Where Beauty Lies (Sophia and Ava London) (22 page)

“Answer it,” Sophia whispered back.

“Right. Hold on.” Ava put her phone in her lap and groped around the couch. Her hands were shaking so hard that it took her a moment to pry the black flip phone out from between the cushions. “Hello,” she said unsteadily.

“You made me wait for you to answer,” a voice hissed. It was a low whisper, and Ava couldn’t tell if it was male or female. “I don’t like to wait.”

“I’m sorry,” Ava said. “I had trouble getting to the phone.”

“You’ll have bigger problems if you don’t pay close attention to what I’m saying,” the voice—the kidnapper’s, Ava thought—said snappishly.

“I’m sorry.” Ava stared at the flip phone, looking for a Speaker button. Nothing was obvious and she was worried that if she pushed the wrong one she’d hang up, so she put her own phone next to the earpiece so that Sophia could hear the conversation, too. “I guess I’m just afraid.”

“Stop talking and listen. I’m taking a big chance by doing this.” Ava was increasingly convinced that her caller was female. “If you do exactly what I say, you and your pets will be fine. But if you make any stupid mistakes or stupid moves, I can’t answer for what will happen.”

“I won’t. I’ll do what you want.”

“We’ll see,” the voice said, snorting. “Go to the reception desk and tell them you’re Coco Chanel. They’ll give you a room key and you’ll find your little treasures there. And—” Ava couldn’t make out what the kidnapper said next because she was suddenly getting a large dose of the Naked Cowboy’s strumming. Sophia must have moved back toward him, Ava thought, wishing there was some way to get her to step away.

“I’m sorry, I’m having a really hard time hearing you,” Ava told the kidnapper, hoping that Sophia would understand the message, too.

“Whose fault is that?” the kidnapper demanded.

Ava shifted Sophia’s phone but the sounds of the Naked Cowboy’s guitar didn’t lessen.

Her mouth went dry and her heart began to pound.
She knew where the kidnapper was
.

The Naked Cowboy’s guitar playing wasn’t coming from Sophia’s phone, it was coming from the kidnapper’s. Which meant she could tell the others where the kidnapper was standing and that they could capture her. Provided Ava could get the kidnapper to stay there without letting on that she’d figured it out.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that the bar table nearest her was now occupied by a very nonchalant-looking Sam. She couldn’t tell if she was being watched so she didn’t want to approach him directly.

Keep her on the phone,
she thought as she started looking furiously for a notepad. “Can you repeat that?”

“Are you an idiot?” the caller demanded.

“I’m just a little scared,” Ava said, “and my mind isn’t working as clearly as I’d like.” She found a notepad next to a house phone and wrote, “Female kidnapper at naked cowboy alert all teams go,” crumpled it into a ball, strolled back toward the couches, and as casually as possible lobbed it at Sam.

“I’m hanging up.”

“No!” Ava cried. Her voice sounded even more desperate than she felt. “Please don’t. Please. If you really want to help me, you’ll at least stay on the phone with me until I have the room key.”

“Are you almost at the front of the check-in line?” the kidnapper demanded.

Was that a test or did it mean she wasn’t being watched? Ava wondered. “There are maybe five people ahead of me,” she lied as she approached the completely empty reception desk.

She wasn’t sure if Sam had even gotten her note until she saw him race out of the bar, fly down the escalator, and disappear into Times Square.

At the same moment, Sophia’s voice whispered from the other phone, “Keep her talking. You’re doing great.”

Ava let out a deep breath. She scrawled, “Please give me the key for Coco Chanel, EMERGENCY IMPORTANT,” on a piece of paper and pushed it across the reception desk to the clerk, gesturing toward her phone. At first he looked at her with naked fear and she realized that if she’d been trying to look like a psychopath who was going to hold up a cash drawer, juggling two phones, throwing paper, carrying a large, heavy sack, and pacing back and forth would probably fit the bill.

She wrote, “I AM NOT PSYCHOPATH. PROMISE,” and pushed that across to him but that didn’t seem to help. Instead he disappeared.

“You haven’t told me where you want me to leave the money yet,” Ava said into the phone.

“I don’t want your money. I don’t want anything to do with you. I just want this to be over.”

“That’s all I want—”

Ava heard a clatter, the words, “You moron. You’re going to pay for this. You’re all dead,” and then the screech of breaks and a busload of people shrieking in terror.

The flip phone went dead.

She said, “Hello? Sophia?” into Sven’s phone but it was dead, too, and when she redialed it went straight to voice mail.

She hung up and dialed Lily. No answer.

Sam bounced to voice mail.

She was completely on her own.

If Popcorn and Charming were really at the hotel they’d be safe for a few more minutes but she had no idea what had happened to everyone else. The sound of breaks squealing and people screaming echoed in Ava’s mind. She had to go find them, go find Sophia. If the kidnapper had them, if she’d done something to them—

Ava had to find them. Now.

She backed away from the reception desk and was on her way through the lobby to the escalator when a hand reached out, grabbed her arm, and a female voice whispered, “Don’t make a sound or you’re done for.”

LonDOs

Clarity

The Naked Cowboy

Getting a chance not to play it safe

LonDON’Ts

Passing anyone a note that says I AM NOT PSYCHOPATH. PROMISE

People who do not answer their phones in the middle of an operation Any sentence that ends with the phrase or you’re done for.

19

midfrown

“I’m heading north on Sixth Avenue,” Sophia shouted into her phone, following the girl in the gray hoodie through the crowd.

“I see the hoodie,” Lily’s voice said. “Sixth and Forty-fourth.”

“Is it her?” Sophia asked

“Closing, closing— No!” Lily said. “Rats.” Then Sophia heard her say in a much nicer voice, “I’m so sorry, ma’am, I thought it was a— No, there’s no need for the police.”

They’d pegged the girl in the gray hoodie for the person Ava was on the phone with while they were circling the Naked Cowboy. They had been creeping forward, ready to grab her, when she’d looked up, dropped her phone, and taken off.

The look had been brief, but enough for them to recognize her as Whitney Frost.

Sophia was still having trouble figuring it out. Had Whitney helped them?

Or had she been setting a trap? Because every time Sophia tried to call Ava, it went straight to voice mail.

Sophia had never before noticed how many people wore gray hoodies, but now that she was looking for someone in a gray hoodie, it seemed they were everywhere.

“I feel like I’m playing Where’s Waldo in Hell,” Lily said.

“She’s probably left the vicinity by now,” Sophia told her.

Lily put on a frowning voice. “That’s not the kind of attitude I like to hear from my top squad leader.”

“I don’t have a squad,” Sophia said.

“You’re a unit of one,” Lily told her. “Be all that—”

“I’ve got her,” Sophia whispered. Her pulse picked up. “Seventh and Forty-fifth, heading west, north side of the street. She’s strolling to look unconcerned. No idea she’s being followed.”

“You’re sure it’s Whitney?” Lily asked.

“Ninety-five percent.”

“Stay on her. I’ll try to conference in the others. If something goes wrong, converge around Forty-fifth and Eighth,” Lily said.

Sophia hung back, dipping between parked cars and clinging to shadows. Which would have been easier to do in pretty much any other pair of shoes. She pressed herself into the side door of a theater.

Her phone vibrated and she answered without saying a word. “I’ve conferenced everyone in,” Lily said. “Tell us what you see.”

Sophia peeked her head around the edge of her hiding place and cursed. “She’s speeding up. Heading west on Forty-fifth fast. Now she’s cutting through to Forty-sixth, heading toward Eighth Avenue.”

“I’ve got her,” Sam said. “I’m east on Forty-sixth from Ninth.”

“I’m on Eighth and Forty-fourth and I have seeing,” Sven said.

“I see her too,” Lily said.

“I’ve got her,” MM reported. “Oh my—”

“Whitney!”
Sophia shrieked, but Whitney was so preoccupied checking for traffic in the east–west direction that she ran right into a navy Porsche heading south.

Time seemed to stand still. There was a
thwack
and then the girl’s body flipped high in the air like a rag doll, a flat pancake with arms and legs and hair and gray hoodie all splayed out.
She’s so skinny,
Sophia thought.

She hung in the air upside down for a fraction of second. Then gravity took over and she was tumbling down toward the roof of a speeding yellow Camaro. Suddenly Sam came flying through the air, caught her a foot above the Camaro, flipped off of it, and landed on one knee like a knight bowing to a queen, with the girl’s unconscious body draped over his lap.

Sophia goggled. “That was—”

“Unbelievable,” MM said

“I never have witnessed such a thing,” Sven said, his voice shaking with awe.

“I don’t know why you’re all making such a big deal out of what Sam did,” Lily said.

They stared at her.

“What?” she said. “All he did was—”

“Leap over a car,” MM said.

“Make a flip,” Sven put in

“Catch a woman in midair,” Sophia said.

“And land on one knee like he was proposing,” MM finished.

Lily shrugged.

MM said, “Lily, kitten, you are impressed by people who can tie their shoes in more than one way.”

“You once you told me that doilies were manufacturing’s miraculous gift to the world,” Sophia reminded her.

“But a man flies through the air and saves a woman’s life—” MM left off, staring at her.

Lily turned up a palm. “I’m sure when she wakes up she’ll get all giddy over him and they’ll fall in love, so there’s no reason for me to get giddy too.”

The phone in Sophia’s hand flashed with Ava’s number. “I’ll get back to you about that,” she told Lily, then said into the phone, “Ava? Is it you?”

“I’ve got them,” Ava said. “They’re fine. We’re all fine. You?”

“We’re all fine too. Or we will be. Where are you?”

“We’re at the hotel.”

“We’ll be right there to get you.”

“Take your time,” Ava said. “We’re having tea with the manager.”

Sophia hung up and stared at her phone. The others had gathered around and were watching her closely. “Well?” Lily asked. “What happened?”

“Popcorn, Charming, and Ava.” She looked up and there were tears in her eyes. “They’re fine. They’re—” She had to pause to wipe her eyes. She wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying. “They’re having tea with the hotel manager.”

There were tears in Lily’s, MM’s, and Sven’s eyes, too. “Of course they are,” Lily said.

MM nodded. “We should know by now, the Londons always end up on top.”

“Especially Ava,” Sophia said wonderingly. “My sister never stops amazing me.”

“Did she say if there are lemon bars?” Lily asked.

*   *   *

By the time they were all in the car headed back to the apartment, filling in details for one another, the photo Ava had taken of Popcorn curled protectively around Charming in the corner of the armchair where she’d found them in their room at the W had already been retweeted over a thousand times.

Lily, Sophia, MM, and Sven told Ava about following Whitney, and Sam’s miraculous rescue, and Ava explained to them how her behavior at the front desk had caused one of the reception clerks there to decide she was “unstable, possibly dangerous,” and summon a security team to subdue her.

Luckily, the other clerk working reception was Sloan Lew, an aspiring designer and a longtime London sisters’ viewer. She recognized Ava immediately, and having read about the petnapping, she figured the strange behavior was probably related to that. Sloan had put her job on the line by pulling Ava into a deserted office and telling her to stay quiet while the security team looked for her.

“Those goons would have held you for hours,” Sloan explained when she introduced herself in whispers as they waited for the security guys to leave the lobby.

When they were gone, Sloan had looked up the room reserved under Coco Chanel and they’d found Popcorn and Charming napping quietly together in the corner of a chair. They had clearly been a little frightened, but that had just made them stick even more closely together.

“Like us,” Ava said, grinning at Sophia.

“Except only one of us got to have scones,” Sophia pointed out.

“And lemon bars. And tiny éclairs,” Lily enumerated. “Explain how that happened again. And why were there no leftovers?”

“That was completely by accident,” Ava told them. “I just wanted to tell the manager how grateful we were and what an amazing job Sloan had done, and we started chatting. Did you know Charming likes Earl Grey tea? He slurped it up. Popcorn was more partial to the finger sandwiches, weren’t you?” she said, rubbing the dog’s ears.

“I thought I heard several people say something about seeing you on Friday as they waved goodbye,” MM said. “You didn’t invite the entire staff to the fashion show did you?”

“Of course not,” Ava said with a strange, high laugh. “Not the entire staff.”

Lily gave her an odd, fixed look. “How many people did you invite?”

“Dkfjl,” Ava told her, burying her face in Popcorn’s neck.

“Was that six?” Lily said hopefully. “Because we can handle six.”

“There
is
a six in the number,” Ava said happily.

“Not sixteen.” Lily blanched.

“No, no,” Ava said, laughing.

“It’s twenty-six,” Sophia said. “How did you make twenty friends over tea? You were barely there an hour.”