FROM THE RECORDS OF SADIE MARIE SIMMONS
9:38 p.m. The Patient exhibits sensitivity to light, noises, and Colin’s “talent” on the harmonica.
11:45 p.m. The Patient seems to be thirstier. And sweatier. And stinkier. He is also, luckily, no deader than he was.
2:22 a.m. The Patient has grown more restless and is mumbling in his sleep. So far we’ve learned ten new curse words. (We think. We just don’t know what language they are or what they mean yet.)
5:15 a.m. The Patient isn’t sweating anymore, and he feels cooler to the touch.
8:45 a.m. The Patient’s fever has broken, but he hasn’t woken up yet.
11:00 a.m. No change.
2:00 p.m. No change.
6:00 p.m. No change.
“How’s he doing?” April asked as soon as she reached the room they’d made for Gabriel. It was still a damp, creepy cellar, but it seemed homier somehow. There were lights now and pillows and a cot. A table with water and an ice chest filled with juice boxes. Someone had dragged in some folding chairs and a couple of laptops. It was like a real room in a real house, for a real family. Which made sense, April supposed. Kids like them were used to making homes out of anything—anywhere. She shouldn’t have been surprised they’d done it there.
“He’s better,” Sadie said. “I think. The fever hasn’t come back, and his pulse seems stronger, and his color’s better. But . . .”
“He still hasn’t woken up,” April finished.
Sadie shook her head then glanced at Colin, and when she spoke again, her voice was timid and soft, and April didn’t like the sound of that one bit. “You don’t really think Ms. Nelson meant it, do you? When she said she’d kill him herself?”
April had been playing that scene over and over in her mind all day, but she still had to think about the answer.
“No. I don’t think she’d kill him. But she could tell Evert, and . . .” April hesitated. “What if that’s the same thing? I mean, he broke into our room, and . . . I don’t like him.”
She looked at Colin, who shrugged. “Uncle Evert gives me the creeps, and I was raised by professional criminals.”
“I don’t like him either,” Sadie admitted. “But maybe she wouldn’t tell Evert?”
But April was shaking her head. “She was there. At Evert’s house. When this happened.” April pointed down at Gabriel and the wound that had only barely started to heal. “Ms. Nelson was there. Meeting with Evert. While creepy dudes with guns did stuff under the cover of darkness and Gabriel skulked around with a sword. There’s just so much we don’t know!”
“Okay. It’s just that . . .” Sadie and Colin shared a guilty look. Like they’d been up to something.
“What?” April asked.
“We translated his tattoos.” Sadie led her to the far side of the room where they’d set up the table and the laptops. “It was easy, really, once we identified the languages. There are six. Hindi. Korean. Chinese. Spanish. Arabic. And Russian.”
“Okaayyy,” April said, drawing out the word. “What do they say?”
“See this?” Colin pointed at a long string of numbers. “That’s an international phone number. As for the rest, well, that’s just it. They all say the same thing—the exact same thing,” Colin told her, then nodded at Sadie, as if he was willing to let her have the good part.
“They all say ‘If I’m dead, tell Izzy I’m sorry.’”
For a long moment, there was no sound in the cellar. It seemed like the critters stopped scurrying and the water stopped dripping and even their hearts stopped beating.
“Sorry for what?” April asked.
Sadie shrugged. “Something bad enough that he’d rather die down here than live up there.”
April thought about the woman upstairs and the man on the floor, but it felt like an ocean still stood between them. Well, two stories, several tons of stone, a very dusty passageway, five kids, and one really big secret.
“I get where you’re coming from—I really do,” Sadie said. “But I also don’t want to go upstairs in a day or two and tell her he’s dead, but—don’t worry—he’s also super sorry about it. Do you want to tell her that?”
“No. But—”
“She’s hiding something,” Colin filled in.
Sadie looked at him like he was crazy. “This is Ms. Nelson! We know her. We know—”
“She has secrets. Don’t give me that look, Sade. Everyone has secrets.” He said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Like what?” Sadie crossed her arms.
“Like this.”
April hadn’t really meant to steal the notebook. She’d only thought about borrowing it. Maybe taking a glimpse. Maybe a peek. Maybe . . .
“How’d you get that?” Sadie asked.
April shrugged. “It was in the library. We’re allowed to take books out of the library, right?”
The rule absolutely, positively didn’t mean they could take Ms. Nelson’s personal journal without her permission, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
She saw Violet and Tim enter the room, and Tim froze at the sight.
“Is that . . .”
“Ms. Nelson’s planner? Yes.” Colin was already reaching for it.
“We shouldn’t have that,” Sadie said.
“You saw her slide it out of sight.” Colin opened up the book. “Don’t you want to know what she’s hiding from ol’ Evert? Because I, for one . . . Hey! I was looking at . . .”
But Colin trailed off when, suddenly, the book was in Sadie’s hands and Sadie’s hands were starting to shake.
“That’s my mom and dad.” Sadie looked down at a newspaper article pasted on the very first page. WINTERBORNE DEVELOPERS DIE IN FATAL COLLISION. “Why does she have an article about my mom and dad?”
“I don’t know,” April said.
Colin took the book back and started flipping through the pages. There were handwritten notes that didn’t make any sense—maps with points circled and long lists of places and dates. It was like the scrapbooks Smithers kept in the library. But different. The book bulged with newspaper clippings from all over the world—in languages April couldn’t read.
There were questions and charts and two whole pages covered with just four words: Where are you, Gabriel?
“She’s been looking for him,” Colin said as he ran a finger over the pages. Then he stopped flipping as Tim touched a page and stared down at the headline CONVICTED FELON WASHES ASHORE, FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED.
“Tim?” April asked, because he was staring down at a mug shot on the page. “Are you okay?”
“That’s my dad.” His voice sounded too small in the big room. “So I guess he’s dead now. That’s good to know.”
He walked away like he didn’t want to touch the book anymore, and April looked down at the clipping that was already turning yellow with age. There was no date, but it had obviously been there long before Tim came to Winterborne House—long before Ms. Nelson oh so casually asked him to tag along with Violet.
“See?” Colin cocked an eyebrow at Sadie. “Secrets.”
When he started thumbing through the book again, something fell out. No. Some things, April realized as she looked down at a floor littered with pretty pictures of faraway places.
“Are those postcards?” Sadie asked as April picked them up, then turned them over and over in her hands, knowing they must matter.
Athens. Oslo. Tokyo. Dubai. Egypt. Norway. Dubai.
She read them once. Then twice. They were blank on the back—nothing but the address to Winterborne House and their postmarks.
“Athens. Oslo. Tokyo. Dubai. Egypt. Norway. Dubai,” Sadie rattled off as April laid the postcards out one by one.
“Why have both Oslo and Norway?” Sadie asked.
“And why are there two from Dubai?” April said the only thing that stood out to her. “It’s the exact same postcard but they were sent months apart. Why . . .”
It was Violet who finally said, “Put them in order,” then took the cards and rearranged them according to the dates on the postmarks, fanning them out until only the first letter of each card was visible—the message as clear as day.
NOT DEAD.
“What can I say?” a deep, gravelly voice said from behind them. “I always did like puzzles.”