Out of the cracked egg rolled a piece of amber carved in the shape of an egg.

“Your dad has taught you well,” Mom said.

“Yeah, all those years of working with puzzles… They are paying off now.” Helen lifted the amber egg toward the light.

There was something inside.

Helen climbed on the chair and knelt down on the table to get the amber egg up close to the lightbulb above her. As she did so, the corner of her eye saw a colorful splash of light on her sweatshirt. She twisted the amber egg and turned it upside down and around until the light that shone through the amber egg projected something on the table.

A rectangular projection.

It looked like a photograph of a panel on a wall.

It was all reddish.

Amber-colored.

Helen hadn’t had an opportunity to visit the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace. However, she had seen photos. Walls of amber, precious stones, and gold, carved by master craftspeople to reproduce what had been lost from the eighteenth century.

“The Petros eggs tell you where the Nazis had hidden some of the missing panels of the original Amber Room,” Mom said. “Mind you, some of the hiding places have been bombed out by Allied Forces during World War II.”

“Maps, are they?” Helen squinted. A magnifying glass would be needed to read any inscription on the eggs.

“Each panel is worth millions. More than each egg is worth.”

“No wonder Javier wanted them.”

Mom coughed. “Javier wants to recreate what his older brother had lost. He wanted an empire bigger than what Fred had started. Fred was a small-time jewel thief. Javier had grand ambitions.”

Javier.

The name left a bad taste in Helen’s mouth. And she didn’t know the guy at all.

For now, to complete her plan, she needed Mom. “Let’s solve as many of these puzzles as possible.”

Mom tilted her head. “Why the sudden interest?”

“I want to go home,” Helen said earnestly. “And Javier wants these eggs. I think we can work things out.”

With a puzzled look on her face, Mom went to work.

Helen prayed that Javier would get them out of this vault with the eggs. Once out, the eggs should be able to send a clear signal to the GPS satellites.

“If we get just a few more done, maybe Javier will invite us to a meal so that we could show him the partial maps inside these eggs,” Helen said. Loud enough, she hoped. “I’m sure he’d want to see all that have been hidden for seventy-seven years.”

Javier hadn’t taken the three solved puzzled eggs from them. He knew that all twelve eggs had to stay together.

And when he found out about the duds…

Helen prayed that they would not come to bloodshed.

As Helen and Mom had suspected, Javier had been listening to their conversation and had watched them work.

Some untold hours later, his guards had ushered them out of the vault for this unexpected tea time with the enemy in a lavishly opulent sunroom.

Before tea, Mom showed Javier the three puzzles they had solved. Mom begged for more time.

“You were wrong, Eleanora,” Javier said, when tea was served.

“About what?” Sitting on a rattan chair, Mom sipped her hot chai.

“About the number of people in Agneta’s house that night.” He looked relieved now that he had said it.

Mom didn’t react. Neither did her cup and saucer shake.

Helen was quite impressed.

As for Helen, she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy a cup of tea. She didn’t want the memory of this moment to taint her future afternoons. Instead, she nibbled on a buttered scone. It had to make up for having missed several meals, at least.

Looking outside the sunroom, Helen was surprised it was already afternoon. Another day had passed without her being aware of it. Or two days. Or more.

The day and night had all blended together in their windowless dungeon.

Helen prayed that Javier’s cameras had not captured her activating the GPS receivers. She prayed that the signal was strong enough to reach INTERPOL.

The sunshine coming through the clear glass and brightened the green fauna in the sunroom. Among ferns and greens were orchids of many varieties.

Where are we, exactly?

Dare I ask?

Helen let Mom do all the talking because the last thing she wanted was to make a scene. Her job as a PI probably wouldn’t help the cause. Her favorite Glock had been confiscated by Javier’s men back in Venice.

Her only weapons now were the three GPS receivers boosting one another in those little eggs that could.

They were on the glass coffee table in front of her.

Come on, little eggs! You can do it!

Acting like smartwatches, all the three eggs had to do was find a satellite in space that spoke their language, lock onto it, and next thing they knew, INTERPOL would pinpoint their location, wherever this place was.

All Helen and her mom had to do now was drink the tea, chat with Javier, and give the Global Positioning System time to pick up these eggs, and thus, their position.

And then Helen and Mom would go back to their hole in the ground to wait for a rescue.

“I don’t think my brother would have told you everything,” Javier added. “You’re not family.”

“Fred is dead.” Slowly, Mom put down her cup and saucer on the coffee table. “Too little, too late to make amends.”

“He was my big brother.” Javier eyed the dozen Petros eggs on the table. “Frederico always protected me. And still does.”

What does he mean by that? Helen couldn’t read Javier’s expressions. She waited.

“When I find all the panels, I will name the gallery Frederico’s Amber Room.”

“Such an impossible goal,” Mom said. “Only fragments of the original room have been found in the last seventy years. Do you think you can do better?”

Javier lifted an egg and rotated it in the sunlight. “They don’t have these keys.”

Helen tried not to panic. She quickly prayed that the GPS receivers would not fail them.

Is it okay to pray over a piece of equipment?

God does care about the details of our lives, doesn’t He?

“A number of people have died for those eggs,” Mom said.

Javier shrugged. “Only Frederico, Ondrej, Agneta, and that good-for-nothing husband of hers.”

“You have no family left.”

“You’re mistaken again.” Javier sat back in his armchair. “I have family, the same family Frederico was trying to protect that night.”

“What do you mean?” Helen finally asked.

“I was in Thessaloniki, yes, but I didn’t go to Agneta’s house. Not that night.” Javier didn’t look at either one of them. “Agneta and I—Frederico drove there himself.”

“Who else did, then?” Mom asked. “Was Ondrej there?”

“I have no idea where Ondrej was.” Javier straightened up. He motioned for his security detail to escort the ladies and the Petros eggs back to the cave. “Finish the rest.”

On the way downstairs, it dawned on Helen what Javier had confessed to.

I didn’t go to Agneta’s house. Not that night…

Agneta and I…

“Agneta and you what, Javier?” Helen mumbled.

The guard must have heard her mutterings. He stopped. Then he continued walking. He opened the door of the vault to let them in.

As Helen passed by him, she tried to read his face. He was probably in his early forties, but had spent a lot of time in the sun. That was when she saw his eyes.

They were very light brown.

Like Javier Costa’s.