I, Spy? (Sophie Green Mysteries, No. 1) (Sophie Green Mystery)

some kids hiding out…”
    “Would you go back to your high school to hide out?”
    I wouldn’t go back to my high school if they sold Gucci. Half price.
    I turned off the main road into the school grounds and cut my lights.
    “Good thinking,” Harvey said, “but you still don’t have the quietest car in the world.”
    I parked Ted up and we got out and headed over to the sports field. The ground was slick and muddy and I wished I was wearing something other than my pretty trainers. My pretty, ruined trainers.
    “Damn,” I whispered.
    “What?”
    “I got mud in my shoe.”
    “If that’s the worst thing that happens to you—”
    He stopped because a bullet whistled past his head, and we both dropped to the ground. Now all my clothes were muddy. Great.
    “Stay here,” Harvey whispered. “I’ll go see if I can get behind them.”
    That was great, but I didn’t even know where they were, so behind them was going to be interesting. I watched him crawl away and lay there, cold and muddy, Macbeth’s gun in my hand, feeling very small and scared.
    They were doing some building work on the other side of the field and there were a few huts set up on the edge of the site. I glanced over at them, and my heart stopped for a second. There were lights inside. I could see lights.
    I edged away from the muddy field, staying low, my heart hammering. Hey, at least it was beating again. I thought I’d died for a second there. Wright knew we’d be following him. He knew we were both armed and now we knew he was, too. And there was a distinct possibility that he wasn’t alone.
    Therefore what I did next might seem extremely foolish. But I think we’ve established by now that pretty much the only thing I’m really good at is being foolish, so I did it anyway. I crept and crawled through the shadows to the hut with the lights on, and when I got there, I saw Sven prowling round the outside with a gun.
    God. I used to fancy him. Now he looked pale and deranged, and instead of having the Johnny Depp/Christian Slater cute maniac thing going on, he just looked damaged. And kind of scary.
    I say kind of, because he still had vomit in his hair. Obviously he’d not been out of the cell that long.
    I saw him stare in my direction for a long time, and my skin came up in goose bumps. It occurred to me that I could be in this totally alone—I wouldn’t know a real CIA badge if it came up and snogged me, for all I knew Harvey could have been hitching a ride with me back to his partner, Wright—and that what I really needed was Luke to turn up and save the day.
    But Luke had no idea where I was and besides, how was I ever going to be a secret agent if I didn’t get off my arse and do some day-saving by myself?
    I was just about to lift my gun and take a rather ill-advised shot at Sven, when I caught a movement behind him. There was someone following him. Someone svelte and stealthy, dressed in black, taking careful steps, a pistol raised. A woman.
    Maria.
    I let out a long breath of relief, which Sven must have heard because he suddenly swung his gun around in my direction and then there was a shot and I hit the ground, shaking.
    It took me quite a while to realise that I was not the one who’d been shot. It took one more bullet report to convince me that I’d not been hit.
    But someone had, and I realised as I saw Sven start running towards me, that it wasn’t him. I lifted my gun and aimed and squeezed the trigger and nothing happened .
    I stared in shock. It was broken! Macbeth gave me a broken gun!
    Sven was three feet away now, pistol aimed at me, and I saw him nudge something on the barrel with his thumb. The safety! Of course! I pulled the catch, squeezed the trigger and shot Sven just as he landed on top of me.
    He lay still, and so did I, winded, horrified. I’d just shot him. I’d just shot him—I pushed him off me and stared in horror at the blood leaking from the hole in his chest—I’d shot him and he was dead. There was blood on me too, on my clothes, on my skin. He was dead.
    Oh, Jesus. I am in bad trouble .
    I heaved myself over his body and ran to the shadows under the hut. Maria lay there, a bleeding bruise on her head, her hand pressed to her flat stomach where the bullet had lodged. I fumbled for her pulse and found it. She was alive. Fuck knows how, but she was alive.
    I was just about to run back to the car for my phone to call for help when I heard movement from inside the hut. Whoever was