by Jude Watson
"Never heard of this person." Irina looked blank. "Spasky is common Russian name."
"She's Irina Spasky!" Amy yelled."This person is wanted by Interpol for ... uh, various international crimes." The officer consulted the list. "Dubrovnik, 2002, traveling under false passport. Sofia, 1999, administering paralyzing poison to unidentified male. Sri Lanka ... " The officer looked pale. "Crikey."
"That's her!" Dan cried. "Lock her up and throw away Russian key!"
Irina smiled. "Silly children. Tell me, officers, why aren't you chasing criminals like this Spasky, not accusing poor Russian nanny trying to save children from kidnapper."The officer sighed. "So you say, ma'am."
Shep began to talk to the officer, explaining that he was Arthur Trent's cousin and a respectable citizen with a flight plan and a plane he needed to take off in. He pulled Nellie into the discussion.
Irina turned to Amy and Dan. She lowered her voice to a whisper."I am here to help you. You are flying straight into a trap."
"Hello? It seems to me that we're already in one," Dan said."Can't resist chance to needle me," Irina said. "I understand."
"You're the one with the needles," Dan pointed out."We're not going to get caught in your trap," Amy said fiercely. "You probably thought you killed us back in that mine -- "
"I was not involved in what happened," Irina said. "I didn't know what Isabel was planning until she did it. I would have stopped her if I could."
"Liar!"
"Haven't you figured out who your real enemy is yet?"Dan pointed to Irina. "Bingo!"
"Don't go to Jakarta. If Isabel knows you're there, she will kill you, do you understand?"
"And suddenly you're some sort of grandma?" Dan asked scornfully. "Please. You would have killed us if you had the chance."
"Amy." Irina said her name quietly. Amy had never heard that tone in Irina's voice. She couldn't quite figure it out at first, but then she got it. The scorn was missing.
"Isabel told you it was me who killed your parents. Correct?"Amy only stared at her.
Dan's head whipped from Irina to Amy and back again. "What did she just say?"
"She lied. She will lie about anything to get what she wants. Have you remembered more about that night?"
"Our parents were murdered?" Dan asked in a whisper. He turned his bewildered
gaze on Amy. He looked like a lost little boy. It was exactly the look she had dreaded seeing."Yes," Amy said. "I remember you." She made the accusation coolly, hoping Irina would take the bait. Irina must have been there, even if she couldn't remember her."But not just me, correct?"
"What is going on?" Dan's voice wavered."Why?" Amy asked. She forced the words out around the tightness in her throat. "How could you do it?"
"I didn't," Irina said. "Yet, I was there."
"That's called accessory to murder," Amy said.
Dan's face had seemed to shrink in his bewilderment. He looked as though somebody had kicked him hard in the stomach.
Shep's voice grew louder. "If you'd just let me back on my plane!"
"Not your plane, I think," the officer said.
"It is leased from a Mr. Gregory Tolliver, and we're trying to contact him. Unfortunately, his mobile is off."
"He's a mate of mine," Shep said.
"He'll vouch for me.""Well, if I can't reach him, he can hardly do that."
"I'm just saying -- "
"Accessory, no," Irina said rapidly to Amy. "I walked away. But at least one of us remained. Do you remember who?""Why don't you tell me?"
"Because you must remember.""You keep hinting that it's Isabel. I know what you want me to say.
So what's the difference between the two of you? She accuses you, and you accuse her."Irina's face drained of color.
"What is the difference between us," she repeated. "I'm finding that out.""Can we go back to the lounge, please?" Nellie asked the officer. "This is very upsetting for the children."Irina's hand gripped Amy's wrist. "You must believe me -- "
"Hey! Hands off my cousin!" Shep ordered. "Are you going to let her do that?" he said to the officer. For a split second, he looked at Amy. He raised his fist and punched the air lightly. Family, Amy thought. It was like Shep was saying good-bye.
Irina dropped Amy's hand, but she leaned in closer. "I cannot stop you," she said rapidly. "But remember my warning. That's the best I can hope for now."
"All right," the officer said to Nellie, distracted as Shep began arguing with Irina. "But don't leave the lounge!"
"Too right! She'll be apples!" Nellie said cheerfully, and pulled Dan and Amy away. As soon as they were out of earshot, she murmured, "Back to the plane."
"What?" Amy asked.
"Shep slipped me the documentation. It was in his shorts. We're good to go."
"Can you fly that thing?" Amy asked nervously. "Cake," Nellie said."But what about the security guys?" Dan asked. "That's why we have to do it fast," Nellie said. "And casually."
"How do you steal a plane casually?" Dan asked. "Like this."Nellie strolled over to the plane. She gave a quick look back, then ran up the stairs. Amy and Dan followed."Buckle up. I'll radio the tower.
Shep told me there was a good chance they hadn't rescinded the flight information yet. By the way..." Nellie turned around briefly to grin at them, "he said good luck."Amy and Dan buckled in nervously as Nellie spoke to the control tower. The plane rolled out onto the runway. Amy pressed her nose against the window.
Shep was waving his arms and talking to the security officers, who were completely unaware that the plane was taxiing away.
Irina stood unmoving, her gaze on the plane. At any moment, Amy expected her to alert the officers. But she just stood and watched.
Why was she just letting them go?"We're off!" Nellie called as the plane picked up speed. Soon they were barreling down the runway. Amy gripped the armrest. She sure hoped Nellie hadn't exaggerated her piloting skills.
"Do you think we have parachutes?" she asked Dan. He didn't answer. He, too, was gripping the armrest.The plane lifted off smoothly. It rose in the air, banked over the city of Darwin, and headed out across the green water.
Nellie's voice came over the PA system.
"Okay, passenger peeps, just sit back and enjoy the ride. Next stop, Java."Amy leaned closer to Dan. "It's so weird, all these things we're finding out about Nellie," she said. "It's like she's been trained for this."
Dan didn't answer. He was staring out the window, his face tight and strained. "I'm beginning to wonder if we really know her at all."Dan turned on her fiercely. "I know how that feels."
"What?" Amy asked."Isabel told you that Irina killed our parents? And you didn't tell me?"Amy could see the tips of Dan's ears glowing red, the way his mouth twisted.
His eyes filled with tears."I was going to tell you, it's just that..."It's just that I keep getting these flashes. And sometimes I don't know if they're real. And I'm scared, Dan.
Really scared. What if it's my fault they died?"Oh, and when was that going to be?" Dan's mouth set in a line. "Tomorrow? Next week? Or never?"
"It seemed like it was better to wait." Even to Amy's ears, her explanation sounded lame.
"Our parents were murdered, and you found out who did it, and you didn't tell me?" "We don't know it was Irina!" "And you believe her?"
"Well, it's not like we can trust Isabel. She tried to feed me to the sharks, remember? And she tried to kill us in the mine. Hello? She doesn't sound like the most trustworthy person, either."
"I deserve to know. You're treating me like ... like a baby brother!"
"You are my baby brother!"
"I'm not a baby!" Dan's face was like a fist, screwed up tight. "I saved your sorry butt enough times. You counted on me enough times to get you out of places when you were too scared to move. So why do you think you have to protect me?"Because you're my baby brother, Amy wanted to say. But she couldn't say it. She knew if she did, Dan just might jump out of the plane, with or without a parachute.
So she just looked at him, helpless."Secrets and lies," he said.
"Congratulations, sister. You've officially turned into a Cahill."
CHAPTER 21
If there was one thing Dan never expected to hear in his life, it was Next stop, Java as his au pair took off across a sea that stretched in every direction.
If there was one thing he never thought he'd feel, it was this alone.
Once, when he was seven, he'd run into a sliding glass door.
Straight into it, and flat-out running. He'd bounced back and landed on the ground. He still remembered that feeling of sudden, violent shock.
And right after that, the pain.
Now he felt exactly the same way. His parents dying was something he tried not to think about, but of course he thought about it almost every day. He especially tried not to think about goopy stuff like what if. What if Dad was around to take him to soccer? What if Mom had been there for his worst asthma attack? He told himself that it was babyish to have those thoughts. The fire happened. It was fate. Nothing he could change about it.
Nobody to blame, Except there was somebody to blame. Someone had stolen his family. Someone had stolen his childhood. Someone had, one chilly night, deliberately gone into a house with four people who loved each other and set a fire....Dan shook his head violently. He felt his legs trembling. He looked out at the vast sea. Aunt Beatrice used to say, Aren't our problems so small when we look at something big, like the sky? That was her way of comforting two kids whose parents had died. Aunt Beatrice was an idiot.
The Indian Ocean didn't make him feel one bit better. It would be easier if he could talk to Amy, but he'd pretty much decided he'd never talk to her again.
He'd been angry at Amy lots of times. Way lots. This was worse than when she'd made tiny little dolls for all his Matchbox cars right before his best friend, Liam, came over. Worse than when she told
Aunt Beatrice that he loved Beethoven so she should sign him up for piano lessons.
Worse than back in Egypt, when he thought she was grabbing all of their memories of Grace for herself.
That was nothing compared to this.
She'd found out his parents had been murdered, and she'd kept it secret.
The most important thing in their lives!The fire hadn't been accidental. It hadn't been because his father hadn't banked the fire and a spark had hit the rug.
Someone had gone in and deliberately set it.
And Amy had known. She'd even been downstairs that night! And she'd never told him.He'd thought they were together. In everything.
He stared out at the green water stretching to the horizon. He didn't know how to get over this. He didn't know how to deal with it. His parents. Grace. Now Amy.There was nobody left.
* * *
It was still light as Nellie landed the plane expertly at Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport, south of the city of Jakarta.
She took off her earphones and let out a breath.
"I'm totally beat," she said.She slung her bag over her arm and picked up Saladin's carrier. "If we run into trouble at customs, let me do the talking," she said.
That'll be easy, Amy thought. Dan wasn't talking at all.They were all relieved when they breezed through customs.
Halim was a smaller airport for charter flights, so it wasn't too crowded.
Within minutes, Nellie had hustled them through the crowd of taxi drivers and picked a blue cab to ride into the city. She worked her cell phone and arranged a hotel room.
"I texted Shep and told him we were safe," she said. "He's going to take a commercial flight and pick up the plane." She shot them a concerned look.
"You guys must be exhausted. I've never heard you be quiet for more than thirty seconds. Unless you're asleep."
Dan said nothing, looking out the window at the road lined with palm trees. It was dusk, and lights were beginning to come on. The driver wove through the heavy traffic expertly.
The lights of Jakarta approached. The tall buildings glittered through the heavy air. The skyscrapers seemed impossibly tall, like something out of a science fiction movie. The driver turned off the highway and soon they were on a wide boulevard.
The swirling traffic of crowded buses, taxis, and motorcycles whirled them toward a huge circle that surrounded a beautiful fountain. The driver shot off the circle onto a narrower street and gradually, they left the tall buildings behind.
Amy had never been in such a crowded, overwhelming city. She'd thought Cairo was confusing, but this city was a maze, and choked with cars ignoring traffic rules and people dodging between vehicles to cross the traffic-snarled streets. The air was thick and heavy with fumes.Finally, the driver pulled over in front of a bright orange awning attached to a white building.
A doorman hurried out to open the doors and reached for their bags. Nellie counted out the money she'd exchanged at the airport.They stopped at the desk and Nellie checked them in. "We'd like to arrange a trip to Anak Krakatau tomorrow," she said. "Could you help us with that?"
"Normally, yes," the man said. "But it's off-limits right now by order of the government.
When it goes active, you're not allowed to land on the island."Amy wanted to burst into tears. Had they come all this way for nothing? Somehow she'd felt that if she could just take a look at the island, they might find something that Robert Henderson had left behind. She had no idea where to start looking for traces of him in Jakarta.
Nellie looked over her shoulder at them. She smiled understandingly, as if she knew how disappointed and tired they were."Can we get some American food?" Nellie asked. "Like cheeseburgers?"Nellie must
really be worried about them if she was passing up the opportunity for local food, Amy thought. Then again, Amy herself was worried. Dan was never quiet this long.
The clerk smiled. "You can get anything in Jakarta. I can arrange to send food up to your room.""Cheeseburgers, fries, potato chips ... whatever you've got," Nellie said.
They took the elevator up to the room and threw down their bags. Amy lifted Saladin from his carrier.
Nellie turned to them. "All right, out with it. What happened? Why aren't you two talking? When I mentioned cheeseburgers, Dan didn't even yelp."
"No reason," Dan said."Just tired," Amy mumbled into Saladin's soft fur. "Sure," Nellie said. "Bad news about Krakatau, but we can think about what to do in the morning. I say we order up a DVD and just hang tonight. I've never been so exhausted." She yawned.
"We could maybe go close to the island, but will that tell us anything?" Nellie shook her head. "I'm willing to go, but I'm still not sure what we're looking for."
"I'm not sure, either," Amy said."Really?" Dan asked. "I thought you knew everything."Nellie looked from Dan to Amy, and back to Dan. '"Kay," she said, "I'm making an executive decision. No more talking. Let's eat."
* * *
Amy woke up and didn't know where she was. It was pitch-black, and all she heard was a faint hum of air-conditioning. What hotel, what city, what country? A car horn bleated. The room smelled faintly of ... cheeseburgers. Really bad cheeseburgers. Jakarta.
Java.The names sounded so foreign as she turned them over in her mind. She doubted that a month ago she could have picked them out on a map. They had flown west from Darwin over the Indian Ocean. Was it possible to be farther away from Boston, Massachusetts? She didn't think so.She couldn't go back to sleep. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could just make out the lump that was Dan, over on the sofabed.
She'd hurt Dan. She knew that. All evening she'd wanted to explain. But explaining would mean confessing. And she couldn't face that night. Talking about it out loud would make the whole thing too real. She'd have to relive it. And if she had to do that, she would break.
She sighed and turned over. Nellie was scrunched over on the side of the wide bed, a pillow half over her head. The edge of the curtain glowed orange from the rising sun. Amy's heart beat faster.
Fire."Get the children out!"She threw the covers back
. She clapped her hands over her ears. Inside her head, she was screaming. Mommy! Don't go!She sprang up and walked across the room. She pushed the curtains aside. She saw the sun splashing the tall towers with the start of the day.She tiptoed over the carpet and sat on the sofabed.
"Dan," she whispered.
He kept on sleeping."Dan!"He sat up, confused. "Where are we going? Where are my pants?"She laughed softly. But the confusion cleared on his face, and the closed look came back."I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she said."Whatever."
"It's just that--"
"It doesn't matter." Dan threw the covers back.
"So you forgive me?"
"I didn't say that." Dan's mouth was set in a tight line. "Tell me what you remember. Obviously Irina knows."
"No, she doesn't! And I don't remember much. It's all weird flashes of stuff. I remember hearing people's voices, and going downstairs, and being afraid because a bunch of strangers were in the house. The voices sounded mean. And Isabel Kabra picked me up ..." Amy gulped. She couldn't tell Dan about the koalas.
He was just absorbing the fact that their parents were murdered by some relative of theirs. What if he knew it was her fault?"... and I could tell Mom was scared. And I remember later on hearing the front door close and being glad they were gone. And I looked outside and they were standing under my window. Isabel said they had to act that night. Nobody else said anything.""What do you remember about Mom and Dad?" Dan pressed.
Amy shook her head. "Not much. I remember Mom getting you and me out, and Dad was taking books down from the shelves."
"He was looking for something.""And then Mom put us on the grass and told me to take care of you, and she ran back inside. And I waited and waited to see them come out. And they didn't." Tears rolled down Amy's cheeks. Take care of your brother. It sounded easy. But what was the best way to do it?
Dan looked embarrassed at her tears. "Don't lose it now," he said. "We have work to do.""You're still talking to me?" Amy asked tearfully.
"I guess so," Dan said. "We're still on a clue hunt. So let's get to work."Amy pushed away the hurt from Dan's cool tone. Maybe the tension between them would ease. Dan wasn't too good at holding grudges.