Arts and Thefts Page 10

  “You’d think so,” Hack said. “But no. They’ve only prepared enough prize material for the winners of each division and Best Overall. Diana’s getting nothing.”

  My fingers itched. Diana had been robbed, and my specialty was taking back what was stolen. But what could I do when there was nothing to take back for her, no prize promised her that she should have won?

  “How do you know that? Maybe the judges will make an exception because of sabotage.”

  Hack raised the phone. “I told you. Buzz. People are talking.”

  “Because you can trust everything you read on the internet.”

  “He’s right,” Diana cut in. “The officials were talking about it after they saw what happened. I’m out.”

  “For what it’s worth,” Case said, “you’re very talented. I saw your work before . . . .” He waved a hand. “It was exquisite.”

  Diana blushed. “Thank you. What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t say,” Case said. “That way, you can call me whatever you like.” He took her hand.

  I rolled my eyes at Case’s poorly timed romantic overtures and looked back at the painting, checking on Becca. She was still busy arguing with her mom. Next to her a contest official took out his phone. He glanced at the screen, jolted, and hurried away.

  I frowned.

  Hack, back to looking at his phone, gasped. “Guys.”

  “Not now,” Case murmured.

  “Guys, we have a problem.” Hack held out the phone. On the screen was a photo of another painting covered with a broad squiggle of red paint.

  “There’s just been another sabotage. And it’s on Wall C.”

  CASE FROZE, HYPNOTIZED BY THE tiny picture on the screen. He grabbed the phone from Hack and held it in front of his face. “Is it mine?” he asked. “Is it mine?”

  “Hold on, hold on!” Hack yelled. “I need to zoom in.”

  My blood ran as cold and sour as frozen lemonade. Oh man. Ohhh man. Had Case been hit? Had I been messing around with Becca, playing detective, and let Case get hit?

  I couldn’t think. I didn’t wait for Hack to examine the picture and see who’d been attacked. I lunged past my friends and Diana and ran, my feet slapping the sidewalk. I had to get to Wall C. I had to find the ruined painting and see if it was Case’s. And if it was, I was . . . I was . . .

  I had no idea what I was going to do. But it didn’t bode well for the saboteur.

  I would rip them in half.

  “Wait, J!” Hack was shouting.

  “Wilderson! Get back here!” Becca had spotted me.

  I ignored both of them and ran. I’m good at it, and it felt wonderful to be able to do something right in the middle of this whole mess. So I ran harder, pushing through crowds and dodging bystanders who hadn’t heard the news yet.

  It’s not Case’s, I thought. It can’t be. I’m going to turn this corner and see it and it won’t be Case’s.

  I turned the corner, saw the painting, and felt my knees turn to jelly.

  It wasn’t Case’s painting. His color-dabbed seascape hung on the wall, untouched, as I sagged with relief. The painting two spots over, however, dripped red. People swarmed around the damaged art. Two men in park security uniforms were carefully lowering the painting off the wall as a boy watched, ashen-faced.

  I let out my breath in a rush. I turned back to the painting, now in transit. It wasn’t Case’s, but the next one could be, unless I did something to stop the saboteur before he (and/or she) struck again.

  Forget Becca and her protocols. I had to get a closer look at that painting.

  I darted at the two park security officials. Or, more specifically, the painting between them.

  “Wait!” I reached for the painting. I missed; my hand dragged across the canvas, smearing through the wet paint.

  “Kid! What’s wrong with you?” One guard yanked me away from the painting.

  I retracted my stained hand, balling it into a fist and holding it close to my chest. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Is it my friend’s? Did someone ruin his painting?” I let the fear from when I thought Case might have been the victim slide into my voice.

  “Yeah, and we might not know who did it now that you put your fingers all over it.” He waved at the canvas. My fingers had painted four lines through the broad strokes. “See?”

  I looked at the paint on my hand and rubbed two stained fingers together. I checked out the ruined painting. Under the red paint, I caught images of neon shapes against a black background. I thought I would have liked it if I’d seen it earlier.

  But the sabotage strokes themselves were what interested me. Where my hand hadn’t smeared it, there weren’t any bristle marks, like I’d expect to see if the saboteur were using a stolen brush. However, the paint was thicker in small, round spots, and on the edges, I saw holes in the paint spread. Like maybe this paint was smeared on with a sponge.

  Huh.

  The guards whisked the painting away. “You’d better hope you didn’t leave fingerprints,” one said. “Then people might think you’re the saboteur.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to touch the paint.”

  I hadn’t meant to touch it. Honestly. I just wanted a better look at the painting itself, and the saboteur’s stroke marks. But as the guards hurried away before any other kids could turn the evidence into a Touch-and-Feel exhibit, I looked again at the paint on my hands.

  I rubbed my fingers together and watched as the paint dried into rubbery strings. Heather had reported tempera paint stolen. Tempera paint, as I had discovered earlier in Case’s locker, dried with a gritty, chalky feel. Not smooth and rubbery.

  I smiled. I knew it wasn’t Case, and now I had proof.

  Hack appeared next to me. “It was Justin’s painting,” he said. “Not Case’s.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out.” I raised my hand and looked closely at the paint. It wasn’t a match for the paint in Case’s locker, I was sure of it. I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been until the relief swept through me.

  Hack groaned when he saw the paint on my hand. “Please tell me you didn’t leave fingerprints.”

  “You know me,” I said. “I don’t have fingerprints. I had them laser-removed when I dedicated my life to retrieving.” Hack hit me in the shoulder, almost making me get the paint on my face. “Or the guards saw me touch the painting, so they know where those fingerprints came from,” I said. “Your pick.”

  “Good thing for you there were witnesses,” Hack said.

  “Good thing,” I said. “Where’s Case?”

  Hack jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Making out with his painting. For a guy so concerned with manners, he’s really rubbing that kid’s face in it.”

  I looked back to see Case hugging his painting, face almost pressed against it. The white-faced kid whose painting had been ruined watched enviously from the comforting embrace of his mother.

  “Should we call him, or should we let them have their privacy?” I asked Hack, grinning. He smiled back.

  “Let’s give them a little longer. That’s the most loving Case has gotten since Erin Gimley jumped him after school on Valentine’s Day.”

  “She was very enthusiastic for a first grader.” Hack’s lips twitched, and we both busted up laughing. I don’t know if it was the sight of Case’s extreme gratitude for his painting’s safety, or the release of tension after fearing that Case had been attacked, but Hack and I laughed so hard his glasses were spattered with tears.

  “I-I’ll go get him,” I wheezed. “I need to ask him about—”

  “Jeremy. Wilderson.”

  I stiffened. When I turned around, Becca was about fifty feet away, stalking closer and closer. That’s right. I’d run from her. I’d left her to go chasing after the new sabotage—the one she didn’t know had happened! And now I had red paint on my hand and I was here with Hack and she was coming at me with murder in her eyes.

  Hack shoved me. “Go,” he sai
d. “Case and I can handle this. You just get out of here.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Get out of here before the psycho catches up. Meet up with us later, and we’ll work the job together. All three of us.”

  Ouch. “I don’t know if I can.”

  Hack nodded, but he seemed hurt. “Then we’ll see you when we see you.”

  “Till then,” I said. I turned to run and then spun back to see Hack deliberately getting in Becca’s way. He wouldn’t hold her for long; she was on the track-and-field team, like me. She’d dodge him and come after me.

  Good. I’d survive whatever threats she’d level at me. It wasn’t like I hadn’t dealt with worse. And as I ran, I looked at my hand. We had a lot to discuss and the sooner the better.

  • • •

  Sooner it was: Becca ambushed me as I rounded a corner. “Gotcha. You know, you always take a right turn first when you’re running.”

  “Really? How reliable of me.”

  “I can count on you for a lot of things,” Becca said, scowling. “Unfortunately, one of those things seems to be running off in the middle of an investigation.”

  “It’s not like I didn’t have a good reason.”

  Becca started to advance on me, so I backed away. All the while, Becca took me to task. “I don’t care what your reason was. How dare you run off after I told you to stay where I could see you? Because of you, I had to abandon the crime scene before I’d thoroughly examined it—what is on your hand?”

  I looked down at the smeared paint and swallowed. “Red-handed, once again,” I said weakly.

  Becca grabbed my wrist and raised my stained hand so she could see it. Her eyes blazed. “This is from the other painting, isn’t it? You tampered with a crime scene. You tampered with evidence! You really can’t help yourself, can you?”

  “It’s not like I did it.”

  “That’s not the point,” Becca said.

  “Then what is?”

  Becca twisted my wrist, forcing me forward. I could almost hear my arm groaning under the stress. Any harder and it’d fracture, I was sure.

  “S-stop,” I gasped.

  Becca leaned down, her hair brushing my face. “You listen to me, Wilderson,” she hissed in my ear. “When this is over, I won’t hesitate to gather intel on your illicit summer activities so I can bring you to justice when we’re back in school. But for right now, we’re working together. On my case. That means it’s my reputation on the line, not yours. Any of your monkey business will be connected back to me. So, for once, you will do what I tell you, and you will do this by the book. If you tamper with evidence or break the law, so help me, I will use your head as a shot put. Do I make myself clear?”

  I nodded and Becca released me. “Taking off my head doesn’t seem very just,” I said, rubbing my wrist. Good thing she hadn’t twisted my clean arm.

  “After everything you’ve put me through, you’re lucky I don’t have you hanged, drawn, and quartered.” Becca folded her arms and watched me.

  I winced. Have you ever looked up what being hanged, drawn, and quartered is? I have. Even as an (I was pretty sure) empty threat, it wasn’t one I liked leveled at me. “I’m sorry, but is something up?”

  “Oh, like now you care.” Becca turned away from me.

  “I care. I mean it.”

  Becca snorted. “Right. If you cared, you’d have been around when I needed you. If you cared, I would have been able to count on you.”

  “Is this about me racing off to see if my friend’s painting was sabotage number two? If so, I’m sorry,” I said, trying to calm her down, but still feeling annoyed because I hadn’t done anything wrong. “And I’m sorry I got a very valuable piece of evidence smeared across my hand, especially since you had to leave your own crime scene to come chasing after me.”

  She still seemed upset. I stepped closer to her. “What else is up?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  “Tell me.”

  Becca sighed. She pulled out her camera and took a few photos of my hand.

  “It’s my mom,” she finally said.

  “What about your mom?” I asked. “Wouldn’t she be helping us?”

  Becca scowled. “You’d think. But Mom is convinced our saboteur is an adult, so she’s running her own investigation.”

  “An adult?”

  Becca gestured at the dried paint staining my hand. “It’s this paint. The sabotage on Diana’s painting was done with the same kind, or something that looks a lot like it. Mom didn’t tell me what kind of paint she thinks it is because she wants to hear back from the lab. But she thinks a kid wouldn’t have access to this kind of paint.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s an art show. Kids here have a lot of different kinds of paint.”

  “Maybe the kind of paint Mom suspects isn’t typically something used in art,” Becca said. She shook her head. “There’s more. The park is so crowded—someone must have seen something. But no one seems to have noticed anything amiss. Mom and I both think this suggests a level of trust in the saboteur. Mom thinks a kid wouldn’t carry that kind of trust, but an adult leaning close to a painting would seem like a judge or just a parent admiring their child’s work.”

  “Fair point,” I said. “So why are you upset?”

  “Because I still think it’s a kid doing this!” Becca squeezed her camera.

  “Okay,” I said. “Clearly we have a lot to discuss. But not here. Not where anyone can hear us.”

  Becca nodded. “The shed where we stored our disguises,” she said. “You go. I’ll follow after a few minutes.”

  “So savvy. That’s why I like you.”

  Becca smirked. “Save your so-called charm for your fan club.”

  “I don’t have a fan club.”

  “Exactly. Now go.”

  I hurried to the shed, let myself in, and waited for Becca to come back. Being alone in a stuffy shed that smells like gasoline and cut grass tends to make your thoughts circle faster, if only to keep you company. At first I thought about how it was around noon, and the tent would be serving lunch, and I was hungry and should go back for a sandwich, but soon my thoughts turned to more serious matters.

  The police thought the saboteur was an adult. What if they were right? Then we should just let them handle it and enjoy ourselves. But then again, Becca knew her business well enough that I couldn’t dismiss her theories, whatever they were, and honestly, how much could I enjoy myself when a couple of saboteurs were running around?

  The saboteurs had taken out two paintings quickly, one after another. For all I knew, they were attacking another painting as I sat waiting. What if there were more than two saboteurs, systematically taking out everyone else’s art?

  No, I couldn’t think like that. I had no proof that there were more than two saboteurs, or even that there were two. At most, there was one to distract and one to do the deed. That’s all I had. I needed to think through what I knew.

  Interesting, how only paintings had been struck so far. Did that mean one of the two possible saboteurs was a painter? That was a point in my favor for Quinn being saboteur number two. What about Heather’s stolen supplies? How did they factor in? Why was that paint in Case’s locker?

  “Don’t think too hard. You’ll hurt yourself.” I looked up to see Becca standing over me with a snow cone in each hand. She smiled. “Green or red?”

  “Green.”

  “Huh. Would’ve figured you for red, given your history with the color.” I made a face and she laughed. “Here. Tell me what you found out.”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “The cones were free. I discovered damage in the snow-cone machine’s cooling system. Nothing big, just spotted some leaking hoses on my way past. It seriously took me a minute. But the guy gave me a couple freebies as a thank-you.” She sat on a stack of neatly arranged paint cans.

  I took the snow cone in my clean hand and sipped up the drippy parts. “Di
scovered damage. You really can’t turn it off, can you?”

  “Neither can you. Now talk.”

  “You first. Why do you think our saboteurs are kids if your mom thinks it’s an adult?’

  Becca shrugged. “More to lose, first of all. Parents may want their kids to win, but it’s the kids on the chopping block. They’re the ones who are trying to succeed, and they’re the ones who are freaking out in the Contestants’ Tent. But also, people wouldn’t notice a kid standing by the paintings. Adults tend to forget about kids. They trust us, maybe more than they should.”

  I nodded. I’d used that particular trust a lot in my work. One innocent, wide-eyed kid, coming right up. Did the job every time.

  “It just doesn’t make sense to me that the saboteur is an adult. A kid could get this paint, whatever it is,” Becca added.

  “What do you think it is?” I asked.

  “Not sure. It’s red, like the paint in Case’s locker—”

  “But it’s not the same kind.” I rubbed my painted fingers together quickly, making the dried red paint twist into rubbery strings. “Look.”

  Becca caught them as they fell. “That’s interesting.”

  “Remember the yellow tempera paint I got on my hands?” I said. “When that dried, it had a dull, chalky look. It fell off in flakes. But look at this.” I showed her the paint that was still on my skin. “See how it’s thin and glossy? It’s not the same paint as the paint we found in Case’s locker. He’s not the saboteur.”

  “He might still be the thief,” Becca said, pulling out a bag and dropping the strings of paint inside. “The bottles in his locker match Heather’s. Give me your hand. I need a bigger sample.”

  I did as she asked. “Case doesn’t steal,” I said as she used a torn piece of paper to scrape the wettest spots of paint from my skin.

  “You have a blind spot when it comes to your friends, you know.” Becca tucked the bag away.

  “Not this time. Why would Case hide stolen paint in a family locker where his sisters and parents could see it? You’re going to have to look elsewhere for your culprit.”

  “I think you’re right.” Becca nodded and gazed at the ceiling for a moment. “Should we turn our attention to Lee, then?”