Shadows at Predator Reef by Franklin W. Dixon Page A

said.
    â€œOkay, so we’ve solved part of the mystery. We knowhow she was taken, but we still don’t know who did it or where they took her.” Frank was stumped. I could see the wheels turning inside his brain. “It doesn’t really help us, but there are rumors that pirates originally built the tunnels as far back as the 1600s to smuggle their plunder in and out of the port,” he said, the nerd in him unable to resist adding another chapter to the history lesson.
    â€œI guess that would explain why there are old tracks in the tunnels, but I don’t think it was pirates who took Captain Hook, even if she is named after one.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the image of a bunch of pirate turtles abducting their pirate turtle captain.
    â€œWell, at least now we know that whoever did take her must have had access to the exhibit when it was being constructed. There wouldn’t have been any way to build that escape hatch after the exhibit was filled with water,” Frank said, narrowing down the suspect list.
    I narrowed it down further.
    â€œThat’s not all, though,” I told Frank as I pulled out the muddy piece of cloth. I’d gotten a chance to look at it a little more closely while I’d been waiting for Frank and the water taxi to reach the dock. “I found this trampled down in the dirt. I wouldn’t even have seen it if I hadn’t almost slipped on it.”
    â€œWhat is it?” Frank asked. “A handkerchief ?”
    â€œNot just a handkerchief,” I said, brushing it off to reveal the monogrammed initials B.V. “Mr. V’s handkerchief.”

THE SECRET LAIR
10
FRANK
    W E BOTH FIGURED A SURPRISE visit to Mr. V was in order. A half hour later we had changed into street clothes and hopped back aboard a water taxi headed to his mansion. When he moved to Bayport to start construction on Predator Reef, he’d bought himself a big old house right across the bay on a hill overlooking the harbor so he could see the aquarium from his back porch.
    â€œThere are only so many ways one of Mr. V’s handkerchiefs could have made its way into a four-hundred-year-old tunnel,” my brother said, shielding his eyes from the sun.
    â€œYeah. And the most obvious one was that he dropped it there a lot more recently than four hundred years ago,” I replied.
    Just then my phone buzzed with a text from Big Chuck.
    â€œI’ve got news about the shark that attacked you,” I told Joe after reading it. “Big Chuck says that once they finally got Bruce back in the examination tank, they discovered the reason he went all Jaws on us.”
    â€œBecause private detectives taste good?” Joe cracked.
    â€œNo, because someone jabbed him in the side with enough force to break through the shark’s tough skin,” I said. “Someone wanted him angry. He’s usually a really calm shark; he never would have gone after you like that unless he was pretty incensed.”
    â€œYou think Mr. V had something to do with that, too?”
    I was quiet for a second. I didn’t like the idea that Mr. V might be capable of harming an animal.
    â€œI guess we’ll see.”
    When we got to Mr. V’s and walked around to the front of the property, we could see news vans camped out in front of his house. I guess they didn’t think we were newsworthy, because they let us walk right past. I pressed the buzzer on the mansion’s big double doors. After a few minutes, the tuxedoed chauffeur who resembled Alfred from Batman opened the door. Like Alfred, I guess he was the butler as well as the chauffeur. He looked at us like we were a couple of unwelcome salesmen.
    â€œYes, how may I help you?” he said in the same strong New England accent as Mr. V and Ron. From the way theysounded, Mr. V must have recruited everyone on his staff from the same place.
    â€œWe’re here to see Mr. Valledor,” I