Hands. There were hands clawing at April, dragging her away from the balcony’s railing, propelling her down a short flight of stairs and out into the falling rain.
“Gabriel . . . We have to go help Gabriel,” April said, but she felt numb.
“Gabriel’s gone,” Tim told her, but that didn’t make any sense.
“Yeah. That’s why we’ve got to go help him. We have to—”
She saw Smithers running across the yard, shouting, “Children!”
“We have to go get Gabriel,” April told him. “And Ms. Nelson. We have to help—”
“We can’t help them,” Smithers said. “Not here. We have to . . .”
Smithers trailed off, and April followed his gaze to where Evert still stood on the rooftop, watching. He actually waved, and April remembered how there was one thing he wanted even more than the key. And now he had it.
Gabriel Winterborne was back.
And Gabriel Winterborne was gone.
So Smithers ushered them back to Winterborne House as Evert’s laughter echoed on the wind.
“What happened?” Sadie asked as soon as they stepped through the doors.
She was sitting at the bottom of the stairs with Violet. “The lightning knocked out the SadieSonic. I think it must have hit a cell tower, because nothing has a signal, and . . .” She looked around, trailing off. “Where’s Ms. Nelson?”
No one answered, but Sadie kept looking around, as if Ms. Nelson was going to walk through the doors and tell them all to go to bed. “Where is she? Smithers? Where . . .”
She must have seen the truth in Smithers’s eyes, because when she said, “April?” her voice cracked. April knew that was her cue to hug Sadie and tell her everything was going to be okay. But things weren’t going to be okay. Sadie had already lost a mom and a grandma, and now yet another woman she loved wasn’t coming home.
And it was all April’s fault.
“Hello?” There was an old-fashioned phone on the entryway table. April had never paid it any attention before—she’d never even heard the landline ring—but Smithers was holding the receiver to his ear, and his voice got louder and louder with every word. “Hello! I’d like to report a . . . Can you hear me?” The last was part shout, part literal cry for help, but then there was the crack of lightning. Thunder boomed, and the rain fell against the house like a flood.
Then his arm went limp and the receiver fell from his hand. “It’s dead.” Which was the worst possible word. Violet flew into Tim’s arms, but everyone just stood there, watching the phone swing back and forth.
“I have to go get help,” Smithers said finally. “I have to tell the police what happened. Not that they’ll believe me. But we’ll need . . . divers.”
His voice cracked, but he didn’t cry. No one cried.
“I have to go get help,” Smithers said again. “I have to tell the authorities what happened. I have to make them believe . . . They’re never gonna believe.” Then he looked at the kids as if he’d forgotten for a moment that they even existed.
“Go,” Tim told him.
Smithers looked at him. “I shouldn’t leave you—”
“We’ve been left plenty of times, Smithers,” Tim reminded him. “Besides, who are they gonna believe? The Winterborne family butler or the foster kids who robbed Evert’s house tonight?”
April could tell by the look in Smithers’s eyes he knew Tim had a point.
“I won’t be long,” Smithers said, reaching for the keys to the car. “I hope. Stay here. Lock the doors. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
And then he was gone.
“Gabriel will be back soon,” Violet said simply. “He’ll know what to do.”
But Gabriel wasn’t coming back either. And that was April’s fault too.
They ended up in the kitchen even though no one was hungry. But there was something about the smells and the warmth, the comfort of that old wooden table and the clean, shiny pans. Like at any moment Ms. Nelson was going to come in and ask them why they weren’t in bed.
“I heard a splash.” April reached for the cocoa Colin had made her, but cried, “Ow!” a moment later. She’d forgotten about the broken glass.
“Let me look at that.” Tim turned April’s hands over to study her bloody palms.
“I’ll get the first aid kit.” Sadie went to the cabinet where Smithers kept those types of things, but April just sat there, numb.
She should go take a shower. Tim and Colin needed to put on something dry and warm. They all needed to . . .
What did they need to do?
She had no idea. She only knew one thing.
“When she fell, there was a splash, right? You heard it, didn’t you?” She looked at Tim and Colin, but Colin couldn’t meet her gaze and Tim just shook his head.
“It happened so fast,” Tim said.
“Well, there was a splash. So she hit the water. And if she hit the water, then he probably hit the water, and . . .”
But April didn’t finish.
“At least we got this.” Colin dropped the key in the center of the table. For ten long years, it had been April’s prize possession, but now she couldn’t even reach for it. She didn’t want to touch it ever again.
“Throw it in the ocean,” she said.
“April!” Sadie gasped.
“Gabriel didn’t want it,” April reminded them. “He said it was stupid. He said it wouldn’t help, and he was right. He was right, and I . . . I got him killed. And Ms. Nelson. It’s my fault. It’s—”
“Hey,” Colin snapped. “We all knew that window was probably a trap. And we all decided to go. And, well . . . we had to try something, didn’t we?”
But April couldn’t help thinking that Gabriel had been right. Everything would have been better if she’d never gone looking for him. Everything would have been better if she’d never come to Winterborne House at all.
Tim started picking glass out of April’s palms with some tweezers, but she didn’t feel the pain.
She heard the others talking, faint voices that floated through her mind.
“Maybe a jewelry box . . .”
“I think we should start in the secret passageways . . .”
“We should ask Smithers when he—”
“Treasure,” April blurted out.
“What?” Sadie turned to April.
“Evert asked where the treasure was. He thinks I know. He thinks that”—April pointed to the key—“opens it. He thinks there’s a treasure somewhere.”
“Like it’s not enough he just inherited everything,” Sadie snapped in frustration.
“Gabriel didn’t even care about it. All he wanted was for the world to know who Evert really is. Gabriel didn’t want that stupid key at all.”
“Evert wants it,” Colin said.
But April wasn’t so sure anymore. She huffed. “He told me I could keep it if I just told him where Gabriel was,” she snapped in frustration, but everyone was just . . . staring at her. And it made her snap again, “What?”
“Okay,” Colin started slowly. “So he wanted Gabriel more than the key, right?”
“Yes! That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“But . . . what’s he gonna want now?” The house seemed bigger and darker than ever before as Colin said, “And what do you think he’s gonna do to get it back?”
The truth settled down around them. Gabriel was gone. So was Ms. Nelson. And who knew how long Smithers would be away? They were on their own.
“We don’t even know what it opens!” Sadie snapped in frustration.
Violet was the one who said, “He doesn’t know that.”