend that I haven’t heard a word. I cast a sidelong glance at Matthis, and he nods once to indicate that he’ll play dumb right along with me.

Evan emerges whistling from the bathroom stall a couple minutes later wearing a dark baseball cap, checked shirt over a navy tee, olive pants, and black snow boots. He looks like your average unremarkable Joe—the blue-blood Brit is gone.

“Miss me?” he asks.

I snort, but halfheartedly. My worry for Charlie is now off the charts. What if the kidnappers find out that Cecily has been talking? I tell myself that it’s unlikely. That they can’t have moles in GI.

“If it’s any consolation, I think it’s going to be just as hard for me to toddle around in these snow boots as it is for you to walk in those heels.” Evan flashes me his innocent-as-the-Gerber-baby smile, as if he hasn’t been threatening and blackmailing someone only moments ago.

“Huh.” I so don’t know how to feel about him. He’s keeping secrets from me. But probably because he doesn’t want me to worry. He handled Cecily flawlessly, but ruthlessly . . . and I don’t want to think about how else he’s handled her—up close and personally.

I’m silent as we roll up our old clothes and mash them into the shopping bag. Evan hands me the artist’s portfolio to carry. It weighs a ton. “What’s in here?” I ask. Whatever it is, it’s metal and clanks.

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

He holds the door open for us, and we make our way out of the Augustiner Bräu as different people. The place is filling up as the afternoon goes on, and nobody notices us, not even our waitress, who’s already picked up the euros we left on the table.

We walk north toward the Karlsplatz so that we can get lost among the people thronging the Christmas market set up there—row after row of colorful, packed-to-bursting stalls featuring handmade ornaments, sweets, trinkets, stuffed toy bears, hedgehogs, dolls, and other
souvenirs. Evan tells us that in the summertime there’s a large fountain in the center of the square, but I have a hard time picturing it.

The festive holiday atmosphere seems all wrong to me, with Charlie kidnapped and my parents halfway across the world, doing God only knows what. The stares of the carved wooden Kriss Kringles seem accusatory, the brown noses of the teddy bears ingratiating, the smiles of the too-blond dolls synthetic . . . they all tell me that Christmas is a fairy tale that I’ll never enjoy again.