Read I, Spy? (Sophie Green Mysteries, No. 1) (Sophie Green Mystery) for Free Online Page A

bike. Everyone knows the picture on your pass looks nothing like you. It’s like a passport photo. Did you search Brown?”
    Luke looked mulish. “He had a pass. Forged. Ryanair.”
    “Right,” I said. “And he was wearing a white shirt, yes? Lots of people don’t have full uniform. Security isn’t going to pull you up on that. All he had to do was get a bike, put his gun in a saddlebag or something and go through VP9 with it. He gets scanned, he’s clean. The bike goes through the gate to be scanned later. While he’s in the lift, he takes out the gun, puts it in his pocket, leaves the bike in the undercroft and wanders off airside.”
    I stirred my hot chocolate and looked up at Luke. He looked dumbstruck.
    Ha.
    “Jesus,” he said eventually.
    “I know.”
    “How do you know all this?”
    I shrugged. “Figured it out one day. I was bored, okay? It was even easier when we did the foot-and-mouth spraying. Even packaged bikes had to be taken down there. You could hide shedloads in one of those bike bags, then stash it under your coat, in the lift. Those Ace coats are bloody huge.” They were fat parkas, and I looked like the Michelin man in mine.
    Luke was still staring at me. “Shit,” he said. “So anyone could have taken anything through?”
    “If they were smart enough. If they knew how to work the system.”
    Luke shook his head. “Does anyone else know about this? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
    I raised my palms. “Didn’t think anyone’d ever try it. You’ve got to be clever to work it out and pretty dumb to try it.”
    “A common criminal combination,” Luke said. He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his fingers into the corners of his eyes. “Can I use your bathroom?”
    “Sure.”
    Off he went, and I flumped down on the sofa. Tammy leapt up and settled on my lap. Apart from the grazes on my arm, I had bruises all over from being bashed about on the baggage belt. BAA had been really mad at me for that, but I pointed out that I’d been doing what no one else had done. I caught the criminal.
    I figured there’d be hearings and fines. I figured I might lose my job. I didn’t really care. I think I was in shock.
    Luke came back out, jiggling a small case in his hand. A contact lens case.
    I looked up at him. “You wear contacts?”
    He grinned. “Only for show.” He fluttered his eyelashes, and I realized in shock that his liquid brown eyes were now pale blue. And rather lovely.
    “Jesus,” I said.
    “I figured Luca would have dark eyes. You don’t see many blond, blue-eyed Italians.”
    It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him he wasn’t a blond, but then I realized it was probably dyed. He seemed to take this undercover thing very seriously.
    “Why Italian?”
    “I can speak it. I’ve lived there. Girls like Italians.”
    I’m afraid my lip curled. “Look,” I said, “not to be rude or anything, but why are you here? Am I under arrest or something?”
    Luke sighed heavily and took a seat beside me on the sofa. I shuffled away from him. There was a very slight possibility he was mad. Hot as hell, but mad.
    “I’m going to tell you something,” he said, “and you have to keep it a secret. I mean this, if you tell anyone—your mum, your best friend, your brother, even your bloody cat—” Tammy looked offended at that, and rightly so, “then I’m not joking, I will have to kill you.” He lifted his pullover fleece and showed me the pistol holstered at his side.
    “What happened to Brown’s gun?”
    Luke gave me a look. “You know that wasn’t his real name, right?”
    “Duh.” It hadn’t occurred to me, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
    “It wasn’t even the same guy.”
    I stared, horrified.
    Luke laughed. “It’s okay. The guy we caught yesterday has a twin brother. What we didn’t know, when he used up his one phone call, was that he was giving out some kind of code. The brother was following instructions. If you hadn’t spotted him,