Chapter 1
"And one last thing for tonight," said the news anchor on the TV, "Next week the New York Times bestselling author Amy Cahill will be coming back to her hometown of Boston and visiting the news station for a book signing and will be interviewed live. To buy tickets for the live interview, visit our website. Signing off, Wendy Wallace, Boston News." Ian clicked off the TV and rolled over in his hotel bed. He was in Boston on a business trip. He didn't know what he wanted to do, and as soon as Natalie graduated high school, she had started her own cosmetics and fragrance line—Serpentine Passion—and when she offered him a job as co-CEO, he gladly accepted. One of the only problems was that he had to do all the CEO stuff Natalie didn't want to do, which really wasn't too bad because they had opposing viewpoints on what they preferred doing.
Ian felt conflicted inside. For the past couple of years, he had heard all about Amy Cahill, the Boston orphan who received a lot of money from her grandmother after her death and then wrote stories about a teenage girl and boy who traveled the world with their cousin trying to find the secrets to a treasure. He had never read the stories, but had heard they were good and they were hot sellers, so he figured they must be. But he never read them—why should he? Amy had written them. Why bother? Natalie had picked one up and started reading it one day, but when she realized who had written it, she "tossed it out". Ian knew that she still had it and read it, but if he asked her about it, she would fire him. He acted the same way his sister did, but always wondered about the books.
Then, on impulse, he rolled out of the bed, put a shirt and shoes on, shoved money in the pocket of his sweatpants, and took the elevator down to the hotel gift shop. He knew that it would be closing any minute now, if it wasn't closed already, so he ran from the elevator to the gift shop. When he got there, the clerk was just starting to close up, but after persuading her with his silky British voice, he got her to sell him the Amy Cahill's Around the World in Search of Treasure Trilogy and then went back up to his room where he read until it was daybreak. He hadn't been able to stop reading, even though he pretty much already knew what would happen when because of the clue hunt. He finally had to stop when his alarm went off. He quickly ordered room service—with lots of coffee—and got dressed. He had a meeting with a department store that could potentially carry Serpentine Passion products, and he wanted to look presentable. He grabbed the first book—that he was already over halfway through with—and shoved it in his briefcase so he could read it during the taxi ride or in any other spare time he had.