Escape from Shadow Island Read Online Free Page A

impatient outside.
    â€œJust coming,” he replied.
    Lopez-Vega put his hand on Max’s arm. “Your fatheris not dead, Max,” he said softly.
    Max gaped at him. For a moment, he stopped breathing. He felt as if he’d been hit by a truck. “What do you mean? What’re you talking about?” he whispered.
    â€œWe cannot talk here. Come to my hotel tomorrow evening, eight o’clock. The Rutland Hotel, near King’s Cross station. Room twelve.”
    â€œBut you can’t go. How do you know Dad’s not dead? How? You have to tell me.”
    The door handle rattled. “Max, let me in,” Consuela called.
    â€œTell me!” Max said urgently, ignoring Consuela. “Where is he? What happened to him?”
    â€œIt is complicated, Max. I will explain tomorrow.”
    â€œBut I need to know—”
    â€œTomorrow. We need more time. And I have something to give you.”
    Lopez-Vega unlocked the door and stepped out past Consuela.
    â€œWhy was the door locked?” she asked, coming into the dressing room. “Who was that?”
    Max didn’t reply. He felt breathless and his pulse was racing. His mind was in turmoil, reeling from what Lopez-Vega had said. His father wasn’t dead? Was the man telling the truth? Was Alex Cassidy really stillalive, or was this some horrible, malicious trick? For two long years Max had lived with the possibility that his father was gone forever. But now this stranger had shown up and turned everything on its head. It couldn’t be true, could it? Max wanted desperately to believe what this man had told him, but he was wary. Who was this Luis Lopez-Vega? How did he know what had really happened to Max’s father? Max needed some answers. And he needed them now.
    He stepped out of the room and ran along the corridor to the stage door.
    â€œThere was a man here just now,” he said to the security guard. “Tall, black hair.”
    â€œHe just left,” the guard replied. “I think he took a taxi.”
    Max whipped open the stage door and ran out. There was a group of fans clustered on the pavement.
    â€œMax! Max!” they called.
    Max ignored them. He looked up the darkened street. The taillights of a taxi were just disappearing around the corner.

3
    TWO YEARS AGO MAX’S WHOLE LIFE HAD imploded—collapsed in on itself. He could remember every tiny detail of that time: the shock of losing both his parents, his father apparently dead and his mother shut away in prison.
    His father had been invited to do a couple of shows in Santo Domingo and, because Max was going to be away for a week on a school trip to France, his mother had decided to accompany her husband. Normally, Helen stayed at home to look after Max, and only Consuela went with Alexander on his frequent trips abroad.
    Max remembered the bus pulling in outside theschool on Friday evening, the children worn out after the long trip from France but excited to be home. They’d scrambled to their feet, peering out of the windows, searching for the faces of their parents in the crowd by the school gates. Max had been one of the last to get off, his face tanned from the French sun, a carrier bag clutched in his hand containing a box of chocolates and some cheese he’d bought as a present for his mum and dad. He’d stood on the pavement, his classmates thronging around him, the luggage being unloaded from the hold of the bus, wondering where his mother was. He’d felt disappointed, maybe a little angry. All the other parents were there on time.
    It was only when he saw the head teacher, Mrs. Williamson, approaching him with a uniformed female police officer beside her that Max realized something had happened—something serious, though he never imagined then that it would be quite as traumatic as it turned out to be.
    They didn’t give him the full story all at once. The policewoman took him home, told him there’d been