Arts and Thefts Page 16

  “We don’t have a minute,” Hack said. “I sent Mama Demon to the other side of the park on a bad lead, but she’s not going to be fooled for long. Get what you need and get out of here.”

  My blood ran cold. Hack . . . called . . . Detective Mills—the grown-up Detective Mills—and . . . gave . . . her . . . a . . . bogus . . . tip? He was going to get skinned alive! Who knew what kind of dirt she had on him, a well-known kid hacker? I suppressed the urge to scream at both of them.

  “Look at this,” Case said. He picked up the painting and brought it over to Hack, leaving the sample behind him on the desk. Hack rolled his eyes and sat on the windowsill. Case pointed at the corner. “That’s marker.”

  Aha! It was marker, not paint! Good clue.

  But Hack scoffed. “You brought me in here to show me that?”

  The lace reached the desk. By wiggling the end, I could make it touch the sample.

  “Yeah, and this,” Case said. “Look at the paint marks. This was made with a coarse brush.”

  They were focused on the painting, so I swept the lace across the sample. Miss.

  “So? How does that help us?”

  “It could narrow our suspect list.”

  “How? Am I supposed to scan social media for reports of someone shady carrying a big, red brush?”

  I landed the lace’s sticky tip on the paper and pulled. The paper didn’t come with it. I gritted my teeth.

  “You just faked a phone number and your voice to get Scottsville’s head detective out of the office,” Case hissed. “You can do something.”

  “Maybe, once we get out of here!”

  “Shh!”

  I drew the lace back and went for the sample again. This time, I swung the lace, letting the gum-wrapped tip land on its side on the paper. I pulled, and the sample came up.

  I froze, but only for a moment. Someone was going to notice the floating paper if I didn’t move.

  As carefully as I dared, I drew the sample up. One mistake, one shaky hand, and I could lose it.

  Two more feet, one more . . . got it. A corner of the paper came through the grate, and I pinched it tight and pulled it in. A careful twist later, I had Becca’s plastic evidence bag. I put the sample inside and tucked the laces in my pocket. I’d deal with them later. Then I reached for something else.

  After a minute, Hack’s borrowed phone went off. Loudly.

  “Turn it off!” Case hissed.

  “I’m trying!” Hack said, mashing buttons until the music stopped. “They’ll have heard that. We have to go.”

  Case rushed to the desk to put the painting back. He looked around. “Where’s the sample?”

  Hack was already out the window. “The what?”

  “I took a sample of paint. It’s gone.”

  Hack rushed back over and grabbed Case’s shirt. “We’re gone.” He dragged Case out to the window, and they vanished. Just before James the guard came in, looked around, and mumbled something about technology.

  I exhaled and put my mom’s phone away. I was shaking; I’d thought Hack’s borrowed phone was set to vibrate! Most kids’ phones are, because they don’t want them going off in school. I just wanted Case and Hack spooked enough to wrap it up and get out. I couldn’t let my friends stick around.

  I had what I needed: the paint sample, and a mental map of the ducts. I slid backward and returned to where Larissa was waiting for me.

  “What took you so long?” she whispered as I dragged myself to face her.

  I just pointed down the way we came. “Follow me,” I mouthed. Then I headed away to freedom.

  Larissa followed me. I needed to take a right, up ahead, and then a left. Then we’d both be out. It was almost over. But I needed to stay quiet until then. We could still get caught.

  After the right turn the unthinkable happened.

  The air ducts erupted with the sound of Mom’s ringtone, a generic chime. It echoed, getting louder and louder.

  I’d called Hack. Like a good friend, he was calling me back. I wasn’t used to carrying a phone on a job, but I should have known enough to set Mom’s phone to vibrate when I’d called Hack. Stupid, amateur move!

  I tried to grab the phone but couldn’t reach, not in this much narrower duct. Not without twisting and taking a million years to do it. Larissa grabbed my leg. She knew, too, that everyone near a vent would have heard us.

  Stealth was gone. Time for speed. “Let’s go!” I crawled through the ducts as fast as I could, Larissa on my heels. The music played, the duct got lighter, and then we were back in the storage room.

  As soon as I pulled free of the ducts, I silenced the phone. Then I hopped down off the grill and pressed my ear against the wall closest to the main building. Cops were moving on the other side. Yep, they heard that.

  Larissa climbed down beside me. I picked up my borrowed baseball cap and put it on. Then I grabbed Larissa’s hand. “Time to go,” I said, pulling her to the door.

  As solid as a locked door is from the outside, it’s less secure from the inside. Within minutes, Larissa and I had escaped into the crowded park.

  I PULLED LARISSA THROUGH THE park, making sure to stay far away from the crowded areas. Larissa looked like she’d been swimming in a full vacuum cleaner bag and I knew I was no better. A cloud of dust fell off us with every step. We kind of stood out.

  We didn’t stop until we reached the public bathrooms on the other side of the park. Larissa headed toward the girls’ room, but I tugged her behind the small brick building. Back there, we found exactly what I expected: a spigot.

  “Right here,” I said. “I’ll go first and you watch. You’re going to have to do this on your own.” Then I took off my shirt.

  It was really bad. The blue shirt I had on underneath was clean, except for some dust on the hem and collar, but the plaid was hidden under white-and-gray smears. Near the hem on the front, I found a greasy black stain that was going to take forever to get out, if I could get it out at all. Glancing down, I saw a thick layer of grime on my pants. Now that would be a problem.

  Larissa looked uncomfortable as I took my shirt off. It has that effect on girls. “I’m wearing another one,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “Why? Who does that?”

  I smiled. “Someone who knows how to be prepared.”

  I turned the shirt over, glanced at the back (not as bad, but I still might not be able to return it to the Lost and Found), and nodded at Larissa. “Watch closely. The first thing you have to do is beat it hard. The walls in the bathrooms work well for this. You need to get as much dust off as you can before you even get it wet.” I showed her, and a cloud of dust kicked up.

  “Why are you doing this?” “Because I don’t want my mom or yours or anyone’s to know we were in the air ducts.”

  “No.” Larissa shook her head, dislodging dust. “Why are you helping me? You could have left me in the air ducts. But you didn’t. Why? Why do you care if I get caught?”

  “The air ducts are dangerous. I wouldn’t leave anybody alone up there. I knew what to do, and you didn’t. So I helped. And maybe in return, you’ll help me.” I watched Larissa, never breaking eye contact, as I continued to beat the dust off my shirt. When she didn’t say anything, I added, “Like by explaining why you were in that storage room to begin with.”

  Larissa squeezed her lips tight and looked away. I examined my shirt and decided that was as good as it was going to get. So I went to the spigot and turned on a thin stream of water.

  “Don’t use too much water. You need to keep it controlled so the wet spots can dry out later. You’ll have access to soap in the bathroom, so you should use it.”

  She kept ignoring me, so I flicked a few drops of water at her. “Pay attention. Otherwise everyone will know you were up to no good.”

  “I wasn’t up to no good!” Larissa bit her lip, looking embarrassed.

  “You were up to something.” I brought the worst of the stains under the water and worked the fabri
c gently between my fingers. Yep, that wasn’t coming out. I hoped the stains would come out of the pants more easily.

  Larissa trudged over and watched me work. She hadn’t run away yet. That was a good sign.

  “I saw the marks of a failed lockpick on the door to the storage room,” I said conversationally. Larissa stiffened, but I kept going. “The crate was moved and the window was open. I knew someone had tried, and succeeded, at getting inside. I also knew that person was looking for something a lot more interesting than mops.”

  “Mops?”

  “Never mind. Anyway, I had to see what was going on.”

  She grinned. “That’s when you did your Peter Pan impression through the window.”

  “I bet it looked awesome.”

  “Until you fell on your butt.”

  “My back, not my butt. I know because I can feel it bruising.” I beat a little more dust out of the shirt, looked it over, and plunged it into the water. It needed more than a spot treatment.

  I looked at Larissa. “So?”

  “So what?”

  “So are you going to tell me what you were doing sneaking into a locked storage room next to a building full of park security?”

  Larissa sat down. “You’re a thief, not a detective.”

  “Retrieval specialist, and it’s a good thing I am. A detective wouldn’t have followed you into those air ducts. What were you thinking? What is worth endangering yourself like that?”

  Larissa raised her chin defensively. “It wasn’t that dangerous.”

  “Oh yeah? You could have gotten stuck in a narrowing duct with no way to back out or turn around. You could have slid down a steep incline into the boiler, or fallen down a shaft and broken an arm or leg or something worse. It can happen. It almost happened to me my first few runs.”

  Larissa’s eyes bugged as she realized the danger she was in, and I was glad. While I didn’t want her panicking up in the ducts, down here a little fear would keep her safe. She’d never try that again without serious thought and preparation.

  “I didn’t know it was dangerous,” she said. “They do it all the time on TV.”

  “They also crack safes in seconds on TV. That doesn’t work as well in real life either.”

  “Really?” Larissa looked at me, her blue eyes wide. “How does it work, then?”

  “Well, first you have to spin the dial, and you have to listen really closely for clicks. If you miss one, then you have to go around again—wait. This is about you.”

  When Larissa didn’t talk, I threw more water at her. A lot more water.

  As she sputtered, I said, “Listen! I know this business. You don’t. You could have left serious evidence inside the storage room. Now there’s a saboteur around and a lot of people, scary people, want to catch him or her before they strike again. What do you think will happen if they realize you were in the ducts near the ruined paintings? What conclusions do you think they’ll draw?”

  Larissa paled. I lowered my voice and continued, “I’ve been on the wrong side of a false accusation before.” And a lot of true ones, but that was beside the point. “I know the painting you had was your sister’s. I just don’t know why it was in that room instead of hanging on a wall. I can’t help you if you don’t talk.”

  The shirt was as clean as it was going to get, so I laid it on the grass to dry. I took off my hat and started beating the dust out of my hair.

  Larissa was quiet. She nodded, then took her sandals off and stuck her dirty legs and feet in the stream of water. I took off my unlaced shoes and did the same.

  As I peeled gum off my laces and wove them back into my shoes, Larissa talked. “It started when Quinn entered the competition,” she said. “At first I was excited for her, but then she showed me her painting. Okay . . . you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to say, right?”

  “It’s safe with me.”

  Larissa shook her head. “When Quinn was three, Mom and Dad went out for the day. I think they were shopping for furniture or something. They left us at this lady’s house. This lady had a lot of hamsters.”

  “I’m starting to see where this is going.”

  Larissa shrugged. “I don’t remember what happened, but Quinn does. She was playing with one of them, and she must have left the cage door open, because next thing she knew, more of them were crawling all over her. They weren’t going to hurt her, but after one crawled up her shirt and scratched her, she thought there was this army of hamsters out to get her.”

  I nodded. “Scarred for life?”

  “Scarred for life. To this day, hamsters give her the creeps.”

  “Okay, so now I understand the painting, but why switch it? Why go through all that trouble?”

  Larissa laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have. But my sister is, well, she’s nice. She’s kind of innocent. When she showed me her finished painting, all I could think about is how much of her soul she was putting on display, how vulnerable she was making herself. You know what this contest can be like.”

  I thought of the two guys who had brawled over a slight comment and the guy last year who had gotten laughed out of the contest. “I do.”

  “Then you know why I had to do it. This deep fear, out on display for everyone to see. All the kids from school would be here. They would see her nightmare, and attack her for it, and she wouldn’t even see it coming. It would be like Aaron Baxter all over again. I had to protect her.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s my sister and my best friend. Why else?”

  I thought of Case and Hack. Oh hello, guilt. I missed you. “So what happened next?”

  “Well, clearly I couldn’t let that painting be seen. I came up with this idea to replace the painting. People would pay attention if there were a gap where Quinn’s painting was. But I couldn’t use Quinn’s art supplies, because she’d notice. I couldn’t paint it at school, because people would know it was mine. I needed to use paints and brushes that wouldn’t be connected to me.”

  Ideas flashed in my head, one right after another, like a string of firecrackers. “Heather Caballero. You both were invited to her party. You’re the one who took her paints and brushes.”

  “Not all of them. I took what I needed to create a painting. Six brushes and a couple of bottles of paint in primary colors. I could work with those. The party was so busy, no one paid attention to me. I thought Heather wouldn’t realize they were missing and I could come back and return them later.”

  “She noticed.” And hired Becca Mills to find them. This wasn’t good. Larissa wasn’t a bad person, but she’d made a mistake and had Detective Mills Junior chasing her.

  “So you replaced the painting. Earlier today, right? You’d want your family to see Quinn’s, but after that you swapped them before the park got too crowded.”

  “How do you know that?”

  I kept letting the mental firecrackers burst. “The storage room was open then. You walked right in and left the painting where you thought no one would notice it.”

  Larissa nodded. “Behind the replacement bases. The judges would see my painting. I’m not the artist Quinn is; they wouldn’t pick mine to win. Quinn might be disappointed, but she’d never know the truth. I spent all day today helping her feel comfortable with not winning.”

  “How?”

  “First, I found out from Mom who the favorites were. Quinn wasn’t one of them, but that was to be expected after my switch. Then I told Quinn so she could prepare. After that, I kept her away from her painting. I talked about how undesirable the prizes are this year, and how next year’s would be better. I told her we’d make a fun day of it anyway, and I pointed out paintings I thought were really good. I used the words ‘next year’ a lot.”

  “So you discouraged her in the nicest way possible.” A con artist’s trick, selling what you want the mark to want, and downplaying what they think they want. Also, repeating “next year” would get Quinn thinking about the next year’s competition and not this one. T
hat, with her sister supporting her all day, could explain why Quinn wasn’t as freaked out as the other contestants.

  Besides, the marks on Diana’s painting were marker, not paint. Quinn didn’t have a marker with her.

  My most incriminating evidence against Quinn had gone up in a puff of air duct dust. She didn’t seem like a viable suspect anymore.

  “Was that too mean?” Larissa looked at me, worried. “Should I have just left Quinn’s painting alone?”

  “No, it was brilliant!” I grinned at Larissa. “I mean it. You’ve got a talent for this kind of work. But you need to practice. Lockpicking doesn’t just come in the moment.”

  Larissa blushed. “I didn’t have time to wait. After you kept talking about the saboteur and the cops and guards and that detective, I was so scared someone might search the storage room and find my painting. They might think Quinn was a saboteur.”

  Like I did. My net had caught a fish, just not the one I expected. “So you went in to take the painting.”

  She nodded. “But I didn’t get it. What if they find it?”

  “That’s not your biggest problem. Becca, the detective, was hired to find Heather’s paints and brushes.”

  Larissa jerked so suddenly she splashed me with water. “She was?” She glanced at the park, toward the paintings where Becca had had her showdown with Case, and paled as she remembered what being on Becca’s bad side looked like. “That means she’s coming after me.”

  “Yeah. And trust me, that’s not a good thing. With one exception, she always catches her thief. Good thing the paints are at your house. She might not come after you in public.”

  Larissa turned white, and I tilted my head. “They are at home, right?”

  “I didn’t have as much time as I thought to finish my decoy. I was working on it up through this morning. I hung it still wet!”

  “Larissa, where’s Heather’s paint?”

  “I gave it to Casey to hold on to. I didn’t want it in my family locker, and he was so nice at the tent.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and exhaled. Great. Just great. “All this time, Becca thought Case was the thief when it was really you.”