Lost in Paris by Cindy Callaghan Page A

happy to be representing my country at this event. I mean, we’re talking front row, and backstage passes!”
    â€œAre you aware that Shock Value has sweetened the deal?”
    â€œSweetened?” Was that even possible?
    She reached down and held up two identical boxes. Each had four drawers. The outside of each drawer had a different type of lock. “The first team to unlock all four of these gets an additional bonus ticket and invitations to a VIP reception with the band after the concert, in their greenroom. That’s a total of five tickets!”
    â€œWith the band?” I repeated.
    â€œYes! Like a private party!” Murielle confirmed. Then she added, “Of course, I’ll be there too.” She pointed to the boxes. “You’ll see that each of these drawers is locked. You need to use all the clues you’ve gathered so far to open them.”
    She gave one box to Robert, Jean-Luc, and Sabine, and the other to us. “The clock is going to start.” The Shock Value rep gave Murielle duPluie a nod. “Now!”
    I took our box and set it on the tombstone. “Okay.” I pointed to a lock on one of the drawers. “This one looks like a regular keyhole,” I said. I took the ribbon from my neck. “Easy, as long as this key works.” I slid it in the hole and turned.
    Click.
    The door slid open, and inside was one Shock Value ticket.
    â€œOne down,” I said.
    Henri looked down.
    â€œIt’s an expression,” I said. “It means we’re done with one.”
    Brigitte studied the other three. “What do you think about those?”
    One of them was a hole about the size of a dime. Another was a number pad, one through ten. The last was a twisting combination lock.
    I glanced a few feet away at Sabine, Jean-Luc, and Robert, who were also huddled around their own set of locks, whispering. “Where are the other clues?” I asked Brigitte.
    Brigitte took them out of her pocket. “We have la place de la Concorde, the Statue of Liberty, and then the one that led us here.”
    â€œThe Statue of Liberty and cemetery both have numbers, but not la place de la Concorde,” I said. “Do you have the obelisk?”
    She reached into her lab coat pocket, where, of course, she had the obelisk, and probably a shower cap, crowbar, and bottle of maple syrup.
    â€œDo you want to do it?” I asked her, and pointed to the dime-size hole.
    Brigitte slid the model monument into the dime-size hole and turned it.
    Click.
    â€œTwo down,” Henri said.
    â€œNow the numbers. The twisting combination of my gym locker is three numbers.”
    â€œThen let’s use the clue for the cemetery. It is the twentieth arrondissement and section eighty-three. We need a third number,” Brigitte said.
    â€œIs there a grave number?” All three of us lookedaround. There wasn’t. “Row?” Nothing. “How about year? When did he die?” I indicated the grave we were standing at.
    Brigitte looked. “Last year.”
    I tried that combination of numbers, but it didn’t work. I looked over to see how Robert, Jean-Luc, and Sabine were doing. They were already on the last drawer—the number pad. We were so close.
    Think, Gwen, think.
    â€œHow about his age?”
    â€œWhose?” Brigitte asked.
    â€œThe dead guy.”
    It took her a few seconds to calculate. “Twenty.”
    â€œOh, that’s so young. Poor guy.” I tried twenty, eighty-three, twenty.
    Click.
    It opened.
    The third ticket was in the drawer.
    â€œLet’s try the GPS coordinates on the number pad,” Brigitte said.
    â€œYeah. Yeah.” I waved my hand in front of the number pad. “Hurry!”
    Jean-Luc, Robert, and Sabine were arguing. It looked like they had the Statue of Liberty clue, but maybe it was ripped up, or someone had thought it was trash.Whatever had happened to it, now there was a section of