TURNED OUT THAT the CLANK was good news: the elevator was back in business. It took a moment, but then the lights came on and it moved. The smoke was sucked out through a vent.

First the elevator went up to the second floor, and then it came back down to the basement level.

The doors opened. There stood Mr. Clark and JJ’s mom, looking worried.

“JJ!” she called. “I’ve been trying to find you. I even enlisted Mr. Clark here. What happened?”

He wasn’t going to be a hero, not anymore. JJ ran out, fumbling his backpack. A paper fell out, and Penny picked it up. She was about to give it to him, but he was off to hug his mom.

Penny pocketed the paper to give to JJ later.

Penny and JJ told them about the elevator getting stuck, and then the tic-tac-toe game popping up.

Penny said, “You saved us, JJ. You realized we had to quit to beat the game.”

Mr. Clark nodded approvingly. “Very clever.” But then he frowned. “That game function is supposed to be shut off. Mr. Barclay installed it for his daughter,” he said. “She loved tic-tac-toe. It was a secret game that would appear if you hit that red button ten times.”

“Ten times?” JJ’s mom asked.

Mr. Clark glanced at JJ and Penny. “You really hit the red button that many times?”

JJ and Penny both shrugged.

Penny said, “It was an emergency, Mr. Clark. The elevator was stuck. We thought you might get an alarm or something, and you’d come to get us out.”

JJ added, “But the thing went crazy and got mad when we didn’t continue playing.”

His mom said, “It’s an old hotel, JJ. Maybe the computer just broke.”

Or maybe it was the hotel being haunted. Maybe it was the murderer. Why was it that adults always tried to explain things away?

Mr. Clark inspected the inside of the elevator. “Hmmm,” he mumbled. “That’s peculiar.”

“What?” Penny asked.

“Mr. Barclay shut the game off.” Mr. Clark looked very serious. “Someone sabotaged that elevator. They messed with the wires and activated the game.”

“On purpose?” JJ asked.

“It seems so.” Mr. Clark waited for the elevator doors to close. There was a hum that told them the car was going up.

Mr. Clark turned to walk back to the pool. “I must convince Detective Walker to get involved.”

“I’m going to the bowling alley, to find Ms. Chelsea,” Penny said to JJ. And she was off, before JJ could talk to her about this strange elevator business.

Jackie turned to JJ. “Let’s take the stairs.”

As they walked up the stairs, JJ worked up the courage to ask his mom what he came to find out. “Why did Mr. Barclay think you wanted him dead?”

JJ’s mom stopped for a moment. She sighed and turned to JJ before she started walking again. “I think it’s time I told you the truth.”

They had reached their floor and were walking down the hall toward their room. “Mr. Barclay actually had a lot of money invested in PB&JJ,” his mom said.

She unlocked the hotel room door. “When I came here for a meeting on Friday morning, Mr. Barclay threatened to make me pay back the entire loan he gave me to start the company. That would be really bad—PB&JJ might go under without his investment.”

“Wait—you were here at the hotel on the same day that Mr. Barclay died?” JJ felt a sick, twisty feeling in his gut.

“Yes.” JJ’s mom sat down on the bed. “The truth is, Mr. Barclay wasn’t wrong. I had motive to kill him, and I was here at the hotel that Friday. So I am a suspect.”