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  VISIBLE

  Book Four in the Ripple Series

  Cidney Swanson

  For Katie

  Copyright © 2014 by Cidney Swanson

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © by Stephanie Mooney. All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978–1–939543–15–8

  Chapter One

  GWYNITUDE

  “Why is there a vehicle disguised as a UPS truck driving up to our castle?” I ask. My eyes narrow with distrust as a driver dressed in brown jumps out and deposits a large parcel one floor below my lookout. I pull back from the window so he can’t see me. Or shoot at me. Or whatever he’s planning.

  “It’s just a UPS truck,” says Sam, sitting at the far end of the great hall. “They have them in France, too.”

  “Says you,” I mutter. I am not a naturally suspicious person. A week ago, I would have mocked my future self for side-eyeing a UPS truck. But then, a week ago, I had zero personal experience in the care and drugging of hostages, or in being rescued by invisible ninja-friends, or in the proper disposal of bad guy bodies.

  In the drive below, the man in brown dashes back to his truck and pulls around the semi-circular drive and down the avenue lined with tall dark trees. “It could be a bomb,” I muse. “That would explain why he’s in such a hurry to leave.”

  “Gwyn,” says Sam. My best friend uses her “really?” voice.

  “What? It could totally be a bad guy.”

  “It could totally be a driver with a long day ahead of him.”

  I cross my arms. “Whatevs.”

  “Sir Walter said he was ordering space heaters for our rooms,” says Sam.

  I rub my hands along my arms. Our current abode, Château Feu-Froid, lives up to the “froid” part of its name, for sure. Cold rock walls. Cold flagstone floors. It’s freezing everywhere except in front of the fire. I walk the length of the hall, back to where Sam sits on one of two ginormous couches flanking a fireplace you could drive cars into.

  “Space heaters, huh?” I ask.

  Sam nods, idly running her fingers through her boyfriend Will’s hair while he sleeps at her side.

  Across the room, my mom is pacing, talking on her cell with my aunties. Again. Her sisters, who own several bakeries in LA, flew up to run ours in Las Abuelitas while we’re stuck in France. From what I can hear of Ma’s conversation, it sounds like they’re making a mess of things at the Las Abuelitas Bakery Café.

  I sigh and sink back into the feather-stuffed cushions.

  “I need to get my Gwynitude back,” I say. “Gwyns in their natural state are not paranoid. They are confident, independent, and fond of naps in warm corners.”

  “Not to mention, self-satisfied,” says Sam.

  “Exactly.”

  “So, like your cat Rufus,” says Sam.

  I glower. This, I am mortified to note, is also quite feline.

  “Of course,” continues Sam, “it is also true that Gwyns in their natural state have a boy hanging off each arm, which would tend to invalidate the ‘independent’ as well as the ‘self-satisfied.’”

  “I will not dignify that remark with a response,” I say. She’s hit a nerve though: I am very dissatisfied with my current boyfriend-less state. Fortunately, I have Big Plans.

  Sam gives my hand a quick squeeze. “I’m just kidding,” she says. “And I am all for the return of your … what did you call it?”

  “Gwynitude.”

  “That,” she says. She drops her eyes, bites her lower lip. “I don’t know what I would have done if anything had happened to you.”

  “Thank goodness for invisible ninja power, am I right?” I smile and the balance in our friendship tips back toward normalcy. Sam’s job is to worry; mine is to be optimistic.

  “You did amazing on your own, even without the ability to turn invisible,” says Sam.

  “Yeah,” I reply. “My super power is the ability to annoy bad guys so much that they get sloppy.”

  “It worked,” says Sam, shrugging.

  It did, actually. I wasn’t, shall we say, the most cooperative hostage when it came to making a proof-of-life video. That’s what made the bad guys sloppy. And sloppy is what got my supah-friends and their supah-pals to rescue me.

  I was drugged and asleep for the actual rescue, but that was fine with me. It gave them a chance to tidy up the bodies before I woke up. Woke up next to The Big Sizzle himself, Chrétien de Rochefort. Who was covered in blood, but that’s another story. Cover him in blood, mud, or maple syrup, that boy, aka my Big Plan, is still smokin’ hot.

  I was supposed to have said goodbye to him the day before yesterday. And I did, too. No chance I was missing out on a proper French au revoir: two kisses on each cheek before I departed the country and Chrétien left on a mission with Dr. Pfeffer. But then the gouvernement français decided I shouldn’t be allowed to depart the country without a passport. Hello. Bad guy didn’t exactly give me time to grab my passport prior to the assault and kidnapping.

  I am, however, remarkably cool with being stuck in France. (Occasional bouts of paranoia aside.) Yesterday, Chrétien came back from his mission with Dr. Pfeffer, and Pfeffer took Will’s sister Mickie on the new mission, leaving Future Boyfriend Material behind. Oh, darn.

  Sadly, I slept in too late today to accompany future boyfriend into town this morning on a coffee and croissant run. As a consequence, my stomach is growling. I leave it to your imagination to determine with what kind of hunger.

  “I’m starving,” I say to Sam. She’s preoccupied staring at her true love while he sleeps. Kill me now. “Did we seriously eat up all the bad guy leftovers?” I ask.

  Ma, still on the phone, points an index finger at me and hisses like a tea kettle. She hates any mention of the dead bad guys. It’s a Chinese thing. I think. It could be a Ma thing.

  Sam glares at me, ordering me with her eyeballs to apologize.

  I sigh and comply. “Sorry, Ma.”

  Ma says a few things in Chinese to her sisters, relative to the duty a daughter owes her mother, and crosses to the far side of the room.

  It’s not like I don’t try. In fact, I’ve been the perfect, loving, respectful daughter for forty-eight hours. No wonder I want to goad my mother. It’s like when you give a little boy a stick. Eventually, he’s going to poke something.

  Sam frowns. “I wonder how long ‘til the people at Geneses figure out Helmann and the others are dead. Sir Walter said Helmann had very rigid habits checking in on his underlings, especially the ones in San Francisco.”

  “You think someone will come and kick us out?” I ask. This is worrisome.

  “They’d do worse than that if they knew the truth,” Sam says. “At least, Fritz might, if he figures things out.”

  “Fritz?”

  “Another of Helmann’s sons,” replies Sam. “Hans’s brother.”

  “I thought they were all dead,” I say. I totally did. A shiver runs along my arms.

  Sam shakes her head.

  “Oh,” I say softly. “Fritz was the one who … operated on you. To steal an egg.”

  Sam nods.

  “Do you think Fritz knows about this place?” I ask.

  “Oh, he knows,” says Sam. “Sir Walter has been keeping an ear out listening for Fritz’s … what does he call it? Fritz’s ‘thought signature.’ Which would indicate he’s in the vicinity.”

  I sit up straighter. “Okay, why exactly are we staying here
if Fritz might show up at any moment?”

  “Convenience, mostly,” says Sam. She looks down at Will. “Sir Walter wanted to give Will a couple days to mend. And then your thing with the passport came up.”

  “Hmmph,” I grunt.

  “I’m sure everything will be fine,” she says. “And we can talk to Sir Walter about moving once he gets back,” she adds.

  Well, if my worrywart friend is cool with things, I guess I can try to relax, too.

  “So, when’s Christian—er, sorry, Chrétien, getting back?” I ask Sam, in my most disinterested voice. We called him Christian back in California, but then I found out he never really liked that name. And I will call him whatever it takes to coax that mouth of his into a smile.

  “Same as the last time you asked,” replies Sam.

  “Oh, did I ask already?”

  Admit nothing is my motto.

  “Do your homework,” says my mom, her phone call finished.

  “How are the aunties?” I ask.

  “They’re running Las ABC into the ground. We have got to find a way to get home,” she says, shaking her head. Then her eyes narrow. “Don’t change the subject. Do your homework.”

  I’ve done my homework. It’s not like I had anything else to do. Will found online copies of my textbooks and everything, and Chrétien wasn’t here yesterday to distract me.

  Ma adds, “You’re going to need those straight A’s with truancy on your permanent record.”

  “Ma.” I groan her name so it’s three syllables long. “There’s no way they make truancy a part of my permanent record once the school hears why I’m stuck in France.”

  I say it like I’m sure, but my fingers creep up to my mouth, the little betrayers. When I’m nervous, I chew my nails. Right now, I’m worried Sir Walter will say we can’t tell the school why I skipped the country, which will result in my being marked truant.

  “Stop chewing your nails,” says my mom. “It’s a filthy habit.”

  “Not if you keep your hands clean,” I mutter.

  Sam elbows me. I don’t apologize this time. Me and my mom getting along isn’t normal. And trust me when I say I could use an extra large serving of normal after the events of the last week.

  At least I’m still in one piece, though. Beside Sam on the couch, Will has a broken leg in a walking cast. Christian—oops—Chrétien and Dr. Pfeffer took gunshot wounds. I guess Will has it the worst though, judging by the amount of pain relievers he’s taking. He sleeps, like, most of the day, so Sam is getting about as much action in the kissing department as I am.

  I have got to stop thinking about kissing. I wonder what Chrétien is thinking about right now. Probably, how he wishes he was still out there helping Mickie and Dr. Pfeffer. With Sir Walter’s guidance, Pfeffer is going to buildings owned by über bad guy Girard Helmann and searching for hidden invisible people. Who are hypnotized to stay asleep until a password wakes them up and brings them visible. I am not making this up. I couldn’t make this up if you paid me.

  And it only gets better.

  Helmann (the chief of my abductors) wanted to use the sleeper agents to “vaccinate” people. He told the sleepers they would be saving lives. But really, they were intended to inoculate non-members of the so-called Aryan race with a very, very deadly virus. Fortunately, my super-friends put the kibosh on the planned murder of billions of innocent people by these sleepers.

  So now, all the sleepers can either be left forever invisible and insubstantial (and asleep, obviously), or someone can wake them up and “re-educate” them. Pfeffer voted for saving them, and Chrétien tried to help. But apparently, Chrétien’s mannerisms and his odd way of saying things make the sleeping army people wary. Mickie and Pfeffer say that, in the early stages of sleeper re-education, trust is critical. Hence, Chrétien’s hasty retreat back to my side. With which I am totally cool.

  “I don’t think they’ll mark you truant,” Sam says, bringing me back to the present. She is still fussing with Will’s hair. She does this, like, all the time. Like he’s a cat in need of grooming. For the record, I would never do that to Chrétien.

  Sam continues. “The French government refused to let you leave the country. It’s not your fault. Anyway, my dad can talk to the school board if it becomes an issue.”

  “We don’t need special treatment,” says my mom. Her mouth pulls into this narrow line with which I am unfortunately familiar.

  “Ma,” I groan. “We do. We totally do.”

  My mom looks about to say something, but instead she folds her arms across her chest and mutters under her breath in Chinese. That’s the thing with Bridget Li. Anytime she’s unhappy, it’s all Chinese.

  “Did I ask to get kidnapped?” I demand. “It’s not my fault I can’t get back to school.”

  Sam shifts uncomfortably on her couch. She thinks it’s her fault Helmann’s son Hans kidnapped me—to lure her out of hiding.

  “And it was totally nobody’s fault in present company, either,” I say, bumping shoulders with my best friend.

  There’s a prolonged silence before Sam gives me approximately forty percent of a smile. I have got to watch what comes flying out of my mouth. One of these days, one of my flip remarks will take someone’s eye out. I slouch lower. I wish Chrétien would come back with those croissants already. I stare at the door, willing it to open.

  And then, because apparently I can make things happen with the power of my mind, the heavy oaken doors into the great hall creak, announcing an arrival. Look who has super powers now.

  We have oak doors on the Las Abuelitas Bakery Café, but these doors? They are OAKEN. Like something from Lord of the Rings that makes you want to roll your R’s with a Scottish accent. Or whatever. It’s been a few boyfriends since I watched LOTR.

  Sadly, my mind powers aren’t functioning optimally. I appear to have conjured Sir Walter instead of Chrétien. I mean, nothing against Sir Walter. He fathered Chrétien, after all. For which he has my eternal gratitudinousness.

  “Good news, my friends,” says Sir Walter de Rochefort as he crosses the room to meet us by the fire. The great hall, in spite of essentially being the Chamber of Death and Blood, is where we tend to hang out, even though Ma doesn’t like it. (Her thing with dead people.) But we hang out here because it is freaking February at the 48th parallel, and that means it is colder than a witch’s kitty, and this is the one room with central heating. By which I mean the fireplace of obscene proportion.

  Sir Walter stokes the bonfire and tells us his good news. “The local constabulary has agreed that you are not a felon, my dear Mademoiselle Gwyneth, and has agreed to ask no further questions as to your appearance within France.”

  Dude. That must have cost a lot. I keep the thought to myself because Ma is uncomfortable owing someone for as much as a sugar cube. She has no idea everything Sir Walter’s done for us.

  “In addition,” continues Sir Walter, “he has returned to me your dear mother’s passport.” From inside his pocket, Sir Walter produces the passport of one Bridget Li, naturalized citizen of the US of A. “And as soon as we can arrange for your own passport, Mademoiselle Gwyn, to be sent here, the local agents have assured me we will have their complete cooperation in returning both of you to the Etats-Unis.”

  Sir Walter originally offered to take us back home invisibly, but Ma flat-out refused. Apparently her one experience rippling with Sam and Chrétien through the central California foothills was enough to last a lifetime.

  Ma tries to look happy, but she is totally not happy with the prospect of spending more time inside our current residence. I can tell by the way she jams her hands under her legs, so she won’t be tempted to chew her own nails. The acorn doesn’t fall too far from the tree there, let me tell you.

  “I don’t suppose you have something … official that I can forward to my school?” I ask.

  Sam raises an eyebrow a few millimeters.

  Okay, let’s just say I haven’t always been this concerned about s
chool grades and truancy and so on. I mean, I get straight A’s (definitely a Chinese thing), but I usually act like I don’t care. And so would you if Ma was your mom and breathing down your neck about grades and honor and the future, like, twenty-four-seven.

  I guess you could say something has changed for me. Being kidnapped, drugged, threatened at gunpoint, and waking to a room with blood everywhere probably qualifies for life-changing.

  “However,” continues Sir Walter, “the French idea of complete cooperation is, shall we say, somewhat different from what you have been accustomed to in your own Etats-Unis.”

  Ma’s hands, under her thighs, clench into tiny fists. She would rather eat her own fingers than chew her nails in front of people.

  “There is no cause for concern,” says Sir Walter. “However, you must prepare yourself for things to move at a French pace. That is, a leisurely pace. Fearing you might, Madame Li, become bored during your enforced confinement in la France, I have made certain purchases recommended by your daughter.”

  It takes me a minute to remember what these purchases were.

  “Purchases?” asks Ma, looking suspicious.

  Oh, right. Those purchases.

  “I gave Sir Walter the ingredient list for your famous chocolate chip cookies. He’s never had any,” I say. “Isn’t that the saddest thing ever?”

  The corners of my mom’s mouth turn slightly upward with pride. Her cookies alone could keep the Las Abuelitas Bakery Café in the black. They are that amazing. Back in Las Abs, Ma makes twelve dozen assorted cookies a day. Every day. It was actually Sam’s suggestion that we get Ma baking again. It will help her feel normal, Sam said. Like Sylvia with her garden. Only, it turns out bad guy kitchens don’t come stocked with chocolate chips and brown sugar. It would probably upset the balance of the universe if they did.

  For what it’s worth, I think Sam’s a little wrong about baking making Ma happy. I’ve seen Sam’s stepmother Sylvia weeding her garden. It makes Sylvia happy. Ma baking just makes her a less anxious Ma.

  But in any case, my mom takes the bait, rising and following Sir Walter to the kitchen. As she goes, I hear her complaining about how Sir Walter shouldn’t have spent his own money and how she is totally going to reimburse him.