Free The Golden Vendetta by Tony Abbott Page B

mademoiselles. Que voudriez-vous commander aujourd’hui?”
    They ordered two grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches of the kind called croque-monsieur, two authentic salades niçoises, and four Orangina soft drinks. The cold drinks arrived first, the food after ten or so minutes. Lily proclaimed that food had never tasted so good, “or so real!”
    While they ate, the sun slowly lowered in the sky, and a cooler breeze swept across the square and into the café. Here and there lights came on, windows twinkled, and soon the open part of the café was blue with late-afternoon shadow. The waiters began to light candles on the tables. Wade realized that his father and stepmother hadn’t joined them. He got out his phone.
    â€œDon’t spoil it,” said Becca. He didn’t make the call.
    â€œExcusez-moi,” said Lily, and she went off down a corridor to find the restrooms. Becca went, too. Madame Cousteau followed them.
    â€œShe’s like a ghost, that lady, shadowing us everywhere,” said Wade. “I kind of like it. I wouldn’t like to be the bad guy that meets her.”
    â€œHowever, as usual, grown-ups don’t like us much.”
    Wade nodded. “Well, you.”
    Darrell scanned the menu again. “I completely admit that. My question now is, what’s a profiterole? Second question: Should I be getting one? It sounds French and gooey. Is it? Well, it’s probably French. But is it gooey? I feel like something gooey.”
    â€œYou look like something goo—” Wade’s phone buzzed. He swiped it on. “It’s from Dad.” On the screen was a series of numbers. “Coordinates. Why doesn’t he just tell me?” He plugged the numbers into his GPS app.
    The screen showed a map. He zeroed in on it. It was an image of that very square, the plaza outside their café. The coordinates identified a table under an umbrella at a bistro on the far side of the square.
    â€œWhat is it . . . ?”
    â€œThat’s what I’m asking,” said Darrell. “Is a profiterole a kind of roll?”
    Wade stood up from the table and stared through the mirrored window across the square to the exact spot the coordinates pointed to. Suddenly, the skin on the back of his neck began to prickle. His blood pounded in his ears.
    â€œNo . . . no . . . no . . .”
    â€œNo, what?” said Darrell. “It’s not how you pronounce it?”
    â€œNo . . .” was all that Wade could manage to say.
    â€œYeah, you see, that kind of answer doesn’t help—”
    â€œRobin, stand up and look!”
    Staring straight across the Place du Palais, Wade had spotted a face he’d hoped he would never see again.

C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
    D arrell grumbled. Wade was doing it again: not saying the thing, but just pointing his face at it. Still, in the interest of stepbrotherhood he paused on his quest for dessert and followed Wade’s weird stare across the Place du Palais.
    Fifteen or twenty small round tables were scattered under a café awning. Looking beyond them, he spied the table Wade’s eyes were fixed on. Two men sat at it. One had his head down, reading the menu like Darrell had wanted to do.
    The other . . . the other wore wraparound sunglasses. “I can’t believe it!”
    â€œNo kidding.”
    The man in sunglasses—this particular man in sunglasses, code-named Sunglasses—had tried to kill them about a hundred times. Worse, he had nearly incinerated Lily and Wade. Worse than worse, he had kidnapped Darrell’s mother in Bolivia, then flown her to Europe and finally to Russia.
    In a coffin.
    After Markus Wolff, Sunglasses was the scariest person they’d ever met. And the person Darrell most wanted to . . . to . . . never mind. But it was grim.
    â€œMom must be freaking out,” he whispered.
    â€œIs he here because of us?” said Wade. “Does he know we followed the bookseller?