The Armstrong Assignment (A Janet Markham Bennett Cozy Thriller Book 1) by Diana Xarissa (books for 10th graders TXT) 📕

“I don’t believe that she’ll actually be in any danger, and it may prove helpful to have someone here in the hotel that I know I can trust. Obviously, I can’t rely on anyone from Mr. Armstrong’s party.”

Mr. Jones looked at the younger man and then at Edward. “She could jeopardise your cover.”

Edward laughed. “I’m posing as part of a security team, here to protect Mr. Armstrong. It isn’t exactly a cover, is it?”

“You’d have to pretend to be strangers,” Mr. Jones added.

“Let me worry about the details,” Edward said.

Mr. Jones looked at the other man again. “What do you think?” he asked.

“I think that Mrs. Bennett could be a real asset to the mission,” he said.

“Why did I ask you?” Mr. Jones muttered. “I can’t even think straight. This is ridiculous. She’s not an agent. She’s never had a single day of training. She has no business being a part of this.”

“She’s not here to be an agent. She’s here to be a translator,” Edward argued. “She speaks fluent French. Her French is much better than mine, actually. Mr. Armstrong was smart to hire her.”

“He’s an idiot,” Mr. Jones shot back.

Edward nodded. “I won’t argue. We had a long conversation last night about how important it was for him to stay at the hotel and in constant contact with me, only for me to wake up this morning and find him missing.”

Mr. Jones frowned. “We’ll discuss later how that could possibly have happened.”

“Surely you’re having the hotel watched,” Janet said, angry that Mr. Jones seemed to be suggesting that Edward had done something wrong.

“I’m not discussing our security arrangements with you,” Mr. Jones replied.

Janet hid a smile. Clearly she’d hit on a touchy subject.

“It’s nearly time for Mr. Armstrong’s first meeting of the day,” Edward said after a glance at his watch. “I need to be there, and so does his new translator.”

“I will be discussing all of this with Smith,” Mr. Jones said. “Your wife may be back in Doveby Dale before morning.”

“I’m certain that Smith will see the sense in keeping her here,” Edward countered. “I can trust her, and she’ll be very useful to Mr. Armstrong, as well.”

“We’ll talk again tonight,” Mr. Jones replied, getting to his feet. “We’ll make a final decision about Mrs. Bennett at that time.”

He stormed out the door before anyone could reply. The younger man jumped up and rushed to follow him.

“Welcome to the team,” he said to Janet as he disappeared through the door.

Janet stared after them, her head spinning. After a moment, Edward got up and shut the door again. Then he pulled her to her feet and kissed her thoroughly.

“I’ve missed you terribly,” he said eventually.

“I’ve missed you, too,” she admitted, resting her head on his shoulder.

“I couldn’t quite believe it when Mr. Armstrong got back from his morning escapades and told me that he’d hired himself a translator named Janet Markham. I was afraid to believe that it was truly you.”

Janet sighed. While she didn’t want to do it, she also didn’t want to keep any secrets from Edward.

“That was a deep sigh,” he said.

“I saw you last night,” she replied in a low voice. “I was walking to the Louvre for the dinner and tour and I saw you with Bobby and the others.”

Edward stared at her for a minute and then began to laugh. “You’re amazing. How did you engineer a meeting with the man, then?”

“I didn’t engineer anything. I will admit that I walked back down the street in front of the hotel again this morning, but there was no sign of anyone that I’d seen yesterday. I turned the corner and Bobby walked out of a door right in front of me.”

“So he went out through the staff entrance,” Edward said thoughtfully. “That doesn’t match up with his story, but carry on. What happened next?”

“A couple stopped to talk to him, but he couldn’t understand them, so I translated for him. They were simply admiring his hat, but after the conversation was finished, he asked me to join him for coffee so that I could translate his order for him. He was worried that he might not get his chocolate creesant if I weren’t there to help.” She deliberately used Bobby’s version of the word, making Edward laugh again.

“So when you spoke to him, you knew he was connected to me in some way?”

“Yes,” Janet admitted. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it, but I hated to see him shouting ‘I don’t speak French’ at people in the street.”

“And you took the job with him, knowing that I’d be here waiting for you, when you arrived,” Edward continued. “That explains why you weren’t truly surprised when you walked into the room.”

“I tried to act surprised. I was nervous about seeing you and I was pretty sure that Mr. Jones was going to be here, which terrified me, but I’d forgotten that you didn’t know that I saw you last night,” she explained.

“You don’t need to be frightened of Mr. Jones. He’s mostly harmless. And you did a good job of acting surprised. I suspect he was fooled, anyway. I know you a good deal better, of course.”

“Does Mr. Jones have a Christian name?” Janet had to ask.

“It’s John.”

“Of course it is,” Janet sighed. John and Jones had to be two of the most anonymous names in the English-speaking world. “What about the other man, the one who is younger and seems almost human?”

Edward chuckled. “Christopher Porter is most definitely human. He’s a relatively new recruit. He’s working as an assistant to Mr. Jones at the moment, but he’s clever and intuitive. I suspect he’ll be moving up very quickly.”

“He did things for