by Maggie Hall
Jack listened for a second, then glanced at me, alarmed. “They’re saying the girl some people were calling a hero is wanted for questioning in the attack.”
A dark pit formed in my stomach. “Alistair is trying to turn the Circle against me so it makes sense if I disappear. So it looks like they got rid of me instead of me running away.” You’re the hero in our narrative, he’d said. He could make me the villain just as easily.
But I still had to be out in public to find the twin bracelet. Alistair must not have considered that. “They’re going to make me the most wanted person in the world. We’re not going to be able to do anything.”
The door slid open, and I tensed, already paranoid. How many people on this train had seen this news broadcast? How many people in Cannes?
But Elodie and Stellan slipped inside and slid the door shut behind them. “Turn on—oh. You’ve already seen.”
“We’ve already seen.”
“Well”—Elodie held out a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses—“we’re going to be in Cannes in about ten minutes. Let’s try not to get you arrested.”
CHAPTER 24
Colette had a car waiting for us at the train station. We kept as low a profile as we could until we were inside—besides anyone who might recognize me, there was still the question of how the Saxons had tracked us to the Arc de Triomphe. Elodie had done a thorough check of our electronics and found no bugs or tracking devices, but even she admitted that the Circle had technology she might not know about.
Cannes was no sleepy seaside town. We got caught in traffic on a street with palm trees running down the center, bordering the ocean. There was hardly an inch of bare sand showing between the bright umbrellas and beach towels, and an overly bronzed, heavyset man wearing only a Speedo lumbered in front of us through the stopped traffic.
“So this is the French Riviera,” I said.
Elodie pointed to a white hotel with navy turrets that dominated the skyline along the beachfront. “The Dauphins usually stay at the Carlton, but we’ll be at Colette’s private villa. She’s still a little camera-shy.”
That was far better for us. I’m sure there were dozens of Circle members here. For that matter, the Saxons themselves might be attending the festival. If they were, we’d really have to get to the bracelet before they noticed. They knew what it looked like.
On the right ahead, I saw the source of the traffic jam. A swarming crowd of people pushed out into the road, and as we got closer, I saw a banner that must be two stories high itself, proclaiming this to be the site of the Festival de Cannes. A flash of red leading up the stairs in front of it was surrounded by photographers in sun hats sitting cross-legged on the ground, cameras in their laps.
“The official opening ceremony is tomorrow, as you know,” Elodie said. “But the red carpet’s tonight. The photographers wait all day to get a good spot.”
The traffic cleared when we got past the festival, and we sped the rest of the way to Colette’s villa, which was on a cliff at the far end of the city. It was cream with black shutters, looking over a reflecting pool lined by palms and manicured hedges. Before we could get out of the car, Colette ran down the front steps while the driver got Elodie’s bag out of the trunk. She was the only one of us who’d brought luggage, so Colette was getting a nearby department store to send the rest of us some essentials.
The tall hedges hid the villa from the surroundings, and I relaxed for the first time since we saw the news this morning.
“Lucien told me what happened,” Colette said, sweeping me into a hug and then kissing Jack on the cheek and throwing her arms around Elodie. “Are you okay? Are you all okay?”
“Besides a few minor injuries,” Stellan said. Colette tucked herself against his side, but he just squeezed her shoulder and let go.
I watched her back as she led Elodie and Jack into the villa, and remembered what Stellan had said on the boat. You use whatever tools you have.
“You did the same thing to me,” I said. His hands in my hair on the plane, taking out my bobby pins, just hours after we met. The inappropriate remarks, directed straight at my overactive blushing mechanism.
He saw me watching Colette and seemed to understand. “I thought you’d be an easy target.”
We climbed the wide sandstone steps. “I think I knew it. I knew you wouldn’t hurt me. That’s why I got on the plane with you.”
Stellan opened the door. “What if you’d been wrong?”
I ducked through ahead of him. “I wasn’t.”
Inside, we found everyone in a sitting room walled by glass, making it look like the room was made of the palm trees and vines outside. I took a seat next to Jack on the sofa, and he slipped an arm around my shoulders. He was taking the assertion that he no longer cared what anyone thought seriously. Elodie noticed and raised an eyebrow in our direction. I ignored her.
She cleared her throat. “As you all know, the bracelet we’re here to get is going to be on display at the opening ceremony of the festival tomorrow, and that will be our best—and maybe our only—chance to steal it. So we’ll need to be prepared.”
I looked around at all the nodding faces. We were becoming a well-oiled machine.
“Here’s the plan,” Elodie said. “Before the main event tomorrow, there’s a red-carpet photo call tonight. Colette and I will recon there. We’ll figure out where the bracelet is located, and get a sense of what kind of security there is on it. Tomorrow night, Colette goes to the opening ceremony. When the time’s right, she’ll signal me, and I’ll trip the electricity, which should kill security on the display boxes for a good forty-five seconds before backup generators kick in. Stellan will be with Colette, acting like a bodyguard, and when the lights go out, he’ll grab the bracelet and replace it with this one, which Colette found at a thrift shop earlier.” She held up a passably similar piece of gold costume jewelry. “And then everyone gets the hell out as fast as they can.”
Everyone nodded, except me. “So what’s my job?”
“You and Jack make us piña coladas so we can celebrate when we get back.” Elodie spread her hands with a flourish. “Listen. You are the single most recognizable person in the world of the Circle right now, and a fugitive outside it. If anyone saw you, it could complicate things. And you,” she said to Jack, “are not as recognizable, but there are quite a few Circle members who think you’re a traitor and would gladly take your head off, which would really screw up the whole plan. You’ll need to stay out of sight, too.”
I started to protest, but Jack chimed in. “You’re right. We’ll stay here.”
I bristled and pulled out from under his arm, but then I gave up. “Fine. I’m not going to screw up the plan just because I want to be part of it. I think not using us is silly, but okay. What else?”
“That’s it. For now, we lie low and get ready for a heist.”
CHAPTER 25
When everyone had dispersed to choose bedrooms, Jack followed me outside through arched French doors and onto a back patio dotted with topiaries and lounge chairs. I wandered to a fountain, where a jumping marble fish sprayed water out of its mouth and into a pond below. Jack stopped beside me, hands in his pockets.
“Sorry about that in there,” he said. “Knee-jerk reaction. I should have let you argue with Elodie if you wanted. I would rather have you stay here, but . . .”
I frowned and tucked my hair behind my ears. “I just think it’s better to have all of us close in case something goes wrong. But if you all think the risk of me being recognized is too much, then I guess I should just believe you.”
Overhead, a pair of birds called to each other, and I leaned against the railing around the fountain and looked up at the surrounding mansions.
We stood in silence for a few seconds, lost in our own thoughts. Finally, Jack held out his arm. I laid my cheek against his chest, and he rested his chin on t
op of my head. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?” he said. I could feel the words as much as I could hear them. “I don’t care how often we don’t agree. You can argue with me all day, and I’d still—”
He cut off abruptly, and his hand, which had been tracing small circles on my lower back, stilled. I tensed, staring into his shirt. He’d still what?
“I’d still do what’s right for you,” he finished. He rubbed my back again. “I always will.”
I thought about the part of Jack’s past he hadn’t told me about. How helpless he must have felt about Oliver Saxon’s death; how if it were me, I’d do anything I could to not feel like that again. “I know,” I whispered.
He ran his hands up my arms and then pulled away. “Wait here a minute,” he said.
He loped across the garden to a bush heavy with pink roses. He plucked one and ran back, offering it to me. “Tonight, when Colette and Elodie are out doing reconnaissance, let me take you out. A proper date. We’ll have to go somewhere far away from the action, where no one will recognize us, and it won’t be anything fancy, but—”
I was sure I looked skeptical. Really, now? Of all times?
“I’m serious. We never got to go on the date I asked you on in Minnesota. I meant it then, and I mean it a thousand times more now, and everything’s such a mess I don’t know that there’s anything holding us back anymore. Avery West, may I take you on a date?”
I took the rose. This would be good for us. Get things back to normal, if there was such a thing anymore. “Okay. Yes.”
I jumped when a door opened on a balcony at one of the houses next door. A woman swept outside in a red bikini. She was wearing a wide-brimmed white hat, but her long, wild, curly hair and thick winged eyeliner was instantly recognizable. Miranda Cruz, who had won the Best Actress Oscar last year. She leaned out over the balcony, looked around, and saw us looking at her. I ducked back behind Jack, just in case.
On cue, Elodie opened the patio door and gestured for us to come in. “I was looking for you,” she said. “What part of everyone here will recognize you didn’t you understand? Don’t go outside. For two days. Even you can handle that.”
I followed her back into the crisp air-conditioning. “I didn’t go from being the Saxons’ prisoner to being yours. I’ll wear sunglasses or something, but I’m not hiding inside. In fact, why don’t I just wear sunglasses and hide out near the festival tomorrow so I can at least be backup? I’ve been checking the news. All they’re saying is that I might be questioned. It’s not like they’ve put out a most-wanted bulletin. Random locals aren’t even going to notice me.”
“Like sunglasses are going to do anything—” Elodie protested.
“We could disguise her,” Colette said. “I do it all the time. Sunglasses aren’t enough, but you can get away with a lot by changing your hair and clothes. I’ll wear a wig and a huge coat, and I almost don’t even need the glasses. It’s like people don’t see my face when the rest of me isn’t what they were expecting.”
“So that’s what I’ll do,” I said. I looked down at my long, wavy dark hair falling over my shoulder. “I’ll cut my hair.”
“She said a wig,” Elodie said. “The dramatics are unnecessary. Though you do have a lot of hair, and fitting it under a wig . . .”
I touched the piece of hair that had been cut at the wedding. It brushed my collarbone.
“Could use it as an excuse to do something fun,” Colette said with a sad smile. “Cut it off to that length. Dye it pink.”
I started to laugh, but stopped. “Not a bad idea. I could go hipster. Get me some pink streaks, some big glasses . . . This cut piece looks ridiculous, anyway. I’ve been meaning to do something with it.” I turned to Elodie. “Will you do it?”
• • •
When Elodie got back from the drugstore with hair dye, we left the boys and Colette in the main room and shut ourselves in the marble bathroom.
“Time to make you hip. Though that’ll take more than just a haircut,” Elodie said, tossing a pair of scissors and a box of hair dye on the counter.
I took one last look at myself in the gilded mirror and pulled at the ends of my long hair, then sat on the toilet seat. “Is there anything the rest of us can do while you’re at the red-carpet thing tonight?”
Elodie pulled a brush through my hair. “Sit here and be useless.”
I bit down hard on my lip. “Why don’t you like me?”
She smirked.
“I’m serious. I keep trying to be nice to you, and you still hate me. I just want to make sure you’re not going to shave my head right now.”
Elodie snagged a knot, and I flinched. “I don’t hate you. I think this whole thing’s obnoxious, and I kind of wish you’d never come into our lives. But I don’t hate you.”
“Um, okay. Thanks,” I said, not hiding the sarcasm.
She gave an exaggerated sigh. “It’s a compliment. I think you’re handling it okay. I hope you don’t hurt him, though. Jackie. He’s . . . good. Both of them are.”
Oh. So that was what the renewed animosity was about. I thought she’d looked at us all funny on the train this morning. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to talk about this. Weird relationship stuff not conducive to serious clue following, remember?”
“Funny, you say that, but you keep leading both of them on, anyway.”
I turned so quickly, the brush yanked on my hair. “Ow. I’m not leading anyone on. I had a thing with Jack. Have a thing. Whatever. It’s complicated. End of conversation.”
“But you want to know what Stellan’s tongue tastes like.”
“Elodie!” I whipped around again, this time to the door to make sure no one had heard. I hissed through my teeth when the brush caught again, and I ripped it out of her hand and disentangled it myself.
“Am I wrong, though?” She took back the brush and clipped the top layer of hair tight against my head.
“Just drop it, okay?”
Mercifully, Elodie shrugged and gave the short piece of hair a tug. “You’re sure about this? You have such glamoreux hair. Short hair feels different.”
I shook my head a little and felt my hair tickling my skin. I’d worn it long since our first move. I’d never dyed it, never done anything. Was this crazy? Maybe. Was I sure? No. I glanced up at Elodie’s blunt bob.
She saw me looking and touched her own hair. “Exactly. You don’t want to be like me.”
“I was actually just thinking I like yours,” I said. I’d spent so much time fighting, stubbornly clinging to the idea of having everything how it used to be, when maybe I should be adapting. Adjusting my hair around what had happened rather than trying to cover up the part I’d lost. I inwardly rolled my eyes at the obvious cheesy metaphor there, but I said, “I want it cut. Do it.”
She pursed her lips, studying me like she wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth. “Okay.”
Still, I held my breath when she pulled my hair taut for the first cut. That distinctive sound of scissors snipping was followed by the whisper of a lock falling to the bathroom floor. It was so much longer than I thought the cut part would be. It lay there on the tile, curled in a spiral. It hit like a punch. “Oh God,” I whispered.
“Too late now,” Elodie said.
“I know.” I watched the second lock fall. And the third.
Soon, Elodie stood in front of me, evening out the hair brushing my collarbones. I touched the freshly snipped ends, and they swung freely.
Elodie took down the clip with the next layer of hair. I swallowed hard.
“I don’t hate you, either. Just so you know,” I said, trying to distract myself.
She pulled a strand of hair between her fingers. “I know.” By the time she took down the top section, my head felt ten pounds lighter.
Finally, she ruffled my hair and smoothed it back
from my face. My eyes were still shut tight, and I felt her arrange locks over my ears, then grab my chin and tilt my face up. “Open,” she said.
I did, and Elodie’s face was inches from mine. She actually smiled, and took my face between her palms. “Stop looking like someone died, or I’m not going to do the pink.”
I pasted on a smile that felt fake even to me, and she snorted but grabbed the box of dye. Then she looked me up and down and wrinkled her nose. “Please tell me those aren’t the same clothes you had on when we left Greece.”
“I haven’t exactly had time to go shopping.” I touched my hair, trying to sneak a peek over my shoulder into the mirror.
“No! Don’t look.” Elodie jumped in front of me and pointed at the partition at the end of the room that hid the shower stall. “Your hair needs to be wet, anyway. Shower, and I’ll have Colette bring clean clothes, then we’ll do the dye.”
Almost an hour later, I was showered, my hair was dyed, and Elodie produced a blow-dryer. She kept me facing away from the mirror, and I could feel her twirling my waves around her fingers. When she was done, she actually smiled. “Approved. You can look.”
I stood and smoothed the black sheath dress Colette had brought. She and I weren’t anywhere near the same size, but the dress was drapey, so it didn’t matter.
I took a centering breath and turned around.
I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.
Elodie had cut my hair in a long blunt bob that fell to my shoulders. I’d wondered if the short hair would make me look younger, but I looked more sophisticated. Older, in a good way. Without the length of the hair pulling down, my cheekbones stood out more, and my eyes looked bigger, but somehow more proportional at the same time. I looked like me, but not.
And the color. If pink hair could ever look natural, this looked natural. It was bright—it was incredibly bright. It wasn’t just pink, it was magenta. But all the pink chunks were on the under layer, and Elodie had woven them in so they peeked through the curls on top. At first you only got a glimpse, but if I tossed my hair or turned my head quickly, it was a flash of neon.