Chapter 21 - Lila
LILA
Lila’s heart hammered in her chest as she and Brian stood at the threshold of the vault.
“Okay,” she whispered, looking down at the book. “According to this, we need to avoid the third tile completely. Step on the second one, then jump to the fifth.”
“Got it,” Brian said, his voice tight.
They stepped forward together.
Lila’s foot hit the second tile.
Nothing happened.
She let out a breath and jumped to the fifth tile.
Behind them, she heard her mother’s sharp intake of breath.
“We’re fine,” Lila called back.
“Are you sure about this?” Brian whispered beside her.
“No,” Lila admitted. “But it’s what Gran wrote, and everything else has been accurate so far.”
They moved forward slowly, following the pattern in the book. Step, jump, duck, sidestep.
A ball swung down from the ceiling.
“Down!” Lila yelled.
They both dropped flat.
The ball whooshed over their heads.
“We’re fine!” Lila called again, hearing the collective gasp from behind them.
“You’d better be,” her mother’s voice came back, shaky and terrified.
They got to their feet and kept moving.
The floor tile ahead of them looked exactly like all the others, but according to the book, stepping on it would trigger tear gas.
“Jump over this one,” Lila told Brian.
They jumped together, landing on the other side.
“How much farther?” Brian asked, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool basement air.
“Almost there,” Lila said, her eyes scanning ahead.
They were maybe ten feet from the cabinet now.
She could see it clearly. A sliding door. Behind it would be the safe itself.
They navigated around two more traps, one that shot rubber balls from the walls and another that would have locked their ankles if they’d stepped in the wrong spot.
“Great, mini dodgeball,” Brian muttered.
Finally, they reached the end of the vault.
Lila and Brian stood there, staring at the cabinet.
She opened the book with trembling hands and read softly.
“David knew he had to do something that he didn’t want to do.” She frowned as she saw the illustration. “He had to use the item his mother had given him. The one thing that connected him to home.”
“That looks like...” Brian said softly, his eyes widening as he looked at the drawing.
“The Heart of Isabella,” Lila whispered. Her hand went to the locket around her neck. “I knew there was more to the locket.”
They stood with their backs to the people watching from the vault entrance, their bodies blocking the view of what they were doing.
Lila carefully opened the book wider and read the next page.
“You have to dismantle it?” Brian looked at her in shock.
“It seems so,” Lila said, quickly slipping the locket off.
“What’s the hold up?” Preston’s voice echoed down the long vault, sharp and impatient.
An idea struck Lila suddenly.
She looked at Brian. “I have an idea.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is it one that could get us shot?”
“Maybe,” Lila admitted.
“Hello?” Preston was getting more impatient. “What’s taking so long?”
Lila turned her head slightly, raising her voice. “We’re trying to disarm the room so you can come and get whatever it is you want.”
“Hurry up then,” Preston snarled.
“Lila,” David’s voice carried down to her, low and warning. “Whatever it is you’re about to do...”
“It’s fine, David,” she emphasized his name deliberately. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Leave her alone,” Preston warned him.
David
Mia moved closer to David, her shoulder brushing his.
He had a very bad feeling his granddaughter was about to do something really stupid.
And really brave.
“Can she do that, Dad?” Mia asked, her voice barely audible.
Dad.
The word hit David like a physical blow.
She’d called him Dad three times since the previous night. Each time, it made everything around him nearly dissolve. Made twenty-eight years of loss and longing compress into a single moment of almost unbearable emotion.
He swallowed it down with effort.
Gave his head a small shake.
Mia sucked in a sharp breath. Eve, standing close beside her, stiffened. They’d both understood.
“We need to stop her,” Mia whispered.
“Let me help them,” David called out to Preston.
He took a step forward toward the vault. Calvin’s fist slammed into his gut, driving the air from his lungs and making him stagger backward.
“Hey!” Lila’s voice rang out, sharp and furious. “Stop that!”
“Then you’d better hurry,” Preston told her coldly. “Or you’ll witness more than just a beating.”
David could barely contain his rage.
The man was threatening his granddaughter. Scaring her.
But beneath the anger was something else.
Pride.
Secret, fierce pride that his beautiful, courageous granddaughter had gotten this far on her own.
That she was solving puzzles he’d created nearly three decades ago.
Puzzles that would make any adult, no matter how intelligent, baffled if they didn’t understand the basics.
As he watched her with bated breath and probably at least tend new ulcers, he couldn’t help notice how fearless Lila was.
So much like Nancy, it made his chest ache.
She truly was remarkable.
Lila
“Whatever we’re going to do,” Brian warned quietly, his back still to their captors, “we need to do it now.”
“I need you to follow my lead,” Lila told him, her fingers working at the locket. “As soon as I put the locket into that hole, it’s going to register as not the correct object.”
“But it is...” Brian started.
“No.” Lila shook her head. She quickly dismantled the locket enough to show him.
Inside the ruby heart, nestled in a hidden compartment, was a smaller mechanism.
A tiny key made of what looked like platinum.
“This part is.” She took it out and secretly pocketed it.
“The locket itself is another booby trap. A safeguard.”
“Ah,” Brian’s eyes widened with understanding. “Please tell me we’re not about to get gassed or something.”
“Okay, we’re not about to get gassed or something,” Lila said.
Then she flipped to a page in the book that showed how David Dare had stopped the bad guys from infiltrating the vault.
By trapping them inside it.
“Oh, great,” Brian sighed. “Those wipe puffs pouring into the room are not gas at all.” He raised his brows hopefully. “I’m hoping you’re going to say it’s cold blasts of air.”
“How long can you hold your breath?” Lila asked, giving him a pained look.
“Hopefully long enough to clear the vault and dodge all the objects flying at us,” Brian blew out a breath.
“Tick tock, young people,” Preston hissed again.
Lila turned slightly, keeping her voice calm. “Okay, we need about twenty seconds to get to the end. The moment the fake key is put into the lock, the vault door will slam shut. You need to hold your breath and dodge the balls and floor traps to get back to the door so I can unlock it again.”
“And Preston?” Brian whispered.
“The gas will knock him out if a ball doesn’t,” Lila said. “But we need to time it just right. The moment Preston steps into the vault, I’ll tell him where to step so he doesn’t get knocked out by the door trap. We need to lock him in so if one of the traps doesn’t get him, the knockout gas will.”
“That’s an ambitious plot,” Brian said.
“It’s the only way,” Lila told him.
“Ready?” she asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” Brian said.
Then he leaned over and kissed her.
Quick. Soft. Over before she could fully process it.
“Just in case we get shot,” he whispered.
Lila’s face flushed hot, her heart going wild in her chest.
She forced herself to focus.
“Okay, you pull open the cabinet, and I’ll insert the locket. We need to do this in sync.”
She took a breath and turned. “Get ready.” Brian nodded.
“Okay, we’ve disarmed it,” she called out as they both turned to look at the door on the other side of the vault. “You, but only you, Preston, can come in. The pressure pads won’t take anyone else’s weight.”
“You’d better not be telling me a lie, young lady,” Preston warned, his voice deadly. “Because I’ll have your mother killed first.”
“Just step on the second tile, though, as I can’t stop the first trap,” Lila told him, hoping to build his confidence in her instructions.
Preston nodded slowly. His gun was still in his hand as he carefully stepped into the vault.
“Walk in a straight line,” Lila instructed, her voice steady despite her racing heart.
“Lila,” David hissed from behind Preston.
She glanced at him, then deliberately let her eyes slide to Milly.
“It’s okay,” she said clearly. “I’ve disarmed the knockout gas.”
She saw Milly’s eyebrows rise slightly. The woman gave the slightest of nods, understanding flashing in her eyes.
Preston was halfway down the vault now, moving carefully, following Lila’s instructions.
“Now,” Lila whispered to Brian.
They spun in unison.
Brian slid the cabinet door open.
Lila slammed the locket into the circular hole.
There was a mechanical grinding sound.
Suddenly, the vault door slammed shut with a deafening clang.
“One, two, three,” Lila counted.
They both drew in a deep breath.
“What on earth...” Preston started.
A trapdoor opened beneath his feet.
He stumbled.
“Oomph!”
A ball swung from the left, hitting him in the shoulder.
“Thud!”
Gas began pouring from vents in the ceiling, filling the vault with thick white vapor.
“Go!” Lila yelled to Brian, cupping her hand over her mouth
They ran toward the door, weaving between the swinging balls, jumping over the floor traps they’d so carefully avoided on the way in.
“I’m going to kill all of you!” Preston’s voice rang out behind them, choked and furious.
As they ran past him, Lila looked up.
Through the small glass window in the door, she could see David’s face. His hand was pounding on the glass, his mouth moving, saying something she couldn’t hear over the chaos.
She was three feet from the door.
Preston’s hand shot out and grabbed her ankle.
Lila crashed to the floor, her chin hitting the hard surface. Pain exploded through her jaw.
Brian yelled, sucking in air reflexively.
He staggered slightly, the gas affecting him.
“Don’t breathe in!” Lila coughed, trying to wrench her ankle free.
Preston’s grip was like iron.
Through the white fog, she could see his face. Furious. Determined.
And still conscious.
His other hand, the one holding the gun, was raised toward her.
Lila’s hand scrabbled at the floor, searching for something, anything.
Brian flew over her. She turned to see Brian’s leg as it swung out and connected with Pretson’s head. The man lurched, and a ball swung from the ceiling, hitting him square in the chest.
Preston roared in pain and fury.
His grip loosened just enough for Lila to yank her ankle free and scramble forward on her hands and knees. Brian reached down, and they were both trying not to breathe or cough as she helped her up. They staggered forward, reaching the door.
Their eyes met, and Brian nodded. Her lungs were burning. She needed to breathe. Needed air.
Her vision was starting to blur at the edges. Her hand shook as she reached toward the keypad.