by Jude Watson
He nodded, his face white with pain and fear. His breath was short, and he dug into his pocket for his inhaler. Dan had asthma, and Amy could see the clouds of fine dirt hanging in the air, settling down to choke his airway.
She shouted for help again, but all she saw was the glint of the shovel as more dirt rained down.
“He pushed me in,” Dan said, choking and wheezing. “Deliberately . . .”
This can’t be happening!
Panic shuddered through her. Her mind whirled. They had no enemies anymore. They had united the family, they had decimated a global criminal organization. They had gone back to being two kids living in a mansion that was too big for them, haunted by all the things they had done and seen. Their only enemies were memories.
So why was this happening again? The horror of it spooled out, making her brain operate on white noise. She couldn’t seem to think, or breathe.
Amy was hit by another barrage of soil. Whoever was trying to bury them was working fast and methodically, not even bothering to peek over the edge.
It doesn’t matter who’s doing it. You have to get out of here.
Amy could feel the dirt in her hair and down her collar and in her ears. She remembered the pile by the open grave. How long would it take before they were covered? How long would it take to suffocate, until the dirt filled her mouth and her ears and her eyes . . .
It’s fifth-grade math all over again, she thought crazily. If the man can scoop a shovelful every ten seconds, and the grave is six feet deep . . .
“Amy!” Dan’s pale face was suddenly sharp as the buzz of panic cleared. He placed an urgent hand on her sleeve. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
Her brain kicked in at last. Instinct clicked with experience; everything speeded up and she felt very clear. She looked around, assessing, planning. She measured the grave with a quick glance. Probably three square feet. The sides were steep. Amy tried to climb, but the dirt crumbled in her hands. She tried to jam in a toe, but she couldn’t get up. Okay, next plan.
“Watch out!” Dan slammed into her, knocking her sideways as the marble box was tossed into the grave as well. It missed Amy’s skull by a fraction of an inch and landed on Dan’s foot. He let out a grunt of pain and bent over.
Now it was just the two of them and Mr. McIntyre’s ashes.
Amy eyed the box. It wasn’t just a box. It was a step. It was about a foot high, just what she needed. It was a chance. She’d only get one.
“Dan,” Amy whispered. “Get on the urn. Hurry!”
Dan knew what she wanted him to do without her even asking. He balanced on the box. He bent down slightly, making a cradle of his fingers.
Amy looked up, timing her move. One, two, three and she was up, hands on his shoulders; then, using the side of the grave to keep her steady, she balanced, crouching on his shoulders. She felt Dan’s body shaking with her weight. He had to hold on, just hold on for three more seconds. She was counting on the machinelike efficiency of their attacker, the precision of his timing as he used the shovel. Two, one . . .
She straightened and jumped just as the glint of the shovel went over the lip of the grave. The metal edge glanced against her head — more pain, thank you very much — but she grabbed at it and yanked hard, then fell backward into the grave as Dan flattened himself against the side.
She crashed to her knees, stunned and bleeding — but she had the shovel.
A face appeared against the rectangle of blue sky. The man had ripped off the clergyman collar. He flashed a smile, his teeth white and even.
“Nice work, missy. You got your little toy. Going to dig yourself even deeper?”
The face disappeared. They heard the sound of retreating footsteps. He would be back.
No time to hesitate, no time to press some cloth against the blood on her forehead, only time to wipe it out of her eyes. She jumped back on the marble box, grabbed the shovel by the long handle, and shoved it into the side of the grave, as hard as she could. The shovel fell out, the loose dirt unable to hold it. It had to go deeper.
“Help me, Dan!” He got behind her, and together, grasping the handle, they forced it tightly into the side of the earth. Dan held the shovel and nodded at her. His green eyes were bright against the dirt and blood mixed on his face.
“I’ve got you,” he told her. “Go.”
It had to be her, they both knew that. She was a rock climber, a scrambler, she knew how to find the tiny niches, how to plant her body against the wall and get up. She hoisted herself up on the shovel handle and dug her fingers into the earth, closing her eyes as she made a ledge for her fingertips. Dan yanked out the shovel and she hung there while he jammed it a foot higher. She heard him panting hard and fast. She tested the handle.
“Ready?”
“GO!” Dan grunted, and she used the handle to spring up, up to the top of the hole. Every muscle was straining, but she knew she could do it. Had to do it. Her hands smacked down over the edge. Her arm muscles quivered as she quickly scanned the cemetery. The man was now about fifty yards away. He was running toward the utility shed. Behind him another man emerged, holding a shovel.
Amy gathered every particle of strength she had and hauled herself over the edge. Her face hit the dirt. She had time to grab one breath — only one — before she found her feet.
Something made her attacker turn, some flicker at the corner of his eye, and he saw her. Both men spurted into a run. Straight at her.
She made a swift calculation. They were fast, much faster than she expected. There was no way she would have time to get Dan out. She had to lead them away.
She streaked down the hill. She felt the benefit of pushing herself through all those punishing runs. Dan had pointed out that they were safe now, she didn’t have to be quite so . . . intense, but Amy had found solace in those dawn runs. Now they would help her.
She led them down a sloping hill, leaping over gravestones. All the while she was searching frantically for help, her gaze sweeping the cemetery for any sign of people. They wouldn’t attack her if there were people around. She hoped.
She was almost at the Tolliver plot now. She had miscalculated. They were almost on top of her. How could they be so fast? She’d had such a big lead!
Amy leaped over a crumbling old headstone, and she felt rather than heard the displacement of air as the shovel was raised. With a sudden swerve, she doubled back and saw the second man’s look of surprise as she headed straight toward him with a classic spinning kick, right at his throat.
She connected hard.
Why didn’t he go down? He wasn’t even winded.
He just spun away and lifted the shovel, and she ducked at the last minute. It crashed down on the polished granite behind her. The wooden handle snapped, but the steel end of the tool cracked the edge of the stone.
VAN JOSEPH TOLLIVER
The sight of Evan’s desecrated stone gave her such a spurt of rage that she picked up the chunk of splintered rock and threw it at the man’s head. Blood spurted from his mouth. He smiled. She had a confused impression of eyes the color of the gravestones, blood streaking perfect white teeth.
He raised the splintered end of the handle. She dropped down behind Evan’s stone as the man charged. Evan would protect her, one last time.
The handle hit the stone and cracked, and she was off and running before he could grab it again. He was on her heels. She could hear his breathing. So close. She knew any second he would grab her hair, crash into her, and bring her down. . . . And now she saw the other one ahead of her, knees bent and ready, waiting for whatever direction she would choose to go. They would run her down, and for some reason that she would never know, they would kill her, and then they would go back for Dan.
Suddenly, she saw a car turn into the cemetery road, a bright red Toyota. It was the best sight in the world. People.
Amy veered at the last second and started down the hill, leaping over gravestones, waving her arms, and shrieking, “HEY!”
The car pulled over. A youngish woman got out. Amy was confused when, instead of helping, she began to take pictures of Amy with a long-lensed camera.
Another car pulled in. Now Amy was truly confused. Two men got out and began shooting her as well. What was going on?
Her attackers seemed to simply melt away. One moment they were right on her heels, and the next they were almost at a black car, walking quickly, like mourners eager to go home.
Amy turned and ran back toward McIntyre’s grave. She lay flat and looked down at Dan. “They’re gone. Are you okay?”
Dan’s face was a pale oval. She saw the strain around his mouth and knew how afraid he’d been that someone else would be returning. “Sure. I’ve been buried alive. Never better.”
“Wait. I’ll get a ladder.” She hurried down the hill to the utility shed. To her relief, there was a ladder leaning against the side. She hoisted it and quickly returned to Dan. Amy slid the ladder into the hole and a second later her brother clambered up.
“Do I look as bad as you do?” Dan asked. “Because you look like a zombie. Which I guess makes sense considering we just climbed out of a grave . . .”
A bright yellow Jeep turned into the cemetery, going too fast. Amy grinned. There was only one person she knew who could be late for a funeral and then speed in a cemetery. Nellie.
Chapter 3
Dan felt his legs shaking as they jogged toward Nellie’s car. He quickly dove into the backseat of the Jeep as Amy climbed into the front. He didn’t want them to know how terrified he’d been, waiting those long minutes at the bottom of a grave.
“Kiddos! I’m so sorry! Did I miss everything?” Nellie twisted around and was rooting through the contents in the back, trying to straighten out her usual jumble, which Dan considered an impossible task. The familiarity of the gesture, the usual smell of the car — What was it, exactly? A mixture of popcorn, apples, and that bottle of wheatgrass shampoo Nellie had spilled a year ago? — whatever it was, it helped him feel safe.
When Nellie had returned to college in the winter session, she’d tried for a few days to tone down her look, but now her hair was back to its usual crazy style, jet-black with bleached platinum ends. She was always late, but she claimed it was because she was “mad overscheduled.” In addition to tutoring them, she took a full load of classes at Boston University, juggled at least two boyfriends, and cooked at a café in Boston on Wednesday and Saturday nights. Dan grinned when he saw her struggle to sweep her chaos off the backseat onto the floor: On her arm was a new temporary tattoo. The word FOCUS blared at him from her tanned forearm.
Nellie had once been their au pair, which meant he had once had the greatest au pair in the history of civilization. She’d traveled the world with them on the hunt for the 39 Clues, watching out for them and protecting them. Now she was like a mashup of older sister and best friend.
Nellie swept the various items — a water bottle, a towel, a cookbook, a bag of apples — off the seat while she talked.
“I had one freaky morning,” she said, tossing a half-eaten sandwich back in a paper bag. “My phone got wonky — it ate all my photos! — and then your Uncle Fiske called — he’s doing okay, but I think we should go visit — and then I completely forgot that I had put cinnamon rolls in the oven, and I raced to get here on time, even though I knew Auntie Beatrice would give me the hairy eyeball if I was late . . . and then this red car sideswiped me. . . .” Nellie’s head popped up. “Hey, I think that’s the car!” she cried, pointing to the red Toyota. Then, finally, she caught sight of Amy and Dan. “Why are you both so dirty? Is that BLOOD?”
“We’re okay,” Amy reassured her, reaching back for the towel.
“You are most definitely NOT! What happened?”
“I’ll tell you while we drive,” Amy said. “There’s a whole bunch of photographers here, for some reason. Maybe somebody famous is getting buried today.” Amy wiped her face and then tossed the towel to Dan.
Nellie put the car into gear and headed toward the cemetery gates. “Okay, spill, because I am about to totally freak out on you. Did you fall out of a tree or something?”
“We fell into a grave,” Dan said. “Because we were pushed. Then some goon tried to bury us alive.”
“Two of them chased me across the cemetery,” Amy added.
Nellie almost swerved off the road as she turned to look at Dan. “That’s not funny.”
“I didn’t think it was, either,” Dan said, wiping the last of the dirt off his face.
Nellie’s hands gripped the steering wheel. He saw her face change. She, like them, was a Madrigal, the branch of the family that was now in charge of all the Cahills.
“Any idea who they were?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” Amy said. “That’s the trouble.” She gazed out the window. “It’s starting again, Nellie. I can feel it.”
Nellie gave her a quick glance. “What?”
“Some darkness we can’t see. It’s coming for us. Again.”
“Are you positive it wasn’t just some random crazy guys . . .”
Dan could see Amy’s face in the rearview mirror. He knew that look. She was going back over the details, thinking about every word, every gesture. She shook her head firmly. “No. This was targeted. They must have paid off the funeral director. And . . .”
“They knew who we were,” Dan said. “I’m sure of it.”
“Cahills gone rogue?” Nellie asked.
Amy and Dan considered this. Even though now the family of Cahills had agreed on peace, and their digital network had linked all the branches, they didn’t know every Cahill personally.
“I don’t think so,” Amy said slowly. “There was something . . . professional about these guys. Like hired muscle.”
“Muscle is the word,” Dan agreed. “That was no minister. I thought it was weird that he looked like a buff version of the Incredible Hulk.”
“Whoever they were, these guys were Olympic-caliber athletes,” Amy said. “When I kicked the guy, it was like slamming into a wall.”
Nellie chewed on her lip. “We’ll figure it out,” she said.
Her voice was confident, but Dan knew that when Nellie chewed on her lip, she was seriously freaked. They were quiet for the rest of the drive.
They drove through the back roads of Attleboro until they came to the Cahill property. Nellie punched in the code for the iron gates and they pulled into the winding drive. As soon as the gates closed behind them, Dan relaxed. He realized that his hands had been curled into fists.
Grace’s elegant mansion loomed ahead, across a meadow and behind a stand of trees. Dan let out a long breath. Home.
Nellie pulled up by the kitchen door and turned off the engine. “Let’s hit the Cahill network and see if there are any alerts.”
Hanging up their jackets in the mudroom, they took the back stairs two at a time. They didn’t use much of the house now — mostly the kitchen, the bedrooms, and Grace’s library, a place where they often congregated in the late afternoons, with a fire in the fireplace, Amy’s head drooping over a book. Dan had heard her walking the house at night. He knew there was nothing he could do to break her sadness.
I’m one of the richest kids on the planet, and I’m helpless.
Two years ago, after the hunt for the 39 Clues, Amy had unfurled a grand plan to refurbish their grandmother’s mansion. She knew trouble was coming and so she built a command center, with a whole bunch of guest rooms and bathrooms and a separate kitchen, in case Cahills had to bunk in and stay over.
Amy had even bought an orbiting satellite for all their communication needs, which she named Gideon after the first Cahill. It helped to have a gazillion dollars. Amy wasn’t the type of girl to buy swea
ters and purses. She bought satellites. That just about made her the coolest sister in the galaxy, he figured.
Now Dan used the command center computer to keep at least two chess games going at the same time with his best pal, Atticus Rosenbloom, who lived in Rome with his brother, Jake. Dan knew that something wasn’t quite right with his sister and Jake now, but he would rather eat a dish of salamander jelly than ask her about it.
As he walked into the room he saw immediately that he’d been checkmated. Atticus had left a message: LOSER.
Beaten by an eleven-year-old. Well, at least Atticus was a genius. He’d graduated from high school and had already been accepted at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Chicago. Dan typed back: NOT FOR LONG.
He saw his sister flinch as she crossed the threshold. He knew this room reminded her of Evan.
Saladin rubbed against his ankles and he picked him up. He settled the cat in his lap as he sat at the main computer. He began checking the Cahill feed.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he reported. He let out a small sigh of relief. At least their family was intact.
Nellie sat at a second computer, a frown on her face. “Your personal alert system is going crazy, though. Look at all these hits.”
Amy leaned over her shoulder. “It’s a gossip site,” she said, surprise in her voice.
Nellie clicked on the link, and an image sprang to life. Amy and Dan in front of Interpol headquarters.
CAHILL BRATS STEAL ART FOR KICKS! screamed the headline. Underneath, in smaller type, it said: Claim That Thefts Were “Just Pranks.” Did They Bribe Their Way to Freedom?
“What?” Amy exclaimed.
“We never said the thefts were pranks!” Dan protested. “And we didn’t bribe anybody! Interpol totally got that we only stole stuff to rescue hostages!”
“And they agreed to keep the story quiet,” Amy said. “So how did a gossip site get this photo?”
Nellie swallowed. “I took that picture. My phone was hacked!”
“But that was only this morning!” Amy pointed out.
