Caught in a bad romance. Whoaaa-oh-ooooh!"
Nellie wailed along to the XM radio blaring from the enormous speakers.

"Can I uncover my ears now?" Dan called from the back, where he was reclined across the leather seat. "Has Nellie stopped her Lady Gag Me impression?

A Styrofoam egg carton caught his eye. He opened it and found a single silver orb with little blinking red lights. "This is cool, too!" He dropped it into his backpack.
"Dan, no!"
"What? They've got plenty of other stuff, and we need all the help we can get!"
"It could be dangerous."
"I hope so.

Nellie grinned. "I always wanted to go to Venice. It's supposed to be the romance capital of the world."
"Sweet," put in Dan. "Too bad your date is an Egyptian Mau on a hunger strike."
The au pair sighed. "Better than an eleven-year-old with a big mouth.

I've got a few ideas," (Amy) admitted. "But I don't know where we're going in the long term. I mean - have you ever thought about what this ultimate treasure could be?"
"Something cool." (Dan)
"Oh, that's real helpful. I mean, what could make somebody the most powerful Cahill in history? And why thirty-nine clues?"
Dan shrugged. "Thirty-nine is a sweet number. It's thirteen times three. It's also the sum of five prime numbers in a row - 3,5,7,11,13. And if you add the first three powers of three, 3 to the first, 3 to the second, and s to the third, you get thirty-nine."
Amy stared at him. "How did you know that?"
"What do you mean? It's obvious.

You see?" Damien leaned over his desk and spread out half a dozen charcoal sketches. "These are only quick studies of course. But my agent in Florence tells me this artist, Leonardo, is a master and also quite an inventor of mechanical devices--which, as you know, are my passion. Leonardo just completed a portrait of Lisa de Giocondo. He calls it the Mona Lisa. I thought I might commission him to do a portrait of me, and while he's here, I can pick his mind for mechanical secrets. How does that sound?"
"Expensive," Gideon murmured.

Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill