Page 28 of One Knight Stand

“Probably has orders to have ‘eyes on.’ And I sound so cool using that phrase. Professor Allard just taught us that last week.”

I rolled my eyes, then adjusted my small purse so I wore it like a crossbody bag before starting taking off my shoes. It was hard to be irritable with Frankie, especially since she’d spotted the tail and I hadn’t.

“Do I really have to do this?” I asked.

“You do. Then we’ll figure out how to ditch him, and his partner, who is likely outside in the sedan awaiting instruction.”

Great. My plan—which had seemed like an excellent idea in theory—had somehow turned into a bad situation in practice. I’m sure there was a spy lesson in that somewhere, but I didn’t have time to dwell on that now.

Frankie had both skates on and laced before I finally dared to put one foot in the skate. “Me skating is a really, really bad idea. Did I mention that yet? What if I fall and get a concussion?”

“Don’t be such a baby. It’s easy.” She knelt in front of me and started lacing me up while I slipped the other skate on my foot. “Just get that thinking cap of yours on, because we only have an hour before Wally gets here. Then it will be showtime.”

I stood up and nearly fell. I clutched at Frankie’s shoulders and almost took us both down.

“Relax, Angel,” Frankie said, steadying me. “Don’t be so uptight.”

“Easy for you to say. You know what you’re doing.”

She let go of me and, for a moment, I actually stood without falling. Then my legs started to slip forward. I windmilled my arms to stay upright and clocked some guy walking by holding a hot dog. The dog went flying from the bun, landing on the head of a blonde girl in a white blouse. She screamed and glared at him, dripping mustard and relish. He pointed at me, but Frankie quickly put her hands on my waist, pushing me toward the rink and away from the drama.

“Okay, that’s enough of letting you skate on your own,” she said. “Step inside the rink,carefully, and don’t let go of me, okay? We’re going to do this together.”

“I told you this was a bad idea.”

She didn’t respond, so, without recourse, I swallowed my misgivings and stepped onto the rink. Immediately, my feet went in different directions. I slammed down on my butt and elbows, somehow avoiding taking Frankie with me.

“Ouch! You said this was going to be easy.” I glared at Frankie, rubbing my bum and looking up at her between narrowed eyes.

Frankie sighed. “Guilty as charged. I only said that to get the skates on you. Come on, I’ll help you up.”

I gave her a murderous look, but she held out a hand, so I put one hand in hers and used the other against the wall to get upright again. It wasn’t easy. Teenagers were whizzing past us, making the whole skating thing look effortless and causing me to be increasingly cranky.

“Think of skating in science terms,” Frankie said as she pulled me along. “The movement is logical. When you push off, you move forward. Newton’s third law of motion. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction.”

She had a point. Skating was pure physics, so technically, anyone should be able to skate. I took two more wobbly steps and fell on my butt again.

Newton had no idea what he was talking about when it came to me and skating.

This went on for at least a half an hour. Up, down. Up, down. It took us that long to do one rotation around the rink. As we went past the guy who sat at the table in the shadows, we both avoided looking at him, but I suddenly had an idea.

“Frankie, we need to create a diversion so we can slip out without the guy in here and the one out there following us,” I said.

“Sounds good to me.” I almost fell again, but she caught me by the elbow, straightening me. “How are we going to do that, Angel?”

I looked around the rink. Teenagers were the perfect cover, because we could totally blend in. What could we do that would cause a teenager stampede, allowing us to escape?

Before I could figure it out, Frankie and I were swarmed and herded toward the middle of the rink with the other teenagers. Some kid skated out with a pole and everyone started cheering.

“What’s going on?” I asked Frankie in alarm.

She peered toward the front of the group. “Looks like we’re going to do the limbo.”

“Thewhat?” Horror tinged my voice.

“The limbo. You know, you have to skate under the pole without touching it.”

“Are you crazy?” I hissed, yanking on her arm. “No limbo. No way. We have to get out of here. Now.”

---