Kiss Me in the Moonlight (Destined for Love: Europe)

by Lindzee Armstrong

  “I could kill those two. They’ve been all over each other this whole trip. I bet they’re in some hotel, enjoying a little alone time.”

  Paige’s stomach turned over as she remembered the conversations Nick had overheard between them. She really hoped that was all this turned out to be. She checked the battery on her phone, then shoved it in her pocket. “I have my cell. See if you can get anything else out of the roommates, and let me know if you find anything.”

  “I will.” Layla’s eyes were ringed with sleep and worry. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” Paige shut the door and ran straight into Nick.

  He steadied her with his hands. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” Paige said. “Where do we start?”

  “Right here in the Latin Quarter. Hopefully, someone saw them leave and can tell us which direction to head.”

  They ignored the elevator and jogged down the stairs, Paige struggling to keep up with Nick’s longer stride. A quick stop at the front desk confirmed the shift had changed, and the employees hadn’t seen Ryan or Evie.

  As Nick and Paige stepped outside, the cool air brushed her skin. The city was oddly quiet, the sounds of revving engines muted in the early morning. The cobblestone street was still shrouded in darkness, the barest hint of light barely visible on the horizon.

  “Do you have any good pictures of them on your phone?” Nick asked.

  “I know I have one of Evie. We took one together at the Chateau de Villandry.”

  “I think I have a group shot with Ryan in it. It’ll have to be good enough. Look.” Nick pointed to a shop half a block away. A man carefully arranged apples in a fruit stand underneath wide window awnings. “Maybe he saw them leave.”

  Paige scrolled through her pictures as they strode toward the man. She paused, staring at the photo. Evie and Ryan stared back at her, their faces glowing with excitement as they posed in Claude Monet’s gardens. Paige had completely forgotten that she snapped the picture. Had that really only been yesterday?

  “Bonjour,” Nick said as they approached the man. His back was rounded with age, and his eyes were cloudy with cataracts.

  “Bonjour,” the man said.

  Paige held out the phone, speaking rapidly in French. “We’re looking for these kids. They’re with our tour group and have disappeared. Have you seen them?”

  The man took the phone from her hands, squinting at the small screen. “I don’t think so,” he said, handing the phone back. “Sorry.”

  Paige’s stomach dropped, and she shoved the phone back in her pocket. “Okay. Thank you.”

  “It’s okay,” Nick said as they walked away. “We’ll find them.”

  They spoke to four more shopkeepers who didn’t recognize the photos. Paige’s hope dimmed with each dead end. She blinked back tears as they turned down yet another street.

  “This is hopeless,” she said.

  Nick wrapped his arm around her in a quick side-hug. “Don’t give up. We’ve only talked to five people.”

  “How many do you typically talk to?”

  “Depends. Usually, I have more to go on than two teenagers who’ve been acting suspicious.” He pointed to a crêpe cart, where a woman mixed batter. “But they didn’t vanish into thin air. Someone has to have seen them.”

  Paige took a deep breath, then nodded. They quickly crossed the street and approached the woman at the crêpe cart. A hairnet covered her hair, and the sleeves of her jacket were pushed up nearly to her elbows.

  “Bonjour,” Paige said, holding out her phone. “We’re looking for these two kids. Have you seen them?”

  The woman wiped her hand on an apron, then pulled glasses off her head and placed them on her nose. She carefully examined the photo for ten seconds. “Oui.”

  Paige’s heart pounded, and she put the phone back in her pocket. “You have?”

  “Where were they headed?” Nick broke in.

  The woman pointed toward the metro station across the street. “I saw them almost an hour ago. They were in quite a hurry.”

  Nick bolted toward the station, his long stride carrying him across the street.

  “Thank you!” Paige said to the woman and raced after him.

  Nick slowed his pace, allowing Paige to catch up.

  “Did their roommates have any idea where they might have gone?” Nick asked.

  “None,” Paige said, remembering the panic in Angie’s voice. “It’s not like they’ve really hung out with anyone but each other since we got here.”

  “Do they know what time they left?”

  “Sometime between ten-thirty and five a.m. That’s a pretty big window.”

  “I think it’s safe to say it was closer to five,” Nick said. “That woman saw them an hour ago, and they wouldn’t stick around the neighborhood for long. Everything shuts down at night, and the metros haven’t been running long.”

  “Where would they go?”

  Nick chewed on his lip, jogging down the metro steps. It was after six a.m. now. Men with briefcases and women in heels walked briskly down the steps, ready for a day at the office.

  “Ryan’s trying to protect Evie,” Nick said. “Those conversations I overheard … I think he was trying to talk her into running away with him. I assumed he meant when they got back to the States. Guess I was wrong.”

  Paige’s entire body trembled with adrenaline, and panic coated her every thought. “They can’t stay in Europe. They don’t have work permits. Visas. There are laws and regulations in place.”

  “I doubt they’ve thought that far ahead.”

  “Of course they haven’t—they’re kids.” The muggy, stale air of the station hit Paige full force. She grabbed her metro pass, but Nick pulled her to the side, leaning against a graffitied concrete wall.

  “They’re legal adults,” Nick said. “But we’ll find them and help if we can. I should’ve listened to you and brought up our concerns earlier.”

  “I didn’t have to take your advice,” Paige said, hearing the misery in her voice. “This is as much my fault as it is yours. What are they thinking?”

  “They’re thinking the trip is about to end and she doesn’t want to go back to being abused.” Nick pointed to the ticket counter. “Layla didn’t hand out the metro passes, right? That means they had to buy one. Maybe he remembers something helpful.”

  “Again, I ask—where would they go?”

  Nick shrugged. “My guess? One of the train stations. I doubt they’ll stick around Paris for long.”

  Paige’s heart thumped in her chest. She unzipped her jacket, feeling suddenly overheated. “We have to tell their parents. Alert Mr. Dawson.”

  “We will. Soon.” He grasped her hand, tugging her toward the ticket counter.

  “Train tickets cost money. How much can they have access to?”

  “Ryan probably has a credit card with a limit higher than either of us can qualify for.”

  Ideas whirled in Paige’s brain, until one finally flickered to life. “That’s good. A credit card can be traced.”

  He grinned, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Yeah. Very good, Paige.”

  “I’ve watched TV.”

  “The kids probably have, too. I bet they make a large cash withdrawal and bolted. That’s what I would do in their situation.”

  “But you’re a trained spy.”

  Nick stiffened, and Paige quickly looked around, realizing she’d spoken too loudly.

  They waited in line while a mother pushing a baby stroller spoke to the attendant behind the glass window. Nick stepped forward as soon as she was done.

  “Bonjour,” Nick said.

  Nick nodded at Paige, and she fumbled for her phone. She pressed it against the glass, and the attendant glanced at it with a bored expression.

  “Have you seen either of these kids this morning?” Nick asked. He’d dropped all pretense of not knowing French, but Paige couldn’t worry about that lie right now.

  The attendant folded his arms. He was yo
ung, perhaps college aged, with a thin goatee and thick-framed glasses. “Who wants to know?”

  “They’re part of our tour group,” Paige said. “They went missing this morning. We think they might need our help.”

  The man’s eyes were hard and unforgiving. “Sounds to me like they don’t want to be found.”

  Nick tensed. “He knows something,” he said in English, his voice low so only she could hear.

  “Please,” Paige said in French. “We’re really worried about them.”

  “They seemed fine when I saw them,” the attendant said.

  “So you have seen them,” Nick said. “Where were they headed?”

  The man shook his head, smiling widely.

  “They probably paid him to keep quiet,” Nick said, again speaking in English. He pulled out his wallet and grabbed a few hundred euro. He snapped it in front of the glass. “Is this enough to break your silence?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. He looked around, then motioned for Nick to slide it through the coin slot. Paige blinked, and the money was gone.

  “They bought a day pass for the metro,” the attendant said. “They asked what the quickest route to Amsterdam was, and I told them which line would take them to the Gare du Nord. That’s all I know.”

  “Amsterdam?” Paige clutched at her throat, horror flooding through her.

  “That’s all I know,” the attendant repeated. “Now beat it. You’re holding up the line.”

  Paige stepped away, her entire body going numb. “What are we going to do? Those stupid kids. They don’t even speak Dutch! What are they thinking?” London would’ve made so much more sense.

  Nick’s face was deadly pale, his green eyes distant and muscles rigid.

  Alarm bells went off in Paige’s head, and she grabbed his arm. “Nick?”

  “Let’s head back to the hotel.” His voice was strained.

  Panic blossomed freshly, and her heart raced until it hurt. She’d never seen him look so worried. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think it’s time to call Don.”

  Amsterdam. Nick barely registered the Parisians streaming past as he and Paige fought against the current and climbed out of the bowels of the metro station.

  It had to be a coincidence. There was no way the kids were connected to his mission gone wrong. They would’ve known how to get to Amsterdam without asking for directions.

  “I think we can safely rule out kidnapping,” Paige said. Her shoulder brushed against his as they crossed the street. “Seems like they left willingly.”

  “It definitely wasn’t a kidnapping.” His mind struggled to put together the puzzle pieces, to solve this mystery and make the pit in his stomach disappear.

  “What are you going to tell Mr. Dawson?”

  Don would lose it. Nick rubbed a hand over his jaw, the short hair prickling against his palm. Their friendship was probably going to be strained for a while.

  “The truth,” Nick said.

  Paige let out a groan. “He’s going to fire us. Evie and Ryan will end up as some unsolved mystery on one of those Sunday night specials.”

  “No one is getting fired.” Not if he could help it, anyway. “And I promise you, we’ll find Evie and Ryan. But this is Don’s company, and his reputation is on the line. We need to find out how he wants us to proceed.”

  “How would you proceed, if this was your mission?”

  Nick suddenly missed Devin with a fierceness that took his breath away. They’d worked together on cases seamlessly, almost able to read each other’s minds after so long together. It had made them an effective team. “I’d make sure it wasn’t a false lead, then be on the next train to Amsterdam.”

  They dodged a street artist setting up his easel. The sun rose over the tops of the buildings, bathing the city in a warm glow. Paige’s eyes were wide, her hair frizzing out of its ponytail.

  “Do you really think it’s a false lead?” she asked.

  “Maybe. I’m hoping we can find out more at the Gare du Nord.”

  “This is a nightmare.” Her voice was high and thin, tension threading through every syllable.

  Nick wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and she leaned into him. She’d held up like a champion so far, and he was beyond proud of her. “We’re going to figure this out. I’m a trained agent, remember? We’ve got this.”

  Paige nodded, her head bobbing against his shoulder as they walked. “So we’ll call Don and go from there.”

  “Yes. Everything’s going to be fine.” But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something critical, just out of sight.

  Inside the hotel, bleary-eyed teenagers ate in the breakfast room, ready for another day of sightseeing. Nick peeked inside. Layla and Tyler sat only a few feet away at a table near the door, heads close together as they spoke in low voices.

  “Psst,” Nick whispered.

  Tyler looked up, his eyes meeting Nick’s. Nick took a step back and leaned against the wall so none of the teens would see him.

  Tyler and Layla appeared moments later, their faces drawn and eyes filled with worry.

  Layla looked back and forth between Nick and Paige. “You didn’t find them.”

  “No,” Paige said. She quickly related what they’d learned at the metro station. The feeling of wrongness tugged at Nick with every word. What was Ryan and Evie’s plan—to disappear in Amsterdam, assume new identities, and live out their lives? Ryan had to know his father would never be okay with that. The man had enough money and resources to mount a large-scale search for his missing son.

  Maybe it was a false lead, and the kids were actually headed somewhere else. But that didn’t make sense, either. It wouldn’t slow down the private investigators for long.

  Why not wait until they were back in the States, and run away then? Why not just tell Ryan’s father what was going on and use the West family money to protect Evie?

  “I can’t believe they ran away,” Layla said. “I tried talking more to their roommates. Neither of them heard anything during the night. Either Evie and Ryan were very quiet, or their roommates sleep like the dead.”

  “Probably the latter,” Nick said. “They’re all tired after two weeks of traveling.”

  “Do you really think they’re on their way to Amsterdam?” Tyler asked. The freckles stood out starkly against his pale cheeks.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Nick said. “Paige and I are going to call Don—Mr. Dawson. We’ll see where he wants us to go from here.”

  Layla’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t believe this is happening. What do we tell the rest of the kids? They’re going to notice that Evie and Ryan are gone.”

  “Tell them as little as possible,” Nick said. Need to know. It was a phrase that had been drilled into his head for years.

  “Yeah, okay,” Layla said.

  “Keep us posted,” Tyler added.

  Nick nodded, and he and Paige trudged up the stairs. He opened the door to his hotel room and motioned her inside. Why Amsterdam? He wracked his brain for a connection to the city, but he couldn’t remember either Evie or Ryan ever bringing it up. Surely Italy or Spain, or even England, held more appeal for two teenagers.

  Then again, Amsterdam did have some pretty loose recreational drug and alcohol laws. Maybe the kids were looking forward to endless nights of partying with daddy’s money. But in order to access that money, they’d need a credit card or ATM. And those would both leave a trail.

  Paige perched on the edge of Nick’s bed, her arms wrapped tightly around her torso. She looked ill, her skin sallow and lips nearly white as she pressed them together.

  “I’ll put it on speaker phone,” Nick said. He dialed Don’s number, taking slow, even breaths. He could do this.

  The phone rang and rang and rang. Nick fought the urge to pace, not wanting to let Paige know just how nervous he was. He thought maybe it would go to voice mail, but eventually, someone picked up.

  “Hey, Nick.” Don’s high-pitched v
oice sounded tinny through the phone’s speakers. “Sorry, I was in the other room. What’s going on?”

  “You’re on speaker phone,” Nick said. “I’ve got Paige with me. You might want to sit down for this one.”

  “What happened?” Don asked. Nick could already hear the panic thrumming through his voice.

  Paige twirled a lock of hair around one finger, her eyes dark and frightened.

  “Two of the kids have disappeared,” Nick said, forcing himself to be direct. He clutched the phone until his joints ached. “We think they’ve run away.”

  Silence filled the room.

  “Don?” Nick said.

  “Who?” Don asked, his voice tight.

  “Evie and Ryan.”

  A whoosh of air crackled across the line, and Don swore. “Tell me everything.”

  Nick filled Don in on their search. Paige’s finger grew white as she twisted and untwisted the strand of hair. Nick sank onto the bed next to her, and she leaned against his side.

  “Amsterdam,” Don said when Nick had finished.

  “We can’t be sure, but yeah, I think so. I texted a friend who’s going to keep an eye on the credit cards for me. I should have more information on that soon. I think it’s time to call their parents.”

  “No,” Don said. “It’ll be better if we tell them after the kids have been found.”

  “Don—” Nick began.

  “You can find them, can’t you?” Don cut in.

  “Yes.” Nick made sure his tone held all the confidence he felt. He’d tracked down trained spies all across the world. Finding two teenagers would be easy. Boring, almost.

  Except something felt wrong. What wasn’t he seeing?

  “Then you’ve got to go to Amsterdam,” Don said. “Take Paige with you. Sometimes people are more willing to give information to a pretty face.”

  Paige nodded eagerly.

  “No,” Nick said, his voice rough. “I’m trained for this sort of thing. Paige isn’t.”

  “I want to help,” Paige said, hands on her hips. “You aren’t leaving me behind this time.”

  The words hit like a punch to the gut, and from the fire in her eyes, Nick knew she was serious. But he couldn’t take Paige to Amsterdam. His chest tightened as he heard the gunshots. Saw Devin’s body thrown into the water.