Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3 Amy lined up listening devices on the desk. After Nellie had destroyed the Kabra bug, the Cahill kids had belatedly searched the entire hotel room, as they should have from the very beginning. They'd found three more bugs: an ingeniously tiny one inside a lamp; an elegant one on a picture frame that Amy had originally thought was part of the artwork; and, under the bed, a rather crude one that looked like it might have been built by a football player with thick fingers. "Ekat," Amy said, pointing at the ingenious one. "Janus," Dan said, pointing at the artistic one. "Tomas," Nellie said, pointing at the crude one and rolling her eyes. "And the Kabra one was Lucian, so that's everybody," Amy said. They were naming off branches of the Cahill family—the other branches searching for the

Clues. Each branch was descended from one of the four feuding children of Gideon and Olivia Cahill: Katherine, Jane, Thomas, and Luke. Only the Madrigals—Amy and Dan's branch— knew that there'd also been a fifth sibling born after the family fell apart: Madeleine. My ancestor, Amy thought. It was nice to know where she fit. She'd been longing for that knowledge ever since the Clue hunt began. But do I really fit if I don't try to do what the Madrigals want? she wondered. Dan shoved the three bugs a little closer together on the desk. He raised his fist above them, ready to smash them all in one blow. "Three, two, one…" he counted down dramatically. At the very last minute before his hand hit the bugs, Amy grabbed his wrist. "What are you doing?" he asked, trying to jerk away from her. "Are you nuts?" "I have to talk to you," Amy said. She gestured toward the bathroom and pulled on his wrist. Dan

frowned but followed along. Nellie pointed to herself and raised her eyebrows as if to ask, "Me, too?" Amy nodded. In the bathroom, Amy turned on the faucets in the sink and the bathtub full blast. Together, they made a sound like a waterfall. Nellie and Dan had to lean in close to hear what Amy was saying. There was no danger her words would be picked up by any bug. "If we're just trying to make sure the Kabras don't win, should we throw some help to the other teams? Let them know our lead?" she asked. "And… doesn't that fit with what the Madrigals want us to do?" "Are you kidding?" Dan said. "You want to just give away our hard work?" "What if you share your answers and then, I don't know, the horrible Holts end up ruling the world?" Nellie asked. The Holts were the Tomas representatives: Eisenhower and Mary-Todd Holt and their three kids— Hamilton, Reagan, and Madison.

"Hamilton's not so bad," Dan said. "Okay, but Eisenhower?" Nellie said. Eisenhower Holt was a muscle-bound, knuckle headed buffoon. And he was there when Mom and Dad died, Amy thought. She clenched her fists, as if that could smash the Holts' clumsily made bug. "Uncle Alistair can be okay," Dan offered. "He hasn't betrayed us… recently." Alistair Oh, an Ekat, had teamed up with them more than anyone else. But he'd also double- crossed them again and again. Then, during a horrifying fire on an Indonesian island, he'd made sure that they got to safety before him. He'd even seemed willing to sacrifice his life for theirs. Was that enough to redeem him? He lied to us in China after that, Amy thought. And he was also there when Mom and Dad died. He didn't start the fire that killed them, but… he didn't save them, either. "How do you know the Ekat bug is Alistair's, not Bae Oh's?" Nellie asked, making a face. Bae Oh was Alistair's uncle and a completely

unpleasant old man. He would have let Amy and Dan die in Egypt if Nellie hadn't rescued them. Amy's fists clenched tighter. The Ekat bug would have to be destroyed, too. "So that leaves the Janus," Nellie said. "You want to tip off Jonah Wizard? Want to let him add 'king of the world' to all his other titles?" Jonah Wizard was already an international hip- hop star, bestselling pop-up book author, and Pez dispenser model. The only thing bigger than his fame was his ego. Amy waited for Dan to defend Jonah so she could squash his arguments flat. Dan had kind of bonded with Jonah in China. But Dan just got a stunned look on his face. "Whoa," he said. "Are you sure Jonah's still on the hunt? When was the last time we saw him looking for a clue?" "He wasn't in Tibet. Or the Bahamas. Or Jamaica," Nellie mused. "Could the great Jonah Wizard actually have given up?" "There's a bug out there that has 'Janus' written all over it," Amy pointed out.

"Maybe Cora Wizard is doing her own dirty work now," Nellie said. Cora Wizard. Jonah's mother. Amy could barely remember ever meeting the woman. No, wait. She could. That night, Amy thought. I saw her there the night our parents died, too. Amy had to grip the counter. She felt the blood drain from her face. "We can't let Cora Wizard win," she whispered. Nellie and Dan looked at her. Both of them seemed to understand instantly. "So that's it. You can't trust any of the other teams," Nellie said. "Not really. Not all together." "Duh," Dan said. "We knew that a month ago." Amy blinked back something that might have been tears. She hoped Nellie and Dan would just think it was steam from the sink and bathtub faucets running full blast. "Then how do the Madrigals possibly think we can—" she began. "Power," Dan said. "We have to win. And then