Read The 39 Clues [Cahills vs. Vespers] 05 - Trust No One for Free Online Page A

was no disdain in his voice, as there might have been a couple of years ago.
    “Ian, would you send me the list of where she’s been, and copy it to Attleboro? Maybe if all of us work on it, we can figure something out.”
    “What is it you Americans say — ‘Hey okay’?”
    Atticus giggled. “‘A-okay,’”
he said.
    “Yes. Well. You knew what I meant.” Ian seemed back to his usual self now, unflappable and confident-borderline-arrogant.
    Amy discussed with him the next step: working with Evan to find the hostages. Ian agreed readily. As they ended the call, Amy felt a little better. That, at least, had gone fairly well.
    Evan stood up. “Guess I better get going,” he said reluctantly. He fist-bumped Dan and nodded at Jake and Atticus. Then he turned to Amy.
    The look in his eyes — equal parts anxious and hopeful — made her feel terrible again. She hugged him quickly, knowing that Jake was right there watching.

    The exterior of the Beinecke resembled a pane of giant postage stamps made of marble, its lines clean and modern. It did not look like a building that held rare books. It looked more like a futuristic art museum, or perhaps an experimental cloning facility.
    As the four teens entered through the glass doors, they could see a uniformed security guard at the front desk. Clearly this was no ordinary library.
    Amy approached the desk first and introduced the group as homeschoolers on a field trip. “We’re studying the Renaissance,” she said brightly. She found it a little scary to consider how practiced she had become at lying to strangers. “And we know that the Beinecke has a lot of medieval manuscripts, so we were wondering —”
    “The Voynich!” Atticus came in right on cue, bouncing a little in excitement. “Amy, ask about the Voynich!”
    “Okay, okay!” she said, laughing a little, and turned back to the guard. “He’s pretty excited — we’ve been learning a lot about it.”
    Not lying there.
    The guard didn’t smile, but his face was kind. “The Voynich is kept in secure storage,” he said. “It’s not on display for the general public.”
    Amy’s face fell. (That, too, was genuine.) “They don’t bring it out, not ever?”
    “Requests have to be submitted in advance, in writing,” he said. “And even if you do that, I should warn you that very few requests are approved.”
    Now Dan stepped forward. “We’ve come a really long way to see it,” he said.
Also not a lie . . . yesterday we were in Africa, for heaven’s sake.
    Jake’s turn. “We didn’t know about asking in advance — can we talk to someone else about it?”
    The guard looked them over. Amy did her best to appear earnest, eager, and innocent. She made sure not to look at the others, afraid she might break out of character if she did.
    The guard reached for the phone in front of him. “I’ll make a call,” he said. “But I’m warning you, you probably won’t be allowed to see it. This might take a while, so” — he nodded toward a clear acrylic display stand on the desk — “in the meantime I suggest you look around. There’s some interesting stuff upstairs.”

    It was just as well, Atticus thought as they climbed the wide staircase to the mezzanine.
This will give us a chance to check out the building.
Plus, it reinforces our cover story.
    The Beinecke was really a building inside a building: In the center was a multistory glass tower. On every floor of the tower were shelves full of books visible through the glass walls.
    Old books.
    Really
old books.
    “Incunabula,” Atticus said, his eyes glowing with excitement.
    “In what?” Dan asked.
    “Incunabula,” Atticus repeated. “It actually means ‘in the cradle.’ It’s the word used to describe the earliest books ever made.”
    He tilted his head back to look at the top of the tower, then gazed at the marble walls, turning slowly in a full circle. Now that they were inside, he could see that the white marble slabs were