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

view won’t be as nice, but I’d rather you two not freeze to death before you help me with my little job.”
    By the time we were seated in a private room of the restaurant, Lane had regained control of himself. I think. At least his shoulders were no longer shaking.
    North rested his elbows on the table. “Thank you, Jaya, for completing my little test with such precision. I had to be sure I’d judged your intelligence and your moral compass correctly, as well as your relationship with Lane. Aren’t you hungry? The food here is quite good.” He picked up a piece of bread from the center of the table and dipped it in olive oil and vinegar. “Mmm. The French know a thing or two about cooking, don’t they?”
    I stared at him, at a loss for words. I couldn’t imagine eating, but I took a long drink of water. My mouth still felt dry, but somehow I managed to form a coherent sentence. “These other documents—the ones that make it look like I plagiarized all of my work. These weren’t part of the test, too, were they?”
    “Unfortunately not,” North said. “Lane here will assure you I’m quite serious about using them. It wouldn’t do to have all that evidence of your plagiarism surface at your university, would it?”
    “I haven’t plagiarized anything in my life,” I said. “Nobody will believe they’re real.”
    “Won’t they?” North said with a warm smile that under other circumstances I would have described as charming. “Being a historian, you’re a scholar of human nature. You have to put yourself into the minds of all those people in the past to figure out their stories. Think about your own. You’ve had quite a good run these last couple of years. Too good , some might say. You can’t really be as good as people think you are, can you?”
    “I’ll be able to prove these are fake,” I said, but my voice was less forceful now. He’d planted a seed of doubt in my mind that was already beginning to grow. He was right about human nature. People would jump at the chance to think the worst of someone who’d received public acclaim.
    “Maybe you’ll be able to dig yourself out eventually,” North conceded with a wave of his hand, “but the damage will have been done. The shadow will follow you around forever. But I hope it won’t come to that. All Lane has to do is one little favor for me, and we won’t give these documents another thought.”
    “You don’t have to do this, Lane,” I said. “I’ll figure something out.”
    “He’s not bluffing, Jones. He’ll destroy your life in addition to mine.”
    “Oh yes, Miss Jones,” North said. “Don’t forget that I’ll destroy Lane’s life, too, if he doesn’t go along with this little job.”
    “It’s little?” I asked, wondering how I could even be contemplating what would merit a “little” theft.
    “To someone like The Chameleon,” North said.
    Lane groaned. “That’s not my name.”
    “They called you The Chameleon ?” I felt ill.
    “No,” Lane said emphatically.
    “I tried,” North said. “I really did. But it didn’t stick. Lane protested too much.”
    “It makes me sound like a comic book character.”
    “But you have to admit it would be perfect if you were a comic book character.” North chuckled. “How many languages do you speak fluently?”
    Lane glared at him.
    “Seven, isn’t it?” I said.
    He shifted his glare to me.
    “Chameleon or not,” I said, “you can’t just steal something for him.”
    “It’s the only way.”
    “This isn’t very gentlemanly of you, North,” I said. “And Lane led me to believe you were a gentleman.”
    “Lane owes me a favor. I’m simply choosing how he repays it.”
    Lane refused to meet my gaze.
    “What is it he wants you to steal?” I asked.
    North raised his hand. “Pick me! I can answer that question. It’s simple. I’m not telling him what it is yet.”
    “Wait, what ? You can’t expect him to agree without—”
    “This is Lane’s