“I figure you kids could use some ‘walking around’ money to go with your new, multimillion-dollar trust fund!” She hacked out a laugh that made the two-inch-long ash tube at the tip of her cigarette fall off.
With our money worries officially over, the four of us piled into the back of a very swanky stretch limousine.
“Where to?” asked the driver.
“New York,” said Beck.
I countered with “Cyprus.”
“Hang on, you guys,” said Tommy. “I’m starving.”
“Me, too,” said Storm.
Now that they mentioned it, Beck and I both agreed that food would be an excellent first investment.
“Who makes the best cheeseburgers in Miami?” I asked.
“Easy,” said the driver. “Cheeseburger Baby in South Beach.”
So that was where we went, singing “Cheese-burger in Paradise” through the open sunroof the whole way.
CHAPTER 26
The neon in the window at Cheeseburger Baby said, YO! WE’RE OPEN.
We hurried in and grabbed stools at the counter. We were so hungry, everybody—including the limo driver, who hadn’t had lunch and was happy to hear we were treating—ordered the one-pound double cheeseburger. Tommy, being the eating machine that he is, had considered going with the Punisher, a five-pound burger. If you finish it, you get a free T-shirt and your picture in the Cheeseburger Baby Hall of Fame.
“The T-shirt wouldn’t look good over a bloated beef belly,” he decided.
Storm had a side of cheddar cheese fries with a side of chili cheese fries. Beck and I went with the onion rings.
And we all had root beer floats.
Several of them. This led to a lot of happy burping, which, of course, attracted a lot of attention, including the giggles of several attractive girls. They admired Tommy’s “appetite.” I think he admired their bathing suits.
So he decided to treat them to milk shakes.
And their friends.
And their friends’ friends.
Before long, we were buying everybody in the restaurant—including a couple of beefy guys with handlebar mustaches and a girl in sunglasses who might’ve been Beyoncé—thick and creamy shakes.
Finally, we settled our tab with four of our crisp one-hundred-dollar bills and slipped another Benjamin (Tommy told me that’s the cool way to say “one-hundred-dollar bill”) on the countertop to tip the grill guys, waitstaff, and shake makers. Stuffed, we waddled out to our waiting limo.
“That was fun,” I said, stretching out in the backseat and letting loose with a five-second sonic-boom belch. “But now we need to seriously discuss what we’re going to do with our money.”
“Invest it,” said Storm. “I’m pretty good on E-Trade.”
“Come back here tomorrow,” said Tommy. “Some of those girls wrote their phone numbers on napkins.”
“Complete Dad’s plan,” said Beck. “We sail on to New York.”
“No,” I said. “We need to head back to Cyprus and rescue Mom.”
And that was the start of Twin Tirade No. 428.
I think it was one of our longest. It was definitely one of our loudest and most public—right in front of Storm and Tommy, who tried to ignore us by staring out the limo’s tinted windows at all the palm trees rolling by. The driver turned up his radio to drown us out.
“Mom’s dead!” screamed Beck.
“No, she’s not!” I screamed back.
“You’re a dreamer, Bickford.”
“So? Without dreams, what’ve you got?”
“A note from Dad that says ‘go to New York,’ idiot!”
The tirade continued the entire drive from South Beach back to the marina.
It kept going while Storm paid the driver and Tommy shook his head and rolled his eyes.
In fact, Beck and I were still Twin Tirading all the way up the jetty and out to the berth where we had docked The Lost.
We only stopped when a man in mirrored sunglasses stepped out of the deckhouse on our boat and shouted, “Rebecca? Bickford? Knock it off. You two are giving me a headache!”
CHAPTER 27
The man in the mirrored sunglasses—who started jabbering into one of those Bluetooth earpieces that made him look like he should be on Star Trek—was our Uncle Timothy.
He’s not really our uncle; he is (or was?) Dad’s best friend.
“Expedite the extraction,” I heard him say to nobody, which meant he was saying it to whoever was in his ear.
By the way, I have never seen Uncle Timothy without his shades or a cell-phone accessory jammed against his head. I think they’re both surgically attached to his skull.
“The assets are in position,” he said. “Extract the package at twenty-three hundred hours. You are good to go.”
Uncle Timothy was always saying junk like that to someone. For a long time, I thought maybe he worked for UPS or FedEx.
“How are you guys holding up?” he asked.
None of us answered him because we thought he was still talking to his Bluetooth.
“Thomas?”
“Hmm?”
“How are you kids doing?”
Tommy patted his tummy. “Little full right now, Uncle Tim, but, you know, hanging in.”
“Well, don’t you guys worry. I heard what happened to your dad. I’m here to take over for him on The Lost.”
“Um, Uncle Timothy?” I said.
“Yeah, Bick?”
“How’d you ‘hear’ about Dad?”
“Hang on.” He put two fingers to his Bluetooth. “Well, check the weather forecast again. Clouds move in at twenty-two-thirty. The low ceiling will block out the full moon, so the drop zone will be dark. Follow the protocol. Extract the package. I don’t remember exactly where I heard about it, Bick. I just did.”
I guessed he was talking to me again. Which made me wonder if I was supposed to go pick up a package for him.
“Uh, well,” I said, “it’s just kind of interesting that you know about Dad’s disappearance when we haven’t really told anybody about it.”
“But,” said Beck, sounding suspicious, “everybody seems to know about it. You, Louie Louie…”
“Did he have the amulet?” said Uncle Timothy.
“Dad?” I said.
“No. Louie Louie.”
“Yeah,” said Tommy. “Louie had it. But we traded a mask for it.”
“Good. The mask is meaningless. The bee is key.”
“Totally,” said Tommy. “I guess. Not really sure what that means or why everybody keeps saying it—”
“What’s in the briefcase?” said Uncle Timothy, quickly shifting gears and gesturing at the aluminum attaché case Storm was hugging to her chest with both arms.
“Oh, that’s—” Tommy started.
I cut him off. “Our new tool kit. Keeps everything organized in tidy slots. Hammer, screw-drivers, wrenches, a whole set of those angled things nobody ever uses. Well, Uncle Tim, it was great to see you again.”
“And,” said Beck, “if we need help, we’ll definitely be in touch.”
“Hey,” I said, “maybe you should give us your cell number.”
“No need, Bickford. I’m staying on board The Lost.”
“Why?” said Storm bluntly. “We’re doing fine. We don’t really need your help,”
“Yes, Stephanie. You do. Your father designated me as your legal guardian in the event of a disaster, and I think him falling into the ocean during a tropical storm and drowning qualifies. How about you?”
I was about to say “Dad isn’t dead” when Uncle Timothy whipped out a stack of four official-looking documents. They all had GUARDIANSHIP AFFIDAVIT printed across the top, the words bracketed by the official state seal of Florida.
The forms listed our names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers. They were also signed, sworn to, and notarized. They could have been forgeries, but if they were fakes, they were good ones.
“So, what do you guys
want to do for dinner tonight? Maybe head into South Beach and grab some cheeseburgers?”
Ugh. Chowing with Uncle Timothy was the last thing I wanted—except for him taking over The Lost.
But it looked like we had no choice.
Uncle Timothy was staying.
CHAPTER 28
The next morning, Tommy and I went through our presail checklist—we disconnected the shore power cord from the dock pedestal, tied down the jib sheets, attached the mainsail halyard shackle, and did about forty other things we do every time we shove off.
We had taken a late-night family vote while Uncle Timothy was pacing around the poop deck jabbering into his cell phone about “dry cleaning,” “blowback,” and “chicken feed” (I figured he was chatting with a farmer who’d had an unfortunate accident in his chicken coop and needed to get his overalls professionally laundered) and decided that we would use our flush bank account to follow Dad’s mysterious instructions and head up to New York City so Professor Lewis could authenticate the Minoan bee amulet. We would not be hopping on the next flight to Cyprus to rescue Mom.
We told Uncle Timothy about our plans to head north.
We did not tell him about the cash in the briefcase.
Then, around 10 AM, we learned why it doesn’t always pay to treat people to chocolate milk shakes.
While Tommy and I were prepping The Lost, two Miami police officers, both with handlebar mustaches, showed up at our berth. That’s right. The same two handlebar-mustached dudes from Cheeseburger Baby.
“Belay that line, son,” said the one as he climbed aboard The Lost.
“We need to talk to you,” said the other, as he boarded behind his partner.
“Uh, hi, guys,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Why don’t you tell us?” said the one.
“Then we’ll all know,” said the other.
“You kids were flashing a lot of cash yesterday.”
“Too much for kids your age.”
“Where’d you come up with that kind of money?”
“Are you running drugs on this vessel?”
They kept badgering Tommy and me, hammering us with questions, never really giving us a chance to answer.
“Maybe you two and your sisters need to spend a night as our guests,” said the one.
“In the Miami-Dade Juvenile Detention Center,” said the other.
“Or we could ship you straight into foster care.”
“Or an orphanage.”
“Cheeseburgers aren’t very good in an orphanage.”
“Neither are the onion rings.”
That’s when Uncle Timothy, trailed by Beck and Storm, stepped out of the deckhouse.
“Good morning, officers. Are my sons in some kind of trouble?”
“Your sons?”
“That’s right.” Uncle Timothy shot out his arm to shake hands with the police officers. “I’m Timothy Kidd. These are my sons, Thomas and Bickford. My lovely daughters, Stephanie and Rebecca.”
“Well, maybe you can answer a few questions for us.”
“I’ll try,” said Uncle Timothy, adjusting his mirrored sunglasses.
“Where did your kids come up with enough cash to buy everybody in Cheeseburger Baby a milk shake?” said the one.
“And fries,” said the other. “I had fries, too.”
“Easy. I give my children a very generous allowance. I suppose I spoil them. But, you see, ever since their mother died, well…”
Uncle Timothy acted like the memory of our dead mom was choking him up.
“Excuse me, officers. I don’t mean to weep like this. It’s just that you’ve stirred up some very painful memories. We… all… miss… her… so… much… BWAAAAAH!”
Uncle Timothy started blubbering. The two officers began backing up.
“That’s okay, Mr. Kidd.”
“Sorry for the intrusion.”
“Our condolences on your loss.”
“And, uh, thanks, kids. For the milk shakes.”
Then they basically ran out of the marina.
When they were gone, Uncle Timothy touched his Bluetooth earpiece and wandered back into the deckhouse. “Sorry about that, Dieter. Family emergency. Call Paris. Contact the DGSE.…”
“Okay,” said Beck, when he was gone. “I guess we owe the guy one.”
We all nodded. He hadn’t even asked us about the cash the cops said we were flashing.
But he’d known about our dad going overboard without our telling him.
So there was really no way to be sure: Was Uncle Timothy a good guy or a bad guy?
CHAPTER 29
Before we got a chance to figure out what was really up with Uncle Timothy, he received another cell phone call that sent him tearing out of Miami in a sleek silver craft that looked more like an aerodynamic spaceship than a motorboat.
As he was packing up his things, he said, “Sorry, kids, I have urgent business to attend to. But remember: Your father is counting on you to take care of his urgent business. Follow the plan he laid out for you. Take this thing all the way to New York!”
We set sail about twenty minutes later, just the four of us again. But an hour out of port, I was kind of wishing Uncle Timothy were still on board pretending to be our father.
Because three very menacing skiffs had appeared on the horizon.
Tommy raised his binoculars. “They don’t look very friendly.”
They also looked like they had outboard racing motors attached to the squared-off sterns of their flat-bottomed hulls.
“I count three men in two of the boats, two in the other,” said Tommy.
“Are they pirates?” asked Beck.
“They look more like surfer dudes,” said Tommy, lowering his binocs.
As if he was trying to prove Tommy wrong, one of the guys in the second boat stood up and started waving a red Jolly Roger flag—emblazoned with a football. I think he’d bought it at a Tampa Bay Bucs souvenir shop.
“We need more speed,” Tommy barked. “Pull down on the boom and stretch the mainsail. Lose that twist up at the top.”
“Aye, aye!” Beck and I scampered up on top of the deckhouse to deal with the mainsail.
When we’d made the adjustments, The Lost definitely picked up speed.
“I want the wind coming at us from the side!” Tommy shouted as he yanked the wheel hard to port. “Storm? Set my sails forty-five degrees to the wind!”
Storm did some lightning-fast trigonometry in her head and started calling out vectors and tacks for Tommy to take to put our sails in primo position.
Soon we were clipping along at twice the speed of the wind.
But even the swiftest sailboats have a top speed. The faster we flew, the longer the waves alongside our hull grew. Finally, we passed our limit, what they call hull speed, and it was like we were sailing uphill, fighting our own wake.
In no time, one of the skiffs was right behind us. The other two were coming alongside our port and starboard.
“Slack your mainsail!” screamed the man standing in the bow of the boat directly behind us. “Or I’ll slack it for you!”
He was gripping the wooden stock of a battered machine gun and had bandoliers of bullets draped across his chest.
Two grappling hooks came swinging over the sides and caught hold on our handrails.
“Slack that sail, duder!” The man behind us blasted a quick burst of machine-gun fire into the air.
“Slack the sail, Bick,” Tommy called out. “Beck, cast off the headsail sheet. Let it fly!”
We did as Tommy said. The Lost dumped all the wind in its sails and swung sideways like a weather vane, our bow ending up pointing in the direction that the wind was blowing. We basically stopped on a dime and dragged those two hooked-on pirate skiffs with us.
The guy with the machine gun—a tattooed surfer dude with long, greasy hair and a hipster chin beard—hopped onto our stern. His seven surfer dude buddies boarded after him.
“Bodacious sai
ling, hotdogger,” the pirate leader said to Tommy up in the wheelhouse as his scurvy pals swarmed down the sides of our ship, sliding all sorts of clacking levers to rack fresh rounds into their weapons. They all looked like tanned rejects from a biker bar.
“But now, Skipper Dipper,” the pirate leader continued, “you need to take a chill pill, dig?”
Tommy just stood in the wheelhouse, glaring down at the cluster of nasty pirates and shielding Storm, who had slid behind him for cover. Beck and I held our position on top of the deckhouse. For a second, I thought about swinging out the boom arm and bowling over some of the thugs. But I’d only be able to hit half of them before the other half opened fire with their wicked assortment of weapons.
“Chillax, little duders. We don’t want any of your conquistador helmets or coconut heads.”
His friends all chuckled.
“We just want what’s in The Room.”
CHAPTER 30
“Come on, mis amigos,” yelled the pirate captain. “We need to be downstairs.”
Beck and I glanced at each other. Our eyes were asking the same question: How could these gnarly surfer pirates know about The Room?
The eight jangling surfer hoods scampered into the deckhouse. This was really weird. They didn’t even leave somebody to guard us. Hey, if you have to get your ship invaded by pirates, I highly recommend the dumb surfer kind!
“Tommy?” I called out.
“Let’s roll,” he said. “Beck? Stick with Storm.”
“On it.”
Tommy and I slid down the ladder from the poop deck and bolted into the deckhouse. Amazingly, none of the pirates were plundering any of the treasure on display in the salon, except one short headbanger with a ponytail who was trying on the conquistador helmet.
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