“Theo, could you shine your light over here?”
Theo moved to stand next to Edgar. The tiny drill had made a hole big enough to see through. Behind the rock was suitcase.
A shiver chased up Jaime’s spine. “Can you make this hole bigger?”
“What’s in there? What is it?” Tess said.
They took turns peeking into the hole, Tess nearly jumping up and down.
“Okay, okay,” said Edgar. “Let me work on this wall for a while longer, and then we’ll open that case.”
He drilled new holes at intervals, which took so long that Jaime, Tess, and Theo sat down in the dirt to wait. Then Edgar tried to kick down the weakened wall. Even as big and strong as he was, the wall didn’t budge.
“Now what?” said Tess.
“We’re going to have to get a little more dramatic,” said Edgar. He dug around in the pack again and came up with a flat disk that sort of looked like a doorbell.
Theo’s eyes widened. “Is that . . . ?”
“An explosive. But a very small one. Won’t be louder than a passing Underway car. That said, you should probably move back.”
They got to their feet and moved to the other side of the tunnel. Edgar put the device in the middle hole and pressed the button. Then he jogged to where Theo and the others were standing.
“Turn your faces away,” he said. “One . . . two . . . THREE!”
Behind them, a dull boom, and then a shower of falling rock. When the dust cleared, the hole was now a doorway to a hidden chamber. They tossed and kicked the stones out of the way and dragged the suitcase out of the chamber.
“Heavy,” said Edgar.
They brushed it off. Some kind of bright metal skin, welded in patchwork. Finding this here felt almost magical, like some robot wizard or alien left it just for them. Even through the dust, it gleamed like it was made of stars.
“Silver?” said Theo.
“I don’t know,” said Edgar. He ran his hands over the top and then tried to lift the lid. Nothing.
Thud.
They shone the light on the back wall of the chamber, where the sound had come from. Nothing.
“The explosion must have loosened some rocks,” said Edgar. “It’s fine.”
“Are you sure?” said Tess.
“Tess, this tunnel has been sitting here since 1844. I don’t think one little explosion is going to hurt it.”
“‘Little explosion’ is an oxymoron,” said Theo.
“Can I have more light here?” Edgar said.
They all shone their beams on the suitcase.
“How do you open it?” said Jaime. He knelt and felt for the latch. He pressed it, but pressing did nothing. When he looked closer, he saw there was a keyhole next to the latch, a heart etched around it.
Edgar took the suitcase, prodded it, tugged it, smacked the top of it to try to get it to pop open.
“What about the hinges in the back? The case might be more vulnerable there,” Tess suggested.
“Good idea.” Edgar grabbed the drill, flipped the case, and placed the bit on one of the hinges. The drill squealed, caught, and sparked in Edgar’s hands. He dropped it to the dirt.
“What the . . .” He picked it up, examined it. “It . . . broke the drill.”
“There’s got to be a way to open it,” said Tess. “Maybe we should take it back to the archives, where we can see it better.”
“Maybe you already have the key,” said Edgar.
“What do you mean?” Theo asked.
“Well, you’ve been helping pack up your grandfather’s things. Does he own any kind of artifact or key or mechanism shaped like this heart on the front?”
“I don’t remember anything like that,” said Theo. He turned to Tess. “Do you?”
She shook her head. “No. But you have most of Grandpa’s stuff now. Let’s go back and look.”
“He said you’d have it,” Edgar muttered. “He said you had everything you needed.”
“What?” said Tess.
“Are you sure you’ve never seen any kind of key that would open this? Maybe it doesn’t look like a key.”
Crack.
Again they turned their lights on the back wall. Dust snaked up from a small pile of stones.
Jaime said, “I think we broke the tunnel.”
“This is all very exciting and mysterious, but maybe we could get out of here now?” Tess said.
Theo ignored his sister and the not-awesome rumbling sounds echoing through the tunnel. “Who said we’d have the key with us? Who said we’d have everything we needed? Wait.” He stuck his hand in his ginormous hair, took a step back. “It was you who went to see my grandfather?”
Jaime had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling. Dust was raining down from the ceiling of the tunnel. Edgar Wellington packed up his tools and picked up the silver suitcase. When he straightened, his face was drawn and white. But he didn’t look angry. He looked resigned and a little sad.
And that’s when Jaime saw it, when they all saw it. Another disc shaped like a doorbell in Edgar’s free hand.
“Uncle Edgar,” said Theo, his voice careful and slow, “what are you going to do with that?”
“Nothing drastic,” Edgar said. “I just need you to stay down here for a while.”
“What?” said Jaime.
“Stay down here?” said Tess.
Theo said, “What’s a while?”
“That’s not drastic at all,” said Jaime.
Thud. Thud.
Behind them, a bit more of the wall crumbled to the ground. Jaime’s stomach dropped along with the rocks.
Theo said, “What are you doing?
Tess said, “Why are you doing this?”
The flashlight cast an eerie glow onto Edgar’s face, shadowing his eyes. “You know why. For the Cipher. For the most amazing treasure known to man. Cipherists have been going in circles for more than a hundred and fifty years. And to find out that it was because they were working a false Cipher? A whole line of red herrings? The Morningstarrs were more amazing than anyone ever imagined.”
Theo said, “What if there’s a third line of clues? A fourth or a fifth or a dozen? What if my grandpa was right and the Cipher was designed with no solution? What if the search is the treasure?”
“Your grandfather is a brilliant man way too satisfied with his own brilliance,” said Edgar. “No, the Cipher has a solution. And I’m going to find it. Please understand. I’ve been searching for this my whole life.”
While the twins argued with Edgar Wellington, Jaime figured their odds. There were three of them, but Wellington was a large man, and he had that doorbell thing in his hand and probably other Batman weapons in that backpack of his. Maybe a baton or a cattle prod or a gun. Maybe nets or ropes to tie them down. If he could just creep behind the man, maybe knock him down, take the pack and the suitcase.
Quietly, Edgar’s pale gaze lasered to Jaime. “Don’t,” he said.
Tess’s angry eye twitched in the same way it had that day in the elevator, the day in which they learned they would have to leave 354 W. 73rd Street. “You don’t even know what to do with that suitcase.”
“Are you saying that you do?”