Chapter 32
Schola Sceleratorum
Amanda grabbed the folder and raced for the closet. She managed to get the door closed behind her just as two men entered the office.
“The shipment goes out at 4:00 a.m.,” said one of them. “If it isn’t loaded by 3:30, it will be too late. Everyone gets here at midnight. No exceptions. Say, do you smell something?”
“Like what?” said the other.
“I don’t know,” said the first man, sniffing the room. “Cat piss.”
Amanda tensed. If that monkey were to give her away she’d personally find it and throttle it.
The second man sniffed. “It does smell kinda weird in here. Oh, wait. The wastebasket. Our rubbish from lunch. That must be it.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Ugh, that’s rank.”
Amanda breathed a sigh of relief. Which didn’t mean that the monkey was off the hook. She was still fuming about its outrageous behavior.
“Everything is ready,” said the second man. “Fifty pallets go out the door by 1:00. It’ll take a couple of hours to load them.”
“You paid off the inspectors?”
“All taken care of.”
“And the captain?”
“I’m telling you, Jackie, everything is ready. Moriarty’s going to be real happy.”
Moriarty! The cook’s assistant? She was the mastermind behind all of this? But she was back at the school. Maybe she directed these crooks remotely. But why would the school be involved? This was a huge operation. Why not do everything right here?
Unless . . . the school was where the detectives were. She hadn’t thought of it quite that way before, but the detectives were the criminals’ worst enemies. If the criminals could infiltrate their home turf they’d weaken them significantly. Not to mention that they would completely humiliate them. Pretty smart. Eliminate your competition and your enemies at the same time. This was something the original Moriarty would have cooked up before breakfast. But Mavis Moriarty? She seemed a real lightweight.
Whatever the situation, those weapons were going out before dawn and Amanda couldn’t let that happen. She didn’t know where they were headed but it didn’t matter. Weird as they were, they were beyond lethal and had to be destroyed. Not only that, but she still didn’t know where her father was or whether he was even alive. She had to get away from these men and see if she could find him. What she’d do if and when she did she still didn’t know.
But whenever it was it wouldn’t be soon because the two men decided to eat their “lunches” and have a couple of beers, a project that took more than an hour. After they had left and Amanda finally emerged from the closet, she could see why. It wasn’t just a couple of beers. Nine or ten bottles littered the desk, along with greasy wrappers, condiment containers, and dirty plastic silverware. She’d thought she was hearing a lot of burping. Now she could see why. Yuck.
She thought maybe if she could find the men they’d lead her to her father, so she tried to pick up their trail. This wasn’t difficult to do, as their footprints were fresh on the sugar-strewn floor. The problem was that there were a million footprints and she’d have to distinguish the new ones from the rest.
As it turned out, this was less of a problem than she feared. The two men were wearing work boots with distinctive soles. One was an oddball swirly kind of thing and the other was a criss-cross pattern that almost looked like a plaid. If she were a criminal she’d camouflage herself as much as possible, but then these guys obviously weren’t the brains of the place. She wasn’t sure they even knew they were criminals. They seemed very far down in the pecking order.
She followed the footprints and the smell of onions across the factory floor and out another door into a corridor. It was very dark there and Amanda had trouble picking out the prints. Unfortunately with her phone all gunked up she couldn’t use her light, so she had to squint and do the best she could.
It was slow going. She still couldn’t hear anything and the smell had disappeared. The corridor angled around and around. There were doors on either side, all closed and unmarked. A couple of times she thought the prints led inside one of them, but after bending down and checking carefully, she concluded that the men had proceeded straight ahead. But the sugar was sparser here and the prints were disappearing so she couldn’t be sure.
Just as the prints were becoming so faint that she couldn’t see them at all, Amanda found herself at the end of the corridor facing another door. There were two words written on it in shiny gold letters: Schola Sceleratorum. She had no idea what that meant. Schola. Scholar? School? Yes, that must have been it. This was some kind of school. In a factory? Maybe this was where the criminals trained their workers. What did sceleratorum mean? It sounded like some place where they burned dead bodies. Skeleton? A school to teach people how to cremate? That made no sense, unless these people really were Murder, Incorporated. Amanda shuddered. This whole experience was starting to resemble a horror story. That didn’t sound like Moriarty at all. He was much cleverer and more subtle than these people seemed to be, although that didn’t mean his descendants were.
She extended her hand and turned the knob. The door was unlocked. She pushed it slowly until she could see through the crack. What she saw on the other side was baffling.
There, walking through an archway at the far end of what looked like a foyer, was Nick Muffet! But that was impossible. How could he be here? Why would he be here? Had he learned something about the criminals and set off to find her? Was he in trouble? It didn’t look like he was. He was looking nonchalant, as if he belonged in the place.
Should she call out to him? What if one of the bad guys heard her and captured both of them? Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. It would be better to follow him and take him aside discreetly. Then the two of them could look for her father together. When she told him what was going on, assuming he hadn’t figured it out already, he was not going to believe it.
She looked around to see if anyone else was there. No one was, so she pushed the door open and tiptoed into the foyer. It was gorgeous, nothing like the factory behind her. Polished wood paneling, stone columns and floor, sparkling chandeliers. Actually, it looked a lot like Legatum.
She crossed the room as quietly as she could and followed Nick’s path. Then, when she’d stepped through the archway, she got another shock. There, straight ahead, was a hallway lined with lockers, and it was full of kids just like her. What in the world would a school be doing inside a factory, and why would kids be there at night? Was the cartel renting out space to make money? She ducked behind a huge urn and listened. All she heard was the sound of kids talking, laughing, and carrying on, just the way she did with her friends. And then one voice rose above the rest.
“Hey, get your mitts off me, Moriarty. You think you’re hot stuff, don’t you?”
Amanda peeked out. A pasty-looking blond kid was staring into Nick’s face with a look that could kill. Why did he call him Moriarty?
Suddenly Nick saw her and froze. His face went all red and he looked angry in a way she’d never seen before. He stared for a moment, then marched over to her, pulled her out from behind the urn, and said, “What are you doing here, Amanda?”
She nudged him and said quietly, “You know. Looking for my father. Tracking criminals.” Then louder, “What are you doing here, Nick?”
The pasty boy broke into raucous laughter. “Who’s your girlfriend, Moriarty?”
There it was again. What was wrong with that kid? Didn’t he know who he was talking to? Was this some kind of nickname he’d given Nick?
“You shouldn’t have come here,” said Nick, pulling her away rudely. “You’ve made a lot of trouble for yourself.” He took out his phone and punched in a number, then said, “We have a problem.”
“I don’t understand. Who are these people?” said Amanda.
“I thought you were so smart, Amanda,” he said, sliding the phone back into his pocket. “You figure it out.”<
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“Why are you talking to me like that?” she said, searching his face, which was looking decidedly un-Nickish.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” she said. She wasn’t used to feeling dense and didn’t like it. Maybe the stress of the day was dulling her mind.
“Don’t you know where you are?” he said in a particularly nasty way.
“Yes. I’m in some factory run by criminals who are trying to take over the UK sugar trade and are making weapons out of pink powdered sugar. What I don’t know is what you’re doing here and who these kids are.”
“Do you know what Schola Sceleratorum means?” he said. He pronounced the words in a peculiar way. Maybe he knew Latin and that was the ancient Roman way of doing it.
“Haven’t the faintest idea. What does it mean?”
“School for Criminals, Amanda. This is our secret school.”
“What do you mean ‘our’?”
“Do I have to shake you, stupid girl? You really are Lestrade’s descendant. This school is our Legatum. It’s where we’re trained to be the most cunning, successful criminals on earth. Say, you smell awful. Where have you been?”
“None of your business. That boy called you Moriarty. Why did he do that?”
“Because it’s my name!” His face twisted into a rictus of contempt.
“But the cook’s assistant—”
“My mother, Mavis Moriarty.”
“Wait. Are you telling me that you’re descended from Professor Moriarty?”
“Bingo.”
“But you’re Nick Muffet.”
“That’s what you’re supposed to think.”
And then it hit her. He wasn’t kidding. He really was a Moriarty. But if he was, why would he have been going to Legatum? OMG, he’s a spy! He was only nice to me so he could find out what we were all up to. He never liked me at all.
Of course. She’d been so stupid. Why hadn’t she seen it? From the moment he’d walked her into the orientation he’d never really shared anything with her. She’d been so blinded by all the attention he’d lavished on her she hadn’t noticed that he never volunteered anything about himself. Under duress he’d made up that story about his family, told her exactly what she wanted to hear, but that was it. If anything he’d engaged in massive misdirection, feeding her bits and pieces of misinformation, giving her the idea that he was noble, altruistic, and true. And she had fallen for it like a cocker spaniel for a chew stick. He was an actor. It had been easy for him. Slap to head.
This also meant, of course, that he was in on the whole sugar conspiracy. He’d known what the pink stuff was all the time. Known that the cook had hidden her stash in the secret room, known . . . that they’d hidden her father there!
It also meant that he knew about the weapons and was okay with them. There was nothing sweet about him. He was a cold-blooded killer. In fact he’d probably killed the cook himself. And the doctor. And Professor Pickle and the other teacher, for all she knew. And now she was trapped with him!
But instead of being afraid she was furious. “How could you do this to me?” she screamed.
“I only gave you what you wanted,” he taunted. “You seemed to like it just fine. You’re so easy, Lestrade.”
“What did you call me?”
“You heard me.”
Amanda stared at him as the awful truth hit her. “It wasn’t that Wiffle kid at all. You sent me that text. But you were with me when I got it. How could you—”
“Do you really think you can’t schedule a text to be sent later, Amanda?”
He was enjoying this. She was so angry she wanted to sic that monkey on him.
“You’re a monster!” she cried.
“I certainly hope so,” he said. “It’s my aim in life to be as badass as my ancestor. You know, Professor Moriarty. The genius.”
“I hate you!” she screamed. “And I’ll get you. You just wait, Nick, if that’s even your name. I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do.”
But Nick just laughed. Suddenly the whole hall was laughing at her. She was so mortified that she thought her knees would give way, but that didn’t stop the anger. She’d never been so furious, not even with her parents.
Suddenly she felt a pain in her arm. A tall, elegant man with salt and pepper hair and ice blue eyes had snuck up and grabbed her. She’d never seen eyes so mesmerizing. “You’re coming with me,” he said, pulling her away.
“Thanks, Dad,” said Nick.
“Dad?!” said Amanda. “You mean there are more of you?”
“Of course,” said Nick. “More than you know.”
“But—”
“Shut up,” said the elder Moriarty, “or I’ll shut you up myself.” He turned to Nick. “How did she know where we are? Did you give us away?”
A guilty look passed over Nick’s face. She’d never seen him like that before. It was unsettling. “No, of course not. I have no idea—”
“If I find out that you’ve been lax you know what will happen,” said the man.
Nick went red. “I didn’t. You know I wouldn’t.”
“I know nothing of the kind. Now get out of my sight.”
Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy Page 78