“Fine. If you really believe her, then why don’t you guys just go to the police?”
“Because knowing and proving are two different things,” Matilda said. “Until we have more to go on, we can’t possibly turn to law enforcement.”
Oliver gave his best friend a pleading look. He understood why Frankie wasn’t buying it. Heck, he was barely buying it, and he’d seen it all for himself.
“You know what? You guys go do what you want,” Frankie said, walking away. “I don’t care.”
“Frankie,” Oliver called after him.
Frankie turned back. “You know what I did this afternoon? I got a job. Dog walking. Ten bucks a day, five days a week. So if it’s all the same, I think I’ll just go ahead and grow up. But you two feel free to go bust all the spy rings in the neighborhood.”
“I know you’re being sarcastic,” Matilda said. “But there could be legitimate national security implications here.”
“Yep, good luck saving the world there,” Frankie said as he waved and walked away.
Matilda stomped her foot in frustration. “He is so obstinate.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind.”
Preston looked up from his calculations, checked his watch, and said, “Yes, it is.”
Marie frowned. He knew that look—she wasn’t going to let it go. “You’re putting those children in danger.”
“They were in danger already,” Preston said. “They just didn’t know it.”
“But, Preston—”
“I know, Marie,” he snapped. “Whatever it is you’re about to say, I know.”
Preston looked to Tesla, hoping for an ally. But, as always, there was no sign of life from the portrait.
“A year, Marie,” he said at last. “A whole year I’ve been working on this.”
“That’s precisely my point, Preston. A whole year, just you and your numbers. At some point you’re going to have to come out of hiding and trust people again …”
“Yes, well, for now I’ll stick to trusting the math.”
Frankie didn’t get mad very often, so he wasn’t very good at it. On the one hand, he didn’t want to deal with Oliver and Matilda and their wackadoodle conspiracy theories, and he sure wasn’t thrilled about the fact that Matilda was now a daily part of his life. She sat with them at lunch and walked with them between classes. She was part of their group, whether Frankie liked it or not.
On the other hand, Frankie wasn’t spiteful enough to stop hanging out with his best friend altogether nor vindictive enough to be outright mean to Matilda in the hopes that she would go away and leave them alone.
Instead Frankie settled on a compromise: He spent the school day in a foul and generally antisocial mood. He didn’t talk much at lunch, or at all, actually. Sometimes the only verbal interaction he would have with Oliver and Matilda was a “Hey” in the morning and a “See ya” after school when he went his way and they went theirs.
Walking Archie quickly became the best part of Frankie’s day. Away from the chaos of his family and the nonsense at school, he could finally relax. It was all but impossible to be angry around Archie. The dog was one hundred and thirty pounds of fur, joy, and unconditional love.
Frankie took him around the whole neighborhood. The dog had boundless energy and could walk all day. For the first few days, Frankie would come home with his legs sore and muscles burning from the miles of exercise they weren’t used to getting.
The first day Frankie walked Archie, the dog nearly yanked Frankie’s arm off going after a stray cat. They were rounding the corner at the top of a very long, steep hill overlooking the city’s warehouse district. An orange tabby darted out from behind some trash cans, across the sidewalk, and toward the street. Archie lunged with such force, Frankie was literally lifted off the ground. He nearly fell flat on his face as he took desperate, lunging strides while a barking Archie leaped in pursuit.
The cat barely escaped by dodging under an old Cadillac parked right at the crest of the hill. It was one of the really old ones, with the big tail fins and everything. Archie tried to go under the car as well, banging his head on a tire block wedged in front of the back driver’s-side tire.
Frankie worried the dog might be hurt, but Archie shook off the blow and looked up at him as if to say, “Can we do that again?”
Frankie made a mental note to avoid the street in the future.
After the walks, Frankie would hang out with Archie at Steve’s house. He’d feed Archie, brush him, play with him. As much as he enjoyed having a dog, even on a loaner basis, he also lingered at Steve’s because he didn’t want to go home until he had to. He felt bad about it, but he just didn’t want to be around the noise, the mess, the dirty dishes, and baby toys everywhere.
Not that his parents noticed. As long as he made it home by dinner, they didn’t care. Even if he did come home earlier, all they’d do is make him watch the twins, clean up around the house, help out. And he did that all the time anyway. He just needed a break.
“His name is George. George Kaplan,” said Oliver’s mom. “And he moved here from Seattle. He started a venture capital firm but recently sold it so he could be closer to family.”
“And you met him at the coffee shop?”
“Yeah, right? We just started talking.”
Oliver didn’t like where this conversation was going, but he laid out plates and silverware on the table anyway. Mrs. Figge had dropped by with another test meal and was putting the food on the plates while Oliver’s mom filled her in on the handsome, confident man who apparently drove the other Lincoln Town Car.
“Oh, and the best part is that he has a friend in town who runs a software design firm and he may have some work for me!”
“No way!” Mrs. Figge exclaimed.
“I gave him a flash drive with my portfolio on it. He sent it to his friend, and now we’re meeting for coffee tomorrow to discuss the project. It’s a short-term gig, but it would pay really well.”
Oliver remembered Matilda’s directive about pretending everything was fine. “That’s great news, Mom,” Oliver said, trying to force some enthusiasm into his voice.
“A real game changer, huh?” Mrs. Figge said.
“Could be,” Oliver’s mom said, crossing her fingers for luck. “Heaven knows we could use one.”
George Kaplan lowered the headset he’d been holding up to his ear. “Who is the other woman?”
Gilbert checked his notes. “Elaine Figge,” he said. “Subject’s best friend.”
Kaplan nodded. “And the boy … Oliver? What’s he been up to?”
“Missed him coming out of school today,” Gilbert said.
“Really?” Kaplan said, mildly curious.
“You said soft surveillance, so I didn’t go looking for him.”
“Quite right,” Kaplan agreed.
“The lady certainly seems to like you, boss,” Sullivan said, putting down his own headset.
George Kaplan smiled with false modesty. “My dear Mr. Sullivan. What’s not to like?”
“I suppose you’ll be needing me to pose as the software guy?” Gilbert said.
“No, Mr. Sullivan will handle that,” Kaplan said. “I need you to go to Detroit.”
“Seriously?” Gilbert groaned. “But I just got back from Indianapolis.”
“I get to be a software designer?” Sullivan asked eagerly.
“Yes,” Kaplan said.
“Really?” The big man bounced in his seat at the prospect.
“Just keep the talking to a minimum.” Kaplan sighed. He was already beginning to regret the choice. “In fact, I’ll type you up something.”
“Fine.” Sullivan pouted.
George Kaplan turned his attention back to Gilbert. “Stay the night. Actually, make it two.” He handed Gilbert a credit card. “Use this.”
“The Feds have this one?”
“They should.”
Gilbert put the card in his pocket. “I don’t get it, tho
ugh,” he said, working his purple tension ball. “What’s so special about Floss Beane anyway?”
“Well, Mr. Gilbert,” George Kaplan said. “Before she was Floss Beane, she was Floss DiCamillo. And Floss DiCamillo is the key to finding Preston Oglethorpe.”
“What I don’t get,” Sullivan chimed in, “is how one egghead could be worth all this trouble. I mean, we’ve been searching for this Oglethorpe guy for over a year already.”
George Kaplan looked at his employee with a mixture of pity and patient condescension. “Egghead?” he said, shaking his head dismissively. “Mr. Sullivan, Einstein was an egghead. Descartes was an egghead. Newton, Aristotle, Galileo, Hawking, all of them fall under the category of egghead. Preston Oglethorpe is something light-years beyond.”
Kaplan could see that while his henchmen weren’t challenging this assertion, they weren’t quite sold on it, either. “Imagine you could destabilize an entire economy with the change you have in your pocket. Or start a war with nothing more than a leaky ballpoint pen.”
Gilbert started squeezing his tension ball faster, a sign that he was thinking. “Oglethorpe can do that?”
Kaplan nodded. “Oh yes. He most certainly can.”
“I still don’t get it.” Sullivan, both literally and metaphorically, lacked his own purple tension ball.
Kaplan went with a different approach. “Mr. Sullivan, I imagine at some point you’ve played Mouse Trap? The game where the little silver ball knocks over one thing, which knocks over another thing, which then knocks over another little silver ball, which knocks over still yet another several things, until finally a big net falls on the mice?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Well, simply put: We’re the mice.”
Gilbert, catching on, stopped squeezing his tension ball.
Sullivan, not quite there yet, said, “Who?”
“All of us, Mr. Sullivan.”
Sullivan’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Then who’s Preston Oglethorpe?”
“The man who builds the trap.”
Plenty of Time to Be Scared Later * Shady Glades * A Dubious Move * Steve Catches On * The Scary Lady in Room 217 * Frankie Stops Keeping Score * Mystery Date
“Okay,” Matilda said, jotting down notes in her composition book as they walked to class. “We have ‘George Kaplan,’ ‘Seattle,’ and ‘venture capital firm.’ Anything else?”
“They’re going out to dinner on Friday,” Oliver said. “To celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?”
“He hooked her up with a software company that’s farming out some market research.”
“So it’s a freelance gig? I’m assuming she’ll be paid as an independent contractor.”
“I don’t know,” Oliver said, confused.
“Is she going into an office or working at home?”
“Home.”
Matilda nodded. “Smart,” she said. “They’ll probably pay her out of an LLC. Still, it would help if I could get a look at the check. Do you think—”
“No, Matilda!” Oliver cut her off. “Because I don’t care about checks and LC whatevers—”
“LLC, it stands for limited—”
“It doesn’t matter! Look, I really, really don’t want her going out to dinner with this guy,” Oliver said. “We have to tell her before Friday.”
“We’ve been through this, Oliver. We can’t tell her. Not yet. We couldn’t even get Frankie to believe us, and he’s your best friend. There’s no way an adult would listen.”
“But she could be in danger.”
“It’s just a dinner,” Matilda said reassuringly. “The danger won’t come until sometime later.”
As with many of Matilda’s attempts to reassure Oliver, this observation produced more panic than confidence.
“By then we’ll have a plan,” she followed quickly. “I promise. Now, I’m pretty sure everything this George Kaplan told your mom is a lie.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“It is a good thing, Oliver,” Matilda said with conviction. “The more he lies, the quicker we can catch him in one and expose him. You need to watch him and listen carefully. Remember every detail. Eventually he’ll slip up.”
Principal Wilson was making Billy volunteer three afternoons a week to work off his crimes against Preston Oglethorpe Middle School, and he’d given Billy three choices about where he could do it. The first was an animal shelter, the second was a library, and the third was Shady Glades Retirement Community.
Shady Glades was Billy’s third choice, by a wide margin. But it was on the way home from his mom’s work, so she could pick him up after her afternoon shift at the restaurant. And the cafeteria at Shady Glades would feed him dinner for free. So Shady Glades it was.
Billy went to Shady Glades straight after school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. He started his shift by going room to room and emptying all the wastepaper baskets. That wasn’t so bad, as long as he made a point not to look at the trash inside the wastebaskets as he emptied them. Old age should remain a mystery as long as possible.
But with his earbuds in and a good playlist on his phone, the time passed quickly. He could usually get through all the rooms in about an hour, give or take. It depended on whether the resident was around or not. When they were, they sometimes wanted to talk to him. You didn’t really have a choice when that happened. The facility director, Mrs. Gonzales, made a point of saying how important it was to be polite and friendly to the residents. That was the only thing she seemed to be really uptight about, so Billy figured it was the one thing he’d better make sure he got right. If he didn’t, and she ratted him out to Principal Wilson, he’d end up back in trouble, and he couldn’t do that to his mom. Not again.
As a result, Billy got to know most of the residents after the first week or so. Except for the one in room 217. She always kept her door closed, and when he knocked and asked if she needed her trash emptied, she just yelled at him to go away.
Which was fine by him.
Matilda’s dad was at the kitchen counter making a sandwich when she got home from school.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said as she came in the side door to the kitchen.
“Hey, Daddy,” Matilda said, giving him a quick side hug. “How was your trip?” He’d left two days ago on another work trip—Matilda didn’t know where.
There was a lot Matilda didn’t know. She didn’t like that.
“Oh, long. And boring,” her dad said dismissively.
Or perhaps evasively.
When Matilda first spotted the black Lincoln that was tailing Oliver Beane to and from school, it was an accidental discovery. She hadn’t even been looking for suspicious vehicles outside her middle school. In fact, she had been sitting under a tree, busily tallying figures in her composition book in the hope of cracking another mystery altogether.
Her dad’s new job.
Matilda’s father was an FBI agent. They’d moved to the Midwest because he’d accepted a promotion in the Chicago office. This was all fairly routine. For the last few years, Matilda’s life had consisted of her father getting promoted and moving around the country pretty regularly.
But something about this move wasn’t quite adding up. For starters, the town they were living in. Lake Grove Glen was a nice town, not too big, not too small, lots of trees. But it was a good hour from the city in light traffic, which made for one long commute. Furthermore, Matilda couldn’t remember her parents ever talking about where they would live. Moving to Chicago proper was never discussed nor, for that matter, were any of the dozen or so Chicagoland suburbs that would have been more practical options for a small family like theirs. There had been no question that they would move to Lake Grove Glen.
Even a person as naturally suspicious as Matilda could admit that this wasn’t much to go on. But there were other things that made Matilda uneasy. Her dad was almost always home for dinner, despite the monster commute. He wasn’t getting that many calls from
the office, either. When he did get one, he would scowl before he even answered his phone. He took all his calls in his office, closing the door and talking in a low voice.
It sure didn’t add up to another desk job. Matilda feared her dad was back in the field. And being back in the field meant he was back in danger.
Matilda was not okay with that.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes. I really do, Frankie,” Steve Bishop said as they walked up the steps to Frankie’s house.
Steve had been pressing to meet Frankie’s parents ever since he’d hired Frankie to walk and dog-sit Archie, but Frankie had always begged off. Finally, when Steve insisted that, at the very least, he and Frankie’s parents swap phone numbers, Frankie knew he had to come clean.
“It’s not that big a deal,” Frankie protested.
“You have to see it from their point of view,” Steve said, more worried-angry than angry-angry. “For the last week, you’ve been spending your afternoons in a strange man’s home—”
“You’re not a strange man,” Frankie said.
“To them I am!” Steve said.
So now Steve insisted that they both explain the situation to Frankie’s mom.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell them,” Steve said when they reached the porch.
“I forgot,” Frankie said, which even he knew was such a lame excuse that it practically didn’t count as a lie. He hadn’t forgotten to tell his parents that he’d taken a job walking a neighbor’s dog. He hadn’t told them because, quite frankly, he didn’t want to. It was his job. He’d gotten it all on his own. These days, it was pretty much the only thing that felt like it was still just his.
“Besides, it’s not like they’ve noticed,” he grumbled.
Steve gave him a look.
“Fine,” Frankie said as he opened the front door.
The door to room 217 was open.
Billy Fargus stopped in the middle of the hallway. He was so stunned that he let go of his trash trolley, which rolled a few feet away from him before he caught it.
Connect the Dots Page 5
