“It’s on, mates!” Colin said.
Violet darted into Tim’s arms, and for a moment, they all froze at the top of the stairs as Evert fought and clawed and clamored against the net and the ropes and the wires. He didn’t seem to notice the label that said SadieMatic Eight. He didn’t even growl. And something about that was scarier. The last Winterborne April had caught had always growled, but he was gone, so April looked at the man who was swinging back and forth, glaring at her and yelling, “You!”
Instinctively, April’s hand went to the key that was back around her neck, but it didn’t feel at home there anymore. It was no longer an idea for April. Not a symbol. Not a dream or a hope. No. It was a mission, and she couldn’t let herself forget it as Evert stared at it—the key drawing him to her like a magnet.
“You’re going to tell me where you got that key. And then you’re going to take me to it.”
“Take you to what?” April asked, defiant.
“The treasure,” he said, and April wondered, not for the first time, if he really was crazy.
“What treasure?” Sadie didn’t even try to hide her confusion. “You’re a bazillionaire now. Isn’t that good enough?”
“No!” he snapped. His eyes were wild. “The Winterborne fortune is one thing—I was always going to get a share of that. But the Winterborne legacy is priceless. They thought I didn’t know about it, but I always heard them talking—whispering. About how it would belong to my brother. I know it’s here. I know they kept it from me. And now it’s going to be mine. Just as soon as you give me that key.”
“Okay. I’d tell you to come and get it, but you appear to be a little . . . tied up.”
April started to laugh. But then she saw the knife.
She watched the SadieMatic Eight fall into pieces. She heard Evert fall—too hard—to the ground.
She heard Tim yell, “Run!” And then she felt her friends scatter, going in all directions. But April didn’t dare stop or even slow down.
Not when she saw him slip on the loose runner and fall on the stairs. Not when she heard him trip on the dental floss that they’d stretched across the hall. She didn’t ask questions or demand answers. She just ran as fast as she could, zooming down the hall and away from the chaos, through rooms and down corridors, crisscrossing her way through the giant mansion that had somehow started to feel like home.
April was home.
And for some reason, that made her run harder. Faster.
“Ha!” Evil Uncle Evert was breathless when he appeared before her, bolting out of a passageway.
“You didn’t think you could outrun me, did you? You didn’t think you could outsmart me? In Winterborne House?” He laughed. “I’ve been wandering these halls far longer than you’ve been alive.”
The double doors to the balcony were standing open, and April bolted out into a rain that was now nothing more than a heavy mist. The sky was getting lighter in the east. Soon, Smithers would be back, April told herself. Soon, the police would be there. Soon, someone would care.
“I am Evert Winterborne! This is my house! I earned it!”
April took a step back. She was starting to shake. Her breath was coming hard, in a way that had nothing to do with her mad dash through the house.
“Yeah. How did you earn it?” she challenged, sounding far braver than she felt.
“You think it was easy to blow up my brother’s yacht and have the world think it was an accident?” He actually scoffed when he said it, easing closer and closer as April backed up inch by inch.
“It didn’t work though, did it? Gabriel lived!”
“He didn’t have the good sense to die when I needed him to, no. And then he had to run away like the sniveling brat he was.”
“Gabriel Winterborne was a hero!” April shouted, remembering the figure in black who had swooped into a burning building and carried her out the other side.
“He’s dead,” Evert said, like it was all that mattered. And maybe it was. “Ironic, isn’t it? No matter how many times I tried to kill him, he always lived. He just couldn’t survive my trying to kill you.”
It hit April harder than she would have liked, the reminder that Gabriel had survived shipwrecks and stabbings and who knew how many other disasters, but knowing her had been enough to doom him.
“You’re going to give me that key, April.”
“No,” she snapped.
“You’re not in a position to bargain,” he told her, so April grabbed the key and jerked, breaking the thin chain, then holding it out over the railing.
“How about now?” she asked. “Am I in a position now?”
But Evert just shook his head.
“This didn’t end too well for you before, April. And he’s not here to die for you a second time.”
“And now you’re the last of the Winterbornes.”
“I am indeed.” He smiled like it was the best thing in the world, and something in that moment—in that gesture—made April want to cry. And then it just made her mad.
“You had a family. You had a brother and sister-in-law and nieces and nephews and . . . You had a family!” she shouted again, heart breaking, voice cracking. “Why’d you do it? You didn’t have to kill them.”
“Of course I had to kill them! And I’d do it all over again if I had to. They thought they could keep my family’s legacy from me? Well, now it’s mine! Or it will be as soon as I get that key.”
“Did you get it?” she shouted to the wind.
“Not yet,” he said. “Give me that key!”
April actually smiled at him. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
He seemed to change in the blink of an eye. Or . . . well . . . the blink of a tiny red light.
She could see the moment he heard the subtle buzzing sound that filled the air as the SadieSeer 200 flew closer to them, the red light growing brighter and brighter the closer the little drone drew to where April and Evert stood.
“Kids are obsessed with technology,” April told him. “Or haven’t you heard? We have apps for everything. Games. Homework. Recording murder confessions . . .” He stammered and stumbled back. “That’s not . . .”
“Recording us right now? Of course it is. Right, Sadie?” Then Sadie and Violet appeared down below, a laptop open in Sadie’s arms and a tiny headset over her ears. Violet gave April a thumbs-up as Sadie yelled, “Copy that! We got everything.”
“It’s over,” April told him, but Evert was lunging toward her, knocking her to the ground.
April’s head banged off of the hard stone. Her vision blurred. The key flew from her hand and skidded across the slick patio, and April flashed back to the museum. She almost felt the heat. She could almost smell the smoke. She wanted to cry out for Gabriel, but he wasn’t coming. Not this time. Not ever again.
Then Evert pulled her to her feet, her back to his chest, a knife at her throat.
“I killed my brother and his entire family. Did you really think I wouldn’t kill you too?”
“Hey!”
The word shouldn’t have stopped him, but it did. Or maybe it was the sight of Colin standing on the stone ledge that circled the patio and overlooked the sea, the key dangling from his outstretched hand.
“You’ll let her go, or I’ll let this go. Think I can hit the water from here?” Colin asked. “Bet I can.”
“Do it,” April said. “Colin, throw it!”
“Uh . . . not how you get the crazy guy to drop the knife, love,” he said.
“Do it!” April shouted.
“Let her go.” Tim eased onto the patio. “Then you can have your key back and a nice head start, what do you say?”
“Yeah,” Colin said. “You’re a Winterborne. You’ve got money. I bet you could live a real nice life on some island somewhere.” He smirked. “Or the Alps.”
“Just drop the knife,” Tim reminded the man. “You might even be able to outrun Gabriel Winterborne.”
“My nephew is dead,” Evert said with glee.
“No.” Tim shook his head. “He’s behind you.”
And then Evert laughed. “I’m not going to fall for that—”
“Now,” someone said, and Colin turned, hurling the key out into the ocean.
Evert roared, “No!” and April broke free. Then she was falling again, pushed to the ground as something hurtled toward Evert.
No. Someone.
And it was the most beautiful sight that April had ever seen. The mist stopped and the clouds parted and the sun broke through in the east, bathing Gabriel with its golden glow.
“You’re alive,” she said as if he wasn’t already aware of that fact.
“I’m hard to kill, or haven’t you heard?” Gabriel actually laughed. But it was a joyless sound, and he never once took his gaze off of Evert. “Hello, Uncle.”
Evert was looking around, as if expecting the cavalry to arrive at any moment.
“Your men aren’t coming,” Gabriel said simply, answering the unasked question. “My family’s money was well spent, but my last decade was spent better.”
But Evert only scoffed. “Your family? You should thank me, you know?”
“Thank you for what?” Gabriel asked.
“Without me, you would have been the youngest. The spare’s spare. I made you the heir, you ungrateful . . .”
“Tell me, Uncle, why did you do it? Was it just greed? Money? My father would have given you anything.”
“Why ask when I could take everything!” Evert shouted, and the words flew away on the wind. “I heard him and Father talking. About the business. The house. The Winterborne legacy that they kept locked away and didn’t dare share with me. I heard them! And now . . .” A new light filled his eyes. “And now you’ll never have it. Good. Without the key—”
“What? This key?” Colin did his best to sound innocent, but his eyes were pure mischief as he made a sort of wave and the key appeared in his palm again, as if by magic.
Evert lunged—fast. But Gabriel was faster. He swatted Evert back, sending him flying across the flagstone patio while Gabriel stalked closer.
April recognized the sound of the sword sliding free of its scabbard. She knew Gabriel’s stance. His tone. His one goal in life.
And she shouted, “Gabriel!” But he didn’t turn around. “Don’t do it.”
“This man killed my family, April.”
“I know. And he’ll go to jail for that.”
Evert was trying to push his way up, but Gabriel kicked him back down.
“This man ruined my life.”
“Your life’s not over yet. Not by a long shot. You have people who care about you. You have Smithers! You have me. You have us!”
“Isabella’s dead!”
And that was all that really mattered. He looked at April, as if all the best-laid plans in this world had boiled down to this one moment, and then he pushed them away. “Go inside.”
“No,” April said.
“Tim, Colin, take her inside. Right now!”
“No! I won’t let you become like him.”
“It’s too late. I’m already like him.” He kept his gaze trained on the uncle who glared up at him, a malicious gleam in his eyes.
“Yes, I think you are,” Evert agreed, but he was wrong.
“You’re nothing like him!” April shouted. “You’re not here to kill him. You’re here to save us, remember? We’re precocious.”
She meant to tease, to make him smile. But he never even looked away from Evert, so she reached for his arm. “Let’s go inside, Gabriel. Let’s go wait for Smithers. Let’s—”
“He won’t kill me, April,” Evert said. “He’s a coward. Why else would he have run away and left Isabella all alone?”
“Not helping your case there, mate,” Colin muttered, and Gabriel pushed April aside.
“He’ll get away with it. He always gets away with it.”
“Not this time,” Tim said. “We have him confessing. We have everything.”
“It won’t be enough.”
“Yes, it will.” Then there was a sound on the wind, faint but growing stronger. Sirens. Red and blue lights swirled across the water as boats raced toward the shore.
“He’s not getting away. See?” She pointed to the police cars coming down the road. “The world is coming.”
But then April heard what she’d said—what it meant. The world was coming to Winterborne House, and to Gabriel, that was more terrifying than all the henchmen and bombs and murderous uncles in the world.
His hand started to shake. The blade of the sword trembled. A light sheen of sweat beaded on his brow.
Sadie and Violet ran through the patio doors, shouting, “The cops are almost here!” Sadie sounded happy and relieved and like the worst day of their lives was finally over. But April wasn’t looking at the madman on the ground anymore. She was looking at the man with the sword and then at the lights swirling in the distance.
“Run,” April said before she could talk herself out of it. “It’s okay. We’ve got him. You can go now. We’ll be okay.”
“What?” Sadie sounded confused, but Tim understood what she was saying.
“Yeah,” he said. “Get out of here. Now. Before it’s too late.”
Evert looked from the police boats to Gabriel to the cliffs, but there was no escape.
“We caught him,” Colin said, catching on. “We have him on video confessing to murdering his entire family. It’s over.”
“Gabriel,” April said, panic in her voice. “Go.”
He looked at the man at his feet. Then at the sword in his hand. Then at the girl who was saying, “If you don’t want to be back . . . If you don’t want to be Gabriel Winterborne, then go. Find that island or mountain or whatever. Go be happy. She’d want you to be happy.” April looked at Colin and Sadie, Tim and Violet. “We’ll be okay. We’re always okay.”
But April had never been a very good liar. Her voice cracked, and her eyes burned as she shouted, “Just go!”
“Police!” someone yelled inside the house. There were more sirens. And above it all, Smithers was shouting, “Children! Children, where are you?”
April could hear people on the rocks below, and she looked back at her friends and Evert. But Gabriel Winterborne was already gone.
April didn’t want to cry. She told herself she wouldn’t even miss him. He ate her bacon and didn’t laugh at her jokes and never took her seriously when she offered to braid his hair. She didn’t need him. Not even a little bit. Not even at all.
So she wiped at her eyes and yelled, “We’re out here!”
Then there was the pounding of heavy footsteps, shouts and cries, and police officers swarming the grounds, shouting, “Who’s there?”
“We live . . .” Tim started, but then he seemed to realize the officers weren’t looking at the five ragged orphans with a billionaire on the ground at their feet. No, the officers were looking behind them.
And then slowly—so slowly April might have thought it was a dream—someone emerged from the rocky outcropping at the edge of the cliffs—hands raised. No coat. No sword. No knife. Just the ragged beard and too-long hair of a man who had to think about the answer.
“I’m . . . I’m Gabriel Winterborne.”