Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues #11)(30)

She opened her bedroom door and stepped out into the hall. Beatrice would know what to do. She was two years older, and Beatrice was the one their parents had been grooming for a major role in the Cahill family. Grace had only been included when it turned out that her sister had no stomach for flying lessons.

Beatrice always had a fuller understanding of the sudden trips their parents used to take on urgent Cahill matters. Maybe she could decipher the strange communication.

“Bea?” She peeked into her sister’s room. “Are you asleep?”

“I was,” came the reply. No one expressed annoyance more thoroughly than Beatrice Cahill. And she had plenty of practice at it. Everything annoyed her.

“I have to show you something.” Grace told her sister of the boat that had come, flashed its message, and disappeared just as abruptly. “Here — I’m turning on the light.”

Blinking in discomfort, Beatrice sat up in bed and examined the paper Grace proffered. “It’s gibberish.”

“Gibberish doesn’t come in Morse code,” Grace insisted. “It was meant for Father.”

“Anybody with a message for Father should know that he hasn’t lived here for more than a year,” Beatrice retorted.

“Not if it’s a Cahill thing,” Grace argued. “The family is scattered around the world. Father might have been keeping in touch with them some other way. You understand more about Cahill business than I do.”

“I understand enough about Cahill business to stay well out of it,” Beatrice said caustically. “There’s nothing about that lot that interests me.”

“Maybe this is about the war! What if Father and his contacts could help put a stop to it?” Nothing would take precedence over that. Millions had died already, and the conflict only seemed to be spreading.

“Whatever it is you think you know about Cahills, let me set you straight. Our family has wasted centuries playing foolish games, stabbing each other in the back and reading all sorts of meaning into meaningless things. If one more coded message shows up for Father, I think I’ll scream.”

Grace stiffened like a pointer. “There were others?”

Her sister shrugged derisively. “I don’t waste my time trying to decipher every moonbeam.”

“But, Beatrice,” Grace pleaded, “you’re the one Mother and Father chose to share the secrets of our family with. Don’t you want that?”

“What I want,” Beatrice said firmly, “is to be a regular, normal person. The Cahill world isn’t normal. I intend to ignore the whole thing. And if you know what’s good for you”— she cast her sister a sharp look — “you’ll follow my example. Now, go to sleep!”

Grace looked into her sister’s eyes. There was another emotion there, concealed by Beatrice’s perpetually sour face.

Fear.

She couldn’t decipher the message any more than Grace could. But one thing Beatrice did understand was that high stakes meant high risks. She wanted no part of the Cahill world because it scared her to death.

Grace withdrew, more disappointed than angry. As usual, there was no talking to Beatrice, who was an immovable mountain when she made up her mind about something.

She looked around at the sumptuously furnished home. Their villa in Monte Carlo was spacious and luxurious, with vast banks of windows that, in daylight, provided breathtaking views of both the mountains and the sea. It had cost millions, and it was only one of five similar residences James Cahill owned around the globe. The wealth alone spoke of their family’s power, but money was only part of the story. The huge house was filled with artworks and artifacts Mother and Father had collected on their extended travels. These hailed from all continents — from every remote corner of the map. Perhaps Beatrice could ignore all this proof of the Cahills’ special role in human history, but not Grace. The world was in chaos. Father had taken himself out of the picture, and his elder daughter had chosen to do likewise.

The mantle must fall to Grace.

I have to do this myself.

Her eyes traveled to the paper and her resolve mingled with unease. Willingness to do something wasn’t the same as knowing what needed to be done.

She set her jaw. Her mother’s death; her father’s disappearance — these were things beyond her control. Her immediate family was unraveling, but this part of it — her parents’ involvement with the Cahill clan — could still be saved.

If she could decipher the cryptic message.

The question remained: How?

Madame Fourchette was in a towering rage. “What shall I say to your father when you grow up ignorant, you silly girl?” the tutor shrilled. “Why can you not be more like your sister?”

“Impossible,” Grace said blandly. “Beatrice is one of a kind.”

“Beatrice has done her assignment, and you have written not a single word! I will have the reason why!”

There was a reason, not that Grace was going to share it with Madame. For the past week, her every waking moment — and even her troubled dreams — had been devoted to trying to make head or tail of the message from the mystery boat. She had scoured the villa’s extensive library and even begged entry into the larger one at the Prince’s Palace, home of the ruling Grimaldis. As far as she could figure, there was absolutely nothing to connect people called Vs, a bull’s-eye, the White House, morning, a torch, and a ring. As for GSP, that was the most baffling part of all. She could not seriously believe that her father was being directed to find a German shorthaired pointer, the Georgia State Patrol, or a green spotted puffer fish.