The 39 Clues [Cahills vs. Vespers] 05 - Trust No One (14 page)

“Last summer I went out west with Sinead. She wanted to get away from everything. We stayed in the Olympic Mountains, in Washington State. We didn’t do much, just hung out, went for some walks. It rained a lot, but that was okay — we didn’t have any real plans.

“On one of the walks, we met this guy named Riley McGrath. I think Sinead kinda liked him. He invited us to go rock climbing, but I didn’t want to go. She took me back to the lodge where we were staying and went on her own.”

Ted turned his face toward Nellie.

“That’s who the hiker was. Riley McGrath. So why would he say he was Martin Holds?”

Nellie tried to clear the fog of confusion from her brain. “Ted, are you sure? I mean, a lot of people’s voices probably sound kind of alike —”

“Maybe to you,” he said. “Not to me. Think of it this way. You might know two people who look similar, say, medium height, dark hair, average build, glasses. You can still tell them apart, right? No problem?”

“Sure.”

“That’s what it’s like for me with voices. It was the same guy.”

A tiny spark of hope ignited inside Nellie. She grabbed Ted’s shoulder. “Maybe this tells us where we are! It could be a huge lead, Ted!”

Ted nodded slowly. “It’s just too much of a coincidence, you know?”

Nellie got to her feet. “We’ve got to let Amy and Dan know somehow.”

The only way to communicate with them was through the transmissions sent by the Vespers. Which were never sent for the convenience of the hostages.

With one hand in a fist, she punched her other palm several times.
Think. Think. Figure out a way to say it so they get the message. And then we’ll just have to wait — I HATE all this waiting around!

The spark inside her flared.

Nellie was mad again.

“She’s after Atticus?” Dan and Jake said together at the same time that Atticus said, “Me — are you sure?”

The attack on Dan, followed immediately by the reappearance of Isabel: Amy felt her eyes getting hot, which meant tears were threatening to slither out yet again. She picked at the powder-burn blister on her neck, as if to provide an excuse if the tears did begin to fall. The blister was now turgid with fluid, like a tiny flattened water balloon.

Haltingly, she explained her theory. “
Um, dois, três
. One, two, three. I think it means that there will be three attacks. The first two have already happened. At the airport, and now this one.”

A bubble of panic was growing in Amy’s chest.
She’s playing with us. Like a cat with a trapped mouse. There will be one more attack — the third. The final one . . .

“We have to get Atticus out of here!” She stood up so quickly that the chair fell over, her arms making jerky movements that she couldn’t seem to control. “Jake, you take him to Attleboro on the next flight. That’s the safest place for him. He’ll have to stay there until — until all this is over. Once Dan recovers, we’ll try to find Folio Seventy-four and join you there as soon as we can.”

“I don’t know,” Jake said. “Wouldn’t he be safer if we stuck together? You know, all three of us looking out for him? That way he —”

“HE is right next to you!” Atticus snapped. “Would you stop (A) treating me like a baby and (B) talking about me like I’m not here?! And for the record, I am NOT going somewhere to sit around and do nothing. Or take a
nap.
” He glared at both of them.

“Atticus, you don’t know her! She’s completely, totally ruthless. The last time we were up against her, it took seven — no,
eight
of us to beat her.” Amy was almost shrieking now. “Dan almost
died
just now. If anything happened to you —”

She had to stop talking because she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs.

“I am NOT going to let anything happen to him — I mean, to you,” Jake said, glancing quickly at Atticus. He turned a scowl on Amy. “What is your problem? Would you calm down — are you trying to scare him to death?”

“My problem?” Amy shouted. “My problem is, she almost killed my brother!”

“She knows what she’s talking about,” Dan said, entering the fray. “If you knew Isabel you’d be scared to death, too. I mean, look what she just did —” His hand went to his shoulder, and he winced as if the dart were still embedded there.

Atticus crossed his arms stubbornly. “This isn’t just a Cahill thing anymore. It has something to do with Mom, and that makes it MY fight now just as much as it is yours. Maybe MORE. I’m not leaving until we know for sure whether the folio is here or not.”

“Sorry, baby bro, not your call,” Jake said.

“Why not?” Dan demanded. “Why can’t he have a say in this?”

“Yeah, and quit calling me that!” Atticus said.

“Look, it’s my responsibility —”

“STOP IT! STOP STOP STOP!”

All three boys stared at Amy in shock. In the sudden silence, she could hear herself breathing. Gasping.

“Think,” she whispered to herself. “Think think think . . .”

But there was no room in her head for anything except fear, and she didn’t notice the worried glances exchanged by the boys.

After a few moments, Dan spoke carefully. “Amy,” he said. “I agree with Jake — that it’s riskier to send the two of them back than it is to stay together. Besides, it won’t be for very long. I mean, the deadline — we’ll all be going back soon, one way or the other.”

Somebody else making the decision.
On the one hand, it was exactly what Amy wanted at that moment. On the other, it felt terrible — weak, indecisive, and unworthy of the trust Grace had bestowed on her.

Just this once, Grace.

“Okay,” she mumbled.

The sense of relief that the four of them would be staying together lasted about half a second. Then the dread returned.

Um, dois, três . . .

Dan insisted that he felt fine and wanted to leave the hospital. The doctor on call refused to sign the release form, saying that the patient needed to stay overnight for observation.

After the doctor was gone, Dan looked at the others. “I can’t stay overnight,” he said. “We don’t have time for that.”

A noisy discussion ensued, which boiled down to Dan vs. Amy with the Rosenblooms refereeing. When the nurse came in, they all fell silent, but then Amy asked her a few questions, and the nurse assured her that the overnight stay was just a precaution. She took Dan’s pulse and temperature.

“You are healthy as
um cavalo —
horse,” she said cheerfully. “The young ones, they bounce quick, very good!” She left the room again.

More fuel for Dan’s side of the argument. Finally, Atticus looked up curare poisoning online and found enough information to convince Amy — and himself, Dan thought — that it would be okay for Dan to leave the hospital.

Amy may not be happy about it, but she knows we have to do this,
Dan thought as he hopped out of bed and got dressed.

The foursome had no choice but to sneak away when the nurse’s back was turned. They caught a taxi outside the hospital.

“I hope she doesn’t get in trouble for this,” Dan said, meaning the nurse. “She was really nice.”

Dan’s left arm still seemed a little fuzzy, but otherwise he felt great. He wished Amy would stop fussing over him. She had made him zip his jacket all the way up to his chin. Like that made any difference, except to make him look totally uncool. At the same time, he knew she
needed
to fuss over him, so he tried to keep the sighs and eye-rolls to a minimum.

“Now, where were we?” he asked.

Their mission seemed a lifetime away, but they had to click back into search mode. “The folio,” Atticus said. “We were going to search underneath the walkway, remember?”

“Any climbing stuff, you’re out of the picture,” Amy said to Dan. “And don’t even try to talk me out of it.”

“Rope, harnesses, some carabiner clips,” Jake said. “A sporting-goods store would be our best bet. Second best, a hardware store.”

“Anyone know how to say
carabiner clips
in Portuguese?” Dan asked. “Didn’t think so.”

He booted up his laptop. “I’ll find an online translator,” he said. “Then maybe the driver can help us.”

One of the Voynich images was now his home page. It was Folio 75 — the “plumbing picture.” He clicked on the browser icon, and the screen filled with the image of basins overflowing with water and naked women.

Next to him, the driver glanced over. “Ah,” he said with a grin.
“Mabu, sim?”

Dan looked at him blankly. The driver pointed to the image on the screen.

“Isto é Mabu,”
he said firmly. “Mabu.”

Whatever the guy was saying, he seemed really sure about it. Dan spoke on impulse. “Okay, Mabu. Let’s go —
vámonos
.”

Which was Spanish, not Portuguese, but the driver got the message and pulled away from the curb, tires squealing.

The backseat reacted immediately. “Whoa!” “What’s going on?” “Where are we going?”

Dan explained about the driver’s reaction to the Voynich image. “He seems to think it’s something called Mabu,” he said. “So I told him to take us there.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Amy said. “You have no idea what he’s talking about — it could be hundreds of miles away!”

“It might not be a place,” Jake pointed out. “Mabu could be a person. A famous swimmer, maybe.”

Atticus’s eyes were as round as CDs. “What if it’s, like, a nudist colony?”

Dan snorted. “You wish.”

“We don’t have time to waste on wild-goose chases,” Amy said. “Stop this nonsense and ask him for a sporting-goods store.”

“It might not be far,” Dan countered. “What’s the harm in checking it out?”

They were still arguing a few minutes later when the taxi turned into a driveway that led to a big hotel.

“Mabu,” the driver said with a satisfied expression.

The sign said
MABU THERMAS HOTEL AND SPA
.

“‘Hotel and Spa’ — it could still be for nudists, couldn’t it?” Atticus said. “Gimme the laptop.” He took it from Dan and began tapping on the keyboard.

Amy was sitting like a stone, refusing to move. Dan opened the taxi door. “Come on, Amy —”

“No — YOU come on! Some random guy takes us to a random hotel, and you think it could be part of this?”

Her voice, shrill and brittle, was setting off alarm bells in Dan’s head.
Why is she acting like this? Okay, so she doesn’t think it’s a great idea, but does she have to get hysterical about it?

Amy’s shrieking continued. “I can’t believe — you can’t possibly —”

“Hey!” Atticus cut her off with a grin and held up the laptop. “Poos!”

The hotel’s pools were its most famous feature. According to the website, an underground thermal spring bubbled up into a large hot tub. It was constructed so the water would spill out via a waterfall into a swimming pool built on a lower level. The water in the pool cascaded into yet another pool, with the temperature getting cooler with each successive level; you could choose whether to simmer in the hot tub or be refreshed in the lowest pool.

Atticus smacked himself on the head. “The word
pools
in Dr. Siffright’s message — that should have told us it couldn’t possibly be the big falls.” He bounced up and down a little. “I have a feeling — this could be the right place!”