Losing the Plot by Annie Dalton Page B

side-door. It opened slightly and he handed a crackly roll of parchment to whoever was on the other side. I saw a green silk-gloved hand give him another in exchange. The instant the door closed, Chance went racing back through the park. His thoughts jumped out at me. So much money for so little work! I’ll just take this to Don Rodriguez and I’ll get my first payment!”
    As we sped back across the Thames in the dark, I could feel Chance smiling beside me. It made me want to cry.
    “Wake up!” I whispered. “I don’t know why Brice has it in for you, but you’ve got to be ready for him, Chance. You’ve got to fight back!”
    The next few days were the most stressful of my angel career.
    Chance was leading a double life, and unfortunately I had to lead it with him. Lola and I mostly had to catch up via Angel Link.
    “So when am I going to see you?” she said in despair one afternoon, her voice bouncing back at me like a bad mobile connection.
    “I wish I knew.” I was talking from the playhouse. Two actors in holey tights were leaping on and off boxes, practising sword fighting skills.
    “I’m not saying Chance has like, criminal tendencies,” Lola was saying. “But I do think he gets a buzz out of this cloak-and-dagger stuff.”
    I felt completely despairing. “Lollie, I don’t think I’m the right person to help him. Maybe we should swap.”
    Lola’s voice crackled over the Link. “You’re doing fine. Oops, gotta go!” And she’d gone.
    “I am SO not doing fine, Lollie,” I whispered miserably.
    The trap was closing in. I knew it.
    I sensed it as Chance went snaking between the trees in the dark. I knew it from the way I leapt out of my skin at the slightest twig crack. Details jumped out at me, like clues in a thriller. I didn’t know what they meant, but I passed them on to Chance just the same.
    “Don’t you think it’s suspicious, how they always wear the same gloves?” I told Chance one night. “It might be just the one glove, actually. You only see one hand after all. Don Rodriguez’s is wine-coloured.
    Though you’d think a Spanish nobleman could afford nicer leather. Hers is icky green silk. In my century we associate that colour with poison, hint hint.”
    The brainwashing was Lola’s idea. “It’s the dripping tap technique,” she explained during one of our chats. “Repeat the same thing over and over and it’s got to get through eventually.”
    So I badgered Chance non-stop. “How come such a noble lady only owns one pair of gloves? Come on, Cupid, how likely is that? She’s probably just a maid. I bet Nick and Brice are paying her to pose as a lady in waiting. If you ask me, this lovesick lady thing is pure fiction.”
    By this time, we were at the house with the grand gates where Don Rodriguez lived.
    “Chance, would you please stop being Robin Hood for one minute and check out the gloves!” I pestered. “Because if the Don is wearing cheap wine-coloured leather tonight, I think you should open that letter and see what’s inside. Wake up and open your eyes, Chance. Open your eyes!”
    I can’t say for sure that Lola’s technique worked. I can only tell you what happened.
    At first it was business as usual. Chance went through a little side-gate, and tapped at a leaded window. I hated that window. It always stuck. And tonight it seemed to grate open with an especially edgy sound. As usual, a leather-gloved hand appeared.
    And suddenly Chance’s expression changed. He looked, really looked at the glove, as if he was seeing it in huge cinematic close-up.
    Then he and Don Rodriguez exchanged crackly letters in the usual way, and Chance set off through the dark. I heard him muttering. “Those gloves. Always the same colour and the leather is such poor quality…”
    “Oh, finally!” I cheered.
    But once again Chance was arguing with himself. “I ferry their letters from one side of the river to the other, and I have no idea what is in them. But Nick would never