Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues #11)(51)

Fiske picked it up off the seat. “Not necessarily.”

He balanced the picture ID on his knee, then snapped a few photos of it with his phone. “I’ll send this to Erasmus. He’s got a database of possible Vespers in his head.”

“Don’t forget to tell him about the tattoo,” Dan said.

Fiske nodded as he rapidly punched the information into his phone.

The face of the Vesper stared up at Dan. The guy looked like a student, not a criminal master mind. He would have passed him on the street without a second look.

Fiske’s phone buzzed. He held it up so that they could read the message.

CASPER WYOMING VERY DANGEROUS. DO NOT APPROACH.

“Casper, Wyoming?” Dan asked incredulously. “We’re nowhere near it.”

“It’s not a city,” Fiske said. “It’s a name.”

” ‘Very dangerous,’ ” Amy repeated. “Well, at least he doesn’t know where we are. Or where we’re going.”

“Do we? Dan asked.

“We do,” Fiske told them. “I figured out what Grace was trying to tell me. It’s so obvious I didn’t see it.”

“So where are we going?” Amy asked.

“Zermatt, Switzerland,” Fiske announced. “You’ll get to see the Alps after all!”

As the sleek, comfortable train rocketed through the picturesque countryside, Fiske spread Grace’s note on his lap and settled his reading glasses on his nose.

” ‘Compass points,’ ” he said. “It was driving me crazy. Compass points refers to the Matterhorn.”

“Isn’t that the ride at Disneyland?” Dan asked.

“Exactly,” Fiske said. “And it’s based on the mountain in Switzerland. It has four faces, each oriented in a different direction — north, south —”

“— east, west,” Amy finished. “Compass points. But I still don’t get how you figured out it was the mountain.”

“Matte means meadow in German, and horn means peak. That was the other clue, in case I didn’t get ‘compass points.’ Our parents owned a chalet in Zermatt,” Fiske said. “Grace and Beatrice went there when they were young. Then Father died, and somehow it was never sold. Then, when I dropped out of college … which, by the way, you should never do —” He interrupted himself, looking at them over his glasses.

Dan rolled his eyes at Amy. “Thanks for the lecture, Uncle Fiske, but can you get to the point?”

“After I dropped out, Grace treated me to a trip to Europe. One of the stops was the chalet. She had never gone back before. I think it reminded her too much of happier days. Anyway, we had our last visit together for what turned out to be … a very long time. I was afraid of what Grace thought of me. I thought she’d call me a wimp. Because I wanted out. Out of the whole Cahill family, out of the games and the betrayals and the stupid petty jealousies … The rest of the Cahills thought I was weak because I didn’t want to play.”

Amy and Dan sat straight and still. Fiske had never talked much about his life. He had told them how he’d dropped out and “bummed around the world” for years. He’d never explained, and they’d never asked.

“I knew Grace wanted me to help her. I knew she needed me to watch her back. But she did a generous thing. She told me to go and never come back. She told me to get lost.”

“Wow, I tell Amy to get lost all the time,” Dan said. “It never works.”

“She meant get lost, really lose myself so that the Cahills could never find me. She said that one day they’d forget about me because I wasn’t useful anymore. She was right about that, by the way. But back then, she gave me her blessing. And a Swiss bank account,” he added, smiling. “Grace was always practical. So I got lost. I lived in Thailand for a while, New Zealand, Bali … settled in Portugal. We were in touch, would see each other from time to time. And when she called me home I booked my flight that same day. I knew she was dying. She didn’t have to tell me.”

There was a short silence. Amy felt the slight swaying of the train and blinked at the green meadows floating by outside the window. That bond — sister and brother — had held strong. It didn’t matter that Fiske had gone underground. Grace had made sure he was all right.

“It was Grace who raised me. I was her baby. So the fact that she let me go” — Fiske cleared his throat — “was the most generous act she could do.”

Dan looked down at the note. “So what about potatoes?”

“That’s the part that’s confusing,” Fiske said. “We roasted potatoes in the fire, but not at the chalet. We certainly didn’t do it on every birthday.”

“Maybe the point isn’t the potatoes,” Amy said. “Maybe it’s the fireplace.”

Fiske nodded. “The chalet has a big fireplace — the ring could be hidden there. You know, in Grace’s last days, she told me I could do anything I wanted with what was left — the mansion, the Nantucket house, the paintings, the books — but I was never to sell the chalet, or even modernize it or change it in any way. She had hired a local woman as a caretaker for it, so it was well tended. I was to pass it to Amy. I didn’t understand it at the time. I thought maybe you were a terrific skier or something, Amy.”