Hitmen Triumph Read Online Free PDF Page A

yet.”
    â€œNate’s here?” I said, doing my best to sound surprised. I didn’t want Nate to know I’d been following him. “Small town, I guess.”
    â€œYeah,” she said. “Small town.”
    â€œWell,” I said, “let’s make a deal. Don’t tell Nate I was here. Then you won’t have to explain that you kissed the wrong guy.”
    She held out her hand to shake mine.
    â€œDeal,” she said. She gave a quick embarrassed smile. “See you later.”
    She walked away to the theater.
    I waited a few minutes and then I hurried after her. Now it looked like I’d be following Nate and Mercedes for the night.

chapter nine
    At least Nate had picked a decent movie for his date with Mercedes. It was the opening night of an action-packed thriller with car chases and buildings getting blown up. It had been advertised for months ahead of time, and there was a showing of it every two hours. The theater was packed, and lots of people were waiting in line.
    That was the other piece of good news. Because there were so many people, it was easy for me to slip into the back row and feelcertain that Nate and Mercedes wouldn’t see me there. After all, if I was going to follow Nate until I found out what
the usual time and place
meant, I’d rather be somewhere where I could enjoy my wait.
    Except it turned out I was wrong about the enjoyment part.
    Ever noticed that the more exciting the trailer for a movie is, the more boring it turns out to be? This was one of those movies.
    Still, I had popcorn and something to drink. Nate and Mercedes were sitting a few rows ahead of me, and I was able to keep a close watch on them.
    During one of the few good parts of the movie—a car chase with explosions and jumps over destroyed bridges and through machine gun fire—Nate left his seat.
    He stepped into the aisle and started walking toward the exit behind me.
    How could he leave at the best part?
    It made me suspicious. If you have to take a bathroom break at a movie, you wait until the slow music plays and the mainfemale character starts telling the main male character that she’s falling in love with him.
    I ducked my head as Nate passed. It was unlikely that he’d notice me in the dark packed theater, but I wasn’t going to take the chance.
    I counted to ten; then I slipped out of my row too.
    I walked to the exit at the back and slowly stepped into the lobby.
    No sign of Nate.
    Now what?
    There were people in line for popcorn and drinks, so I decided to take the chance that I wouldn’t be too obvious if I quickly walked across to the video game machines set up in the far corner. I sat in front of a race-car game and grabbed the fake steering wheel.
    Then I looked around again.
    Had Nate really decided he needed to go to the washroom?
    I kept my eyes on the door to the men’s washroom. It struck me that maybe the meeting was in there. Right after that it struck me that I’d watched too many spy movies.
    As I watched the door, however, someone did walk quickly to the washroom from the far side of the lobby. A tall man with thinning hair, wearing a theater employees’ uniform.
    Yeah, I told myself. Too many spy movies.
    Especially when Nate walked out about thirty seconds later. He went straight back into the theater.
    So I’d missed the best part of the movie for nothing.
    I got up from the race-car game and headed back to the theater. As I did, the tall man with thinning hair came out of the washroom.
    I’m no expert on how long it should or shouldn’t take for guys to go to the bathroom. Still, it seemed that the guy had done his business really quickly.
    Unless his business had been with Nate.
    I told myself again that I’d watched too many spy movies. Still, if I’d made an idiot of myself so far, there was no harm in being an idiot a little longer.
    I slowed down and stayed behind the line of people getting