Double Trouble
Page 10
He wasn’t keeping me out. I spun around. I needed something. Yeah. That would work. I grabbed the big metal mesh trash can on the side of the street. And I used it as a battering ram against the display window.
Metal versus glass. Metal won. The glass shattered. The trash can flew inside the shop. I followed it.
William was running again. I was right behind him. He knocked down a rack of baby clothes in my path. I jumped over it, ignoring the pain in my head and back.
I reached out and managed to grab the back of William’s shirt. I had him. This time I had him.
The security guards swarmed the shop. Not in time to help or anything. But they did escort William back to the set for me.
“He’s the one who substituted real bullets for the blanks,” Frank told the guards.
“It was the sticky, right?” I asked. “That’s what tipped it for you?”
“Yeah.” He turned to William. “You should lay off the Goo Goo Clusters. You smeared chocolate on the handle of the gun when you made the bullet switch.”
“I’m not the only one who eats chocolate,” William protested.
But he was the only one of our suspects who could have provided the sticky. It couldn’t be Caro—not the way she loved her hand sanitizer. Ryan was allergic to chocolate. I’d never seen Sydney without her gloves. And Emily didn’t eat anything. She was on that liquid diet. There’s no way she would have had chocolate on her hands.
“Why’d you run?” I asked. “If you didn’t do anything, why’d you run?”
William blinked. “Because you were chasing me.”
“Because you were guilty,” Frank corrected. “You finally decided that Justin had to be taken out.”
“We know you warned him first,” I told William, deciding to play a little good cop. “We know you did everything you could to make him shape up and be a good role model for teens.”
“But then last night you had a temper tantrum over getting the wrong soda!” William burst out, glaring at Justin. “And putting your hands all over every girl in the place. You knew what would happen. I told you. I told you I didn’t want to kill you, but I would if I had to.”
And . . . confession. That good-cop thing is sweet.
“And Elijah. Did you warn him?” Frank demanded, all bad cop.
“What do you mean?” William asked.
“You killed him, too. Because without the paparazzi, Justin wouldn’t have as much influence as a role model,” Frank said.
“I didn’t kill him. I wouldn’t kill anyone without a warning,” William protested. “Justin got warnings. The letters. The poisoned food. The smashed-up car.” He turned to Justin again. “I didn’t want to kill you. I tried everything else first.”
I believed him. He was a psycho stalker. But he was a psycho stalker with his own honor code.
Which meant that whoever killed Elijah was still on the loose.
FRANK
“Well, we completed our mission,” I said when we got home. We stood out on the lawn, wanting to go over everything before we went inside and had to act like your average middle-America teens again. “We found out who Justin’s stalker was, and we stopped Justin from getting hurt.”
“Yeah,” Joe agreed. “But it’s hard to feel good about it when there’s still a murderer out there.”
Aunt Trudy opened the door. “What are you doing out there, Joe?” she demanded. “I told you you needed rest. You were in a car accident yesterday, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I wouldn’t mind a little rest myself,” I admitted. We headed inside.
“We have something for you, Aunt T,” I said. “We were watching Justin Carraway shoot one of his scenes today.”
“And we got you a souvenir,” Joe added.
“That does not make it okay that you went out,” Aunt Trudy told him. But she couldn’t keep herself from smiling a little as she held out her hand.
I put a bullet into it. “This is one of the blanks that was in the gun during the scene where Justin’s character gets shot,” I told her.
Well, it was one of the blanks that was supposed to be in the gun. When the cops had arrived, they’d found the box of blanks in William’s pocket.
“You’re good, thoughtful boys,” Aunt Trudy said. “I’ve been thinking that you two should join that Cleen Teen group. You’re exactly the kind of kids they’re looking for.”
JOE
I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It would be at least fifteen minutes before Aunt Trudy started threatening to pour water on my head to get me out of the rack.
Which was so unfair. I felt like I’d only fallen asleep about twenty minutes ago. I hadn’t been able to get my brain to shut down. I kept thinking about Elijah. Who had—
My cell rang. I grabbed it off the nightstand. “Hello?”
“It’s Rick.”
He sounded a little distracted. Upset.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Justin’s having a freak fit. He wants his Froot Loops, he wants new shoelaces—he hates it when those little plastic things at the end get cracked—he wants his hair trimmed and the hair person isn’t here yet, he wants the episode of Hell’s Kitchen he missed last week,” Rick told me without pausing for breath.
I wasn’t sure why he was telling me any of this.
“Usually Ryan helps me out with this stuff,” Rick continued. “He’s good at the brother management. But when I went into his room to get him, he wasn’t in there. And his bed hadn’t been slept in. If he was Justin, I’d say he just went out to find some fun last night and hadn’t found his way home yet. That’s exactly the kind of thing Justin would do. But not Ryan.” Now I could hear a ripple of fear in his voice. “I think something might be wrong. Like, extremely wrong.”
Here is a sneak peek at the next exciting
book in the Double Danger Trilogy:
Double Down
You probably think movie stars have it easy. Lots of money, loads of friends, 24/7 fun.
Well, okay, that’s all true.
But there’s a downside. Believe me. My brother Joe and I got to see that up close and personal this past week. We’ve been hanging with Justin Carraway. Yep. The Justin Carraway, Teen Movie Star. But before you get too impressed with our extreme coolness, we met Justin because of an ATAC case. See, Justin Carraway does have it all—including stalkers, loonies, and people wanting him dead.
That’s where we came in. American Teens Against Crime—ATAC—asked us to become part of Justin’s crew. He’d been getting a weirder brand of fan mail than usual. Not the usual “I love you so much, will you marry me?” type letters. These letters were threatening. And someone did try to off Justin. Turns out, a movie star can have as many enemies as he has fans.
Justin didn’t exactly make it easy for us to protect him. That dude loves attention, likes to party, and doesn’t want anyone telling him what he can and can’t do. It’s all about the fun to Justin. It took a dead paparazzo photographer and all of us nearly dying in a fire for the seriousness of the situation to register.
It was Justin’s bad behavior that made him a target in the first place. The crazy letter writer was the president of a group called Cleen Teens, and they didn’t approve of Justin’s wild ways. Thought he was a bad influence on teens of America. I can’t exactly argue with them on that point, but that doesn’t give them the right to kill the guy!
Luckily, we figured out what was going on in time to keep the real bullets from being shot out of the prop gun—right into Justin’s heart.
Something still nagged at me, though. That paparazzo. The Cleen Teen president—our perp—had no trouble confessing to his crimes. But he absolutely denied killing the photographer. Maybe he didn’t want murder on his rap sheet; attempted murder was his limit. But still . . . the case didn’t feel finished.
I just wasn’t ready to let it go.
JOE
Admit it, bro. You’re not ready to let go of the perks that came with bein
g in Justin’s entourage.
FRANK
That would be you, Joe. Yeah, sure, it was cool getting into clubs without standing in line, but—
JOE
And the girls. Even you must have noticed the girls.
FRANK
Just ignore him. I usually do.
Anyway, I was lying in bed, going over the events of the past few days, when Joe popped his head into my room, cell phone in hand.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Got a phone call,” Joe said, flopping onto a chair. “From Rick Ortiz.”
“The production assistant from Justin’s film?” I asked. “What did he want?”
“Help.”
I sat up, wide-awake and ready for action. “Was Justin threatened again?” I knew we’d missed something when we couldn’t tie the murder of the photographer to the Cleen Teen prez.
“Actually, it’s Ryan,” Joe said.
“Justin’s brother?” Justin Carraway started in show biz as a double act—literally. Because of child labor laws, a child actor could only work very limited hours, so most TV shows and movies hired twins. One would work for a while, then the other would be swapped in. So Justin and Ryan shared the role of little Jimmy O’Hara on Five Times Five, an old sitcom. But as the Carraway twins got older, their longtime manager, John “Slick” Slickstein, decided that only one of them could become really successful. He decided that one was Justin.
Ryan seemed to be okay with it—he worked in his brother’s company, and Justin was amazingly generous with the goodies. But still, it had to hurt to not be the chosen one. And to take orders from his own brother.
“Why does Rick need help with Ryan?” I asked.
“He can’t find him,” Joe replied. “Justin called Rick with his usual list of crazy requests. Rick went to Ryan’s room to get some assistance, but he wasn’t there. His bed hadn’t even been slept in.”
I frowned. “That’s not like Ryan.” Ryan was the responsible one in that pair.
“That’s what has Rick worried.”
“Do you think Ryan finally got fed up and split?” Ryan not only had to watch Justin make all kinds of messes, he had to clean them up, too. And it couldn’t help that Ryan had a big crush on Emily Slater, Justin’s costar. The same Emily Slater Justin had dated and dumped.
“Rick doesn’t think so,” Joe replied. “Ryan would have let him know. They’re pretty tight.”
“What did Justin say when Rick asked him about Ryan?”
“Rick hasn’t told him yet,” said Joe. “He was hoping maybe we knew something. Rick doesn’t want to be the one to get Ryan in trouble.”
I had a sudden thought. A disturbing one. “Could someone have snatched Ryan, thinking he was Justin? Those two are seriously identical.”
Joe’s blue eyes widened. “Oh man, I didn’t think of that.”
“If that’s true, then Ryan is in serious danger,” I said. “And Justin could be a target.”
“We should get over there,” Joe said. “The first twenty-four hours are crucial for clues.”
We jumped into high gear. I grabbed the jeans and T-shirt I had worn yesterday and pulled on my high-tops before running out of my room.
I barreled down the hall and collided with Joe. He was still yanking his T-shirt down over his head.
“Where’s the fire?” our parrot Playback squawked from the armoire in the hall. “Where’s the fire?”
“Shh,” Joe told the parrot. “We don’t want to stop for—”
“Breakfast, boys!” a voice called out from the kitchen.
My shoulders slumped. Aunt Trudy would never let us out of the house without a hearty—or as she jokes (lamely)—“Hardy breakfast.”
“Can we sneak out the back?” Joe whispered.
“Where’s the fire, boys?” screeched Playback. Loudly. “Where’s the fire, boys?”
There are times when I think that bird wants the bad guys to win.
Just then Joe’s cell phone rang again. “Rick,” he announced, glancing at the phone screen. “Hey, Rick,” he said into the phone. “Oh, okay. Well, that’s good, then. Catch you later.”
“Well?” I asked, after he flipped his phone shut.
“We can stay and have Aunt Trudy’s waffles after all,” he said, slipping his phone back into his pocket.
“Rick found Ryan?”
“No—he told Justin that Ryan was missing. Justin explained that Ryan went on vacation.”
“Without a word to anyone?” I asked. That seemed out of character.
Joe shrugged. “Maybe Ryan didn’t want anyone to talk him out of going.”
“Rick would definitely have tried,” I said. “Without Ryan around, he’s going to have a hard time keeping Justin in check.”
“No joke. He even asked if we’d be willing to keep hanging with Justin. Pitch in on the superstar errands.”
“Maybe that would be a good idea,” I said. “Not just to help Rick out, but—”
Now it was my cell phone that rang.
“My favorite all-American supercute good influence.”
“Hi, Sydney,” I said. Sydney Lamb was Justin’s publicist. She was the one who set us up with Justin so we could find his stalker. That wasn’t why she did it, of course—that was totally a secret mission. Our cover was that we were high school students (not a stretch—we are high school students) sent to welcome Justin to Bayport. She thought we’d provide “wholesome” photo ops for Justin, so she introduced us to him. She was always doing damage control, repairing Justin’s bad-boy reputation.
Believe me, she earns every penny of her paycheck.
“So, I was wondering if you and your equally cute brother would like to go with us when the movie moves to its next location.”
“Really?” I asked. “Why?”
“Ryan took off without telling anyone,” Sydney complained. “So not like him. That means other people—people like me—are going to have to pick up the slack. The biggest headache, of course, is keeping Justin in line. Maybe you and your brother can help me out there. I’d really love to have one day when I don’t have to clean up some mess he’s made all in the name of fun.”
“I have a feeling that if Justin wants to do something, it will take more than Joe or me to hold him back.”
Sydney sighed. “Don’t I know it. But I don’t know what else to do. We’re moving to Atlantic City tomorrow, and there are just too many ways for him to get into trouble there. Rick will have his hands full without Ryan. And Justin already likes you. I can put it to him so it doesn’t seem like you’re there to babysit him. I can probably get you hired on as assistant PAs.”
“Assistant production assistants?” I asked. “Does that job even exist?”
“It does if Justin wants it to.”
“Let me run it by my brother and our parents.”
“Great. Get back with good news ASAP.”
I clicked off and told Joe about Sydney’s request.
“Atlantic City?” Joe repeated. “Awesome! Cool casinos, fancy hotels, the beach, and all those perks that come with being around Justin. Of course we’ll say yes!”
“Slow down,” I said. “ATAC thinks the Justin Carraway case is closed. They could assign us something else.”
Joe studied my face. “You don’t believe the case is really finished, do you?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Not with a dead body unaccounted for.”
“And ATAC isn’t the big problem,” Joe said.
“Mom and Aunt Trudy.”
“Exactly. Gotta get permission.”
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Super Mystery #1: Wanted
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Available from Simon & Schuster
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Aladdin paperback edition November 2008
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Library of Congress Control Number 2008920167
ISBN 978-1-4169-6765-1
ISBN 978-1-4424-6538-1(ebook)