Wade and the Scorpion's Claw Read Online Free

Please.”
    â€œOf course. Keep it close.” She hung up.
    Dad pressed the End Call button on his phone and put his arm around Darrell. He didn’t say anything. Neither of them did. But for the first time since we’d learned about Sara’s disappearance, Dad looked like he might really smile.
    So did Darrell. “This is awesome! This is soooo good.”
    It was definitely not news to go all crazy happy about, not yet, but it felt good that real detectives were looking for Sara. “Our team of nine investigators,” the woman had said. So far our little group had turned out to be pretty good at solving puzzles. But figuring out codes and riddles from the past was nothing like searching for a living person.
    So, yeah, we felt lighter. I glanced around at the other passengers, wondering if they’d suddenly look less suspicious. They actually did.
    Good. Now we could begin to relax a little.
    The gate was cramming up even more now. There were so few empty seats that I didn’t think anything when a man in a dark suit sat down in the row directly across from us. He was thin, and he wore thick black glasses and carried a green shoulder bag. His hands were stuck deep in his side pockets. I heard my dad’s voice in my head— Not everyone’s planning something —so I looked away.
    Darrell was feeling better, which usually meant he was hungry. “I need a Snickers,” he said. “Let’s all go to the newsstand, me for food and you to search the world papers for tragedies. Okay, Dad?”
    â€œTen minutes,” he said after checking his watch. “Stay close.”
    In one of his last messages to us, Uncle Henry had predicted we’d hear about disasters happening around the world, and that they were connected to the Teutonic Order’s hunt for the relics. Sure enough, we soon read reports of a building collapse in South America, a ship sinking in the Mediterranean, and the disappearance of a school bus that later reappeared, shot up by musket bullets from the nineteenth century.
    Yeah. Try to figure that one out.
    In the airport bookstore, we searched the papers as we always did, but my attention was instantly snagged by the shelf of Terence Ackroyd thrillers. Last week, I would’ve barely noticed them. The store had quite a few of them— The Umbrian Vespers , The Berlin Manifesto , and his latest hardcover novel, The Mozart Inferno , which was currently at the top of the bestseller list.
    â€œHe’s an actual person,” said Becca. “I almost doubted it until now. I should read one. We’re going to see him in New York, after all.” She decided on The Prometheus Riddle , a spy thriller set in Greece.
    â€œA nuclear submarine sank off India’s coast,” Lily said, holding up that morning’s London Times . “Ten crew members are missing. I bet the Order is behind it. They probably love to sink ships.”
    Darrell poked my arm. “If I move a fraction of an inch—”
    â€œYour head will fall off?” I said.
    â€œ And . . . I can see the German dude, hovering outside my field of vision.”
    â€œLeathercoat,” whispered Lily. “Call him Leathercoat.”
    Glancing over an issue of Science magazine, I saw the guy standing like a statue, holding a copy of El Mundo but not reading it.
    I felt the same strange sensation I’d been experiencing for the last week: my skin tingled and a strange pain pierced my chest. It’s the jab of adrenaline you feel when you’re afraid. I’d felt that in my dream, too.
    â€œI . . . have to use the bathroom,” I said.
    â€œBecause you’re scared,” Darrell told me. “It’s a well-known fact that panic makes you have to go—”
    Lily put her hands over her ears. “Darrell, please stop talking!”
    I headed to the men’s room. “See you back at the gate.”
    â€œNuh-uh. Buddy