“I would have helped him,” Dad said. He’d been left behind with Mom to coordinate with the other searchers.
“I knew you were fine,” Vi said. She waved her hand dismissively, and put her feet up on the coffee table.
“You did not.” Dad swiveled in his chair to look at her. “You were just as frantic as the rest of us.”
Vi scowled at him and crossed her arms.
Mom paced in front of the window, watching for Mac, I assumed.
“Is there anything to eat in this place?” Seth asked.
“I’ll check the cupboards, Seth,” Mom said. “There’s probably some snacks in there.”
Mom and Seth went into the small kitchenette together and we heard doors opening and closing. Then we heard bags rustling.
Mom returned with a plate of cookies and set it on the coffee table. She sat next to Dad and he slipped an arm over her shoulders.
“Are we just going to sit here, or are we going to make a plan?” Vi said.
“I think we should wait for Mac,” Mom said. “Besides, I thought you and Clyde had a contest going . . .”
I glanced at Vi. “So everyone knows?” I said to the room.
“I don’t like to root against my own daughter, but you really need a job,” Mom said. “This business with Vi might be just the thing.”
I looked at Dad, who was carefully avoiding my eyes. “You, too, Dad?”
He was saved from having to answer by a blustery gust of wind that blew Mac back into the room.
He stomped on the rug by the door and shed snowflakes.
“It’s getting really bad out there again,” he said. “I’m glad they hadn’t gotten far, it would be horrible if someone got caught outside in this for very long.”
He came and sat next to me and carefully took my hand. I thought it was a nice gesture until he squeezed a little tighter and said, “Tell us why you were stuck in an underground dungeon and hadn’t told anyone where you were going.”
Fortunately, Seth wandered in crunching on potato chips just as Mac asked his question.
“It’s not Clyde’s fault,” he said through a mouthful of chips. “It’s Baxter’s.”
Baxter lifted his head off his paws at the sound of his name. He’d calmed down once everyone had reappeared from the scary hole and lay curled in front of the fire. Tuffy was glued to Seth’s leg and watched every move of his hand from bag to mouth, hoping Seth would miss.
“How was it Baxter’s fault?” Mac asked. “He seemed to be the only sensible one—he stayed here in the cottage, where it was safe.”
Baxter put his head down and closed his eyes. He, like the rest of us, could probably sense that Mac was winding up for a safety lecture. I would have closed my eyes, but Mac’s death grip on my hand kept me vigilant.
Seth, self-appointed as my backup in almost every situation, sat on the floor near Dad. “Baxter had been acting weird since yesterday,” he said. “He didn’t like the room and acted like there was something wrong with the rug. I told Clyde about it and we decided to check it out.”
Vi picked up her knitting and scowled at us. Mom passed a plate of cookies around the room to dispel the tension.
“We didn’t think we needed a whole gang to just check out the trapdoor,” I said. “We got stuck in the room by accident. I didn’t know the door would lock from the outside.”
Mac’s grip was loosening; I hoped that meant he had calmed down.
“I think we should make a pact—nobody goes into unknown secret tunnels without leaving a lookout behind, like we did with Frank,” Vi said.
I cast a “told you so” look in Seth’s direction. He looked away.
“That’s a very good idea, Vi,” Mom said. She smiled at the rest of us to encourage agreement.
“Okay, that’s a good idea,” Mac said. “As much as possible we need to be safe. Something is going on at the castle and now that Seth and Clyde have discovered the cell phones, I’m worried we’ve stumbled onto a bigger problem than a disgruntled employee.”
“What cell phones?” Dad said.
We explained about the boxes of cell phones and how they could be connected to a black-market ring.
Dad whistled. “I read about that happening in Detroit. You think they’re linked? When they said there was a connection, I just figured one of the suspect’s families lived here or something.”
Mac let go of my hand, finally, and I surreptitiously rubbed the sensation back into it. He leaned forward and glowered at everyone. “This information stays here, in this room. If someone at the castle is involved in selling stolen goods, he or she could be dangerous.” He waited until we had all nodded consent.
“I’d been working on the assumption that Clarissa had been killed because she seemed to make enemies everywhere she went; maybe it was simpler than that,” Mac said. “Maybe she knew about the phones or was involved somehow and that put her in danger. Now that we know about the phones, we could be in danger as well. So we all keep quiet, right?”