A King's Ransom

pretend to be asleep … we might fool him. How’s your South Carolina accent, y’all?”

Amy gripped Dan’s wrist. “That’s it!” she exclaimed. “Something has been bothering me about that girl. When we first met her, do you remember how she introduced herself?”

“Sure. ‘Hi, I’m Vanessa Mallory.’”

“‘Vanessa Mallory from Wilmington, South Carolina.’ Wilmington is in North Carolina.”

Dan slowly turned to look at Vanessa. She was now blocked by a couple with a baby. Impatient to get by, she tried to help them with their stroller. Dan noted the tight, angry look on her face as she snarled a remark at the parents. Suddenly, her pretty face looked hard.

Suspicions started to flip through his brain like someone shuffling a deck of cards. Why had she been so friendly? How come she’d agreed to travel with them so quickly? It had seemed like they’d been the ones to approach her and offer to travel together, but did she set herself up to be approached?

They’d been played. By a tuba!

Amy grabbed her backpack. “Come on. We’ve got to get off this train.”

Location Unknown

“It hurts,” Nellie said.

“I know,” Reagan said. “No pain, no gain.”

“Do you think they made that expression up for bullet wounds?”

If Nellie expected Reagan Holt, Olympic-level triathlete, to lighten up on her, she was dreaming. Nellie and Reagan were two hostages standing in a bare concrete bunker, but they might have been in an expensive health club for all the focus Reagan was bringing to the session. She’d refused to acknowledge that Nellie’s bullet wound was any big deal (“Oh, please, it was more like a graze.”), refused to concede that without proper equipment they couldn’t train (“We’ve got a wall and a floor, don’t we?”), and dismissed the idea that Nellie could be too weak to try (“There is no try. Only do. Yoda said that, and he was awesome.”).

“Pain is pain,” Reagan said. “Gain is gain. If you don’t rotate that shoulder, it will freeze up, and you’ll be no help to anybody.”

Nellie wanted to rotate it into Reagan’s chin for a nice, satisfying sucker punch, but she knew her tormentor was right. She rolled her shoulder, letting out a hiss of pain.

Fiske Cahill winced and looked over at her sympathetically. In his jumpsuit he looked so pale and thin. She was used to seeing him in black jeans and sweaters, an elegant bohemian. Natalie Kabra stared vacantly at the same spot on the wall she’d been looking at for the past twenty minutes. Nellie was still waiting for Natalie’s natural gifts as a schemer and a fighter to kick in. So far, no such luck. Alistair Oh lay back on the sofa, his eyes closed. In some ways, Nellie thought, the isolation and deprivation were hardest on Alistair.

No … they were hardest on Phoenix Wizard. Phoenix sat on the floor cross-legged, only a few feet away. He stayed close to Nellie now. He was only twelve years old and he missed his mother. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but Nellie could see every bit of the sorrow and fear he was experiencing in his liquid brown eyes. She winked at him, then made a face behind Reagan’s back. He grinned.

“You’re doing great, Gomez!” Ted Starling cheered her on. He couldn’t see her, but he could hear her grunts and hisses, Nellie knew. Ted had developed phenomenal hearing since he’d lost his sight. He always sat in a chair near the door, just in case he could pick up noises from outside. It was Ted who had determined that they must be underground.

“That’s it. Gently now,” Reagan said to Nellie. “We’ll move on to the hard stuff tomorrow.”

“This … isn’t … the hard stuff?” Nellie spit out through gritted teeth.

Reagan grinned. “You really hate me right now, don’t you?”

“Immeasurably.”

“Good. Give me ten.”

Nellie sighed. Her shoulder felt stiff. It ached. Her stomach felt empty. Whoever was preparing meals for the hostages had a rudimentary grasp of cooking. Peel potatoes. Boil. Serve. Nellie’d been enrolled in a cooking course in Paris when she got seized. She’d been about to enjoy a crisp, buttery croissant and a cafe au lait at her neighborhood cafe …

Do. Not. Think. About. Food.

Nellie pushed against the wall. She straightened her arms, then went forward again in a modified push-up.

“Excellent,” Reagan said.

“Ow,” Nellie grunted.

“Only nine more and you’re done.”

Reagan had dropped to the floor and was doing push-ups.

“Five … nine … ten!” Nellie said. She sank down against the wall, resting her head against it.

“I think,” Reagan said as she moved up and down like a piston, “we should all have a plan to keep in shape.” She jumped up and clapped her hands. “Okay, listen up, people. It’s time we set up an organized schedule for exercise.”

Alistair opened his eyes. “My dear, I haven’t exerted myself in years.”

“Then it’s way past time to start, old man.”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Ted said. “We need to keep our muscles active. And our minds. They’re trying to play with our heads. Classic stuff. Strip us of our identities, not let us know what time it is …”

“Feed us carbs,” Natalie said.

Nellie rolled her shoulder again. She felt perspiration break out at her hairline. She hated to admit it, but Reagan was right. They had to be prepared. There were things they could do.

“I’m going to work on individualized training plans for each of you,” Reagan said. “This is going to be awesome!”

Alistair closed his eyes. “I was right,” he said. “This is hell.”

Amy and Dan moved quickly through the train, adapting their gait to the gentle swaying motion. They passed through the doors into the next car and then the next. Amy glanced behind nervously. The conductor was moving swiftly. Behind him she saw the inspector. Had he seen them? Was he following them?

“We’ve got to find a place to hide!” she hissed to Dan. “He’s gaining on us!”

Dan pointed to a door marked BAGAGLIO. “Remember that the guy said there was a place for oversized luggage?”

“But it’s got to be locked.”

Dan was already fishing in his backpack. He took a long, slender piece of metal and slipped it between the lock and doorjamb. He leaned in and wiggled it.

“What are you doing?” Amy hissed. “And whatever it is, hurry!” She glanced over her shoulder. The inspector was only a car away.

The door popped open and they quickly slipped inside. The small space was crammed with items: bulging overlarge suitcases, trunks, boxes, and a pet carrier with an orange cat that hissed at them angrily.

Amy leaned against the door and waited for her heartbeat to slow. “Since when can you pick a lock?”

“Remember when you paid that security expert to give a seminar at our summer gathering?” Dan asked.

For the past two summers, Amy had gathered together the Madrigals, the under-the-radar branch of the Cahill family, at their mansion in Attleboro. After the race for the 39 Clues, the cousins who had been with Amy and Dan at the end – who had stood together to stop the Clues from falling into the wrong hands – all became Madrigals.

Amy had taken it upon herself to train them. She had also invited experts in all kinds of fields – rock climbers, computer software engineers, race car drivers, cryptologists – to give short seminars. She’d presented it in the spirit of fun, but she had a deeper purpose. For the past two years, she’d been preparing them for this. She and Dan had tangled with the Vespers before, and she’d known in her bones they’d be back. She’d dreaded it.

Only a few months after they’d returned from the Clue hunt, Fiske and Nellie had told them about a ring that