Gratefully, I smiled at him. “Yes. But it needs an explosives expert. Mom thinks Liam can do it.” I looked at my brother, the joker, the one who caught the toads to scare me with when I was younger, the one whom Dad had once accused of being determined to go through life without a serious thought in his head, the one who broke the silence.
Charles and Tuck stared at him as well. Liam paled. “You want to put your safety and Mom’s safety inmyhands? But…I always fail. Charles, you know I always fail. Look at the piano heist. That was my fault.” Wow, I didn’t expect him to take responsibility for that.
“You’re the best of all of us with explosives,” Tuck mumbled.
He looked a bit wild-eyed. “What kind of bomb is it?”
“It’s on the Door,” I said, and I described it, detailing the wires. I’d stared at it for long enough to memorize it. “I can draw a picture for you. It needs to be defused before we can get the jewel out of the vault. Please, Liam, will you do it? Charles and Tuck—I’m going to need your help too. Last time the house was empty when we broke in. This time, the Keenes will be home, plus every wyvern in the Western United States, outside the California Stronghold, will be there for the Reckoning. Even worse, the gathering will be catered.”
“Why is that worse?” Liam asked.
“The kitchen will be full of staff, and that’s where the entrance to the basement is. Charles, do you think you could…I don’t know…lock the chefs in the pantry?”
“I can secure the kitchen,” Charles said.
“And Tuck…I’ll need you to cook. We can’t let anyone know what’s going on until we’re done. You’ll have to keep the food flowing out of the kitchen so the servers don’t suspect anything. You’re lousy at pottery, but you’re a really good cook. I know you can fool them. You just need to keep things going until Liam, Gabriela, Benden, and I get the Door.”
Tuck mumbled, “You came back from death. Or Home. Lead on, Sis—we’ll follow.”
Liam thumped the table. “Let’s do it!” he cried.
Charles was looking at Dad, waiting for him to turn around, waiting for him to react. We all looked at him too. Tentatively, I asked, “Dad, what do you think?”
He didn’t answer.
Silence. Benden munched his third or fourth slice of pizza.
“Will you help me?” I asked.
“Us,” Charles corrected.
Liam and Tuck nodded in agreement.
I looked at my brothers and felt my eyes heat up for the second time in less than an hour. I appealed to Dad again, “Will you helpusbring Mom home? The Keenes will be home. We’ll need someone to keep them out of the kitchen and away from the security monitors without raising their suspicions. You’d be perfect for that. You’re supposed to be at the gathering, mingling. It would be natural for you to talk to them. Much more than for any of us.”
He didn’t answer for a long time. We all stared at his back, and I saw that as he looked out the window, he wasn’t looking at anything outside—he was looking at our reflections.
He whispered so softly that I wouldn’t have heard him except that I was watching his face, reflected in the window, “I can’t lose you.”
“Then help us,” I pleaded.
He turned to face me, and I saw there were tears on his cheeks. “I lost you once.”
“And I came back. We can do this.” I stood. “Daddy, please.”
He smiled as the tears rolled faster. “I’m proud of you.”
I felt my own tears threaten to fall. Those words were more wonderful than ice cream. I could feel myself storing them inside me, making them part of my bones, my blood, my heart. I’d pull them out later, if I needed them. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” he said.
He sat at the table, and Benden continued stuffing yet another slice of pizza in his mouth. “Tell us what to do,” Charles said to me. “It’s your heist. You lead; we’ll follow.”
I drew a deep breath. “Okay, let’s plan.”
TUCK WARMED UP Ahundredth slice of pizza for Benden and a second for me. He heaped extra olives on mine. Charles disappeared for a moment and then returned with a whiteboard and a bunch of markers. He scrawled the word “Target” and the word “Crew.”
Getting up, I wrote under “Target”:
