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Jane rubs Jasper’s side, not responding.
“He’s too honest,” says Kiran, then rolls her eyes as Ravi stoops and whispers something into the ear of one of the FBI agents. “And he’d blow a fuse about the art. He’d never forgive Vanny. I mean literally, never.”
“What about you, Kiran?” says Jane. “Are you going to join them?”
Kiran is capable of an impressive range of unpleasant smiles. “It depends on whether I can do so without ever having to talk to Patrick.”
“Did you know that this work killed his parents?”
Kiran is stunned. A wave of something—comprehension, horror—passes across her face before she’s able to build her wall back up again. “No,” she says. “I did not know that.”
“Ivy told me.”
Ravi appears suddenly, pushes between Jane and Kiran and wraps an arm around each of them. “Hello, beautiful darlings,” he says. “Having fun?”
“Not like the fun you’re having,” Kiran says dryly.
“I’m going for a walk,” Ravi says. “You’ll have to stay here and be the representative Thrash.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Kiran says, slurring her words ever so slightly. “I’ll go with you if that’s what I want to do. You can’t boss me around. Where are you going?”
“Bratty twin sister,” Ravi says fondly, kissing her on the forehead. “To the bay in the ramble. The lovely FBI special agents have been asking me about alternate places for boats to dock. They want to see if someone could’ve snuck the art off the island that way.”
Instantly, Jane’s weariness flares to panic. Ivy! Grace and Christopher! They’re waiting for their pickup at that bay. “Kiran?” she squeaks, but Kiran talks over her.
“Both of the FBI agents, Ravi?” she says. “Seriously? Do they know what you’re up to? Or do they actually think you guys are going to look for clues in the dark? Do you have a preference between them?”
Kiran is just barely swaying against her brother’s chest. Kiran, Jane realizes, is pretending to be drunk.
“The answer to all your questions is, I don’t know yet,” says Ravi, grinning. “Not knowing is part of the fun.”
“I’m going with you,” says Kiran.
“Like hell you are,” says Ravi.
“I am,” says Kiran. “It’s fun to ruin your things.”
Ravi kisses her forehead again, chuckling. “No more Pimm’s for you,” he says. Then he releases them both and goes off to find his FBI special agents.
Kiran wraps her hand over Jane’s arm and is walking calmly with her toward the banquet hall before Ravi has even taken three steps. “You understand that we need to warn someone,” she says, “right?”
“Of course,” Jane says, “but how?”
“I know how to get to the bay through the ramble,” Kiran says, pulling Jane past the long table in the banquet hall, “so I’ll go that way. I’ll go after them and try to stall them. You need to find Mrs. Vanders and tell her to warn Ivy and Patrick.” She’s pulled Jane into the kitchen now. Jane realizes that Kiran intends to send her up to the attics in the dumbwaiter.
She’s hardly aware of climbing in. She has a vague sense that Kiran has stuffed her into it like a jack-in-the-box. On the floor, Jasper is hopping and yipping, distressed not to be joining her.
“Good luck,” Kiran says, then shuts the door.
The dumbwaiter starts ascending, slowly. The sounds, from inside the carriage, are a cavernous underwater music. Too slow, Jane thinks. Move faster! How do the cameras work? Will Mrs. Vanders know who’s arriving in the dumbwaiter? As the carriage comes to a halt, Jane calls out, “It’s me! It’s me! Don’t shoot!”
Someone yanks the door open and Jane is astonished to find herself staring into the face of Ji-hoon, the South Korean “cleaner.”
“All right,” says Phoebe’s voice. “Now get back.”
Ji-hoon backs away with his hands raised.
“What’s going on?” Jane squeaks. “Don’t shoot me!”
“I’m not going to shoot you, Janie,” says Phoebe’s voice, sounding amused. “What the hell do you want?”
“I need to tell Mrs. Vanders something,” Jane says, then sticks her head cautiously into the room. Phoebe is holding Ji-hoon at gunpoint.
“Is Ji-hoon a South Korean spy?” Jane asks, then, with a small shock, “Is he a North Korean spy?”
“Ji-hoon’s as American as you are. He’s the Panzavecchias’ research director at the CIA,” says Phoebe flatly. “The new one, obviously, not the dead one.”
“Oh! What are you going to do with him?”
“Nothing at all,” says Phoebe. “Ji-hoon and I are going to stand like this in friendly meditation until various things happen elsewhere, at which point I’m going to escort him from the island.”
“Okay,” Jane says. “I need Mrs. Vanders. It’s urgent.”
“I believe she’s in a meeting in the wine cellars,” says Phoebe. “Ji-hoon will send you down, won’t you, Ji-hoon? Go on, move along, and make sure I can see your hands.”
Ji-hoon glides carefully to Jane again and reaches for the dumbwaiter door. His eyes bore into hers. “I’m not the bad guy here, you know,” he says. “I’m just as committed to protecting those children as any of the rest of you, and without breaking the law.”
“Hurry up,” says Phoebe, bored.
Ji-hoon shoves the door shut with his elbow and a moment later Jane is slowly descending through darkness and a smell of metal and dust and cold. The smell changes to something like wet wood that’s been lying in a pond for a long time. Sweet and sour. Jane recognizes the wine cellars, even though she’s never been in a wine cellar before. When the dumbwaiter stops, she fumbles for the door handle and propels the door open. Mr. Vanders is standing ten feet away aiming a pistol at her.
“Don’t shoot me!” Jane squeaks again, but he’s already returned the gun to the holster at his hip. He comes up to Jane and glares at her.
“Why are you here?” he demands.
“Ravi is bringing the FBI agents to the bay through the ramble,” says Jane. “Someone needs to warn Ivy right away.”
“Hm,” says Mr. Vanders, pursing his lips, thinking this over.
“Call her!” Jane says, frustrated with him for wasting time. “On her walkie-talkie!”
“She doesn’t have it,” he says, jutting his chin at a nearby table, where the walkie-talkie sits. “She’d left by the time it arrived.”
“Call her phone!”
“Phones don’t work at the other end of the island,” he says. “Mrs. V is in a meeting and I’m with a patient. Phoebe’s watching Ji-hoon—not that we could ask any more of the Brits at this point—and Ivy, Patrick, and Cook are already at the bay. I’ll have to cancel my session and go myself.”
“No,” Jane says. “Let me go.”
“Absolutely not,” says Mr. Vanders. “You are a novice and a civilian.”
“I’m not a child,” Jane says, pushing herself out of the dumbwaiter one leg at a time. “I can carry a message. I have common sense. I’m my aunt’s niece,” she says.
Mr. Vanders’s eyebrows rise the tiniest smidge.
“Please,” Jane says, standing tall to face him. “It’s my fault the FBI is here, and there’s no time for this. Please, please, let me go.”
Mr. Vanders lets out a sigh that’s almost a growl. “Come on,” he says, grabbing Jane and pulling her down an aisle of wines so abruptly that she almost falls. He eyes her outfit. “Those look like sensible boots. Can you run in them?”
“Yes.”
He rounds a corner and launches down another aisle, towing Jane with him, shoving a flashlight at her. He’s very strong for a man who seems old. “The door at the bay looks like a rock, but it’s got a leather handle on the left that opens toward you,” he says, turni
ng another corner. “Turn off the flashlight before you open the door, and open it slowly. Step out slowly and call Ivy’s name quietly until you get her attention. She’ll still be on lookout while Patrick deals with the kids and the cargo. The water can be noisy but she’ll be close. Are you getting all this?”
“Yes.”
He reaches for his holster. “Have you ever shot a gun?”
“No!” Jane says. “I don’t want it! I wouldn’t even know who to shoot!”
“Calm down,” says Mr. Vanders. “No one’s going to shoot anybody.”
“It’s not reasonable to assume that when everyone has a gun! I’m not taking it.”
