I FIDGETED IN my seat, peering out the plane window. There were only a few scattered clouds, making it easy to see the city of Los Angeles spread out below me, looking tiny and sort of unreal under the early morning sunshine.
In the seat next to me, Cassie let out a snorty little snore. I couldn’t believe she’d slept through practically the whole flight.
“Wake up.” I elbowed her. “We’re getting ready to land.”
She opened her eyes and yawned. “Huh?”
“I said, we’re almost there.” I shook my head. “I can’t believe you can sleep at a time like this!”
“What can I say?” she joked drowsily. “Guess I’m just made for private air travel.”
I glanced around the small plane. I had no idea how Grandmother Lockwood had managed to arrange this flight in less than a day, or how much it was costing her. What if this crazy theory that my sister and I had concocted yesterday turned out to be a big joke? Our grandmother would probably be furious.
“Do you think we’re right about all this?” I asked Cassie quietly, shooting a look toward Mom and Grandmother Lockwood, who were seated across the way.
She sat up and stretched. “What else could it all mean?” she said. “Anyway, Mom and Granny L must believe it, since we’re here.”
She had a point. When our big brainstorm had hit us yesterday, we’d been afraid that the two of them wouldn’t even listen to us. But not only had they listened, they’d been so sure that we were right that here we were—about to land in California after flying half the night!
“Anyway,” Cassie said, sounding more awake with every passing moment, “we worked it all out, right? That watch didn’t belong to Quentin Jeffers’s butler—it belongs to our dad! JTL—John Thompson Lockwood.”
“Yeah,” I said, crossing my fingers and hoping she was right. “And if it ended up in Sakiko Star’s Dumpster, it probably came from her neighbor—Quentin Jeffers.”
“QJ,” Cassie said with a nod. “Also known as the mysterious guy from the letters. He found out about the Sight and wanted Dad to come work for him . . .”
“And when he wouldn’t, he kidnapped him.” I shook my head. “I don’t know, Cass. It still sounds a little crazy.”
“Oh, it’s totally wackadoodle,” she said with a wave of her hand. “That doesn’t mean it’s not true, though. All the pieces fit.”
“Right.” I thought about that. “I guess it sort of makes sense in a weird way. Sakiko’s feud with her nutty neighbor . . .”
“The Dumpster diving paparazzi,” Cassie continued. “Dad must have seen them out the window digging through Sakiko’s garbage. And that gave him an idea about how to contact Mom.”
I nodded. We’d worked all this out yesterday with Mom and Grandmother Lockwood. “The man in the suit from our visions must be Quentin’s butler or something,” I said. “Dad talked him into helping by planting the key chain and watch in Sakiko’s Dumpster where someone would be sure to find them.”
“There must have a been a note with the key chain,” Cassie said. “Telling whoever found it to get it to Mom in San Antonio. Dad probably had no idea we’d moved to Aura.”
“And that explains the words scratched on the back, too. It was Dad’s way of telling Mom that he was still alive, and also where he was being held prisoner—in California. Heart you from UK to CA, right?” I glanced down at the landscape, which was coming closer into view as the plane circled downward. “I wonder why he didn’t put a note with the watch, too.”
“Maybe he did.” Cassie shrugged. “It might have gotten lost, or drenched with sardine goo. Or maybe whoever found it ignored it and decided to sell the watch instead.”
I figured she was probably right. She was probably also right about the reason the bad guys had tried to grab the key chain back. The butler had tossed some other trash into the Dumpster along with Dad’s stuff to cover his tracks. Only that plan had backfired—Sakiko had noticed the smelly sardine cans, and the resulting feud had attracted public attention, which had tipped off Dad’s captor.
Or something like that. We still weren’t a hundred percent sure of all the details. But so far, everything matched up with our visions.
“What we saw in that first vision of Dad was probably him handing over the key chain to the butler,” I mused.
Cassie leaned past me to peer out the window. “Right,” she said. “And we also saw that guy with the ponytail digging through Sakiko’s trash. He was probably the photographer who found the key chain. Or maybe the watch.” She shot me a sidelong look. “And then you actually saw Sakiko herself in a vision. Jealous!”
I smiled. “I’m not jealous of your vision of the guy eating sardines,” I joked. Then my smile faded. It really wasn’t funny, now that I thought about it. If we were right, that old guy in the ratty robe had been holding our father prisoner for years—and might be getting ready to kill him right now!
A pang of fear shot through me. Maybe Cassie was thinking the same thing, or maybe it was that old twintuition kicking in again, but she caught my eye.
“We’ll get there in time,” she said, grabbing my hand and squeezing it. “Today is Sunday, right? And I’m pretty sure that’s when my vision comes true—I saw a bunch of people coming out of a church, remember? So the earliest it could happen is today—and it’s still really early.”
I nodded, hoping she was right. That we would arrive on time to stop what Cassie had seen yesterday. “I just hope my vision comes true,” I said quietly. “The one of Grandmother Lockwood hugging Dad.”
She squeezed my hand again. “It will.”
I smiled at her. “Since when are you the optimistic twin?”
“I know, scary, right?”
AFTER WE LANDED, everything happened very fast. Mom tried to convince Cass and me to wait for them at the airport or the hotel they’d booked, but for once we didn’t have to argue with her. That was because Grandmother Lockwood insisted on us coming along.
“We can’t take any chances, Deidre,” she said. “We may need the girls’—er—talents if things go wrong.” She glanced around the airport suspiciously, but nobody was paying any attention to us.
“Fine.” Mom didn’t look happy, but she didn’t argue either. “Then let’s call the local precinct and find out where Sakiko Star lives.”
“Not necessary, Mom,” Cassie spoke up. She pointed at a kiosk nearby. “Map of the stars. I’m sure it’s on there.”
She was right. Soon we were in a cab speeding into some hilly, super-ritzy part of LA near the ocean.
Cassie’s eyes widened as we turned onto the block marked on the map. “That’s it!” she squealed, bouncing up and down in her seat. “Sakiko Star’s house—I’d recognize it anywhere!”
“That’s right, missy.” The cab driver glanced at us in the rearview mirror, managing to look both bored and amused at the same time. “You’re a big fan, huh?”
“Thank you, sir.” Grandmother Lockwood tossed a wad of cash over the seat. “That will be all.”
We climbed out of the cab and it sped away. Grandmother Lockwood led the way to Quentin Jeffers’s front door and rapped sharply on it.
“Here goes nothing,” I whispered, reaching for Cassie’s hand.
“Yeah,” she murmured back.
For a second nothing happened. It was quiet, except for a lawn mower droning somewhere down the block. Not a sound came from inside except a muffled squawk.
“What was that?” Mom said. “Do you think it’s John trying to call to us?”
“It didn’t sound like a person,” Cassie said. “More like a bird or maybe . . .”
She trailed off as the door finally swung open. I gasped at the familiar face in front of me—the butler! Even though I’d only seen him in visions, I would have known him anywhere. Well, except for . . .
“Whoa,” Cassie said. “Check out that shiner!”
The butler had a black eye and a cut on his cheek that looked pretty fresh. His hair and clothes were much more disheveled than they’d ever looked in the visions.
“I’m Mrs. Verity Lockwood,” our grandmother announced, drawing herself up to her full height. “I know my son John is here. Please take us to him at once.”
The butler looked startled for a second. Then he sighed and shook his head. “So his crazy plan actually worked,” he murmured. “Well, almost . . .”
“What are you talking about?” Mom demanded. “Where is he?”
The butler sighed again. “Sorry, but you’re too late,” he told us. “Mr. Jeffers knows everything. He just left to”—he gulped loudly—“er, to destroy the evidence.”