And so it began—the watching and the waiting, the planning and the worrying.
They split into groups and took turns watching the mini mansion on the monitors and scouring Winterborne House for a lock that could have been anywhere or looked like anything. But their biggest job might have been keeping Smithers and Ms. Nelson from becoming suspicious.
By the end of the first week, they’d searched the entire first floor except for Smithers’s room and the butler’s pantry (which wasn’t technically Smithers’s room, but try telling him that).
They’d looked in bathrooms and closets, behind suits of armor and under potted plants. They spent a whole rainy day scouring library shelves and a whole night going through row after row of fencing trophies and polo trophies and a spelling bee trophy that was placed right beside an Olympic medal that Gabriel’s father had won before Gabriel was born.
But no little boxes. No chests. No drawers. No secret compartments. And absolutely no locks.
The good news was they still had a lot of places to look. The bad news was they had soooooo many places to look!
When they weren’t looking for the lock, they were keeping an eye on Evert and trying to figure out how to resteal the key.
You might think that spying on a murderous, villainous, utterly evil uncle would be interesting. Well, April admitted later, you’d be wrong. If anything, Evert was boring.
Every morning he ate the same breakfast: oatmeal.
Every day he wore the same thing to work: a black three-piece suit.
Every night he went to bed at the same time: 10:45.
And when he was all alone—when he thought no one else was watching—he’d bring out April’s key and hold it tight, just like she used to do. It made April feel sick. And it made her want to climb through the screen and claw his eyes out.
The good news was that they knew where the key was. The bad news was that it was on Evert. Like literally on him. Almost all the time. He wore it on a chain that he kept in his pocket, and he only took that off when he was sleeping. April wanted to break into his room with a knife—just to see how he liked it. But . . .
“He has bodyguards. Big, scary ones,” Colin said for what must have been the hundredth time a week after they’d first started their vigil.
Gabriel bristled and mumbled something that sounded like they aren’t that scary, but April wasn’t really listening. She’d heard it all before.
“How many guards on the perimeter?” Tim asked.
“Four,” Sadie said.
“We can handle four. Can’t we?” April asked, but Sadie glanced nervously around.
“Plus dogs. I don’t do dogs,” Colin said, but Tim just crossed his arms.
“I’ve got the dogs,” Tim said, and April kind of didn’t want to know what he meant by that, so she didn’t ask any questions.
“We could do an Avon Lady,” Colin said. “That’ll get us past the gates.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Sadie admitted.
“For you we’d make it a Girl Scout. But he knows us. Darn it. Ooh! How about the Three Horned Dragon?” Sadie looked at him like he was crazy, so Colin rolled his eyes and said, “Cons are in my blood, love. You’ve got to trust me. All we’d need is a hot-air balloon, a blowtorch, and three monkeys.”
“Colin—”
“Okay, Sade. Two monkeys. Tops!”
“Colin!”
“One monkey and a larger-than-average ferret?”
“Enough!” Gabriel snapped. “Go to bed.”
“It’s seven o’clock,” Colin complained, and April couldn’t exactly blame him. She didn’t want to go to bed, either. She wanted to steal her key back and find the lock. And she was just starting to say so when something on the monitors caught her eye because, for once, Evert was doing something different.
She got up and eased closer to the screens. She didn’t even realize Gabriel was behind her until he said, “It’s poker night.” On the screens, Evert sat around a table with five other men. There was a deck of cards and stacks of chips. “He plays every month. Has for years.” Then he looked at April. “You’re not the only one who does homework.”
She heard a banging sound on the far side of the cellar and heard Colin say, “Ooh, where does this go?”
He was reaching for the old-fashioned key in the lock of a wrought-iron gate when Gabriel snapped, “That’s the old wine cellar, and it’s dangerous. Stay out of there.” Gabriel glared and started after Colin, but April was stepping closer to the screens, and Gabriel didn’t dare leave her alone.
“Who are they?” April asked.
There was the creak of an old gate swinging open, and soon Colin was shouting, “Ooh! More swords!”
Gabriel winced, but he pointed at the man on the screen to Evert’s right, then went around the table. “Chief of police. District attorney. Mayor. Federal judge. United States senator. My uncle has cultivated powerful relationships, April. Power protects power.”
“You’re more powerful than all of them. You’re Gabriel Winterborne.”
“Am I?” He gave her the saddest smile that she had ever seen. “Sometimes I can’t remember.”
On the other side of the room, there was the clang and scrape of steel against steel.
“En garde!” Colin said, while Tim barked. “Be careful!” but April kept her eyes on Gabriel.
“People still talk about you,” she tried to explain. “They want to know where you went. And why. And—”
“You’re doing that wrong,” Gabriel tossed over his shoulder at the boys, but he never stopped looking at the men who sat around his uncle’s table.
“People would listen to you. They may be powerful—” She glanced at the men on the monitor. “But you’re famous. And rich. And you have friends, too.”
Gabriel looked at her like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end, he just snapped, “You’re doing that wrong!” again, then stalked toward Tim and snatched the sword away.
He stood there for a long time, considering, before he asked, “Do you want to win fencing matches, or do you want to win fights?”
Tim smirked. “What do you think?”
“Okay.” Gabriel smiled. “Then hold it like this.”