Free Trouble and Treasure (#1, Trouble and Treasure Series) by Odette C. Bell Page A

roll out of the car, in her
never-ending attempts to flee me.
    “ Amanda, I need as much information as you
can give me. Please don't tell me that those globes are back at
that house.” I doubted they were. If Maratova had found the globes
lined up neatly under her pillow, I would have heard about it by
now.
    She bit her lip, and I only noticed
because I took the time to take my eyes off the road to glance her
way. “Amanda?”
    “ Well,” she began in a small voice,
“Technically I... don't have them yet.”
    My lips curled into a frown. “Sorry?” my
voice bottomed out low. This wasn't all some game, was it? Had
Amanda Stanton been lying when she'd told that auction room she had
the full set of the Stargazer Globes?
    My throat became dry at the prospect of how
fucked up this could be.
    “ I know where they are, I just don't have
them yet,” Amanda started to play with her fingernails, rubbing at
her hands nervously.
    Before I could blow a gasket at the
prospect Amanda had been lying all along, and that the only
Stargazer Globe had already been sold off at auction, I took a
calming breath. “Where are they, Amanda?”
    “ Oh,” she clamped her hands tightly on her
lap, “They are in his book. Well,” she moved her hands about as if
she was trying to extinguish a fire, “I don't mean to say that
they're in his book, like they are somehow squeezed between the
pages, because that would be silly.”
    I didn't even bother to point out that
yes, obviously that would be silly, as silly as the current
conversation. All I cared about were those globes, not how
ridiculously cute Amanda's lips were as she caught them between her
teeth.
    “ What book?” I asked after it became clear
Amanda was going to leave out the most important detail.
    “ My great-uncle's book. The one on his desk
where I found the original globe, the one that had been in the
attic full of treasure.”
    “ Sorry? The roomful of treasure? What are
you talking about?” my tone was terse; this was like getting
information out of a two-year-old.
    “ I found the original globe, the one sold
at auction, in my great-uncle’s attic. While the rest of his house
was full of junk, well, the attic was full of treasure,” she said
matter-of-factly, “There were even gold statues. My great-aunt,
owing to the fact she is the executrix of the estate, dealt with
those. She left me that inane-looking globe and all of Great-Uncle
Stanton's papers. I suppose she thought they weren’t worth
anything.”
    I snorted. It didn't surprise me that Imelda
Stanton wouldn’t have thought much of the dusty old Stargazer
Globe. She wasn't the kind of old dame to look beyond
appearances.
    That Amanda had obviously thought there was
something to the Stargazers, or at least enough to put them up for
auction and find herself in the biggest trouble of her life, was
interesting.
    That the globe sold at auction had been in a
room full of treasure, well that very was interesting indeed. Could
it be that old crazy Arthur Stanton had already brought all the
Stargazers together and found some of the treasure from them (it
wouldn’t be all, not unless he’d hollowed out a whole city
underneath his manor and had stacked it to the brim with the
world’s greatest antiquities)? I had no idea, but it was something
to think about. I realized as I let a genuine smile spread my lips
that any clues I was looking for might be in the book Amanda was
talking about.
    I took a corner too hard, Amanda grabbing
hold of the armrest, her legs stiffening as she tried to keep
balance, her skirt riding up. I flicked my gaze down to her knee,
then up to her face. “Where is the book, Amanda?”
    She caught me looking at her legs, and
sucked in her lips and narrowed her eyes. As if I was interested
anyway.
    “ It's at the local library,” Amanda said
with a shrug.
    Before I could worry that yet again the
next piece of the puzzle was back at old Stanton's house, it was as
if she had come at me with a