CHAPTER 27
Luckily, the Louvre was a few short blocks away. Vendors were setting up their stalls of shiny Eiffel Tower postcards and dusty used books and vintage absinthe posters along the Seine, and the rush of traffic scented the air with diesel fumes.
We waited for a light to change, then crossed a busy street into the Louvre courtyard. The glass pyramid in its center gleamed blindingly in the morning sun, a modern contrast to the museum’s classic facade.
“Let me guess,” I said, my flip-flops slapping against the sun-bleached concrete. “The pyramid was put in by another family to spite the Dauphins.”
I laughed, but Jack frowned. “How did you know?”
I stopped, hands on my hips. “Seriously?”
Jack actually grinned. “Seriously,” he said over his shoulder.
I shook my head and hurried to catch up. A quick glance at the Dauphins’ wing of the complex showed that no one was watching, so Jack made a phone call. He’d gotten a new phone from the plane, and had grabbed me one, too, like there was a constant supply of extra equipment just lying around. While he talked to a security guard he knew, I called my mom again. Still no answer.
We sat on the edge of one of the courtyard’s many reflecting pools, waiting for the guard to get us—and Jack’s gun—past the metal detectors. I pulled up the Louvre website, hoping it would give us some kind of clue about what we were looking for. I stopped on a picture of the Mona Lisa. How ironic that we were this close to one of the most famous paintings in the world but wouldn’t have time to see it.
“It’s not that impressive in real life,” Jack said, like he was reading my mind. “It’s much smaller than you’d think. I have always wondered what she’s smiling about, though.”
I trailed my fingers through the reflecting pool, sending ripples across its surface. “She’s pretending,” I said. “That’s not a real smile. It’s what she wants people to see. It’s how she gets by.”
Jack looked at the phone for a long second. “Why?” he said. “Why does she have to pretend?”
“Because it’s easier that way,” I said. To me, it seemed obvious. “Then she doesn’t have to get involved with people.”
For once, Jack didn’t study the face of every person who walked by, or scan the crowd for danger. He kept looking at the phone, then cut a glance to me. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think she knows being independent doesn’t always have to mean being alone.”
I became very interested in the tangled ends of my hair. “So you and Mona were friends?” I teased, hoping it sounded light. “You knew her well enough to know her deepest secrets?”
He bit his lower lip. “I think I’m getting to know her better.”
I was saved by a Louvre security guard in navy blue. He escorted us past the line and inside the pyramid.
I wasn’t expecting it to look like this. The pyramid acted like a giant skylight, flooding the Louvre lobby with sun.
I glanced at the brochure we’d picked up. There were three massive main wings, all with some permanent and some rotating collections, plus a temporary exhibit.
“Since that bracelet said ‘my twin,’ I wonder if we’re looking for jewelry,” I said. “That would have to mean it’s something that’s been here since Napoleon’s time. But if Fitz had this clue and then planted something for us, it could be anything.”
Jack’s eyes darted over the list of collections. “We’ll just have to search as quickly as we can for anything that seems like a possibility.”
As we started down the wide spiral staircase, something caught my eye, and my heart clawed into my throat.
Scarface, the redhead, and the rest of the Order crew marched past the pyramid outside.
I grabbed Jack. He stiffened.
“How did they find us?” I said. “We ditched our phones. We’re in a whole other city.”
A school group pushed and giggled and scrambled around us down the stairs. Jack pulled me to the side, something more like worry than surprise on his face.
“What?” I said, and then I thought of something. “Wait. Could one of the other families track your plane? What if they’re not Order after all?”
“The other families can track our plane,” he said under his breath, and then, “They’re Order. But if they can track our plane . . . that wouldn’t be good. I don’t know. We don’t have time to think about it now.”
We hurried into the lobby, and Jack stopped short at the bottom of the stairs. “Or maybe them showing up here was a lucky guess.” He pointed to a cheerful black, white, and red banner hanging down into the atrium.
NAPOLEON HALL
Temporary Exhibit:
Alexander the Great and the Ancient Greeks
“Think this might be where we’re going?” Jack said.
“It does seem like an awfully big coincidence if it’s not.” I darted a glance back outside, where the Order was cutting the line.
“It has to be,” Jack said. “In Paris. In Napoleon Hall. In an Alexander exhibit, for God’s sakes. The Dauphins put this exhibit together searching for information about the mandate. What better way to find ancient Greek artifacts than encourage every small museum in the world to submit artifacts to the Louvre? And Fitz could hide it the same way he did at the Hagia Sophia.”
I glanced around. We couldn’t do anything about the banner, but a standing sign at the bottom of the stairs had an arrow pointing in the right direction. “This is officially the cheesiest, most cliché distraction ever, but hopefully it’ll buy us a few more minutes.” I spun the arrow so it pointed the opposite way. “Let’s go.”
We hurried down the stairs and merged with the crowds, darting glances behind us the whole time. When we got to the exhibit, Jack and I split up.
I found a bust of Alexander the Great, a slab of marble under a thick pane of glass, a head wreath made of golden vines. Next were various metal tools, and I got excited when I found a display of jewelry, but the pieces and their corresponding descriptive plaques didn’t look out of the ordinary, and on the ring and the gargoyle, the symbol had been obvious.
I glanced across the room to see Jack, hands in his pockets, interested in some ancient coins, then part of a stone wall. When he turned, I raised my eyebrows at him, and he shook his head.
The next piece would take a minute to check, so I read its plaque first. Ivory Sarcophagus, depicting scenes from the life of Alexander the Great. On loan from the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.
Istanbul. And in the plaque’s bottom right corner, the swirling symbol I knew so well.
“Jack,” I whispered loudly. He strolled over like we were normal tourists, but his eyes danced with excitement.
I crouched in front of the sarcophagus, studying the mural, and Jack crouched beside me. “It’s Alexander. And Aristotle, I think—he was Alexander’s tutor.”
I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see Scarface at any second. I liked to think he wouldn’t try to kill us in a public place, but that hadn’t seemed to bother him in the Istanbul market.
Jack peered around the back of the sarcophagus until a guard across the room barked a warning and he had to step away.
The crowd of little kids we’d seen earlier came into the room, their shrill voices echoing off the vaulted ceilings. No Scarface yet.
“It’s got to be something more than the scenes carved on here.” Jack stared at the plaque. “Wait. The Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Fitz volunteered there, too. Did you read all the info?”
“What info?”
Jack grabbed a laminated sheet from a stand that held details on the piece in six languages. We both scanned it.
“There,” I said. The middle of the second paragraph read: “This is an especially interesting sarcophagus,” says Emerson Fitzpatrick, volunteer docent. “The false bottom was unique for the time, likely used to smuggle goods under the guise of a funeral procession.”
“False bottom,” I whispered.
The sarcophagus was raised on four squat, round legs, so there was about a foot and a half of space underneath. If the Louvre had been as deserted as the Hagia Sophia had been, it would have been easy to get under it.
It wouldn’t be easy here.
My eyes darted around, searching for an answer. The group of kids was making their way to the golden crown.
“Trust me?” I asked Jack. Without hesitation, he nodded.
I wondered what it would be like to be able to put your trust in somebody that easily. I couldn’t deny that from this side, it felt pretty good. And it made me really not want to mess up.
As the group of kids moved between me and the guard across the room, I dropped to the floor and slid under the sarcophagus.
It was lucky I wasn’t claustrophobic. The tons of stone hovering over me was bad enough, plus it was too dark to see. The rough stone caught on my fingertips as I felt around. So far, the bottom was uniform aside from a sticky spiderweb in one corner.
But here. Near the center. A long crack that, when I followed it with my fingers, made a square. And on one edge, a shallow trough. It felt like an old jewelry box I had. Rather than being on hinges, the top had slid open, using the same kind of fingerhold.
I put all my fingers in the hold and pulled as hard as I could.
It didn’t budge.
The shadows changed, and I glanced to the side to see dozens of little feet headed toward my hiding place. I pulled on the sliding door again.
Nothing.
Frantically, I ran my fingers around the edge. Was there a latch?
Yes. Here was something. I moved the bit of stone as far as it would go, then grabbed the little door again.
“Regardez!” a child’s voice said. “Que fait-elle?”
Jack said something in French and crouched in front of me, his hand on my ankle.
I yanked on the slider. This time, it flew open with a screech.
“My girlfriend’s hurt!” Jack said loudly, in English now, obviously trying to cover the noise. “She’s fallen!”
Despite everything, I couldn’t help but notice he’d said girlfriend. He could easily have said I was his friend, or his sister.
A couple of little faces peered under the sarcophagus.
I stuck my hand inside the opening. Nothing to my right but cold, rough stone. I felt to the left.
Footsteps pounded the floor.
My fingers found something. I yanked a leather pouch out of the hole, along with quite a bit of dust. I stuffed the pouch into my bag and tried not to sneeze.
An adult face appeared, silhouetted against the light. “Mademoiselle! Miss. Are you okay?”
I edged out from under the sarcophagus, heart racing double time. Jack crouched beside me, helping me sit up, and I clung to him like I’d just passed out. He leaned in close. “Did you find anything?” he whispered, tucking my dusty hair out of my face like the perfect concerned boyfriend.
I nodded, and his whole face lit up, so much that I barely noticed the whole class of children and their teacher, all staring and whispering. And then the guard loomed over us, barking something in French.
Jack put an arm around me and replied, and I grabbed my head and winced as convincingly as I could.
“Like I said, my girlfriend has a heart condition,” Jack said, and I dropped the hand hastily to my chest.
“She’ll be fine, though,” Jack said. “Thank you for your help.”
The guard frowned, gesturing to the sarcophagus and looking me up and down. Even though I had a jacket wrapped around me, I was still in the tiny cocktail dress, with scratched-up legs and bloodied bandages.
“I don’t know how she fell underneath it,” Jack said in English. He helped me to my feet, a little roughly, considering I’d supposedly just fainted. “We’re sorry to inconvenience you. We’ll get her back to our hotel now. No! No, we don’t need a doctor.”
The guard frowned and raised his walkie-talkie—and a familiar accent came from the other side of the room.
Scarface, the redhead, and the others strolled into the Alexander exhibit, so raucous that the guard turned to look at them. Jack grabbed my hand, and we darted in the opposite direction.
“Arrêtez!” I didn’t have to turn to know the guard had seen us run.
“There they are!” So had the Order.