“You didn’t tell Dad.” It was partly a reiteration and partly a question.

“I told you that he died before I had the chance.” Mom sniffled. “We still don’t know who set fire to his overturned car.”

Oh dear.

Helen wanted to rush to her, to hold Mom in her arms, to tell her she would fix everything.

No. Only God could fix everything.

Still, Helen felt a heavy burden to salvage the reputation of Hu Knows, Inc., the family business her parents had worked so hard to build, from its inception as Hu Private Investigations to its renaming to Hu Knows, Inc., after Dad had passed away.

Well, Helen’s only sibling didn’t want any of the company, preferring to go into real estate. Sabine had sold her share back to Mom, who had then left the daily operations to Helen.

All these years of hard work could be gone because Mom had kept thirty-million-dollars’ worth of bejeweled eggs in someone else’s safe deposit box in a bank in Venice.

Didn’t she realize that Venice was sinking?

A door nearby opened and shut, and INTERPOL agent Damiano Kolovos stepped into the room, followed by a Hellenic Police officer who was carrying what looked like a steel briefcase.

“There’s been a change of plans,” Kolovos said. “Agents from the FBI Art Crime Team have arrived in Athens. They want to talk to Mrs. Hu. They don’t want to wait for us to take the ferry. They offered to buy plane tickets.”

“We’ll get there in fifty minutes instead of five hours,” Helen said. “All the better.”

Officer Giannopoulos sat down across the table from Mom and put on a pair of gloves.

Other Hellenic Police officers and INTERPOL agents had been alerted to the exchange since the moment Mom had walked into the INTERPOL National Central Bureau in Athens with her fifteen-year-old tale that hardly anyone could believe.

Helen wondered why Mom hadn’t gone to the FBI instead of INTERPOL. Then again, this was Mom. Helen had stopped being surprised at anything Mom dragged in.

Whenever they had a minute, Mom would fill Helen in on what it was all about. While these eggs were not as famous or spectacular as the Fabergé eggs, Mom said that every egg collector knew the Petros eggs were somehow connected to the long-lost original Amber Room that had been taken by the Nazis in World War II.

Fifteen years ago, Mom, Frederico, and Ondrej had somehow stolen and hidden three Petros eggs out of twelve. Supposedly, the other nine were still scattered among anonymous private collectors across Europe. Now, it seemed that someone was actively collecting all twelve eggs. If the puzzle eggs were opened, they would reveal twelve missing panels from the Amber Room, and more importantly, where to find them.

Even with just twelve panels, their sale in the black market could make the seller extremely wealthy the rest of his or her life.

Mom wouldn’t have said anything the rest of her life had her retired partner in crime not passed away under mysterious circumstances in Thessaloniki a week ago. The box had been delivered posthumously.

A sign? A message?

All three eggs had been in pristine condition.

“Technically, Ondrej and I rescued the eggs from a criminal.” Mom glanced at Giannopoulos, now putting on gloves and preparing a device to remove the microchip from Mom’s hand.

“You mean a fellow thief,” Helen corrected her.

“That’s in the past.”

“And then you delivered them to yet another criminal, who would probably sell the eggs to the highest bidder.”

“That’s INTERPOL’s idea. They want to see who ends up with the eggs, and if they have the rest of the collection.”

“You’re going to jail, Mom.” Helen wanted to be angry and upset, but what good would that do?

“What else do you want me to do? I’ve confessed everything to that Greek god—ah, male model—here.” Mom pointed to Kolovos. “Agent K, may I call you Damiano?”

The fifty-something Kolovos—too young for Mom—neither smiled back nor responded.

Giannopoulos pointed to a spot on the table. “Madam, please put your hand here.”

“Will it hurt?” Mom winced already.

“Just an ant bite. We’re going to remove the microchip since we don’t need it anymore.”

I don’t want to see this.

Helen turned away, walking toward the other end of the room, where the shutters covered the night sky outside.

Out there, Mom’s enemies waited, having arisen from the ashen days of light and shadow, of chases down cobblestone paths, and of relics from the seventeenth century.

Relics.

Including the pocket watches that Dad had given to Mom, Helen, and Sabine before he passed away. If not for Mom’s pocket watch, Helen wouldn’t have known that she had been in Santorini unannounced.

She heard a click.

“Ouch,” Mom said. “It hurts!”

“Just for a little bit,” Kolovos said, standing behind Giannopoulos.

“Like how long is this little bit?”

“A couple of hours. Don’t touch it. Keep the plaster on.”

Helen turned around just as Giannopoulos applied a Band-Aid on Mom’s wrist. “You’ll be fine by the time we get on the plane.”

“Before or after breakfast?” Mom’s voice turned sweet.

“We’ll bring you something to eat if you’re hungry.”

“You’ll eat with me, Agent K?”

Oh boy.

“No, madam. I have work to do. We need to follow the eggs while you go to your arraignment in Athens.”

“What if they find the trackers inside the eggs?” Mom asked.

“They won’t. We used NSA and British SIS technology,” Kolovos said, as if he had to defend anything.

Helen didn’t say a word, but she knew people who could get around those things. Besides, hadn’t they just destroyed three antique eggs by messing with them? She wasn’t sure the eggs were still worth thirty million dollars.

Mom flexed her hand, the manicure in shades of orange coral sparkly on her fingernails under the fluorescent ceiling light. “What if I walk away?”

“Mom!” Helen couldn’t believe what she had heard Mom say.

“You don’t want to spend any more time in jail than you need to, do you?” Kolovos’s voice was calm. He had probably heard worse from criminals.

Criminals.

So ashamed.

Helen wondered what Dad would say had he been alive today. The whole family, including Mom, had worked so hard to continue the private investigative firm. The FBI and INTERPOL had trusted them.

And now this blight from the past could ruin them all.