One-Knight Stand (White Knights #3) - Julie Moffett Page 0,35

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.”

“The what?” 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.”

Frankie resisted the pull on her arm. “Angel, this could work for us. Look, Wally just came in. He’s sitting over there.”

She motioned with her head, and I looked over. Sure enough, Wally was sitting on one of the benches looking out at us. He’d pulled a hat low over his head and wasn’t easily recognizable in the dim light. But I’d know Wally anywhere, and so did Frankie. Unfortunately, I’d been so preoccupied with staying on my feet, I’d forgotten all about him.

I was currently scoring a big fat F in spy operations. Why had I chosen skating?

“Look, I can get you over to him without alerting the guy that he’s with us,” Frankie said in a low voice. “Bump into him, then tell him the plan, and BOOM. It’s done.”

“There’s only one problem with that,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t have a plan yet.”

“You will.” Frankie spoke with such confidence, I almost believed her. “You said we need a distraction, so just figure out how to make one and go from there.”

It wasn’t that simple, but she was looking at me with so much faith, I had to figure something out.

My brain raced through numerous possibilities and came up blank. I blamed it on the skating, since my brain was more in a survival mode than a thinking one. Where were those obsessive brain cells when I needed them? It was almost our turn for the limbo, and I still had nothing.

I started to panic. “Frankie, how am I going to get over to Wally and bump into him without it looking intentional?”

“I’m going to push you under the limbo pole,” she said, maneuvering behind me. “When it’s your turn for the limbo, duck beneath the pole. I’ll aim you toward the exit nearest him. Once you get there, take a few steps out of the rink and fall into his lap. Make it look accidental. Tell him to act like he doesn’t know you, and to head to the bathroom after he helps you up. Then after a few minutes you can go to the bathroom as well. It’s in an alcove hidden from the view of our follower. If he tries to go