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Caleb turns to a fresh sheet of paper in his sketchbook, and as Isabel begins to describe the man, he deftly fills in the contours.

“He had kind of a squat face, with a double chin. And a big, broad nose, and a—what do you call it? A unibrow. And he was bald, except for a little fringe of black hair around his ears.”

“How about his eyes? Were they big and bulging? Deep-set under a big caveman brow?” Caleb is firing questions as he rushes to keep up with Isabel's description.

“Big, I guess. Hard to tell. He had thick black glasses.”

“Hipster glasses? Like he was wearing them as a joke?” I ask.

“No, this guy didn't look like he joked about anything. I think he had them because they were practical.”

Caleb holds the pad at arm's length, appraising his work. He adds a few more details and turns it around. Isabel gasps.

“Oh my gosh! That's him! You're amazing!”

I stare at the man in the picture. He looks dangerous. What did he tell Mr. Archer? What would make a father lock up his daughter?

“So now all we've got is a key to somewhere and a book that doesn't seem to mean anything,” I sum up.

Caleb and Isabel look at each other. Caleb grins like an idiot, and there's even a small smile on Isabel's face. She turns back to me.

“Actually, I think that book
does
mean something. I had a lot of time, so I read it while you two were—”

“Gallivanting around?” Caleb interrupts helpfully.

“Hey, someone learned a new vocabulary word!” Isabel exclaims. “And he used it correctly!”

Suddenly, there's the click of the back door opening and closing and the welcome sound of Mom's voice. “Is that Isabel and Caleb I hear?”

My mom bursts into the living room and gives us each a quick hug.

I note with approval that Isabel has hidden the copy of
The Maltese Falcon
behind her back before Mom gets to her.

“Please excuse the mess, Isabel. I've been working all week, and it's not like anyone else here seems to notice.”

Isabel gives my mom her best “I hear you” laugh.

“I'm just going to get dinner ready. I'm afraid I can't stay and chat. I'm covering for a friend tonight, so I don't have that much time,” Mom explains to Isabel, and then sweeps out.

My mom hums, opening and closing doors and drawers in the kitchen. I lean in and say in a low voice: “So—about the book?”

“Right!” Isabel says excitedly. “It's about this detective—”

“The one who's named after you,” Caleb throws in.

“Miles Archer gets killed in the second chapter, actually. Can I finish, or are you going to keep interrupting with smart remarks?” Isabel asks sharply.

“So it turns out there are a whole bunch of people after the same thing—this statue of a falcon made right after the Crusades. These Crusader knights—you know who they were?”

Caleb rolls his eyes. “Yes, we know who the Crusader knights were. The ones who went to try to liberate the Holy Land from the Moors.”

“According to this book, some of them took enormous amounts of wealth with them when they left,” Isabel continues. “And as a gesture of thanks to the Spanish king, they sent him a falcon statue each year. The first year it was encrusted with every type of priceless jewel, and probably made of solid gold.”

I pick up the old paperback and flip through the pages. “So this is a history book?”

Isabel sighs. “No! It's fiction! It's all made up! It's not like the Maltese Falcon ever really existed. But I think it's kind of a message from your great-uncle.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“Well, these people were all looking for this incredibly valuable thing and were willing to kill for it.”

“So what happens in the end?” demands Caleb.

“So,”
says Isabel, “the bad guys finally get it—well, they think they do—and it turns out to be fake. Well, that's not really the part I think your great-uncle was trying to tell you. I think it was more about the search for this thing of great value. That you can be fooled into thinking you've found it when you haven't.”

Caleb put his head in his hands. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

There is a pause.

Isabel purses her lips. “Okay, maybe that wasn't it either.”

I suddenly feel very tired. “So basically you're saying we're back where we started. I'm glad it was a cool book, but you really don't know what it has to do with figuring out what the key goes to.”

“Well…,” Isabel says slowly. “We
are
back where we started. But that's a good thing. Because while I had all that time, I figured something else out as well.”

“How can being back where we started be a good thing?” Caleb gripes.

“Think about it,” Isabel continues. “Your great-uncle didn't know what room he would be in in the hospital until he got there, right? So how could he have scratched the number into the box in his apartment? An apartment he never went back to before he died?”

The only sound we hear is my mom in the kitchen closing the refrigerator door. Caleb and I stare at Isabel with a mixture of admiration and shock.

“How come I didn't see that?” I say, almost to myself.

“You were a little busy, you know…,” Isabel replies, absent-mindedly flipping through the pages of
The Maltese Falcon.

“But it was right in front of my face!” I protest.

“So who was it, already?” Caleb asked, moving over to the book Isabel is holding and looking at it as if the clue were in there.

“There was only one person Great-Uncle Ted would trust to go into his apartment and set up that whole thing.”

“Your mom!” Caleb exclaims. “I always knew she was hiding something!”

“No, you dimwit,” I snap. “It's—”

“Mr. Yamada!” Isabel yells, unable to hold it in any longer.

“Mr. Yamada. Of course! So he knew all along!” Caleb laughs. “He probably knows everything!”

“He certainly knows more than he's told us,” I reason.

“I think we need to pay him a visit as soon as possible,” Isabel says. “Because if my father comes home tonight and finds out I'm gone, he's going to go completely mental and I'm definitely on that plane tomorrow.”

I look at the kitchen. “If we're going to see Mr. Yamada, it needs to be now.”

Isabel pushes open the door. My mom is sitting at the kitchen table, writing something. She looks up and smiles.

“I'm leaving a note for your dad. I left some lasagna in the fridge. Just nuke it for two minutes a portion.”

“Sounds great,” I begin in my most cheerful voice. “Listen, Mom. I need you to do me a favor. A big favor.”

Mom has a wary look on her face. “Oh, Ted. I hope it isn't driving you somewhere.”

I sit down on the chair next to her. Isabel takes the chair on her other side.

Good move, Isabel,
I think.
Surround the enemy. Leave her no escape route.

“I wouldn't normally ask you, but—”

Mom immediately softens. She regards Isabel with what I can only describe as a look usually reserved for pictures you find on the Internet of kittens in teacups or YouTube videos of kids saying adorable things.

“Isabel, if it's really that important…”

Isabel looks away, as if she doesn't know quite how to bring it up. I marvel at her ability to pull emotional strings like this. It's almost Jedi-like. Or Sith-like.

“It's Mr. Yamada. We were going through some old magazines Ted took from the apartment and this fell out.”

Isabel holds out
The Maltese Falcon.

“My gosh!” remarks Mom, examining the book. “This was one of my uncle's favorites. He loved the movie too. He was always quoting from it.”

“We thought this would be the perfect thing for Mr. Yamada to remember him by,” continues little Miss Sweetness and Light.

My mom looks from one of us to the other. “So what exactly do you want me to do? Drive all the way over Laurel Canyon now to drop this off for him?”

I hear the fatigue in her voice. This will take all of Isabel's powers.

“Mr. Yamada spoke to us about it. He told us about how he used to read it to your uncle when he would visit and how your uncle's eyes would light up…” Isabel sighs.

An award-winning performance. She sticks the landing. A perfect ten.

“All right. But we really have to go right now or I'll never get back in time for my shift with all the traffic on the Canyon.”

My mom calls Donna Yamada, who says her dad would be happy to see us again.

Caleb bounds in happily from the living room, sketchbook in hand.

As we head out to the car, I turn to Isabel. “That was amazing. I think I speak for all the civilized world when I say how grateful we are that you have decided to use your powers for good instead of evil.”

“You never know,” Isabel says, fixing me with a wicked grin.

This time, Isabel sits next to me and Caleb in the backseat.

And this time, the traffic is more problematic. The trip seems to take much longer than it did the first time. We sit in silence, each of us thinking how best to approach Mr. Yamada.

“I say we bust the guy,” Caleb finally decrees as he absent-mindedly draws a large caped superhero standing over a cowering elderly Asian man. The caped man has scissors in one hand and a bonsai tree in the other. A speech balloon is coming from the avenging hero, who's saying, “One false move and I snip!” Isabel looks over and giggles.

“I like the idea of taking his teeny tree hostage,” she says. “But I don't think that will be necessary.”

She turns to me with a look of unmistakable admiration and continues. “I bet your great-uncle told him that once you passed the test and found the key, he could tell you everything.”

“We'll know soon enough,” I say as we finally turn onto Mr. Yamada's street.

It takes a moment to register. First there is the crackling sound of a two-way radio. Then the flashing lights, the ambulance.

Donna Yamada stands by the open doors, looking like the sky has fallen on her.

“Oh my gosh!” Mom cries, and pulls the car over to the side of the road. Clawing off her seat belt, she races ahead of us. We follow as fast as we can.

“You don't think…,” Caleb gasps. We stop at a respectful distance to watch the two women talk in hushed voices. My mom has her hand on Donna's shoulder.

“It wasn't anything violent,” I say, “if that's what you're asking.”

“And how do you know that?” Isabel asks.

I gesture up and down the street. “No police cars. It has to be something else.”

Isabel looks toward the door. “The gurney's inside. So either he can't walk…or—”

Mom walks slowly back to us. “It seems that Mr. Yamada might have had a stroke. The paramedics are bringing him out now.”

“Would it be all right if we go over with you and talk to Donna?” I ask.

Mom looks at me for a moment. “I'm going to hope that you will simply tell her your thoughts are with her and leave it at that.”

“Sure, Mom, of course,” I agree, and we walk over to join the anxious woman. Donna Yamada looks like she's somewhere else.

“We're so sorry to hear about your father,” I begin.

“It happened so suddenly. It was after the visit…” Donna is looking away.

“
Our
visit?” asks Isabel in surprise.

Donna seems to notice us for the first time. She looks up with a small smile.

“Oh no, not you. He seemed so happy after you left. He was so fond of your great-uncle, you know,” she adds to me.

“He's a very special man,” Isabel offers. I know that if any one of us can reach Donna, it's Isabel. “How is he doing?”

“It's too early to tell,” Donna says, her voice trembling, “but with all of our thoughts and prayers—” She stops and gasps. Her eyes are a mix of surprise and fear. “Th-that's him! Where did you get that?”

She is pointing at Caleb's sketchbook. It's open to the page where Caleb drew the picture of the man who visited Isabel's dad.

“What do you mean, ‘that's him'?” asks Isabel gently.

“That face! It's the man who visited my father this morning!”

“Are you sure?” I press.

“Positive. He said he had something important to discuss with my father, and I left them alone together. I heard raised voices, and when I came back, the man was about to leave. My father became very agitated. He collapsed and I called 911 immediately.”

There is a flurry of commotion at the front door of the neat little house. Two burly EMTs are carefully guiding a gurney over the doorstep.

Isabel, Caleb, and I exchange anxious glances as we recognize the inert form of Mr. Yamada strapped on top.

“He has an oxygen mask,” whispers Isabel. “That's a good sign, right?”

One of the EMTs is holding an IV bag over Mr. Yamada's head; the other end is attached to the arm of the old man.

The other EMT jumps into the ambulance to prepare to load Mr. Yamada.

The gurney sits for a moment directly in front of us. I can see Mr. Yamada's pale face, his closed eyes, his damp hair clinging to his forehead. His daughter reaches out to hold his hand. I turn to Donna. “I really hope he gets better soon.”

Upon hearing my voice, Mr. Yamada's eyes pop open.

His eyes find my eyes and lock onto them. Then he reaches out and grabs my wrist.

“Ghh…yrrghh.” Mr. Yamada is struggling to say something to me. It seems like the most important thing in the world to him. “M…m…” He is desperately trying to find the words to impart something to me.

“Yes? M…?”

Mr. Yamada shakes his head. “M…M…” And then, with one last effort, he shouts out what sounds like “Shee guy mass!”

The old man's eyes close, and he falls back into unconsciousness. My mom puts her arms around his poor daughter.

“Donna, what does that mean? ‘Shee guy mass'?” I ask, but Mom glares at me.

“Leave her alone, Ted. She's doesn't need your questions right now,” she says in a flat, even tone that means no talking back.

After the gurney has been loaded into the ambulance, Mom helps Donna over to the truck, then turns to the EMTs.

“Where are you taking him? Cedars?”

“Cedars” is Cedars Sinai, the best hospital in Los Angeles.

“Yes, ma'am.”

My mom turns to Donna. “He's going to get excellent care. As soon as my shift is over, I'll come and see how you're doing.”

Donna nods, unable to speak. The EMTs help her into the back, where she sits looking at her father as they close the two doors with a slam. The siren whoops, and the ambulance takes off at top speed.