Mom was caught while she was in the vault, possibly by this last alarm. “It’s on what looks like…well, honestly, it looks like a bomb.” I described it to him, which color wires and how they were connected. All the wires linked an enormous battery and a box wrapped in electrical tape.
Across the vault, I heard gold clink together, and a few coins rattled. “Got it,” Gabriela whispered. “Oh wow, it’s so beautiful. Sky, you have to see this.” Beside her, Maximus was filling a bag with various statuettes and necklaces.
My eyes didn’t leave the jewel. This was it! But…what was it? It wasn’t gold. It wasn’t even a diamond. There were other pieces here that had to be worth much more. Why would Mom try to steal this? “Tell me what to do, Ryan. Have you seen this kind of device before?”
“Sky. Thatisa bomb.”
I walked in a circle around the stand. “Okay, so how do I defuse it? I’m not a bomb expert.” Liam was, but my idiot brothers had refused to join my heist. Squatting, I tried to look under the jewel. “It looks like it’s on a pressure plate.”
“Most likely it’s rigged so the bomb will blow if you try to move the jewel,”Ryan said.“You’ll need to defuse the bomb before you try to take the jewel. This must be how your mother was caught—she must have set off an alarm when she tried to defuse it.”
At least she hadn’t blown herself up.
But if Mom couldn’t figure it out…I took a deep breath. I could do this. I’d come this far already. I had to do it. “Ryan, please tell me you know how to defuse it, preferably without either setting it off or triggering an alarm.”
Before he could answer, Maximus stepped beside me. His eyes were sparking again. “Thank you for bringing me here, Sky, and I apologize if my actions bring you any difficulties. It’s my sincere hope that your heist is able to be completed without a hitch.”
That was an odd speech.
“Maximus…”
He handed me his bag of treasures, and I took it without thinking. Pulling off his glove, he placed his bare hand on the jewel. “Goodbye, Sky.”
He vanished.
And alarms began to wail.
Ryan in my ear,“What happened? Did you set it off? Sky, are you okay?”
“Don’t know. Maximus is gone.” The jewel still sat there. There wasn’t time to defuse the bomb. I didn’t know if there would even be time to escape. “Gabriela, we have to get out of here.” Hurrying toward her, I pulled her up to her feet. She shoved the horn into her pocket.
Together, we ran for the vault door.
“Sky, the camera feed—I lost it. It’s blank. All of it, blank. I don’t know what—”The earpiece shrieked, and I yanked it out. Doubled over next to me, Gabriela pulled hers out too.
I pulled her through the corridor. “Keep running.” Ahead were the stairs. We ran toward them. If we could make it up the stairs, across the kitchen, across the garden, down the rope—it was too far, too impossible. As we reached the bottom of the stairs, the door at the top was flung open.
Ryan’s father filled the doorway.
Mr. Keene, Ryan’s father, wore a suit. Black pinstripe, with a blue-and-gold tie. His shoes were shined so they looked as bright as patent-leather tap shoes. He must have had the suit and shoes specially ordered for his size. He was as wide as a wrestler and filled the entire width of the doorway. The kitchen light filtered around him.
I saw all this while my brain helpfully went:Aaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!
“What do we do?” Gabriela whispered.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!
I had a backup plan in mind, of course, as every good thief should, but given that the earpieces were dead, I couldn’t tell Ryan we needed a distraction. Besides which, even a seventy-six-trombone marching band wouldn’t distract Mr. Keene from the sight of Gabriela and me, decked out in all black with gloves and face masks, in his supposedly secure basement with his vault door open wide behind us.
I couldn’t think of a single lie that would explain our presence. We couldn’t have looked guiltier if there were neon lights over our heads blinking the word “THIEVES!” My only consolation was that since I had on the face mask, he didn’t know who I was.
“Sky Hawkins.” His voice was a rumble that reminded me of thunder. He shut the door behind him. As he thudded down the stairs, we retreated back toward the vault. “What a pity. Your father will be heartbroken.” He stopped a few feet from us.
Okay then, my only consolation was…Eh, nope. Got nothing. “Then don’t tell him.” Taking off my face mask, I looked him straight in the eye. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”
Gabriela elbowed me. “Sky, do you think that’s the best—”
I cut her off. “I did it all myself. I’m the one who’s responsible, and I’m the one you’ll bargain with if you want your jewel back.” I lifted up Maximus’s bag—the jewel wasn’t in it, of course, but I was hoping Ryan’s father wouldn’t realize that before we were long gone. “It looks fragile. It would be a shame if it were to be smashed against the wall.”
