“It’s identical,” Gigi said.
“Then why are those guys hanging out in the kitchen?” Randi wondered. The kitchen was the one room in the entire apartment without a view of the museum across the street.
“Maybe they like to cook,” D.C. said.
“Well, I don’t,” Gigi announced. “So if we’re on a stakeout, we’re going to be ordering dinner in tonight.”
* * *
CHAPTER NINE
* * *
THE RETURN OF GLENN STREET
Randi dreamed she was swimming in a pool filled with warm caramel. Its heavenly fragrance surrounded her. She licked some off her fingers and savored the divine flavor. But then the gooey substance began to harden. It was getting more difficult for Randi to move her limbs. As much as she struggled, she couldn’t free herself. She was sinking into the caramel, trapped like a fly in honey.
When Randi woke with a gasp, the sweet smell of caramel was still in the air. She followed the scent to the kitchen, expecting to find Gigi baking some kind of treat for breakfast. Instead, she nearly stumbled over Pudge and D.C., who were huddled together by the vent on the floor.
“Did you hear that?” she heard Pudge whisper.
“Yeah. They were speaking in Russian again,” D.C. replied.
“Aren’t they ever going to say anything English?” Pudge groaned.
“Why would they speak in English? They’re Russian!” Randi said, squinting in the bright morning sunlight that was pouring in through the window. She felt tired and grumpy. “Do you and D.C. ever speak to each other in Japanese? Or Spanish? Or Esperanto? Of course not. What are you two doing, anyway?” she demanded.
D.C. yawned. “That smell woke us up,” he said. “We think it’s coming from downstairs. The men were moving stuff around in the kitchen all night and now they’re making something.”
“Sure. It’s called breakfast,” Randi said. “And what’s the point of eavesdropping on a bunch of guys who are speaking a language you can’t understand?”
“Wow. Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” D.C. muttered.
“Nobody said you have to help,” Pudge told her. “But it’s hard to hear them when you keep talking.”
“Fine,” Randi growled. “You two waste your time. I’m going out for a walk.”
Randi went back to her room and threw on the clothes she’d left draped across a chair. She really was in a terrible mood. As she stomped toward the front door, her aunt emerged from her bedroom.
“Heading somewhere?” Gigi asked with a yawn.
“Out,” Randi told her.
“Okay. I’m taking the boys back to the tournament around one,” Gigi said. “Want to meet us there?”
“No,” Randi told her. “I just want to be alone.”
She expected an argument from her aunt. Instead, she heard, “All right, then. Have fun!”
All right, then. Have fun? As the elevator descended toward the lobby, Randi repeated the words in her head. What happened to Where are you going? or When are you going to be back? or I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay up all night listening to men speaking Russian? Gigi didn’t believe in rules. But sometimes when it came to D.C. and Pudge, Randi thought, rules came in handy.
Randi stomped outside and headed south. The chilly air helped calm her down. But she was angry, and what bothered her most was that she couldn’t figure out why. Waking up to find two boys camped out in her room was annoying, but it shouldn’t be enough to send her into a tizzy.
It was the listening post, Randi realized. Gigi said Randi’s mom had used it to spy on the neighbors. Randi had been to the apartment a thousand times. Why hadn’t anyone ever mentioned it before? And why hadn’t anyone ever told her that her mom had been such a wild child? It was like there was a big part of her mother that Randi had never been allowed to see.
~ ~ ~ ~
Randi had walked almost half a mile before she realized the streets were unusually quiet. Only a couple of cars had driven past. And most of the houses she passed seemed empty. But a few on every block were bustling with activity. It was Thanksgiving, she realized. The thought turned her anger into a deep, dark sadness. She remembered the last Thanksgiving she’d spent with her mom. Olivia-Kay Rhodes had been ill, so Herb had cooked the turkey that year. It was dry and tasteless, but Randi would give anything to have another bite of it now.
And before she knew it, she was looking up at the building where that dinner had taken place. Her old home looked exactly the same as it had the day she’d left Brooklyn. A redbrick town house three stories high, it would have looked just like the other houses on the block if Randi hadn’t known all the things that made it special. Only she and her father knew that the sour cherry tree growing in the tiny front yard had been planted by Olivia-Kay Rhodes the year Randi was born. Or that the chip in the second stair of the stoop had been made the Christmas morning that Randi had wrecked her first scooter. (The accident had left its mark on Randi, too—a crescent-shaped scar on her left hand.) Or that the top of the stoop was where Randi’s mom would stand and wave every morning when Randi set off for school.
Randi knew the building’s every secret. And yet she’d known so little about the woman who’d raised her there. Randi sat down on the stoop. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes.
Then a sound from next door caught her attention. An elderly couple, the Jacobsens, owned the house. Each year, they spent Thanksgiving with their son in Connecticut, and judging by the house’s dark windows, this year was no different. And yet someone seemed to be standing in the dark alcove beneath the stoop. All of the town houses on the street had a half-hidden door that led to the ground floor. And when any houses on the street got robbed, it was always that door that the burglars used.
Randi rose from the step and quietly made her way to the sidewalk. She could see the figure clearly from there. It was a young man wearing a military-style parka, with its hood pulled up over his head. She couldn’t see what he was using to open the door, but she suspected it wasn’t a key. Randi felt in her pocket for her cell phone. But she didn’t pull it out. The man at the door could be a nephew or a friend of the Jacobsens. Randi needed to eliminate a few possibilities before phoning the police. So she donned her most effective disguise—cute little girl.
“Hey, mister!” she called out to the man at the door. He jumped at least a foot in the air and dropped the shiny metal tool he’d been using to crack the lock.
“It’s a kid,” he muttered to himself. He pushed his hood back and tried to look respectable. He was in his midtwenties, Randi estimated. With dark brown hair and an enormous nose that would be easy to pick out in a police lineup. “Yeah?” he asked.
“You staying at the Schalanskys’ house?” Randi asked, purposely using the wrong name and seeing if he took the bait. If he didn’t correct her, he didn’t belong there.
“Yep,” he said. “That’s right.”
“Would you tell them my sister has kidnapped their cat again? She’s been dressing it like a baby and pushing it around in a stroller. My parents think it’s cute, but I know animal cruelty when I see it. The Schalanskys need to come and rescue it as soon as they get back.”
The young man’s brow furrowed. He was too nervous to laugh. “Sure, I’ll tell them,” he said.
“Thanks!” Randi said and skipped down the street. As soon as she was out of sight, she ducked behind a tree in a nearby front yard and dialed 911.
“Nine one one, what’s your emergency?” asked the operator.
“I have a four-five-nine in progress at 239 Bergen Street. Young male Caucasian approximately twenty to—”
“Excuse me?” the operator broke in. “Is this a joke? How old are you?”
“What difference does it make?” Randi snipped. In the old days, she would have remembered to disguise her voice. She’d fallen out of practice living in Dullsville, Tennessee. “There’s a man breaking into the house at 239 Bergen. I used to live next door,
and I know for a fact that the owners are always out of town this time of year.”
The operator hesitated. “All right,” she finally huffed. “I’ll send a car over. Your name is coming up on caller ID as Miranda Rhodes. Is that correct?”
“It is.”
“Well, Miss Rhodes, if this is a crank call, I’m going to be having a chat with your mom and dad.”
“Knock yourself out,” Miranda said. “My dad’s name is Herb Rhodes. Want his number?”
“The Herb Rhodes?” the operator scoffed. “The man who writes those Glenn Street books? Young lady, this had better not be a joke. Do you know you can get in a whole heap of trouble calling nine one one for nothing?”
Randi bristled, but she managed to keep her temper. It wasn’t the first time she’d been a victim of age discrimination. “This isn’t a prank, ma’am,” she replied calmly. “And as far as I know, there’s no age requirement for being a concerned citizen. I’ll be waiting on Bergen Street for the police car. Thank you for your assistance.”
Randi hung up and rushed back to the scene of the crime. If the burglar got away before the police arrived, the whole situation was going to get messy. Randi stationed herself behind a rhododendron bush in a yard across the street from the Jacobsens’ house. Soon she saw a figure pass in front of a window on the second floor. The burglar was ransacking one of the bedrooms. Within a minute, she spotted him again on the third floor. He’s fast, she thought. He knows what he wants and he knows where to find it. This isn’t the first house he’s robbed. And to make matters worse, the NYPD seemed to be taking its time. Randi’s ears perked up at the faint sound of a siren in the distance—then her heart sank a little when it quickly faded away. She heard a second cop car with a wailing siren speed down a neighboring street without even pausing.
Randi was about to place a second call to 911 when the door on the ground floor of the Jacobsens’ house opened a crack. The burglar scanned the sidewalk for witnesses and then emerged with a black trash bag slung over one shoulder. Randi wasn’t about to let him get away.
“Hey!” She jumped out from behind the bush and rushed across the street.
The burglar froze.
“You know, trash day isn’t until Tuesday,” Randi said in a voice that her mother had called little miss bossy pants. “If you leave that bag out on the sidewalk, the Schalanskys are going to get a big fine.”
“Then I guess I better take the bag with me,” the burglar grumbled. “Thanks for the advice, kid.”
He lugged the bag toward a beat-up van that was parked down the street. Randi knew that once he was inside, he was as good as gone. She could have memorized the license plates. Or snapped a picture with her phone. But that wasn’t Randi’s style.
“Hey!” she called out again when he put the bag down to open the van.
“Get lost, kid,” the guy snarled.
“Why don’t you make me?” Randi told him, assuming a combat stance.
“Are you kidding? Okay, fine,” said the burglar, taking a menacing step toward her. “I didn’t want to . . . ooofffff.”
Randi’s foot had slammed into his stomach. The burglar dropped to his knees, and Randi landed a perfect chop to the side of his neck. Two lightning-fast moves and the man was down for the count. Quickly, Randi unwound the scarf from her neck and secured the man’s arms behind his back.
She was just finishing the final knot when the police rolled up.
“What the heck . . . ?” The first officer hopped out of the car. “What’s going on here?” He clearly hadn’t been expecting to see a twelve-year-old girl hog-tying a full-grown burglar.
The commotion had brought a few neighbors out on their stoops. Randi saw one with a camera aimed in her direction. She stood up to greet the two cops.
“I’m sorry, officers,” Randi said. “This man just robbed a house on this street. He was about to make an escape, so I had to perform a citizen’s arrest.”
“You did this all by yourself?” the first cop asked. “What are you, eleven?”
Randi tried not to roll her eyes at the insult. “I’m twelve, sir, and a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.”
“Come over here and take a look at this,” the second cop called out. He’d opened the bag that the burglar had dropped after Randi kicked him. Inside, there were two laptop computers, a tangle of jewelry, and three small paintings. “The guy’s van is full of stuff, too. Most of it’s gadgets and gold. Guy’s been busy. Looks like he hit a whole bunch of houses this morning.”
“Nice work, kid.” The first cop gave Randi a congratulatory thump on the back. He was tall and thin, with a wide smile and hair almost as red as hers. She probably would have liked him if he hadn’t introduced himself by insulting her age. “What’s your name?”
“Miranda Rhodes.”
“I’m Officer Cody,” said the first cop. He pointed to his partner, a shorter, older man with curly black hair. “He’s Officer Jackson. Where do you live, Miranda Rhodes?”
“I used to live down the street,” Randi told him. “But now I live in Deer Creek, Tennessee.”
“Lot of burglars to catch down there in Tennessee?” Officer Cody asked with a devilish grin.
“Not nearly enough,” Randi replied.
“Well, maybe you should consider coming back.” Officer Jackson had come over to join them. “Crime rate’s been going up in this neighborhood. Used to be a vigilante who kept a pretty tight rein on things. Called himself Glenn Street after the character in those detective books. But he seems to have disappeared. We haven’t heard a peep from him in about six months.”
“From her,” Randi corrected him. “Glenn Street was a her.”
“Oh yeah?” Officer Cody asked as if he was just playing along. “If you knew her, where’d she go?”
“She moved to Deer Creek, Tennessee,” Randi said. “But I hear she may be moving back.”
* * *
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
SHOW-OFF
The call couldn’t have come at a worse time. Randi was sitting in the backseat of a squad car, listening to the constant stream of announcements on the police radio. Officers Cody and Jackson had insisted on giving her a lift back to Gigi’s house, since their backup officers arrived and hauled the thief to the station. Randi pulled out her phone and saw a way-too-familiar number appear on the screen. She didn’t want to answer, but she knew it would only make him worry. Her best option was to take the call—and get off quick.
“Hi, Dad,” she said.
“How are you, princess?” he asked, using the nickname she hated the most. “Having fun in Brooklyn?”
“Tons,” Randi told him. “Can I call you back in a few minutes? I’m just . . .”
“Armed robbery in progress. Bodega on southeast corner of Myrtle and Vanderbilt,” the police radio blared in the background. Randi winced.
“Randi,” her father said. There wasn’t a drop of good humor left in his voice. “Was that what I think it was?”
Randi slumped down in the seat. “Yes,” she admitted. Herb Rhodes had done a million ride-alongs with the NYPD while researching his books. He knew the sound of a police radio when he heard it.
“Miranda Jasmine Rhodes.” Her father spoke slowly and pronounced every syllable. “Where are you right now?”
“In the back of a police car,” Randi replied.
“Please hand this phone to one of the officers.”
Randi passed the phone to Officer Cody. “It’s my dad,” she explained. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Hello?” said the cop. “This is Officer Felix Cody of the New York Police Department. Who’s this . . . ? Herb Rhodes? Wait a second. The Herb Rhodes? Oh man, I should have known! You know, you’ve got an amazing kid, Mr. Rhodes. . . . What . . . ? No, she’s not in any trouble. In fact, she single-handedly foiled a burglary on Bergen Street this morning. . . . Pardon me . . . ? Yes, sir, I do know that she’s twelve years old. . . . No, her aunt was not with her. We’r
e taking her back to the aunt’s house right now. . . . Yes, I can understand why she might be in big trouble. . . . Yes, sir, I will personally escort her to the apartment. . . . Yes, sir. You’re welcome, sir.”
Officer Cody handed the phone back to Randi. You’re in big trouble, he mouthed. She took a deep breath before she put the phone back to her ear.
“I can explain . . . ,” she started to say.
“No,” her dad said. “You cannot, and I have no interest in hearing you try. It’s Thanksgiving Day, so I probably won’t be able to book a flight. But I promise you, Miranda Rhodes, I will be on the first plane that I can get to New York. I should never have let you visit Gigi on your own. She’s not a good influence on a girl your age.”
“Why?” Randi asked. She was getting angry, too. “What’s wrong with Gigi? At least she doesn’t keep secrets from me.”
“What are you talking about?” Herb Rhodes demanded. “What secrets?”
“About Mom and all the cool things she used to do. You told me she was the inspiration for Glenn Street, but you never told me why. You kept it a big secret.”
“And do you want to know why?” Herb Rhodes asked. “This is why, Randi. Do you have any idea how hurt you could have gotten just now? All you need to know is that your mother stopped playing detective because what she was doing was dangerous. And she had people who loved her and needed her.”
“You mean . . .”
“I mean your mother stopped because she had you, Randi. Gigi didn’t tell you that part, did she?”
“Mom may have stopped playing detective,” Randi said, “but it didn’t keep her from dying. Did it, Dad? You know why? Because living is dangerous.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“I have to go,” Randi told him. She could feel the tears in her eyes, and she didn’t want to cry in front of the New York Police Department. “We just got to Gigi’s building.”
The Sweetest Heist in History Page 7
