On-screen, someone was bumping Jonah from the side.
Despite his muscle-packed, two-hundred-pound physique, Hamilton Holt had a hard time jostling Jonah for screen time. “Sorry, dude, but it’s grub time and I’m wasting away. What Jonah means to say is, we were supposed to meet Erasmus, but he didn’t show up.”
“You guys are related to Jonah Wizard?” Jake asked, his lip curled disdainfully.
“And the other guy,” Dan grumbled. “Vin Diesel’s stunt double.”
Jonah pushed his way into view again. “Yo, also? My man, Mac and Cheese? He didn’t show up, either.”
“He means McIntyre,” Hamilton clarified. “Is this a lawyer thing, to miss meetings?”
“That’s not like him,” Sinead replied. “Or Erasmus.”
“Did you say McIntyre?” Jake said. “As in William McIntyre?”
“You know him?” Jonah asked. “Skinny guy, a little dusty, nose like a screwdriver, kind of boring?”
“Yeah, I know him,” Jake replied. “He’s my dad’s lawyer. And he’s tough. Anything happens to Atticus, I will get him to sue you blind.”
Amy took a deep breath. McIntyre was their confidant and friend, the man who set the hunt for the 39 Clues in motion. He had been there in the background, watching over them, like the eyes and ears of their late grandmother Grace. Painfully formal, he was the last person in the world who’d appreciate being called Mac and Cheese.
He was also the last person who would ever sue Dan and Amy.
“Sit, Jake,” she said firmly. “This is more complicated than you think.”
Dan shut the bedroom door quietly behind him. No more noise.
Enough of Jake’s anger. Enough thinking about what happened to Atticus. One more moment and he would split apart.
He needed hope. Now.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked his most recent text:
Suspend judgment. The whole story is always more complex than its parts. Wait.
AJT
The words made his blood race. The sight of those initials: AJT. The initials of his long-dead father. Arthur Josiah Trent.
Dan had only known him by the stories Amy told. By a blurry face in a tattered photograph he’d lost in the Paris Metro. AJT had died in a fire nine years ago. A fire that consumed his house and both of Dan’s parents.
When this message came in, Amy had scoffed. It could be anyone. Which was logical.
But life was not ruled by logic. If the 39 Clues had taught Dan one thing, that was it. Sometimes good was bad, sometimes dead was alive.
Dan poised his thumbs over the keypad. There were so many questions he could ask to prove the ID.
Then, if AJT did prove to be real, Dan could ask him … well, everything. Whether Erasmus’s tale was true – that Dad had been recruited by the Vespers as a young man. That Dad had renounced them, married Mom, and become a Cahill. He could find out how Dad had miraculously survived the fire.
But Dan’s thumbs were frozen. The truth terrified him. Either way.
If AJT wasn’t his dad, hope would be completely lost. Somehow, if you didn’t know the truth, the possibility stayed alive.
But if he was, how could Dan adjust to his father coming back to life? Could he forgive the lack of contact? What kind of man would let his own son think he was dead for nine years?
And how could Dan deal with a father who was a Vesper?
Suspend judgment… .
Dan’s eyes filled with tears. Images raced through his mind – helicopter blades cutting the cable of the gondola in Zermatt. The sight of Nellie, bloody and pale. The boat chase that had nearly killed them on Lake Como, and the halon gas in the library in Prague.
“Suspend judgment for what?” he murmured under his breath. “For nearly allowing your own kids to die?”
No. He couldn’t complete this circuit.
He tossed the phone into a corner. It bounced harmlessly on the rug. That was exactly how he felt – harmless. Powerless. Tiny. Confused.
He was tired of being the helpless kid. The victim. The chased. The lackey for a voiceless Vesper. When would it stop? Why could they never be on top – why was it that he never scared anyone?
It doesn’t have to be this way… .
Numbers and symbols spilled from his memory – a complex set of ingredients and precise formulas. It was the life’s work of their ancestor, Gideon Cahill. A formula thought to have been destroyed in 1507, discovered in a cave in Ireland, and now known only by Dan. It granted superhuman abilities. Strength to overcome any attack. Speed to move great distances. Intelligence to outthink an army.
With it, every decision was clear. Every enemy was doomed.
Every mystery yielded to utter clarity.
Cheyenne and Casper Wyoming wouldn’t stand a chance. The mystery of AJT would be resolved.
Dan wouldn’t wonder if he had a father. He would know. He would know whether he was the one thing he wanted to be, more than anything else.
A son.
A son to the most detestable man in the world.
Twenty-six more ingredients. That’s what he needed. He had thirteen of the difficult ones already – myrrh from a Chinese herbalist, iron solute and a solution containing tungsten ions from a machine shop, amber from a jeweler, iodine from a pharmacy, and a bunch of stuff from various chemical suppliers: mercury, liquid gold, zinc, magnesium, phosphorus, sulfur, calcium carbonate, and soluble silver in the form of silver nitrate. Some of the others, like water, clover, salt, and cocoa, would be easy.
“Dan, what are you doing?” Amy’s voice suddenly called from the doorway.
Dan jumped. “Come on in, the door’s open, thanks for knocking.”
“I wanted to talk about Jake,” she said softly.
“Oh, great,” Dan grumbled. “Mr. Congeniality.”
“He’s so angry all the time. I can’t bring myself to show him the text from …” Amy’s eyes locked on the phone, resting on the carpet. Its screen glowed with the text from AJT. She sighed.
Dan scowled. “Here comes the lecture.”
She sat on the floor next to him. “Dan, Dad was a Cahill. Through and through. Even if he wasn’t born one. I wish you could remember his eyes. When you were little, he’d hold you up to everyone and say -”
“‘Moon face,’ yeah, I know, you told me a billion times,” Dan said.
“You both would flash this big, identical grin,” Amy said. “Mom said you were twins separated by a generation. The man wasn’t capable of evil. His life was not a lie. If you really knew him, you’d never say the names Vesper and Arthur Trent in the same breath.”
“People lie, Amy,” Dan protested. “People pretend -”
“Dan, there were two bodies in the fire,” Amy insisted. “No one could have lived through that. Besides, if he were alive, he’d be with us. He wouldn’t have stayed away from the Clue hunt. He would have led it.”
Dan spun around. “The bodies were burned beyond recognition. They could have been anybody. Uncle Alistair survived a cave collapse, Amy! Cahills do things like that. And if Dad tried to save Mom, then watched her burn to death – in a fire set by her own family? Because Isabel Kabra thought they were hiding one of the thirty-nine clues? You think he’d just be a happy Cahill after that?”
Amy’s face drained of color. “What are you saying, Dan?”
“Remember Grace’s note – the one we found after discovering the secret to the clues?” Dan said. “She said the Cahill family was broken. Untrustworthy. Isabel set the fire, and no one helped out – the Holts, Uncle Alistair, none of them. I’m saying Dad would have seen them for what they are. Murderers.”
Amy’s face darkened. “So you think he went over to the dark side, just like that?”
“He would have seen it the opposite way, Amy,” Dan said. “The dark side was what he left.”
Amy reared back her hand to slap Dan. He reeled in shock.
Before she could move, a beep sounded from Dan’s smartphone.
They both froze.