Tess stepped closer and touched one of the bugs. They looked like silverfish, but . . .

“Metal,” Tess breathed.

“So metal,” Cricket said. “And not in the good way.”

“I know that you all are into science and insects and that kind of thing,” Mrs. Moran said. “I thought maybe you would know what these are so that I can call management about the problem. We’re going to have to get an exterminator here immediately.”

“And the FBI,” said Cricket.

“I’m not so sure we’ll need the FBI, Cricket.”

“The CIA, then.” Cricket’s eyes got big behind the mask. “Unless they did it.”

“I don’t believe the CIA infested our apartment building with bugs, Cricket,” said Mrs. Moran. Cricket made a raspberry sound. Her mother ignored it. “Anyway, I’m going to leave that box with you. Maybe you can call me later, let me know what you think?”

“Sure, Mrs. Moran,” said Jaime. “Happy to.”

Mrs. Moran beamed again. “Come on, Cricket. Let’s leave these guys to their experiments. I promised I would take you to the museum.”

Cricket said, “We’re going to see the dinosaur bones.”

“The Natural History Museum?” said Tess. “My favorite. I love the megafauna exhibits, too.”

“Hmmph,” said Cricket.

“Bones of giant mammals that lived in the Pleistocene era,” Theo explained.

“MEGAFAUNA,” Cricket said, wonder in her voice. “Is Nine a MEGAFAUNA?”

“No, she’s just big, not giant,” said Tess. “And all those others are extinct.”

“That’s sad,” said Cricket.

“Yeah,” Tess said.

Jaime bent to look Cricket in the mask. “Thank you for collecting these bugs. I really appreciate it. I think you’ve found something very important and possibly nefarious.”

Cricket smiled one of her rare smiles, one that transformed her whole face. “I’ll keep looking for them when I get home.”

“Good,” said Jaime. “Have a great time at the museum and say hi to the giant sloth for me.”

Once Cricket and Mrs. Moran were gone, Theo said, “I wonder what—”

But Tess cut him off. She shook her head and put a finger across her lips. Then, she pointed at the box.

Jaime placed it on the coffee table. Tess grabbed one of the bugs. Cricket hadn’t lied; she’d broken them all. This one had tiny springs and wires hanging from its middle.

“A bug,” said Theo, when he saw wires were connected to a microphone and a microcamera, a bug inside a bug.

They stood in Jaime’s living room, trying to absorb what this meant. Someone had planted spying devices all throughout this apartment building. Maybe this very apartment. Hadn’t one of these crawled out of one of Jaime’s closets? They had mistaken it for a real bug at the time, but whoever made them could have seen and heard everything Jaime said, everything Tess and Theo had said today.

The clue! They’d been talking about the inscription from the island!