Death by Denim Read Free

in Paris?” I whispered.
    “I don’t know.”
    “But he could.”
    She looked at me, the expression completely dissolving from her face. “Yes, he could.”
    I sank back in my seat. That’s what I was afraid of. Now that he knew where we were headed, if Marlboro Man had colleagues in Paris, all it would take was a phone call and they could have the station surrounded by the time we got there. Or he could be waiting for us himself. Either scenario made me feel faint.
    “Maybe he didn’t see us get on the train,” I said. But I knew he had; I could tell by the look I’d seen on his face that he knew we’d slipped through his fingers.
    Mom didn’t answer, but stared straight ahead, tapping her fingers on the armrest. Trying to figure out how we were going to get off the train undetected, I imagined. I hoped she would be able to come up with something, and quickly.
    Me, I couldn’t think of a thing, which worried me because I was usually pretty good about thinking on my feet. But then again, I hadn’t clued in to being followed by the Marlboro guy, had I? It’s like when I left my name behind, I lost the thinking part of me as well. I didn’t know how to be me, but someone else. I was having an identity crisis, and I’d been running for only seven months. I couldn’t imagine how the people who were forever uprooted by the Witness Protection Program maintained their sanity.
    As soon as that thought came into my head I tried to push it out again. Because I knew what would follow, and thinking about him hurt too much. “Him” would be Seth Mulo. Seth’s family was also on the run from The Mole. The difference was that Seth had been running most of his life.
    When he was very young, Seth’s parents defected from The Mole’s sleeper organization and turned to the U.S. government for asylum. Eventually, the CIA assigned my mom to protect them. She sent Seth and his parents to hide at my dad’s island resort where she thought they would be safe. She was wrong. The Mole sent an assassin to kill Seth’s parents and naturally, I got caught up in the drama. Together, Seth and I spoiled The Mole’s party—which was one of the reasons he wanted us dead.
    I stared out at the French countryside, rolling the word us around and around in my head. Sadly, with Seth and I, there was no more us . We were too dangerous to each other to stay together. The Mole had used me to find Seth in Seattle and I wasn’t willing to take the chance again. No, the only solution was for Seth and I to stay far away from each other. That wouldn’t stop me from longing for him, though.
    Too soon the two-hour ride had passed. I felt the momentum of the train slowing and I had to pull my thoughts from Seth. Lights dotted the landscape, increasing in number as we rolled into the city. We were almost there. I could feel the panic rising like an ice-cold blush.
    I tried to act cool, but I’m sure Mom could see the way I was trembling as I turned to her and whispered. “What do we do now?”
    She looked at me for a long moment and simply said, “It will be all right.” But the corner of her mouth twitched when she said it—and she wasn’t even smiling.
    The train pulled up to the platform, creaking and groaning to a stop. My stomach twisted. How were we going to get out of the station without getting caught? There weren’t many people on the train, so it’s not likely we could blend with the crowd. Plus it was after midnight by then, so the station itself wasn’t all that crowded. I thought about sneaking out the wrong side of the train and hiding along the tracks, but I was afraid those tracks could be electrified.
    “What do we do?” I asked again.
    She raised her eyes to meet mine. “I’m going to be sick.”
    “What?”
    She pulled me close and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m going to pretend to be sick. Get up and walk toward the exit. I’ll be right behind you. Before we get off the train, I’m going to faint. If