Read Online [JJ06] Quicksand by Gigi Pandian - Free Book Online Page A

romantic, moonlit walk along the Seine. I glanced over my shoulder. The stylishly-dressed Frenchman who’d brought Lane the envelope was a few yards behind us, ruining the mood. I tucked up the collar of my coat and nearly tripped on a cobblestone. Lane took my hand to steady me.
    “How come you’ve never been to Paris before?” he asked.
    “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
    We walked in silence for several minutes, hand in hand. It was past evening rush hour, and cars whizzed past us only sporadically. Lane pulled me away from the river and we crossed the street.
    “This is the start of the Louvre complex,” he said.
    “Really?” I paused in front of the thick stone walls, surprised at Lane’s statement. The sprawling, connected buildings in front of us looked more like a royal estate in the countryside, not a museum in the center of Paris.
    “Wait until we get to the courtyard.”
    As we stepped through a stone arch, the famous pyramid I’d seen in pictures came into view. The modern steel and glass structure emerged from the ground and gave light to the subterranean ticket lobby. Smaller pyramids flanked the big one. It was after sunset and the courtyard was bathed in light from the buildings and old fashioned streetlights.
    Before reaching the indoor ticket booths, there was a security checkpoint visitors had to pass through to enter the museum. Beyond the security station and the lobby’s ticket booths were four different entrances to choose from, each leading to a different wing. We checked our coats, then Lane led the way to the Richelieu wing, our shadow following.
    “Can we stop by the painting with the haunted chandelier?” a voice from behind us asked in a faint French accent.
    Lane turned and raised an eyebrow.
    “We all know I’m here,” the man said. “I might as well have the opportunity to see this painting I like.”
    “Sure,” Lane said, stifling a laugh. “Why not? I want to go through the whole museum anyway. We’re tourists, after all.”
    I found myself straggling behind the two men as Lane led us through several rooms full of priceless paintings and sculptures. Beautiful, powerful works of art I’d seen in textbooks or online, all right here in front of me. There were also plenty of plainer objects that must have had fascinating histories attached to them. We paused briefly as we passed through a section of antique desks that were far from ornate. Were they desks of famous painters? I began reading the placard next to a particularly ordinary desk that had once been used for decorating illuminated manuscripts. Before I could learn more, Lane said we had to keep moving. I tried to keep up, but as we moved through another section, I fell behind.
    “Jaya,” Lane said. “What are you doing?”
    “That’s Winged Victory,” I said, gaping in front of the headless sculpture. It was bigger than I’d imagined it would be.
    “ Regardez, ” North’s associate said. But he wasn’t pointing at the sculpture. He was making shadow puppets on the wall that mimicked the wings of the masterpiece.
    “We’ll be coming back,” Lane said, rolling his eyes at both of us. “The museum is only open for another hour tonight.”
    I trotted after the two men. When we reached a grand room of oil paintings depicting gruesome mythological scenes, they slowed down, stopping in front of a small Expressionist painting dwarfed by the larger pieces in the room.
    “Where are all the people?” I asked. “I thought the Louvre was a crowded museum.”
    “It usually is,” our handler said. “But not as much in the evening.” 
    “He’s right,” Lane said. “At eleven o’clock in the morning you don’t want to be here. It’s wall-to-wall people, including tour groups who stop moving in the most inconvenient places to listen to their guides.”
    “ That’s when you want me to look at the art I want to see?”
    “Marius, I don’t suppose you’d let Jaya look around on her own? No? I