Shadows at Predator Reef (7 page)

“Thank you, Jonathan,” he said to Alfred, whose name turned out not to be Alfred at all.

Mr. V motioned for us to come in. “This is a welcome surprise. When I heard the doorbell, I assumed it was another reporter hounding me for an interview about Captain Hook.”

“Sir,” Alfred (aka Jonathan) interrupted, seeming rather put out by the whole affair. “Will there be anything else?”

“Yes, Jonathan,” he said. “We were just wrapping up here. If you could see Ron and Laura out?”

This seemed to be news to Ron.

“But Bradley, we still haven't figured out what we're going to do about the delays at the underwater hotel site in Helsinki,” Ron protested.

“I trust you to handle it,” Mr. V said. “Right now I'd like to speak to Frank and Joe.”

Ron had been nice before, but now he looked at us like we were a couple of mosquitoes intent on annoying him.

“Bradley, there's a lot of money at stake here. I really think we need to focus on what's important. I know you're concerned about the turtle—we all are—but—” Ron didn't get to finish the sentence.

“But I pay you a very good salary to handle my company's public relations,” Mr. V snapped. “What I choose to do with my private time is my business.”

“Yes, sir, I understand,” Ron mumbled. He closed his briefcase and walked out of the study, hanging his head like a kid who'd been sent to his room without dinner.

“Are you sure you don't want me to stay, Mr. V?” Laura asked, sounding more like an overprotective parent than a young assistant.

“Thank you, Laura, but I think the Hardy boys and I should be just fine on our own,” he replied.

“I'll be on standby if you need me,” she said, forcing a smile as she followed Ron out the door.

“Sir?” Jonathan asked.

“You too, Jonathan, thank you,” he said. “I'll call you if we need anything.”

Jonathan gave us another nasty look before leaving us alone with Mr. V.

“My apologies for my staff's lack of hospitality. Running a company can be a bit like being the head of a household, and like many large families, I'm afraid my team and I tend to be a bit dysfunctional at times. And with the news cameras pounding down the door about Captain Hook, we're all a bit on edge,” Mr. V. said. “So, have you made any progress?”

Joe didn't answer. Instead he pulled out the dirty handkerchief with Mr. V's initials on it.

“I'm sorry, but I don't understand,” Mr. V said as he stared at the handkerchief. “Is that mine?”

“Want to guess where we found it?” Joe asked.

“I don't have any idea, why—”

“I'll give you a hint. It was somewhere it shouldn't have been,” Joe said.

“In a tunnel under four hundred thousand gallons of water,” I added. “Maybe you can tell us how it got there?”

“I—” Mr. V started, then closed his mouth. A moment later, he gave us a weak smile. “You are even better detectives than I had been led to believe.”

He stood up. “I have a confession to make.”

Now it was our turn to be speechless. Was Mr. V about to admit to stealing Captain Hook?

“If you'll follow me, there is something I'd like to show you.” Mr. V turned and began walking down the hall at the far end of the room.

My brother and I exchanged a grim look. Normally, we'd be a lot more cautious before blindly following a suspect somewhere, but curiosity had the better of us. We let him lead us down a spiral staircase and past a long corridor to a library at the back of the house.

It was an ocean lover's dream. The shelves were lined with endless leather-bound volumes and academic texts with titles like
The Early Voyages of Jacques Cousteau
,
Biodiversity in the Indo-Pacific Reef Environment
, and
Advances in Submersible Design and Technology
. I could have spent a month flipping through the pages and been totally happy! The room was decorated with all kinds of nautical artifacts and maps. There were saltwater fish tanks too, some filled with specimens so rare even Bayport Aquarium didn't have them.

But all that was nothing compared to what we were about to see.

Mr. V ran his fingers along a row of books, settling on one with a battered leather spine and pulling it toward him.

Joe and I stood there with our mouths hanging open as the entire wall slid away, revealing a secret lair that rivaled the Batcave in coolness.

We were staring at Mr. V's own magnificent private aquarium.

The twelve-foot-high walls were made entirely of floor-to-ceiling glass. Behind them must have been at least two hundred thousand gallons of salt water filled with a flowing kelp forest and an array of awesome creatures, including rays and small sharks. It may not have been as big as Predator Reef, but to find something like this hidden inside a house made it just as impressive. It felt like we were standing underwater in the middle of a vast seascape.

“This was to be Captain Hook's new home,” Mr. V said quietly.

Joe and I shared a glance, reading each other's minds. There was no doubt anymore that Bradley Valledor was the one who'd built the escape hatch beneath Predator Reef.

“I'm ashamed to admit that there were selfish motivations for my participation in the aquarium's new exhibit,” he said. “Still, I pride myself on being a conservationist as well as a collector. When Captain Hook arrived at the Bayport Aquarium, I saw the perfect chance to acquire a rare and remarkable creature for my collection without supporting the poaching trade or taking one of the precious few remaining animals from the wild.”

“So you pretended to be helping the aquarium by building Predator Reef when the whole time you intended to steal its mascot and betray the entire community?!” I asked in disbelief.

“I probably deserve your disgust, but let me finish and then you can render judgment,” Mr. V said. “I discovered the tunnels beneath the aquarium during my initial planning and designed the hidden holding tank under the exhibit to take advantage of them.” He took a deep breath. “So yes, I confess . . .”

Here it came, the big confession. Villains don't normally lure detectives to their secret lairs just to reveal their master plans, though. Not unless they also intend on disposing of said detectives so they can't tattle to the authorities. So by this point, I was beginning to expect the worst.

“. . . I was the architect of the crime,” he continued in a shaky voice. “But I wasn't the one who committed it. Someone else took Captain Hook before I had the chance.”

I was too baffled to respond. Had Mr. V just confessed to the crime or hadn't he?

“I thought I could provide a good home for her, one that was even better than the aquarium. One that would leave her in peace without being gawked at by thousands of observers each day.” Mr. V paused.

“Gawked at?!” I couldn't believe what he was saying. “You're supposed to be a conservationist! I thought you understood better than anyone how much the aquarium inspires a love of the ocean and educates people about ecology.”

“I know.” Mr. V turned away, unable to look me in the eye. “And as it turns out, my first impression was wrong.
I saw how much Captain Hook thrived in Predator Reef, how much the staff cared for her, the difference she could make in the fight for oceanic conservation. And I started to second-guess myself. Apparently whoever discovered my plans didn't share my reservations.”

“C'mon, dude. You really expect us to believe your sob story?” Joe said.

“I know it won't be easy to regain your trust, but why would I bring you here to my private sanctuary and reveal my plans to you, only to lie about this?” Mr. V asked in response.

“You've already admitted to lying about everything else,” I challenged. “How do we know you aren't just hiding her in a different location and trying to throw us off your trail?”

“Had I wanted to deflect suspicion, I simply would have kept my mouth shut and called my lawyers. A discarded handkerchief is explained away easily enough. And I certainly wouldn't have insisted to Chief Olaf on your participation in the investigation.”

Mr. V was making sense, but . . .

“If you really cared so much about finding Captain Hook, why didn't you come forward earlier? We lost valuable time on the investigation, and my brother almost got killed finding that trapdoor.”

“Until you boys arrived this afternoon with my handkerchief and your tales of hidden tunnels, I'd held out hope that you or the police would uncover another explanation
for Captain Hook's disappearance or discover the tunnels in a way that didn't incriminate me. It was selfish of me.”

“You bet it was,” Joe said.

“Frank knows as well as anyone how much that turtle means to me. I dote on her like a spoiled child. I've spent so much time with her, it almost feels like she really is family. Now that she's gone . . .” Mr. V closed his eyes. “The thought that I may have accidentally helped someone with bad . . . intentions,” he murmured brokenly, “take her . . . it's been torturing me. Which is why I've decided to bring you here and confess my role.”

“Sure, you feel guilty. You want to clear your conscience to make yourself feel better. So do lots of criminals. That doesn't change the fact that Captain Hook is missing and it's your fault,” I told him.

Mr. V turned around again to face us.

“It's not my conscience I'm concerned with. It's the life of an innocent animal. I want you to help me get her back. I know now that her rightful home isn't here,” he said, gesturing at the marvelous tank behind him. “It's at the aquarium where everyone can enjoy her company and learn from her. I hope it doesn't come to this, but I am willing to turn myself in and face the consequences as long as it means Captain Hook is safely returned to the aquarium.”

Mr. V stopped and looked both of us in the eye.

“Even if it means going to prison.”

I
DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO
think about Mr. V or his confession. Somehow we'd managed to solve what we'd thought was the mystery without solving the crime. We now knew how Captain Hook was taken and we even knew who'd planned to take her, but we still didn't know who actually had taken her.

As mad as I was at Mr. V, I believed that he hadn't taken her and that he was heartbroken about the fact that someone had.

But if Bradley Valledor didn't do it, Frank and I had to find out who did. And we had to find out fast. Captain Hook's life was in danger. Every hour that went by might turn out to be an hour too late.

Since Mr. V had created this mess, I was hoping he could help us clean it up.

“So if we're to believe you, you're a criminal mastermind without actually being the criminal,” I said once we were back in his study.

“I . . .” Mr. V hesitated. “I wouldn't put it that way, but I suppose so, yes.”

“Well, if you're not the bad guy, then who is?” Frank asked the million-dollar question.

“I don't know how anyone would have found out about the hidden tank. My firm's own architects didn't even know, and neither did anyone on the construction crew. I made sure of it.”

“I saw that escape hatch,” I said. “It's not like you threw that thing together at the last minute with a handful of Legos. It's a complicated piece of engineering. How do you build something like that into the exhibit without anyone on the construction crew knowing about it?”

Mr. V smiled self-consciously. Things had gone terribly wrong, but you could tell he was still proud of his plan.

“It wasn't easy, but by designing and overseeing the construction of the exhibit myself, I was able to divide up the labor so different workers handled only small parts of the secret holding tank without knowing what those parts were for . . . or what anyone else was doing, for that matter. That way no one would suspect anything out of the ordinary.”

“Yeah, but it didn't work out that way, did it, dude?” I said.

Mr. V looked down at his feet. “But I was so careful. I don't know what went wrong.”

“What about the rest of your staff ? Laura and Ron and the others?” Frank asked.

“No one knew who wasn't supposed to,” Mr. V said. “Not my family, not Ron, not anyone else.”

“I noticed you didn't mention Laura's name,” I pointed out.

“Or Jonathan's,” Frank added.

“So there were going to be other people in on the heist with you?” I asked, reading between the lines. “Couldn't they have gone through with it behind your back?”

“Absolutely not,” Mr. V insisted. “I trust my inner circle completely. They wouldn't betray me.”

“People will do a lot of things you don't think they would if there's enough money at stake,” I told him.

“Not my people,” he said.

“We're still going to need to talk to them,” Frank said. “Even if they weren't involved, they may have information that helps us.”

Jonathan appeared at the door before Mr. V had a chance to respond.

“You have another unscheduled visitor, sir,” Jonathan announced.

Mr. V's face burst into a huge smile when he saw the
young lady who walked in the door behind Jonathan. Mine, on the other hand, fell.

“Boys, have you met my niece Aly?”

Frank threw me a quick glance. Sometimes I wish we weren't able to read each other so well. I knew he was thinking the thing about Aly that I was trying not to. Even if Mr. V was in denial about it, it was possible that someone close to him could have secretly gained access to his plans—making his favorite niece, and my favorite scuba instructor, even more of a suspect.

Being an expert diver and a member of the BAD team, Aly had free, unsupervised access to Predator Reef. That gave her both the means and the opportunity to have committed the crime.