The Ghostwriter Secret

by Mac Barnett

  Steve clenched his teeth.

  “This Snuffley was very clear that nobody was to bother him about anything while he was staying at the hotel. But if this keeps up tomorrow, the manager says she’s opening that door, DO NOT DISTURB sign or no. She wants to find out what’s going on in that room. We don’t want any trouble here. But now I’ve got a detective playing twenty questions. And where there’s detectives, there’s trouble.”

  Steve could hear his own heartbeat. The letter from MacArthur Bart was dated yesterday. Bart had gone to mail it and never come back.

  Steve was too late.

  “Where’s the nearest mailbox?” Steve asked.

  “Around the corner, on Sunset Court. Why?”

  Steve didn’t reply. He was running for the door.

  CHAPTER XIII

  SEARCHING FOR CLUES

  STEVE PUSHED THROUGH the glass door himself—the doorman was gone now—and it swung open fast and banged against a metal doorstop. He sprinted down the driveway and turned the corner onto Sunset Court, then paused and surveyed the street. Brightly colored houses lined the quiet alley, which ran one block and ended at the beach. There, next to a dented sign about beach safety, was a blue mailbox.

  Steve organized the events in his head. MacArthur Bart had left his hotel room, put Steve’s letter in that mailbox, and never come back. Which meant that whoever was following Bart must have kidnapped him on this very street. Which meant that Steve was looking at a crime scene. And this time Rick wasn’t around to screw everything up.

  The Bailey Brothers’ Detective Handbook has some useful tips regarding evidence collection:

  “Leaping leapfrogs! I’ve found a clue!” is Shawn and Kevin Bailey’s favorite thing to say. That’s because clues are Shawn and Kevin Bailey’s favorite things to find! When you get to a crime scene, it’s super important to walk carefully from one end to another, searching for anything out of the ordinary. You know, clues! Here are common clues that can crack a case:

  —Guns or knives

  —Hats made in foreign countries

  —Gorilla masks

  —False beards, wigs, and other fake hair

  —Arrowheads

  —Anchors and other nautical paraphernalia

  —Cryptic notes

  —Exotic birds, such as parrots

  —Broken swords

  —Mesoamerican statues

  —Fingerprints, fingerprints, fingerprints!

  Steve, walking slowly along the road saw:

  —Sand

  —Leaves

  —An orange peel, shrunken and stiff

  —A dirty green visor that said BEACH DUDE

  It wasn’t impossible that the visor was a clue, but it looked too gross to touch. Steve took out his notebook.

  Steve sighed. His suspect list was pretty thin. Fingerprint time.

  To know which objects to dust for fingerprints, you had to be able to visualize the crime. Steve saw it happening this way: MacArthur Bart deposited the letter in the mailbox. As soon as the swinging door creaked shut, a black car pulled up, and a thug—perhaps multiple thugs—tumbled out. They came up behind Bart and maybe even put a rag dipped in chloroform up to his face. But there was almost certainly a struggle—MacArthur Bart wouldn’t give up without a fight—and it was possible that one of the kidnappers left his fingerprints on the mailbox, probably to steady himself after Bart had punched him in the solar plexus.

  Steve crouched down in front of the mailbox and put on a pair of rubber dishwashing gloves. Then he took out a tin of hot chocolate mix and an old makeup brush, dipped the brush in the cocoa powder, and started dusting from the bottom up.

  As Steve worked his way up the front of the mailbox, more and more fingerprints began to appear. He kneeled and dusted the handle and door of the mailbox, then pulled the door open so he could dust the other side.

  Steve heard a noise from above.

  He looked up just in time to see the net drop on him from the second-story window.

  CHAPTER XIV

  A SINISTER TRAP

  THE BAILEY BROTHERS’ DETECTIVE HANDBOOK says, “When villains spring a trap on you, it’s time to act fast! Don’t wait around to see what happens next. Move, move, move!”

  But Steve was finding it hard to move, because he was underneath a net. In fact Steve was so astonished to find himself under a net, when just two seconds ago he had been dusting a mailbox for fingerprints on an apparently net-free street near the beach, that he was having trouble doing much of anything.

  The net was wet and slimy and smelled terrible. Steve knew that smell. He hated that smell. It was the smell of fish. This was a fishing net. A horrible ripple started in his stomach and worked its way up his throat. Whenever Steve was nauseated, his mom told him to take deep breaths, but now every breath he took brought with it the foul smell of fish. It was terrible, and soon things got worse.

  Steve was caught in a net!

  A shiny black sedan screeched around a corner and hurtled toward Steve.

  Anyone who’s read a Bailey Brothers book knows shiny black sedans are bad news.

  The car’s headlights flashed.

  It was daytime, so the flashing headlights weren’t as terrifying as they could have been, but still, the car was going fast, fast enough to jump the curb and run Steve over.

  Instead the sedan pulled next to Steve and parked.

  A shiny black driver-side door flew open, and a thick-necked man with a shiny black ponytail sprang from it.

  Steve tried to run, tripped on the net, and fell to the ground. He thought he heard the bruiser in the black shirt laugh. Steve’s face felt hot as he writhed on the ground, struggling to get out from under the net. As he fought to free himself, Steve realized that that was exactly what fish did. Fish didn’t just acknowledge that they were caught and stop swimming. They flopped and squirmed and fought for their lives. The ones that were small enough swam through the spaces between the ropes. The rest rubbed and strained against the ropes, maybe making it halfway through a hole before getting stuck. The smell of the net was the smell of their struggle, of the scales and flesh fish left behind in their futile attempts to escape. Steve’s stomach twisted. His neck tensed and his head shook involuntarily. But still he tried to get free.

  It was no use. The ponytailed brute reached Steve and swept him up, net and all, under one arm. The goon carried Steve back toward the sedan. Steve screamed. He turned his head frantically, to see if anyone was around to help. There was no one on the street. No one on the beach. But he did notice a small tattoo poking out from underneath his abductor’s sleeve. It said “rage will always be my last refuge.”

  This guy must be in cahoots with the doorman!

  They were almost to the car. Steve’s abductor heaved his arm a bit to adjust the weight of the load he was carrying. A piece of the net went into Steve’s mouth. It tasted salty and awful, and Steve thought again of the fish eyes and scales and bits that were on the net and were now in his mouth.

  And then Steve threw up.

  Steve threw up all over himself and the net and the shirt of the creep who was carrying him.

  The ponytailed man cursed and dropped Steve on the sidewalk.

  Steve hit the ground and rolled away from the goon’s shiny black shoes. He rolled over once, then again, then stopped when he realized his right arm was free. Everything from Steve’s right elbow up was outside the net, and the ocean breeze felt cool on the skin of his forearm. As quickly as he could, Steve lifted his arm and squirmed his way out from beneath the ropes. He scrambled to his feet and took off running.

  Steve heard the man shout behind him and looked back to see him, a couple of feet away, his shirt halfway off, stumbling in pursuit.

  It’s hard to run right after throwing up. Steve was already out of breath and could feel the first twinges of a stitch in his side—but he kept sprinting down the sidewalk. He checked over his shoulder again. The man, now shirtless, was halfway down the block, but h
ad just decided to head back to his car. Steve reached the intersection at the end of the street and turned right onto Pacific Avenue. He paused next to a parked Oldsmobile, put his hands on his knees, breathed deeply, dry-heaved a couple times, and collected his thoughts. Now that he’d turned the corner, Steve felt safe—until he heard tires squeal.

  There was no way he could outrun a car.

  In seconds the car would turn the corner.

  Steve felt sick to his stomach.

  Instinctively, Steve threw himself to the ground and rolled under the Oldsmobile. He could feel the pebbles under his back as he looked up at the car’s chassis. He heard a car peel around the corner, and turned his head toward the street. He saw the tires of the black sedan speed past him.

  Steve waited.

  A few minutes later he heard a car driving slowly back toward him. It was the black sedan. The car drove to the end of the block. Then it turned and drove by him again.

  The sound of the car’s engine grew faint and disappeared. Steve lay flat, breathing hard. He checked his calculator watch: 4:55. He would wait there on his back for a half hour. You couldn’t be too safe.

  Steve could hear his heart speeding along.

  Something smelled terrible underneath this car.

  Steve realized it was him.

  After a while Steve’s legs began to tingle and twitch. Sometimes cars drove past, but the street was mostly still. A man walked by, talking to himself. He was wearing a sandal on one foot and nothing on the other. He stopped by the car for a minute, then moved on.

  After a long period of silence Steve checked his watch again. Time: 5:18. Close enough. He rolled out from underneath the car.

  The coast was clear.

  Whoever had kidnapped MacArthur Bart had just tried to kidnap Steve Brixton, but they had failed.

  Steve was onto something huge. Right now, he was the only person who knew MacArthur Bart was missing. He was Bart’s only hope. It was time to investigate.

  Steve ran toward his house. Halfway home he got tired and stopped running and sped along at more of a quick walk, but when he was a couple of blocks away he started running again.

  He burst into his house and leapt up the stairs to his room.

  But Steve stopped cold in front of the door to his room.

  The piece of Scotch tape on his door was flopping loosely, anchored only to the jamb.

  Someone had broken into his crime lab.

  CHAPTER XV

  SECURITY BREACH!

  STEVE RAN TO HIS MOM’S ROOM and grabbed a brass statue of a mermaid from her dresser. The intruders could still be inside his crime lab. Holding the mermaid aloft in his right hand, Steve slowly turned his doorknob. Then, swiftly, he kicked the door open and jumped into his room.

  Nobody was there, but the place was trashed. The bag of plaster of Paris was slit open, and a layer of white powder covered almost everything in the room. His sheets had been stripped from his bed and put in a pile along with all his disguises and the clothes from his bureau. The handle of the metal detector was bent at an ugly angle. His mustaches were strewn around the room. Someone was trying to send him a message.

  There was a piece of paper in Steve’s typewriter. Steve stepped carefully across the bedroom and looked at it:

  STEVE BRIXTON: STAY OFF THE BART CASE

  Steve smiled. Did these guys really think he could be discouraged that easily? Clearly these hoodlums had underestimated Steve Brixton. Steve practiced the Bailey Brothers’ method of detection—Shawn and Kevin’s crime lab had been vandalized plenty of times, but that never stopped them. It only made them sleuth harder.

  Steve was in danger. A kidnapping ring was after him, and they knew where he lived. But Steve wasn’t afraid. He was thrilled. This was a real case.

  Steve started pacing around the room, trying not to step on any of his stuff, sorting out the afternoon’s events. He wasn’t safe at home, and his mom wouldn’t be safe while he was in the house. He wouldn’t be safe at school, either. Plus he needed every minute of the day to work on this case. Steve stopped walking and smiled. He had a plan.

  CHAPTER XVI

  A TRUE CHUM

  “A FISHING NET?”

  It was almost nine p.m., and Steve was at Dana’s house, in the kitchen. (Steve was allowed to come over and stay late when his mom was working nights.)

  “I know. It was awful.”

  “Are you sure someone didn’t just drop the fishing net out of the building accidentally?”

  “And then a sedan just happened to pull up? Driven by a kidnapper with the same tattoo as the doorman who saw my name on my backpack? Come on, Dana. It’s like Harris Bailey always says: Coincidences are the lazy detective’s crutch.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It means there are no coincidences. ‘Coincidence’ is just an excuse not to investigate something!”

  “And which Bailey Brother is Harris? The blond one?”

  “He’s their dad!”

  “Whatever. I still don’t think real criminals would use a fishing net.”

  “What are you even talking about? So many criminals use fishing nets as weapons. Fishnet Johnny is the main henchman in One, Two, Riddle My Clue, and he uses a fishing net exclusively!”

  Dana sighed.

  “And then when I got home,” Steve said, “someone had torn up my crime lab. They’re trying to scare me off the case.”

  “I hope it worked.”

  “Danger is the snack food of a true sleuth.”

  Dana shook his head. “Is that from Harris Bailey?”

  Steve smiled. “Nope. That’s from Steve Brixton.”

  Steve unwrapped a Jolly Rancher and put it in his mouth. He spit it out immediately.

  “Hey!” said Dana. “What’s the deal?”

  “Cherry,” said Steve.

  “Oh.” Dana made a face. “Still, you didn’t have to spit it on my counter.”

  “I was aiming for the sink.”

  “Well, throw it away or something.”

  Steve picked up the candy between his thumb and forefinger and tossed it in the trash. Then he walked around the counter and sat next to his friend. It was time to put his plan into action.

  “Anyway,” he said, “enough about me. Any word from Nate?” Steve asked.

  “No,” said Dana. “Did you know Nate’s dad collects knives?”

  “Yikes,” said Steve.

  “I never should have punched him. I can’t believe I have to go back to school tomorrow.”

  “You don’t,” said Steve.

  “No, I’ve been faking sick for seven days. I think my dad’s onto me. He said—”

  Steve pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. “I just talked to your dad.”

  Steve triumphantly slapped the paper down on the kitchen counter.

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Villalon,

  Great news! As a member of the Ocean Park Middle School debate team, your child is invited to participate in the 37th Annual California Debate Championship Tournament in San Diego! OPMS will be competing in this event for the first time, thanks to Steve Brixton’s leadership and initiative in putting together a team. The tournament starts tomorrow and continues through the weekend. (We apologize for the short notice, but Ocean Park’s team was just founded this week, and we only learned this morning that our late-entry form had been accepted.)

  PLEASE NOTE: THIS TRIP WILL BE SUPERVISED AT ALL TIMES BY RESPONSIBLE ADULTS.

  If you have any questions, please contact Principal Strelow at 432-8544.

  ----------cut at dotted line----------

  Parent Signature

  Steve saw Dana was done reading. “A man has been kidnapped. The clock is ticking. Every hour is valuable. We won’t have time to go to school—we need to investigate.”

  “My dad signed this?” Dana asked.

  “Yep. So did my mom. I just took it by the hospital.”

  “But we don’t even have a debate team.”


  Steve smiled.

  “This is crazy,” Dana said. “I can’t believe our parents believed this.”

  “Are you kidding? Parents love it when their kids join the debate team. People always believe lies if they want them to be true—that’s just a fact.” This wasn’t in The Bailey Brothers’ Detective Handbook, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t right on.

  “Well, what if they call Principal Strelow?”

  “Remember how you wanted Dana Powers’s phone number?”

  “Yeah.”

  Steve pointed at the flyer. “Well I got it. I went by her house and gave her fifteen dollars to change her voice mail. Now it just says, ‘Thank you for calling. Please leave me a message at the tone.’ Very professional. She isn’t going to answer calls from numbers she doesn’t recognize.”

  “But what about school?”

  “I paid Dana Powers another five dollars to pretend to be our moms and call in sick for us.”

  Dana groaned. “I don’t believe this.”

  “She’s pretty good at voices. Who knew?”

  Dana just sat there. It was time to put the pressure on.

  “Look,” said Steve, “this is an emergency. MacArthur Bart needs our help.”

  “Why don’t you call the police?”

  “So Chief Clumber can put Rick on the case? Please. MacArthur Bart didn’t go to the cops. He came to me.”

  “But you’re supposed to be on the Fairview case.”

  “All I have to do is protect his diamond. And I’ve got that hidden somewhere safe.”

  “I don’t know …”

  “If you join the investigation, it’ll buy you a couple more days to let Nate cool off.” Steve extended his hand. Dana stared at it.

  “Look, Dana, you need to ask yourself: Do you want to be a Bailey Brother or an Ernest Plumly?”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “Ernest Plumly is the Bailey Brothers’ stout chum. He’s kind of a wet blanket and he’s always getting kidnapped.”