TO DO LIST:
Get key.
Find lock.
Win.
That was it. It was just that simple. But, sadly, simple didn’t always equal easy. Because Winterborne House was still huge. And Gabriel was still surly. And at the end of the day, they still didn’t know how to get the key or where to find the lock, and “winning” depended entirely on what Evil Uncle Evert was so desperate to get his hands on. Plus, it was a concept that April didn’t have a lot of experience with. But there was a first time for everything. Or so she told herself.
So instead of focusing on the things she didn’t know, she decided to focus on the things she did. Like how Sadie Marie Simmons was, in fact, a genius, and how if Violet stood on a chair and screamed, “Mouse!” at the top of her lungs, Smithers and Ms. Nelson would both be distracted for at least an hour.
She thought about the ten jewelry boxes, nine music boxes, and four wall safes they’d found—not to mention the three abandoned suites in the family wing that you could access via secret passage.
And, finally, April remembered that even though most people feel better once they start sleeping in real beds, eating real food, and taking real showers, Gabriel Winterborne was not most people.
“April!”
The shout echoed off the stone walls and hard floor, and April had to wince. And force a smile. And remind herself that she’d spent days hoping he would wake up, so it would be wrong for her to wish him unconscious again. Very wrong. So, so wrong. But April did it anyway, because Fever Gabriel never yelled, and in that sense, he was April’s favorite Gabriel by far.
“What is all this?”
The floor was covered with cords and cables. TVs leaned against the wall while Colin stood atop a ladder, a cordless drill in his hands and a very Sadie-ish gleam in his eye.
“Did you have a nice shower?” April asked. His hair was wet, and his clothes were clean, and April had thought he’d be in a good mood when he got back from the bathroom in the family wing where they’d left not one, not two, but three kinds of bubble bath and a brand-new razor (which he hadn’t even used). But instead he was pointing at the screens that Tim and Colin were mounting on the wall.
“What are those?”
“Monitors,” April said simply.
“Why are there monitors in my cellar?”
“Because it turns out Evil Uncle Evert uses the same security system as Winterborne House, and Sadie was able to hijack the feed. That way we can keep an eye on him from a distance because, as you like to remind me, we’re just kids. Or would you prefer not to have eyes on your murderous uncle?” When he didn’t answer, she had to smirk. “That’s what I thought.”
“Aren’t you worried Smithers will come looking for you?”
Colin hopped down from the ladder. “Oh, he’s watching that British cooking show he’s so into. It’s trifle night. The house could burn down, and he wouldn’t notice on trifle night. But just to be safe, Violet’s keeping a lookout.”
“And what about . . .” He couldn’t even say the word Isabella.
“She left an hour ago,” Tim said.
“She’s looking for a new house,” April added. “For us to move into. When you’re dead.”
Gabriel probably didn’t even realize he was glancing toward his swords. And the cliffs. But he was winded just from going to take a shower. He had no business tracking Ms. Nelson—not when he couldn’t even keep himself safe at the moment.
When he said, “You shouldn’t be doing this,” he didn’t even sound angry anymore. Not even disappointed. He just looked . . . sad.
“We want to do this,” April told him.
“No. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“Do I need to remind you who it was who dragged you out of the water and saved your life?” April asked.
“I wouldn’t have been in the water if you hadn’t been there! I would have . . .”
“What?” April asked. “What would you have done?”
Then, for the first time since April had known him, Gabriel Winterborne looked guilty.
“I wouldn’t have had to save you.”
She didn’t say what she was thinking: that he’d needed saving a long time before he went into the water.
He walked to the other side of the cellar and the narrow bed they’d found in the attic. He pushed aside the stack of clean clothes Colin had pilfered from the things Smithers was going to give to charity. He didn’t look all that happy to be wearing a T-shirt that said BUTLERS BUTTLE BETTER. It was too small and pulled tight across his chest, but it was soft and clean, and he didn’t complain as he pulled an old threadbare sweater on over that and tossed his towel over the back of a chair.
He looked grumpy, and April couldn’t entirely blame him. After all, in the two days since he’d woken up, his very quiet, very dull cellar had become . . . crowded.
Half of Sadie’s lab had been moved to one of the passageways. Tim and Violet had found a dollhouse that looked exactly like Winterborne House, and they’d turned it into a model of the mini mansion, complete with stickers for cameras and action figures for guards.
The dark and dirty cellar was part lab, part playroom, part bedroom, part . . . home.
But that was before the explosion.
“What in the . . .” he shouted as dust fell from the ceiling and the cellar shook. Smoke filled the air as Sadie emerged from the haze.
Her hair was sticking up, and dust covered her face, and she was shouting, “I’m okay!” a little too loudly—like her ears weren’t working right.
“Are you sure? Your hair is kind of . . . smoking,” Colin said, patting one of Sadie’s signature topknots.
But Sadie just grinned and shouted, “I got it!”
“Got what?” Colin sounded concerned as a low hum filled the air. Then there was movement on one of the monitors, and April realized that it wasn’t showing the feed from Evert’s security system. It was showing the feed from . . .
April looked up and saw a drone the size of a shoebox hovering overhead.
“I call it the SadieSeer 200!”
Sure enough, SADIESEER 200 was painted right on the side in big white letters.
“Uh, maybe don’t put your name on the thing that we’re going to use to plan a heist?” Colin told her.
Sadie considered it for a second, then nodded. “Good note, Colin!” She used the remote, and soon the drone was dropping down and hovering right in front of the group. “It has a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree rotating camera. Night vision. A two-mile range, and . . . uh . . . let’s call it stealth mode.”
“Stealth mode?” Tim asked.
“Yeah. I can make it . . . uh . . . explode. Just a little. If we need to cover our tracks.”
Gabriel was looking at her like she was the scariest thing he’d seen in ten years of life on the lam. The other kids were looking at her like she was . . . Sadie.
A moment later, Colin asked, “You just blew up the SadieSeer 100, didn’t you?”
And Sadie cried, “For science!”
But April was inching closer to the SadieSeer and saying, “Sadie, you’re a genius!”
Sadie beamed. “I know. I’ve been tested.”