“He’s fine,” he said. “An attacker came at him in the Louvre courtyard, right in plain sight. Dauphin security fought him off and got Luc to safety. They’re interrogating the attacker, but he’s not talking. Elodie and Stellan wanted to go back immediately, but the Dauphins already have Luc secured. They’re still meeting us.”
We got out of the cab, and I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see somebody coming at us with a gun at any moment, and if they did, I swear I was ready to kill them with my bare hands. I could have sworn a couple times I even saw somebody watching us, but whenever I looked twice, it was nothing.
A cab pulled up, and Elodie leaped out and started running to us before it came to a complete stop. “I just talked to Luc. The reason he was out alone was that he was coming to meet us. He figured out where the bracelet is.”
She thrust her phone into my hands.
It was zoomed in on what looked like the itinerary of the Cannes Film Festival. I looked up, confused, and Elodie pointed to one sentence. Priceless antiques from around the globe will be on display at the opening gala of the Festival. 6–10 p.m., Main Lobby.
I looked up. “Does this mean . . .”
Elodie smiled triumphantly. “Luc talked to the collector’s estate manager. The bracelet will be displayed in Cannes in two days.”
The bracelet on my arm gleamed in the sunlight, and my heart sped to a gallop. “We’re going to have to steal it,” I breathed.
“Correction,” Elodie said, taking her phone back. “We’re going to have to heist it. From the Cannes Film Festival.”
? ? ?
Jack wanted to go immediately, but Elodie disagreed. “First of all, even if we manage to get the other bracelet, we still need the password. Secondly, right now, the bracelet is in transit on its way to the exhibition space.”
“But the festival will be crawling with security,” I said. We were sitting on the edge of a fountain in the Place de la Concorde. “What if we went after it while it was in a warehouse or something?”
Stellan nodded his assent. “Could I just jump a guard in a back alley?”
Elodie ran her fingers through the water. “At the party, there will be distractions. Drunk people leaning on the cases, celebrities wanting closer looks, beautiful women in evening gowns. Plus, everyone will be wondering if the Order is going to try to kill them. And also, we have no idea where the bracelet is right now. Trust me, the party is the best opportunity for a heist.”
Stellan looked up at the obelisk in the center of the square. “So we head down before the opening ceremony. Avery and Jack can’t come on our plane, so maybe we’ll take the overnight train tonight?”
We all nodded.
“Which means we have time to look around Paris today, then check on Lucien before we leave the city again,” said Elodie.
We pulled out our maps with renewed energy.
There was nothing at the Place de la Concorde. I’d started to get excited, since the obelisk at the center of the plaza was Egyptian, and so maybe had some connection to Alexander, but I felt like an idiot when we realized it hadn’t been put in until after Napoleon’s death. The surrounding buildings were old enough, but there was nothing to indicate an important inscription or anything to do with Napoleon.
I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked around. “Moving on?”
A person in a blue hat disappeared behind a crepe stand, and I stopped talking.
“What?” Jack said, looking over his shoulder.
“I could swear someone’s been following us,” I said quietly. “Did you see that?”
He shook his head.
I’m sure everyone thought I was crazy after my previous false accusations. I guess I was tired enough to hallucinate. I dropped it. “What’s next?”
We had all flagged landmarks to check, and we made our way to the next ones. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to be right. It didn’t help that every monument in France wanted to tout their connection to Napoleon, so most of the connections were quite slim.
At the third small church on one of the map lines, I was looking at plaques on statues of saints at the entrance and Jack was crouched, inspecting the bases of another, when I realized he wasn’t looking at the statue at all. He was looking past me, chewing his lip. He noticed me watching him and turned his attention to the floor, but his shoulders were drawn up to his ears.
“What is it?” I glanced behind me, immediately on guard.
“Nothing.” He stood and moved down the line of statues.
All I could see where he’d been looking were Stellan and Elodie, searching the other side of the church. “Did you see something?”
“No.” Jack moved farther away. “It’s nothing.”
“Okay . . .” I took a photo on my phone of each plaque, just in case I thought of something later. Jack was standing halfway to the altar now, and my footsteps echoed on the worn hardwood as I caught up with him. “No, seriously, what’s going on?”