The girls spent their last day in New York City visiting the North and South Pools at the 9/11 Memorial and walking the High Line, an elevated park where nature and art intermingled on a historic freight railway line.
Kat was starving by the time they found a table at the Buttercup Bake Shop on Broadway. But as she studied the menu, the cake choices kept blurring. Ever since her grandfather’s call, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the unbreakable bond of hope, love, and reading that had held the Wrong Writers together through so many years and had, in the end, made the best of all wishes come true.
“Mum, can I ask you a question?”
“Depends what it is,” said Dr. Wolfe, inhaling rapturously as a tray full of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies sailed by. For the past hour, she’d seemed distracted, as if something had upset her. Kat had put it down to end-of-holiday blues, but now she wasn’t so sure.
Her mum looked at her expectantly.
“Can two wrongs ever make a right?” asked Kat.
“No, darling, they can’t. Well, except where cake and dessert are concerned. Ordering both the banana pudding and a red velvet cupcake might be wrong in some people’s books, but it feels deliciously right.”
“Mum, I’m serious.”
“Are you asking if two wrongs and a right can ever be justified in a Robin Hood sense—by, say, taking from the rich to help the poor?”
“Exactly.”
“No, it’s still wrong. Morally, it’s far better to put one’s energy into volunteering for charities or picking up plastic rubbish on beaches or helping to rescue birds and animals. Real things that require real effort and care.”
“But what if the wrongs involve stealing blood diamonds, like those in the necklace that me and Harper found, and the right involves saving sick children?”
“That,” said her mum, “is a gray area.”
Nothing further was said until they’d each eaten a banana pudding. Kat was making inroads into her hummingbird cupcake when Professor Lamb gave Dr. Wolfe a meaningful look and they laid down their cake forks in unison.
Kat had an awful feeling that the moment of reckoning she and Harper had thus far avoided had arrived.
“Speaking of ‘wrongs,’” Theo Lamb said heavily, “an hour ago, I received a text that shocked me to my core. Ross Ryan, who kindly lent us Nightingale Lodge, forwarded me a message from the caretaker, Mrs. Brody. She wished us a safe journey home and said what a pity it was that because of Storm Mindy, she’d never had a chance to meet any of us.”
“Any of us,” repeated Dr. Wolfe with quiet fury. “That includes you, Katarina Wolfe, and you, Harper Lamb.”
“We debated whether to say anything,” the professor continued, “but we didn’t want to ruin your special day in New York City.”
“Even though you’ve ruined ours,” said Dr. Wolfe, glowering at the girls. “If I’d had the slightest inkling that while you were sending me chipper notes about apple crumbles and painting watercolors, you were alone in the wilderness in the midst of a deadly winter storm, I’d have had a nervous breakdown.”
Theo Lamb, the most mild-mannered, easygoing man Kat had ever known, was apoplectic and struggling to keep his voice down. “How could you lie about Annette Brody taking care of you when you hadn’t even met her?”
“We didn’t lie,” protested his daughter. “We’d never do that.”
“You neglected to mention it, which is exactly the same thing.”
“We didn’t want to worry you,” said Kat.
“Well, honey, you’ve worried us now—retrospectively,” raged her mother, albeit in a stage whisper.
With much sighing and scraping of chairs, the family at the next table moved tables. Dr. Wolfe smiled apologetically, but they ignored her.
Professor Lamb resumed the lecture. “Just because you’re famous in the New York Times doesn’t mean you get a free pass on deceiving us. If either of you ever pull a stunt like this again, you’ll be grounded until you’re eighteen. We’d ground you now except…”
A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Except that in our heart of hearts we realize that you did what you did with noble intentions and for the best of all reasons. We’re bowled over by your bravery.”
“And by your housekeeping skills,” added Dr. Wolfe. “Nightingale Lodge was spotless. Given the usual state of your bedroom, Kat, I’d never have believed you capable of it.”
“You should see Harper’s,” Professor Lamb told her. “Volcanoes are less destructive.”
“It was almost…” Dr. Wolfe’s brow wrinkled, as if a concerning thought had just struck her. “It was almost as if you’d never set foot in the place until shortly before we arrived. I remember thinking at the time that your sheets looked freshly pressed.”
“The cabin was so cold; that’s what I noticed,” said the professor, giving his daughter a hard stare. “Many of your messages mentioned blazing fires, yet the grate was curiously free of soot and ash. How did you stay warm with snow banking up to the windows? I’ve since learned that there was a power outage too. You never mentioned that. How did you survive?”
“With the help of three-bean chili heated on the gas stove and long bubble baths,” enthused Kat, wincing when Harper kicked her beneath the table.
Her mum frowned. “Nightingale Lodge doesn’t have a bath.”
“Didn’t stop me dreaming about them,” Kat said hurriedly.
“What Kat’s trying to say is that we are very, very sorry that we didn’t tell you that the caretaker had gone AWOL,” Harper put in.
“Mortified,” agreed Kat.
“However, once Storm Mindy had gone and the four of us were together at Nightingale Lodge, we had a heavenly vacation, didn’t we, Dad? Dr. Wolfe?”
Their parents unbent and admitted it had been the best holiday ever.
“Maybe Ross’s car breaking down was a good thing, Mum,” said Kat. “You seemed to be thoroughly enjoying yourself at the spa in Lake Placid.”
“I wouldn’t say enjoying…”
“What would you say?” asked Kat with a sly grin.
“Okay, I admit it. I loved every minute,” Dr. Wolfe said huffily. “Does that make me a bad mother?”
“It definitely doesn’t. Besides, now that you’ve rested, relaxed, and recharged, you’ll have more energy to give me extra attention,” teased Kat.
Her mum laughed. “Perhaps I should have spa days on my own more often.”
“I feel sorry for Dad,” said Harper. “While you were having pedicures and massages, Dr. Wolfe, and Kat and I were off having entertaining adventures in the wilderness, he was stuck doing nothing in a soulless airport hotel.”
“Er, since we’re being honest, I didn’t exactly do nothing,” confessed her father. “I took the opportunity to catch up with friends at the Natural History Museum in London and see a few art exhibitions.”
“So it wasn’t quite the vacation we planned, but somehow it worked out magnificently,” said Dr. Wolfe with a smile. “Although I’d be most interested to hear more about your entertaining adventures in the wilderness, Kat and Harper … No, on second thought, don’t tell me. I have enough gray hairs already.”
“There were times when it did start to feel as if we were starring in our own mystery novel,” mused Harper. “And who wouldn’t want to get lost in a book?”
Kat grinned. “Beats being lost in the woods.”