CHAPTER 16

Echo rode the drone all the way back to the last place it should have flown to—the art gallery.

More specifically, the warehouse at the back of the gallery. Once she docked into the drone’s recharging station, Echo used the light on her spy watch to investigate the dusty, dark building.

There was a lot of odd stuff around—piles of newspapers, a rack of old clothes—but most notably a large printer with a heavy spool of some kind of thin plastic attached to it, and a pile of paintings that looked way too nice to be stored loosely inside a dusty warehouse.

Then Echo heard a familiar voice.

“Tobias?” she called out. Echo looked down and discovered a clear seam in the wooden floor. Pulling on a small hole in the wood, she revealed a hidden staircase.

At the bottom of the makeshift hideaway was the boy she had been seeking. But one look at the teenager, and it was clear Tobias was not the thief.

Echo quickly pulled the gag from Tobias’s mouth and untied his wrists. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I don’t know what happened,” Tobias said as he rubbed his arms. “Everything went dark and I woke up here, wherever this is.”

Before Echo could reply, the drone came back to life. It was clear that it now knew where Echo was, and it was intent on ending her, and Tobias.

“Look out!” Echo yelled, shoving the still-disoriented boy out of the line of fire.

Tapping some buttons on her spy watch, Echo activated a flare that fired across the room. The drone was distracted by the light and spun toward it. Echo didn’t hesitate. She jumped at the drone recharging station. It was a long shot, but the charging station was probably the “brain” of the drone. If it wasn’t encrypted, her spy watch could override the remote systems!

Echo’s watch lit up with the drone controls. Quickly, she sent a command.

The drone floated, then turned to flash a spotlight on a nearby figure—Ricky Lovas!

That’s when the art gallery’s alarms started blaring, and Echo knew that everything would be over soon.