“Did you hit Power?” I ask.

“No, I hit Mute – the sad thing is, I can still hear you.” Flipping the remote over, Charlie presses his thumb against the back and shoves open the battery compartment.

Raising an eyebrow, he looks up at Gillian. The party’s over. “It’s empty.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she says. “I meant to put some new ones in.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “Charlie, didn’t you say there were some in the closet?”

“Yeah,” he says coldly, still locked on Gillian. “There’s a whole toolbox of ’em. Every size imaginable.”

Running back and forth to the closet, I return with a handful of fresh double-As. Gillian’s already manually turned on the TV, but Charlie’s focused on the remote. He slides the batteries in and gives it another shot. Nothing happens.

“Maybe it’s broken.”

“In this house?” Gillian asks. “Dad fixed everything.”

“Here, give it here,” I say to Charlie as I sit on the edge of the coffee table. Time for the trick I used to use on my old Walkman. Pulling the batteries out of the back, I bring the remote up to my lips and blow a quick puff of air into the empty battery area. To my surprise, I hear a fast, fluttering sound – like when you blow hard against a blade of grass… or the edge of a sheet of paper.

Charlie’s head slowly cocks off-center. I know what he’s thinking.

“Maybe it is broken,” Gillian admits.

“No way,” Charlie insists. His eyes are wide with that hungry look on his face. In any other house, a broken remote is just that. But here… like Gillian said, Duckworth fixed everything. “Let me have it,” Charlie demands.

I’m already one step ahead. Cramming two fingers into the battery compartment, I start feeling around for whatever made that noise. Nothing there.

Charlie’s out of his seat, anxiously standing over me. “Break it open.”

Gillian shakes her head. “You really think he…”

“Break it!” he repeats.

With my fingers still inside, I yank hard on the back of the remote. It doesn’t give. Not enough leverage.

“Here,” Charlie says, tossing me a nearby pencil. I jam it into the battery area, and pull hard on the lever. There’s a loud crack… plastic snaps… and the entire back of the remote breaks off, flying straight into Gillian’s lap.

“Well blow me down,” Charlie says.

I’m not sure what he’s talking about. Then I look down. Inside the remote, tacked down by two thick staples, is a sheet of paper folded up so small and tight, it has the length and width of a flattened cigarette. The Secret Service may’ve ripped through every other nook and cranny, but they certainly didn’t come to watch TV.

Gillian’s mouth gapes open.

“What is it?” Charlie asks.

I wedge the staples out with the tip of the pencil. With a yawn, the folded-up paper slowly fans open. The excitement hits so fast, I can barely…

“Open it!” Charlie shouts.

I unfold it in a blur of fingertips – and from inside the first sheet of paper – a glossy, much shorter piece of paper falls to the floor. Charlie dives for it.

At first, it looks like a bookmark, but there’s a confused squint on Charlie’s face.

“What’s it say?” I ask.

“I have no idea.” Flipping it around, Charlie turns the bookmark sideways and reveals four photos – headshots, all in a row. A salt-and-pepper-haired older man, next to a pale mid-forties banker type, next to a freckled woman with frizzy red hair, next to a tired-looking black man with a cleft chin. It’s like one of those photobooth strips, but since it runs horizontally, it looks more like a lineup.

“What’s yours say?” Charlie asks.

I almost forgot. Gripping the legal-looking document, I skim as fast as I can: Confidentiality… Limits on Disclosure… Shall not be limited to formulae, drawings, designs… “I may’ve never gone to law school, but after four years of dealing with paranoid rich people, I know an NDA when I see one.”

“A what?” Charlie asks.

“NDA – a nondisclosure agreement. You sign them during business deals so both sides’ll keep their mouths shut. It’s how you prevent a new idea from leaking out.”

“And this one…?”

I hold up the document and point to the signature at the bottom. It’s a mad scribble in muddy black ink. But there’s no mistaking the name. Martin Duckworth.

“I don’t get it,” Gillian says. “You think dad invented something?”

“Oh, he definitely invented something,” I say, my voice already racing down the mountain. “And from the looks of it, he was up to something big.”

“What’re you talking about?” Charlie asks.

I once again wave the creased paper through the air. “Read the other signature on the contract.”

He grabs my wrist to hold it steady. Agreed to and signed – Brandt T. Katkin – Chief Strategist, Five Points Capital. “Who’s Brandt Katkin?” Charlie asks.

“Forget Katkin – I’m talking about Five Points Capital. With a name like that and a letter like this, I’ll bet you my boxers it’s a VC.”

“VC?” Gillian asks.

“Venture capital,” I explain. “They lend money to new companies… get entrepreneurs rolling by investing in their ideas. Anyway, when a venture capital firm signs a nondisclosure agreement – trust me on this one – we’re talking pocketfuls of cash on the line.”

“How do you know?”

“That’s how the business works – these VCs see hundreds of new ideas every day – one guy invents Widget A; another guy invents Widget B. Both widget guys want to get nondisclosure agreements before they go in and lift their skirts. But the VCs – they hate nondisclosures. They want to see up every skirt they can lay their eyes on. More important, if a VC signs a nondisclosure, it opens itself up to liability. When we took a client to Deardorff Capital in New York last year, one of the partners said the only way they’d sign an NDA was if Bill Gates himself walked in and said, ‘I have a great idea – sign this and I’ll tell you about it.’”

“So the fact that Duckworth got them to sign…”

“… means that he’s got a Bill Gates-sized idea,” I agree. Turning to Gillian, I ask, “Do you have any clue what he was working on?”

“No, I… I didn’t know he was building anything. All his other inventions were tiny – like the 8-track.”

“Not anymore,” I say. “If this is right, he came up with something that makes the 8-track look like, well… like an 8-track.”

“It had to be something with computers,” Charlie adds.

“Really? You think?” Gillian asks sarcastically.

“No. Just a guess,” he shoots back.

“Both of you – stop,” I warn. “Gillian, are you sure there’s nothing you can think of? Anything at all that he might’ve been trying to sell?”

“What makes you think he was selling it?”

“You don’t go to a VC unless you need some cash. Either he got them to invest, or he made the sale outright.”

“So that’s where he got the money?” Charlie asks. “You think the idea was that good?”

“If they’re giving him three million dollars,” Gillian adds, “it’s gotta be major good.”

Charlie wings me a look. If it’s three hundred mil, it’s King Kong good.

“What about the photos?” Gillian blurts out of nowhere. She sounds incredibly excited, but as Charlie immediately points out, her bare feet are once again fists on the carpet. What does he expect? We’re all anxious.

“So they’re not relatives or anything?” Charlie asks her.

“Never seen ’em before in my life.”

“What about friends?” I ask.

“I bet one of them’s Brandt Katkin,” Charlie says, motioning with his chin at the nondisclosure agreement.

“They could be anyone,” I add, unable to slow down. With the taste of hope on my tongue, I stare down at the four headshots. “I’m betting they were his contacts at the VC.”

“Maybe they were people he was working with,” Charlie adds. “Maybe they were the people he trusted.”