The Golden Vendetta by Tony Abbott Page A

a dressing room where you can see behind you and on the sides at the same time,” said Lily. “Maybe?”
    â€œCryptologic lenses could be a way of describing spectacles,” said Sara.
    â€œYes, good.” Wade pulled out from his backpack the leather binder he kept his antique star chart in. He removed the chart. It glistened with gold and silver ink.
    â€œCopernicus says it’s ‘appropriately’ three-sided,” he said. “There’s a constellation called Triangulum. It’s formed by the narrow triangle of its three brightest stars. It’s between Andromeda and Aries in the northern sky.”
    â€œLeonardo was fascinated by mirrors late in life,” said Sara, downshifting in heavier traffic. “In his villa at Clos Lucé he was supposed to have had a whole workshop devoted to his study of mirrors and their qualities. And their powers.”
    â€œThat could be it,” said Wade. “There have been a lot of triangles in the clues so far. I wonder if the relic issimply Triangulum. . . .”
    â€œMom, take the next exit,” said Darrell.
    They headed south toward the coast again. The narrow walled roadway was bordered by terraced hillsides, sprinkled with red tile roofs and marble steps on one side and daggerlike pines on the other. At last, the road wound down through the hills, past a handful of small villages, to the glittering coast of Monte Carlo, another magnificent jewel on the Mediterranean.
    Magnificent, sure.
    But Wade couldn’t forget that they’d followed a pair of killers there.

C HAPTER S EVENTEEN
    M onte Carlo was tiny, and Lily found the evening streets crushingly jammed.
    There was an irritating backup at every intersection. Pedestrians swarmed across the road whenever they wanted. And not only did it appear that somebody had just polished every surface in the town, but the gull-wing Mercedes she’d thought so distinctive was one of about a billion high-end sports cars cruising the pinchingly narrow streets.
    So they had no lead at all, other than a hope that five sets of eyes scouring every single street would spot something.
    â€œLet’s drive around a bit,” Sara said.
    â€œAnd look for silver cars,” Becca added.
    â€œSilver Mercedeses,” said Darrell.
    Unlike Nice, with its broad, elegant seaside, the Principality of Monaco—of which Monte Carlo was the main part—was compact, built all the way up a surrounding ridge of hillsides, at the base of which stood a U-shaped harbor overflowing with mega-yachts.
    â€œIf you can believe it, they race cars on these skinny streets,” said Darrell.
    â€œAnd now you did it,” said Wade. “We’ll be racing around in no time.”
    Darrell wiggled his eyebrows. “You’re welcome.”
    They cruised the streets slowly for the next half hour or so, until Sara pulled the car over. “This is pointless,” she said. “For all we know, they’re driving around, too. We could be a street ahead of or behind Sunglasses and the bookseller, but we’ll never catch up to them. I don’t know what to do.”
    Then Julian called.
    Darrell snapped up his mother’s phone and put it on speaker.
    â€œGuys, I think I know why Gerrenhausen’s in Monte Carlo. Meet me up at Casino Square, and hurry. It starts in an hour.” He clicked off.
    Hearing his voice, a kind of whispered excitement,Lily’s senses jangled. Normally, they were being watched, pursued, hounded by the Order’s agents. But since they’d shadowed Sunglasses and Gerrenhausen in Nice, something new was taking shape. They were going on the offensive. They were tailing one of the most dangerous agents in the Order and a little murderous bookseller. The Order hadn’t spotted them yet, and they had to keep it that way.
    â€œCasino Square,” she said. “I saw a sign. It’s up the hill past the harbor.”
    Sara motored up a