The Final Gambit Read online

  “That much we knew,” Molly said. When Morton had been charged with watching their store the previous fall, she and Emmett used to entertain themselves by watching him messily eat candy apples and then attempt to clean his sticky hands on the coats of passersby. “But why’d you have to give him my bed? It’s probably covered in caramel now.”

  “Never mind that, Molly,” Emmett said. “Jasper, you should have told us he was back there right away. If he sees us, he could—”

  “Oh, he’s not waking up for at least another half hour,” Jasper said. “This shop can be a pretty loud place. He’s trained himself to tune out the noise.”

  Molly bit her lip in contemplation. The federal agent in her bed was going to be a problem. But maybe not an impossible one to work around. “So, Morton is the only one they’ve got watching the store?” she asked.

  “Oh, no,” said Jasper. “The nighttime guy is very good. You folks are lucky you did not try coming here at night or you’d already be sitting in a prison cell.”

  Twenty-four-hour surveillance? Molly felt a twinge in her gut. There was no use denying it: Captain Lee had been right. “We can’t stay here,” she said.

  “Most certainly not,” Jasper agreed. “That would be a terrible idea.”

  Molly tried not to let this news sink her spirits. They had a Plan B, after all. “This is not the end of the world,” she said, to herself as much as anyone else. “Jasper, can we stay in your apartment for a few days?”

  “Oh, Molly Pepper, you know if it was up to me, you folks could live at my place till the twelfth of forever,” Jasper said. “But Balthazar Birdhouse is not as generous as me. And, trust me, you don’t really want to share a living space with that man, anyhows.”

  “Balthazar Birdhouse is your roommate?” Emmett asked, aghast.

  “Why do you think I’ve been living here at the shop for the past five months?” said Jasper.

  “But—but—” Molly stammered. “Jasper, do you know anyone else who has a place we can stay?”

  “Someone who won’t call the police to fatten their pockets with some of that reward money? No. I don’t know the best people.”

  “Where are we going to go?” Molly muttered, putting her hand to her chest to remind herself to breathe.

  “I don’t know,” Cassandra said, sounding just as lost. “But we’ve spent too much time here already. Let’s get our—”

  Jasper grabbed Cassandra before she could step foot behind the screen.

  “What?” she snapped.

  “Morton’s not gonna wake up from us just talking, but you’ve got some creaky floorboards back there that set him off like a rooster cock-a-doodling in his ear,” Jasper explained.

  Cassandra drooped. “But my Brew-Master 1900 is back there. And my Wind-Up Salad Tongs. And my Auto-Swirling Butterscotch Dispenser.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Pepper,” Jasper said.

  Cassandra looked like a child who’d just been told her birthday was canceled. “Is there nothing we can take?”

  Jasper darted behind the counter and pulled out a slim stack of envelopes. “Your mail,” he announced, handing the pile over.

  Cassandra leafed through the envelopes. “These are all bills.”

  “Which I have paid. Early, by the way. So I guess you don’t actually need those, do you?” He took the mail back, with the exception of one envelope.

  Cassandra opened the remaining envelope and read aloud: “‘Has life become too hectic? Do you feel like you’re always on the run?’” She glanced up at the others with trepidation before continuing. “‘Make your getaway to the Hidden Hearth Inn in beautiful Petalsburg, Virginia.’— Oh, fiddle. It’s an advertisement for a vacation retreat. Although Petalsburg does sound like a lovely place. The petal is the prettiest part of the flower, after all.” She folded the paper and slid it into her coat pocket. “I’ll hold on to this, just in case.”

  “This is not the time to think about vacations, Mother,” Molly said.

  “I know that!” Cassandra returned, a bit too harshly. “Can’t you let a woman dream?”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Pepper,” Emmett said with sympathy. “But we need to leave. I’m feeling more uncomfortable every second. Not only could Agent Morton wake up, but any of those people with their noses flattened against the windows could eventually recognize us. Also, we left my father out in the snow.”

  “But where will we go?” Molly asked. “We have to get off the street.”

  “I have an idea,” Emmett said. “And in the meantime, at least we know that Pepper’s Pickles is in good shape.”

  Yes, it is, Molly thought. Jasper had turned their shop into a success by changing things up in a way that she and her mother had never managed to do. He’d gained a following by doing the same thing her father used to: charming and entertaining his customers. Jasper was living up to her father’s legacy better than she ever had. It was a rough reality to face, but Pepper’s Pickles was better off without the Peppers.

  Molly shook her head to clear it. Selling pickles was never what she and her mother were meant for anyway. Nor Emmett. So maybe this was all for the best. Having no shop to manage freed them up to move on to bigger and better things. More important things. After all, no one got their names into history books by selling pickles.

  She took a wad of cash from the register and noticed a tall stack of yellowing newspapers in the corner behind the counter. “How far back do those go?” she asked.

  “Months,” Jasper replied. “I use ’em for wrapping pickle orders. You can do a lot with old newspapers. Balthazar Birdhouse once came to work in a tuxedo constructed entirely of old New York Heralds. You wouldn’t expect it to be a good look, and it wasn’t.”

  Molly gathered an armful of papers and asked Emmett to take as many as he could as well. It was time to stop worrying about pickles and start focusing on something she was much better at anyway: solving mysteries. And right now she was faced with plenty, starting with locating the Mothers of Invention.

  “Thank you, Jasper. For everything.” She hugged him as well as she could with an armful of newspapers, as the others said their farewells.

  “Try not to stay away for five months again,” Jasper said as he unlocked the front door.

  “Okay, we’ll try for eight this time,” Molly joked.

  Jasper opened the door and the waiting crowd cheered uproariously.

  “Keep it down out there,” Agent Morton grumbled sleepily from the back.

  7

  Missing Persons

  DURING MOST OF his father’s nearly four-year absence, Emmett lived on the streets. Miss Adelaide, the kindly old woman who operated the local bookmobile—a covered coach that functioned as a sort of mobile library—had offered to care for him. Sadly, Miss Addie passed away not long after Captain Lee’s disappearance, and Emmett was forced to survive on his own. He did so by hiding the bookmobile deep in an east side ash dump and turning it into a makeshift home. It was to this small, secluded hideout that Emmett now led his father and the Peppers.

  “This is where you lived?” Captain Lee asked, gaping at the ten-foot piles of soot and dirt that surrounded them like coal-colored sand dunes. Molly couldn’t tell if he was horrified or impressed.

  “For almost three years,” Emmett replied. “But mostly inside the bookmobile. I spent as little time as I could out here with the rats and shadow monsters.”

  “Shadow monsters?” Cassandra asked.

  “In retrospect, they were probably just bigger rats,” Emmett explained. “But I was young and easily frightened back then. You know, as opposed to now.”

  Outside the small but fully enclosed wagon, Captain Lee paused, letting Robot’s crate roll to a stop in a cloud of black dust. “I’m sorry, Emmett,” he said, shaking his head. “I failed you. The things you were forced to do without me here . . .”

  “It’s nicer on the inside,” Emmett said, trying to sound upbeat.

  “I thought you said it was a dank, cramp
ed pit and that’s why you never wanted me to see it,” said Cassandra.

  “Uh . . .”

  “Wait’ll you see the amazing contraptions Emmett built in there, Captain Lee,” Molly interjected.

  “Contraptions? Well, why didn’t you say so sooner?” Cassandra said eagerly as Emmett unlocked the small door on the side of the wagon. He ducked the broomstick that swung out at head level as he opened it. Cassandra gave him a sympathetic pat on the back. “It’s okay that your sweeping machine malfunctioned. They can’t all be winners.”

  “It’s a booby trap, Mother,” Molly scoffed.

  “Well, in that case, bravo!” said Cassandra. “The thief sees the sweeping machine and assumes he’s found a nice, clean place to burgle, but he doesn’t realize the sweeping machine is broken and gets scared off by all the dirt inside. Clever.”

  “Um, why don’t you come in?” Emmett said, stepping into his former home. “You might want to watch your head, though.”

  “I once spent two days trapped under a very fat and lazy seal,” said his father. “I will be fine.” He ducked the low doorframe to climb in, as did Cassandra, the tallest of the group.

  Before joining the others inside, Molly cracked open Robot’s crate. “I bet you’d like to get out of there,” she said.

  “The person with whom you made that bet owes you some money,” said Robot. “Because, yes, I would like to get out.”

  Molly took his cool metal hand in hers and helped him. “Hooray!” Robot said. “I am free! No more cramped, dark boxes for me!” He followed Molly into the bookmobile crawling on all fours to avoid the low ceiling. “It is cramped and dark in here.”

  “I can light the lamps!” Emmett said.

  “Oh, this is gonna be amazing, Cap,” Molly said. She flashed an enthusiastic smile toward where she thought Emmett’s father was. “Wait till you see it!”

  Emmett lit a candle and began turning a crank, which caused the flaming taper to move along a wire around the perimeter of the ceiling. “See, the first candle lights the other candles as it goes along the—oof! Sorry about my elbow, Mrs. Pepper! It’s not usually this crowded in here. So, anyway, as the candles are lit, the glass jars automatically lower to—ooh, you might want to duck, Molly. Whew! Okay. So, the jars—ow! That was my foot, Robot. Can you please keep still for a—”

  “Cap, your hat’s on fire!” Molly cried as the sliding candle collided with Captain Lee’s wide-brimmed cowboy hat. The captain yelped, tried to stand, and bumped his head on the ceiling, causing all the candles to shake. “Don’t do that!” Molly shouted. “You’ll set the whole place on fire!”

  “Me? I’m not the one making open flames fly around in a tiny wooden box filled with paper!” the captain sputtered. Robot snatched the smoldering hat from his head and smothered the fire in his aluminum hands.

  “I’m sorry, Papa!” Emmett said. “I’ve never used my lighting device with more than two people in here. I’ve never even had more than three people in here. The glass jars usually cover the candles to, you know, prevent any heads from catching fire.”

  “It’s okay,” Captain Lee said, his breath calming. “I know that coming here was a plan born of desperation.”

  “Desperate or not, it was still a solid plan,” Molly said. “Since none of the people chasing us even knows this place exists.”

  “That’s true,” said Cassandra. “Space may be tight, but at least we’re safe.” She tapped her finger against her lips. “Curtains might be nice, though. Emmett, have you ever considered putting some windows in here so you’d have a place to put curtains?”

  “I feel I must announce my amazement at the number of books you have, Emmett,” Robot said, looking around. What the tiny wagon lacked in floor space, it made up for in bookshelves. They ran along all four walls, showcasing everything from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre to Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island. “I have never seen so many books in one place,” Robot continued. “Although I have only been alive for nine months and have spent most of that time on a boat.”

  “Ooh, Captain!” Molly said. “Emmett’s lighting system may have hit a snag, but check out his book-selecting claw! See? You use this lever here and the claw slides down the wires to grab a book for you and—” The metal claw swooped down from the center of the ceiling and rammed two of its tin talons straight up Captain Lee’s nostrils. “On second thought,” Molly said, “we should probably start reading through these newspapers for information about the MOI.”

  “Okay,” said Cassandra. “But can I try the claw game first?”

  “There they are!” Cassandra cried, popping up from where she’d been lying on Emmett’s skimpy mattress with a newspaper over her face. Her head, and the newspaper on it, got tangled in the web of wires above, but she quickly plucked herself free. “I found the MOI!” she repeated. “Not literally, mind you. They weren’t shrunken to flea size and squished inside that paper, in case that’s what any of you thought I meant.”

  “None of us did,” said Emmett.

  “Not even I,” said Robot. “And I take things very literally.”

  “Good,” Cassandra continued. “But I did find the MOI. And the most fun thing about it? I wasn’t even trying! I only put this paper over my face because I’d been angling for a little snooze.”

  “We know, Mother,” said Molly. “You’ve been snoring for hours while the rest of us have been poring over every word in these old papers.”

  “Well, I’m sure there’s a lesson in that somewhere,” said Cassandra. “But I can’t be bothered to figure it out, because when I opened my eyes just now, I found myself staring at an article about five women who were arrested at a South Street wharf house.”

  Emmett reached up and pulled the crumpled pages from the network of overhead wires. “It’s from late September, so the timing would be right,” he said, smoothing out the article and scanning it. “It doesn’t mention the women’s names, but it does tell us who arrested them: Federal Agent Clark Clark.”

  “That man must have had very cruel parents,” Cassandra said. “Explains a lot, actually.”

  “It says the women were arrested for harboring fugitives who stole government secrets,” said Emmett.

  “Lies!” Molly said, old angers rising up. “We didn’t steal anything. Those ‘secrets’ were ours. If anyone stole anything, it was the government stealing our right to tell our own story!”

  “Ah! Here’s what we’re looking for,” Emmett said. “‘The women were sent up the river to Sing Sing penitentiary to await trial in the spring.’”

  “At least it’s not Blackwell’s,” Cassandra said with a shudder.

  “I know, but—the spring?!” Molly said. “They’ve been locked up all this time without even getting their day in court? That settles it—we’re heading straight upstate to bust our friends out.”

  Robot began crawling to the door.

  “Oh, no, we are not,” said Captain Lee. “I thought I was clear about that.”

  Robot crawled backward.

  “Father, I think we need to at least consider—” Emmett began.

  “Consider what? Making your situation even worse? No, I’m not losing my son again.” Captain Lee squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Look, maybe you’re right and turning yourselves in won’t win you any points with this Agent Clark, but committing an even more serious crime isn’t going to make him any happier with you. Can we consider a third option? Can’t someone go to the governor and advocate for their release?”

  “Who?” Molly asked. “Us, the notorious fugitives who would be arrested on sight? Or you, the man who’s legally dead and has no way to even prove he is who he says he is?”

  “Perhaps we can appeal to Mr. Bell,” the captain began.

  “The man we abandoned at sea because we didn’t trust him?” Cassandra said. “He and the Guild covered up the fact that they ever sent you on that doomed expedition in the first place. Publicly acknowledging that you survived is only going to put
a spotlight on the majority of the crew that didn’t make it back from his secret, experimental mission. I doubt the man wants that.” She had dark half-moons under her eyes and lines around her mouth. It was the first time Molly had ever thought her mother looked old. “Listen,” Cassandra went on, “perhaps there is some sort of hundred-percent safe and legal route to freeing our friends—something that involves paperwork and standing in lines at stodgy offices and waiting for men in expensive suits to make important decisions about our lives—but we don’t have time for that. I don’t have time for that. Right now, I’m going to do whatever I have to do to get all of this over as quickly as possible. We will never feel another moment’s peace until we figure out a way to get the authorities off our backs. I don’t know about the rest of you, but my mind is too frazzled to do that. We need more brains—and the MOI have got them in spades. We have to rescue those women because those women can help us.”

  “And they can help Robot,” Molly added.

  “Helping me is good,” said Robot. “I vote for that idea.”

  After a short silence, Captain Lee spoke up. “I suppose I can’t stop you,” he said. “You Peppers do what you think you need to. We won’t get in your way. But Emmett and I will not be taking part.”

  “Papa—”

  “Emmett, I will not allow it.”

  Emmett looked at the floor.

  Molly opened her mouth, fully intending to give Captain Lee a piece of her mind and tell Emmett they needed him, but before she could, she felt her mother’s hand on her arm. She turned, and Cassandra, still looking at her, said, “Of course we understand, Wendell. You need to do what’s best for you and your family.”