Detective Clarkson frowned so hard his eyes nearly crossed. “Who’s Cricket?”

“My neighbor,” said Jaime.

“Your neighbor is . . . a cricket?”

“She’s a girl.”

Tess said, “First Nine, then Karl. I don’t think this is a coincidence.”

“Hmmm,” said Theo, pulling on his lip. “Felonious bears.”

“What bears?” said Detective Clarkson.

“No bears,” said Tess’s mom. “Just felonies.”

“Mom, I think someone might be stealing hybrids,” Tess said.

Tess’s mom nodded. “Could be.” She turned to her partner. “Clarkson, I want you to check with animal control and see if they’ve gotten any calls about missing chimera.”

“I thought the bigger nutter butters were outlawed,” Clarkson said.

“They were, but people who already owned them were grandfathered in. That’s why we could keep Nine. But these bigger chimera are valuable. And it looks like whoever is doing this believes the smaller chimera are valuable, too. Who knows why they were taken.”

“Or who took them,” said Tess.

Clarkson nodded. “I’m on it.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and punched in some numbers. “Connect me with AC, would you, Nancy? I don’t care if the phone system is confusing, just do it, okay? It’s not for me, it’s for Biedermann. I don’t know where in the Wheaties the cat is, that’s why I’m calling. It’s not just the cat anymore. We could have a gang of felonious bears running around. What? I meant thieves. Felonious thieves. I’m not repetitive, you’re repetitive.” His voice trailed off as he marched out to the back porch to take the rest of the call.

“That’s my cue,” said Tess’s mom. “I have to get to work.” She stopped to kiss the top of Tess’s head. “I know you’re worried, I’m worried, too, but I promise I’ll get to the bottom of this. And, Jaime, we’ll ride out to Hoboken and talk to Cricket and her parents and anyone else we can get ahold of. We’ll find out if anyone saw anything strange.”

“All of Hoboken is strange,” Jaime said.

“Then I guess we’ll get a lot of statements,” said Tess’s mom. “But I want you kids to try to relax. Maybe do something fun today. Go to the park. See a movie. Rent some exos and play some ball. Get your mind off of this for a while.”

“Sure,” Tess said, who had no intention of doing any such things.

After both her parents had left for the day, Tess, Theo, and Jaime went upstairs to tackle the ledger again. They figured that if they couldn’t do much to help locate Nine or Karl, they could at least figure out the next clue to the Cipher.

But as it turned out, figuring out the next clue was as difficult as figuring out what had happened to the animals. Maybe more so.