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inheritance, these stupid old books wouldn’t even be an issue. But nooooo. She didn’t leave me a dime—”
    â€œShe left you with a mansion and a million-dollar dog,” Otter said flatly.
    â€œSure, sure. A million-dollar dog and a
day job
at the stupid bank my family started a billion years ago,” Hastings said, waving his hand in the air. “I’m not even an upper-level manager, you know! They say I have to get a stupid degree for that. But anyway, you really think you can find them?” Hastings asked as he led us upstairs. “I’d do anything to get them back. They’re worth even more now.”
    I tried to scowl at him—I could practically see him calculating how much money he’d make selling his grandmother’s prized possession.
    â€œIt won’t be easy. But we’ll try,” I said. The truth was, this was getting more and more hopeless. Those books could have been divided up. They could have been broken down, the jeweled covers split into a thousand pieces and sold separately.
    On the way back upstairs, we crossed paths with Kennedy and Clatterbuck, as well as Annabelle, who was walking behind them so slowly that if you’d told me she was sleepwalking, I would’ve believed you.
    â€œShe’s moving?” Hastings said, looking alarmed. “She never moves.”
    Annabelle looked up at him with droopy, tired eyes, then back at Kennedy. Her tail began to wag a bit. Hastings looked offended, while Kennedy looked delighted.
    â€œThat’s right! Good girl!” Kennedy cried, and fed her a piece of a toaster waffle.
    â€œWhat are you—she’s a show dog! She can’t have waffles. Go to the kitchen—there are some t-r-e-a-t-s in the silver canister,” Hastings said grouchily.
    â€œWe tried those. She doesn’t like them,” Kennedy said pointedly, like this was something Hastings should have known (and really, he should have). “Come on, Annabelle, let’s go find a toy.”
    Kennedy’s enthusiasm seemed to be rubbing off on the dog, because Annabelle trotted after her—actually
trotted
.Hastings looked like he was worried about her, what with all that movement.
    â€œAny luck with the books?” Clatterbuck interrupted Hastings’s alarm.
    â€œWe’re getting there,” I lied. “Beatrix and Ben are putting together all the information from earlier. Mr. Hastings, why don’t you go see if there’s anything they’ve missed while the three of us talk this through?” I suggested. Hastings shrugged and walked off. The hair covering his bald spot flapped a bit as he went by the air-conditioning vent. Once he was out of sight, Otter and I sighed in unison.
    â€œThat bad?” Clatterbuck asked.
    â€œThere’s no point. There was only one solid team of art thieves working Europe twenty years ago, only one team that took things like books and furniture and statues instead of focusing on paintings, like most thieves.”
    â€œWho?” Clatterbuck asked.
    Otter laughed meanly and then looked at me. “Your parents, Jordan.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    My parents were not art thieves.
    They just weren’t. They were heroes, and it wasn’t like you could just rob a little old lady of some fancy books and
not
know that was a decidedly unheroic thing to do.
    â€œSRS did a lot of bad things, Jordan, and your parents were SRS agents. Art theft was their
thing
actually—that’s how they got partnered up,” Otter said smugly on the way back to the
poney
farm.
    â€œYour theory doesn’t make sense even if my parents
were
thieves. If SRS had the books, they could just promise to return them to Hastings to blackmail him. They wouldn’t need to bring Annabelle into it at all. There are a dozen way more likely scenarios, and probably thousands of art thieves in the world.”
    Otter snorted. “Sure. And most of them work for