Wow, she could read minds, too.

"Let's switch gears," she said. "Supposedly there is a treasure. What could it be? Gold, silver, jewels?"

"I don't know what they produce in Brazil," I said. "We can look it up. He referred to it as a fortune, so it has to be something tangible that they could determine was valuable."

"So gold, silver or jewels certainly fit the bill."

"Maybe."

"What about an icon of some kind?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, like some ancient religious artifact. Isn't South America famous for them?"

Something clicked in my head. The words 'South America' set it off. Sabrina sensed it and went silent, giving me the time to process it. And then it hit me. I might have been looking at one of the clues that very first day, the day I went to my father's house.

I shook my head in wonder. Could my family get any more confusing? "All this time," I said, "I've been under the illusion that my father knew very little about this. And yet, he was the one who hid the book and the bag in the boxes in his attic. Why would he hide them so carefully if he didn't know? So it's obvious that he had to know at least a part of the story. He realized that there was danger associated with it."

"And?" Sabrina was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"He was working on a book for about ten years—at least, that's what I thought. I saw all the notes on his laptop. I just assumed inertia kept him from making much progress. But maybe it wasn't a book at all. Maybe he was looking into the same thing we are, just from a different angle. I think he knew—to some degree, anyway—what the treasure was. I think he also knew it was somewhere in South America."

She was still waiting.

"He was doing research on South America."

"On what aspect? Brazil? Treasure? Religious artifacts?"

"Um, I have no idea. I just know it was on South America."

"It's a big place."

"I get that. You have to understand my relationship with my father. We never talked about anything of substance. He would ask the safe questions like 'How's work' or 'How's school' or 'Do you have a girlfriend'. And he shared nothing about his life at all. Once, about five years ago I asked him—more just for something to say—if he was getting anything published. I was remembering how he published articles when I was young. At that time he said he was working on a book about South America. That's it. He never elaborated."

When I went through his stuff, I found the notes on his laptop—just a single file labeled 'Book Notes." I opened it and saw South America mentioned a few times, so I closed it and went on to other things."

"It's certainly worth checking out," said Sabrina. "Who knows? All these years your father may have been researching the treasure right under your nose."