The Hidden Code Page 3

  “You miss her,” I say, tempering my anger.

  “Every single day.”

  Uncle Randall and I have that in common.

  He turns to the middle of the album. There’s another picture of my parents, and next to them is a couple who look about the same age. The woman has long blond hair, spiral permed as badly as Mom’s, and the man’s wearing a Red Sox hat so I can’t see a lot of his face.

  “These are the Olivers,” Uncle Randall says. “Stephen and Amy. Amy was your mom’s best friend through college and after. They were all students together in the biology department at Harvard. All undergraduates together. Then graduate school. And when they graduated, your parents started their own lab, here. You know that. The Olivers went to work for a company called Amino Corp.”

  I suck in a breath. “Amino Corp?” They’re the ones getting all the bad press recently. Their CEO is probably going to get canned.

  Uncle Randall nods. “It was a good job, and they were all top of their field.”

  Good job or not, I can’t believe anyone would work for that company.

  “What about the Olivers?” As I flip through the album, each picture I see shows the two couples together, at ball games, at restaurants, at Easton Estate. “Where are they now?”

  Uncle Randall turns to the very last page of the album. The final picture shows my parents standing with me between them and the Olivers next to them on either side of two small boys that look about the same age as me, probably about four years old.

  “Just before you were born, Amy Oliver gave birth to twins. Ethan and Caden. You played together all the time when you were younger. Do you remember anything about them?”

  I dig through my childhood memories. Most of them involve my parents telling me about the world around me. They used all sorts of big words I didn’t know, and I’d ask about each one. Molecular Degeneration. Bioluminescence. Now, thinking about it, I realize that they did it on purpose. They never spoke down to me because they wanted me to learn. I also remember many times without my parents. They’d be working or having people over for dinner. And me, being Princess of Easton Estate—or so I liked to imagine myself—would be left to entertain whatever kids got dragged along. We’d run around the halls, shrieking and playing hide and seek. In my memories, I sometimes imagined that there were two boys that looked the same, but since I never really remembered their names or faces, I figured that maybe they were imaginary friends or something.

  “Kind of?” I say.

  “You were pretty young,” Uncle Randall says. “When the twins turned five, Caden got really sick. They ran tests, and he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.”

  “He died?” I barely whisper.

  Uncle Randall nods. “He was only five. And it was especially awful since so much of what your parents and the Olivers did was research cures for diseases and study genetics of what causes diseases in the first place.”

  It’s ironic in the worst possible way.

  “What ever happened to the Olivers?” I ask. “Do you ever see them?”

  “I haven’t seen Amy and Stephen,” Uncle Randall says. “I looked them up online not too long ago. Stephen still works at Amino Corp. Amy Oliver works in forensics for the FBI. But Ethan I’ve seen very recently.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “The other day. At my lecture,” Uncle Randall says. “He was there, sitting in the front row.”

  He has to be talking about the guy who’d looked at me. I didn’t recognize him, but maybe he recognized me. It would explain why he’d looked at me so strangely.

  “That’s Ethan Oliver?” I say, squinting at the little boy in the picture.

  “Well, he has grown up, same as you,” Uncle Randall says.

  “Did you talk to him?” I say.

  “I thought about it,” Uncle Randall says. “But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want to bring up bad memories.”

  “Bad memories?” I pry. Whatever he’s talking about must have something to do with this letter.

  “Your parents and the Olivers had a falling out,” Uncle Randall says.

  “About what?”

  Uncle Randall stares into his cup of coffee, like he’s hoping maybe the answer to my question is in there. I count the seconds of silence, willing him to tell me what’s going on. Finally he looks at me.

  “Hannah, I need you to give me a couple days, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m asking you to,” he says. “A couple days. Let me make some calls. Let me try to figure out where this letter came from. That’s all I ask.”

  “Why can’t you tell me now?”

  Uncle Randall grits his teeth, but seriously? I’ve waited eleven years, and now he’s asking me to wait longer.

  “I just need you to be patient, okay? Just a couple days.”

  I don’t want to give him another second, but I also want answers.

  “You have to tell me what’s going on,” I say.

  “I will … in a couple days.”

  I ball my fists up to hold in my frustration. “Okay, fine, but answer me one thing.”

  “What?”

  I take the last sip of my coffee, mostly to stall, then I summon up my courage. I have to address this now even though doing so opens the sealed lid on my emotions far more than I want to. “Do you think they’re still alive?”

  “Well, that’s a little difficult to—” he starts.

  “The truth,” I say. “What do you think?”

  Uncle Randall stares at the letter, sitting on the table between us. “What do I think?”

  “Yeah, what do you think?”

  He waits there for a solid minute. Then he says, “Maybe. I don’t know. I mean I really think they could be. I really want them to be. I really think there’s hope.”

  There’s hope. The words echo around me. Uncle Randall wants to believe it’s possible. I do, too, more than anything. The lid holding back my deepest wish vanishes, and instantly a desire buried so deeply inside of me that I’ve almost learned to ignore it explodes to the surface of my brain. My parents could still be alive. Like really alive. They could be out there, now, waiting for me. And if my parents are still alive—if there is any chance—then I am going to find them.

  CHAPTER 4

  THERE’S NO WAY I’M WAITING A COUPLE DAYS FOR ANY MORE ANSWERS. The next day, when Uncle Randall goes to work, I head out to his old guest house on the property and find boxes of old photos. I drag them into the house, pour myself a giant cup of coffee, and scour them.

  In these photos is an entire life I knew nothing about. My parents. The Olivers. Uncle Randall. In foreign countries. In labs and libraries. In churches.

  I flip through the photos, studying them, looking for clues. I have to search the Internet for lots of the landmarks in the pictures to even know what countries they’ve visited. There are the pyramids of Egypt. The Ishtar Gate in Babylon. The Colosseum in Rome. The Hagia Sophia in Turkey. Machu Picchu in Peru. I set the Peru photo aside and move on to the next one, but my brain stops me. I reach for the Peru photo again.

  Dad, Uncle Randall, Mr. Oliver, and some guy I’ve never seen before stand in front of the ancient city with the mountains behind them. In Mr. Oliver’s hands is a stone artifact just like the Deluge Segment. But by the time this photo was taken, Harvard didn’t own the piece anymore, so it can’t be the same one.

  I smooth out the rubbing I have and compare the symbols. The quality of the Peru picture is horrible, and I can’t make out fine details, but by the way the markings are placed, I can tell that the one in the photo is definitely not the same as my rubbing. It could be the Harvard stone, I guess, but I don’t remember what the markings on it looked like. I have to get another look at the artifact Uncle Randall showed in his lecture.

  That evening Uncle Randall eats dinner in his home office. He’s avoiding me. I’m sure of it. But after dinner, I knock on his office door and go inside. He’s sitting at his desk
, laptop open. An untouched plate of food sits off to the side.

  “Hannah, what’s up?” he says.

  What’s up? It’s a ridiculous question.

  “Can I have a copy of that slide you showed in your lecture?” I ask, trying to sound super casual. “The one of the Deluge Segment?”

  His eyes widen the smallest amount. “Why?”

  I shrug, acting like it’s no big deal. “I just thought it was interesting. I was telling Lucas about it, and he wanted to see the markings. You know how he is about ancient art.”

  Uncle Randall’s shoulders relax. “Oh, sure. Let me find it.”

  I walk all the way into the office and scoot around so I’m behind the desk with him. It’s covered in papers with all sorts of ancient symbols and notes scrawled on them. I swear that there’s some kind of sketch on his desk of exactly what I’m asking about except there are three circular artifacts sketched out, not one.

  “What’s that?” I ask, pointing at the sketch.

  He covers it with papers. “Nothing. Just something I’m working on.”

  “What?”

  “It’s nothing, Hannah.”

  It’s not nothing. He’s being way too secretive about it. It only makes me want to see it that much more. A completely irrational part of me almost grabs the sketch and runs.

  “Does it have anything to do with my parents?” I ask. Uncle Randall already isn’t the best at multitasking. It’s not like he’d just go back to his everyday research projects when there’s a chance my parents are alive.

  Uncle Randall rests his elbows on the stack of paper. “It’s something I’m looking into. But like I said yesterday, you need to give me a little time.”

  What I need to do is to sneak in here when he’s asleep and take a look at it myself.

  “Sure. No problem. So you have that picture?”

  He minimizes a few windows, one of which looks like an address book, and brings up a fresh Internet browser. A handful of clicks later, and he pulls up the presentation and flips through the slides. Then he turns the laptop to me.

  “This one?” he says.

  I lean close. “Yeah, that’s it. Can you email it to me?” I don’t want to take the time to study it now.

  “Sure.” He saves the picture and attaches it to an email, then clicks send.

  “Anything else?”

  “Do you know who it sold to?” I ask.

  “No idea,” Uncle Randall says. “A private owner. That’s all they told me.”

  He does that thing where he specifically doesn’t look at me as he answers, and I know he’s lying.

  He completely knows. He just doesn’t want to tell me. But it doesn’t make sense why he wouldn’t want to tell me.

  A plan begins to form in my mind.

  “Can you look it up at Harvard?” I ask.

  He fixes his eyes on me. “Why, Hannah?”

  I almost tell him about the rubbing. I’m so close, because with the sketch on his desk, he must know more about it. And somehow it’s related to my parents. Maybe even to their disappearance. But I bite my tongue.

  “No reason. Just curious, I guess.”

  “Well, you’ll have to stay curious.”

  Twenty seconds go by, and neither of us says a word. Finally, I break the silence.

  “Too bad,” I say. “It would be cool to see it in real life.”

  Uncle Randall clears his throat. “You know, I’m really busy …”

  “Yeah, I was just leaving,” I say. Then I smile and leave the room. If the piece got sold, even to a private buyer, there have to be records about the sale. I can’t imagine they have them locked away in some vault. All I have to do is look them up.

  I compare the picture Uncle Randall sent me to the rubbing, but the image quality is even worse than the Peru picture. I can’t tell if it’s the same stone or a different one. My only option is getting a look at the Harvard piece. But first I have to figure out who bought it.

  Tuesday morning, I wait until Uncle Randall leaves for work. Except I never hear his bedroom door open. I peek out and knock on his door.

  No answer.

  I head downstairs because he must have left without me hearing. He’s not in the kitchen having coffee. He’s not in his office.

  “Have you seen my uncle?” I ask Madeline, one of our maids, as she’s walking by with her daily checklist. She kind of keeps track of all the other people who work around our house.

  “Dr. Easton?” she says.

  I nod.

  “He left for a trip,” Madeline says. “He said he’d be back within the week.”

  A trip? Within the week! Is she seriously kidding? Uncle Randall took off without telling me?

  “Oh, okay.” I try to act like I’m not furious, but as soon as she’s out of sight, I text him.

  Where are you? I text. I actually want to write, Where the hell are you?, but I stop myself.

  Business trip. I should be back this weekend, he texts back.

  I squeeze my phone so hard, I’m afraid the screen will crack. But today was supposed to be the day he’d give me more answers, not take off to god knows where.

  Are you kidding? I text.

  A minute passes. Then he responds. More when I get back.

  Whatever, I text back. At least without him here, I’ll have plenty of time to snoop around his office.

  I refill my coffee and head to my lab. I play around with Sonic, my hedgehog, because he gets lonely if I leave him alone too long. Then I peek in on Castor and Pollux, but they’re fast asleep. I also head out back to check on our giant tortoise, King Tort. He’s basking in the Boston sun, happy to be out of his tortoise house for the day. All together, we have over thirty animals here at Easton Estate. We hire professional animal keepers, and Harvard actually uses some of them for research into animal behavior, so my only responsibilities are the sugar gliders and Sonic. But I still grab a couple carrots and hand-feed King Tort. Then I rub his neck for a few minutes and head back inside.

  The first thing I do is look on the Internet. I search on Deluge Segment, but nothing comes up. Not a single thing. I try putting it in quotations and everything. The only explanation I have for that is that its real name is something else and the Deluge Segment is just what Uncle Randall calls it. But without knowing its real name, as much as I want to find information on the Internet, I’m out of luck.

  So I pick up the phone and call Harvard. Specifically the Peabody Museum where the artifact used to be kept.

  “Hello. Peabody Museum,” the girl who answers the phone says.

  “Hi. I was hoping you could help me get some information.”

  “Sure,” she says. “What department?”

  I shrug even though she can’t see me. “Records, I guess.”

  “Sure. Let me connect you.”

  I’m put on hold and then after maybe a minute a guy picks up.

  “Records department. How can I help you?”

  “Hi,” I say. “I was hoping to get some information about an artifact you guys used to have there. I think it’s called the Deluge Segment.”

  The guy laughs. “You’re the second person today to call and ask about it.”

  A chill runs through me. There’s no reason why anyone else would be interested in the Deluge Segment. This can’t be a coincidence. Except Uncle Randall did show it in his lecture a week ago, and everyone who signed up for the lecture is bound to be interested in stuff like this. Still, the thought rests uneasy with me.

  “That’s weird,” I say, trying to play it off like it’s no big deal.

  “Yeah, popular artifact. Anyway, I don’t remember the details. Let me pull up the file.”

  I cross my fingers as I hear him typing.

  “Here it is,” he says. “But just to warn you, we don’t have much on it.”

  “I don’t need much,” I say. “Well, I mean, if you have a high resolution picture of it, that would be awesome.”

  The guy laughs. “The picture
we have looks like it was taken fifty years ago.”

  Crud. It has to be the same one Uncle Randall has.

  “Oh well,” I say. “What I really need is to know who bought it.”

  I hear him clicking. “Yeah, we have the bill of sale as the third page of the file. It was signed by a person named John Bingham. Does that help?”

  It sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.

  “Does it say anything else?” I ask.

  “I think so. Let me zoom in.” he says. “Yeah, there are a few letters next to his name. CEO. And below that it says Amino Corp.”

  It all comes together. Amino Corp, the pharmaceutical giant. John Bingham must have been the CEO back in the eighties, but why would a pharmaceutical company want to buy an ancient relic? That part doesn’t make sense. They do drug research, not archaeological excavating. But it can’t be coincidence that the Olivers worked at Amino Corp and that Mr. Oliver was in a picture with a piece of the Deluge Segment. It all has to fit together somehow, yet I’m not sure how.

  “That’s perfect,” I say. “Does it say anything else?”

  The guy whistles. “Only that it sold for twelve million dollars.”

  That is some serious cash, especially back in the eighties. Amino Corp must have wanted the piece pretty badly to pay that for it.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “I can email you a copy if you want,” the guy says.

  I do want that, but I also don’t want to give him my email. The last thing I need is Uncle Randall somehow figuring out I was snooping around.

  “That’s okay,” I say. “Thanks again.”

  I hang up and dial Lucas’s number. He picks up on the fourth ring.

  “What’s up, Hannah Banana?” Lucas asks.

  “Not much,” I say, smiling at the nickname. “When did you say you have the gig at Amino Corp?”

  “Friday,” Lucas says. “Why?”

  Why? Because it’s the perfect opportunity to get inside Amino Corp. Because I have to figure out what’s going on. Because this could get me one step closer to finding my parents. There are so many answers to his question.

  “I was hoping to be your assistant,” I say.