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“No sign of them,” he muttered Then he must’ve realized he’d spoken aloud, because he looked at ’s fine”

Which bothered me because my dad’s a terrible l

iar I always knehen he was hiding soet the truth out of hih from what I didn’t know Sometimes I wondered if he had so him, maybe; but the idea seeist

The other thing that troubledUsually when he does that, it un from the lobby and ran downstairs to check onup his workbag while three unconscious gun by their feet fro over their heads so you could see their boxer shorts Dad clai, and in the end the police blamed a freak chandelier malfunction

Another tiht in a riot in Paris My dad found the nearest parked car, pushed me into the backseat, and told ainst the floorboards and kept ht I could hear Dad in the driver’s seat, ru to his outside A few et up Every other car on the block had been overturned and set on fire Our car had been freshly washed and polished, and several twenty-euro notes had been tucked under the windshield wipers

Anyway, I’d coood luck char to need good luck

We drove through the city center, heading east toward haar Square London is a pretty cool place, but after you’ve traveled for so long, all cities start to blend together Other kids I et to travel soor have a lot of h places, and we hardly ever stay anywhere longer than a few days Most of the tiitives rather than tourists

I erous He does lectures on topics like “Can Egyptian Magic Really Kill You?” and “Favorite Punishyptian Underworld” and other stuff most people wouldn’t care about But like I said, there’s that other side to hi every hotel room before he lets me walk into it He’ll dart into a museuain like he’s afraid to be caught on the security cameras

One tier, we raced across the Charles de Gaulle airport to catch a last-ht, and Dad didn’t relax until the plane was off the ground, I asked hi frorenade For a second I was scared he ht actually tell ” As if “nothing” were thein the world

After that, I decided maybe it was better not to ask questions

My grandparents, the Fausts, live in a housing developht on the banks of the River Thames The taxi let us off at the curb, and my dad asked the driver to wait

We were halfway up the hen Dad froze He turned and looked behind us

“What?” I asked

Then I saw the ainst a big dead tree He was barrel shaped, with skin the color of roasted coffee His coat and black pinstriped suit looked expensive He had long braided hair and wore a black fedora pulled do over his dark round glasses He remindedot the iht’ve been an old friend or colleague of Dad’s Nointo people he knew But it did seerandparents’ And he didn’t look happy

“Carter,” o on ahead”

“But—”