Double Deception Read online

  “You’ll do great,” I said. “You always do.”

  I watched Emily walk away. Frank punched my arm.

  “What?” I asked, rubbing the spot where he hit me.

  “So out of your league,” he teased.

  “A guy can dream, can’t he?”

  A trailer door slammed and Justin strode toward us, head down. He would have slammed right into me if I hadn’t quickly stepped out of his way.

  “Yo, dude,” I said. “Lose something?”

  “Huh?” Justin stared at me.

  “I thought you might have dropped something, the way you’re staring down at the ground.”

  “What? Oh. No.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels. “You two still doing the assistant thing?”

  “We’re about to check in with Rick,” Frank told him.

  “Yeah. Good. Well, see you.” Justin stalked away.

  Frank and I were quiet for a moment. “Is it just me,” I said finally, “or was Justin a whole lot less friendly than usual?”

  “Not just you. But I don’t think it’s us. He seems worried about something.”

  “Ryan, maybe?” I suggested.

  I watched Justin as he headed over to the set. Emily Slater noticed him approaching and deliberately turned her back on him. Justin stared at her back for a minute, then slunk away to the food table.

  “I wonder if the director will get through the scenes without them having some kind of fight,” I said.

  “Maybe that’s what has Justin so preoccupied,” Frank suggested. “He had a few days away from dealing with Emily when we were in Atlantic City. Now he has to work with her again.”

  “There’s Rick,” I said, pointing out the dark-haired production assistant. He was talking to Sydney Lamb, Justin’s publicist. She wore the most amazing outfits—and I don’t necessarily mean that in a good way. Today she resembled an alien from a sci-fi flick, with a kind of silvery tunic over leggings, long silver mesh gloves, and dark glasses, even though there was barely any light left.

  “Hello, darlings!” Sydney gave us each air kisses when we joined them. Why do Hollywood people do that?

  “I’d like you guys on crowd control,” said Rick. “It shouldn’t be too bad in this location, but there are bound to be gawkers. We want to be sure no one walks through any of the shots.”

  “Will do,” Frank said.

  Justin came over. “Why aren’t there more cops?” he demanded.

  I scanned the area. As usual, whenever a film is shooting on city streets, there were several police around, as well as patrol cars blocking off the alley so that no one could drive in.

  “I think we’re covered,” Rick said.

  “Well, I don’t think we’re covered,” Justin snapped. “So do something about it,”

  Rick looked startled, then said, “Of course.” He disappeared into the office.

  “He already asked us to help with crowd control,” I assured Justin.

  Justin eyed us up and down. “No offense, guys. I know you’ve done a lot of really brave things and can hold your own. But I’d still feel a lot safer with more uniforms.” He turned and went back to his trailer. He glanced Emily’s way, and once again she very obviously ignored him.

  Weird. Security wasn’t usually something Justin worried about. He was more concerned with making sure he could get away from the people who were trying to look out for him.

  Sydney sighed. “I’m worried about that boy. I’m sure Slick’s murder is hitting him a lot harder than he’s letting on.”

  Frank and I exchanged a look, silently agreeing to keep quiet. No one but ATAC knew about Slick’s role in the bootlegging scheme. Phillip Yu had needed an industry insider—someone who would have access to the original films so that he could make high-quality copies. Slick not only had an advance DVD of Hong Kong Challenge, Justin’s movie that was about to premiere, he also had one of the bootleg versions.

  It seemed too soon to tell Justin that a guy he’d trusted all his life was stealing from him. He’d find out soon enough. Besides, until they were able to make arrests, the authorities didn’t want any of the details revealed.

  “I wish Ryan were around,” Sydney said. “And not just because I now have to do the tasks he usually took care of.”

  “Have you heard from him?” I asked.

  “Not a peep. Justin said he wanted a total break, so I’m respecting that. But I do plan to wring his neck when he comes back. He’s the good twin! How could he leave me with the evil one?” She smiled as she said it, so I knew she was kidding. She truly cared about both Ryan and Justin.

  “I have to double-check the shooting schedule,” she said. “Justin needs to be available for some appearances. Ciao!”

  She clicked away on her high heels into the trailer office.

  “Why do you think Justin is so worried about security?” I asked.

  “Maybe it’s a reaction to Slick’s murder,” Frank suggested. “If a guy close to me got whacked, it would definitely have me looking over my shoulder.”

  “Good point.”

  “Hey, we never talked to Justin about Ryan,” I remembered.

  “They’re still fiddling with the lights,” said Frank. “It doesn’t look like they’re going to be starting any time soon. Now’s good.”

  We walked over to his trailer and knocked on the door.

  “Enter!” he said.

  We stepped through the door. These trailers weren’t very tricked out, since they were rentals being used for only a few days and weren’t intended for sleeping. Justin’s had a table, a small sofa, and a few chairs. A mirror ran along one wall, with a counter he could use for makeup, I guessed, but he had a game console set up instead. There was also a tiny kitchenette and a door leading to the bathroom, and that was it.

  Justin was sitting on the sofa, looking at his script. I dropped onto the arm of his couch, and Frank hovered in the doorway. Three guys, each over six feet tall, and this space got crowded.

  “Listen, we just wanted to let you know that Ryan isn’t on Isola,” I said.

  Justin never looked up. “I told you he was fine.”

  “The thing is, it looks as if he was never there,” said Frank.

  Now we had gotten his attention. “What do you mean?”

  “Our friends,” I explained, “actually know that island pretty well. No one matching Ryan’s description has been seen, and he never checked into any of the hotels.”

  “You went to a lot of trouble,” Justin said. “I told you not to bother.”

  “We like Ryan,” said Frank. “People are worried about him. If he was evacuated somewhere, we want to help.”

  “How could you help?” Justin asked. “You’re just high school kids in Bayport. Oh, right…you know people.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was skeptical or suspicious, but we were entering dangerous territory here. “Our mom—she went to school with someone who has a vacation house there,” I said.

  I hoped he bought it. It did look kind of strange for two high school kids to have the resources to track people down in foreign countries!

  “Look. If Ryan didn’t want anyone to know where he went, that’s his own business.” Justin shrugged. “So he went somewhere else. No biggie.”

  “I guess….”

  Justin seemed weirdly unconcerned. I got the sense he actually knew where Ryan was, he just wasn’t telling.

  Someone knocked on the door. “They’re ready on the set,” a voice on the other side of the door announced.

  “Gotta go, guys,” Justin said.

  “Do you mind if I use your…you know.” I nodded toward the mini-bathroom. “The only other option would be the porta-potties, and given the choice…”

  “Sure. See you out there.”

  Justin left the trailer, and I hit the head. When I came back out I noticed Frank holding a bright blue cell.

  “You get a new phone?” I asked.

  “Not mine,” said Frank. “Justin forgot it.”

  Suddenly the door swung open, and Sydney popped her head in. “Justin,” she began. She saw it was just us and frowned. “Oh.”

  “He just got called to the set,” I explained.

  “He left his cell.” Frank held it up for her to see. “Should we bring it to him?”

  “Please don’t,” said Sydney. “He shouldn’t be getting calls while he’s working. Just leave it here.”

  Frank laid the phone down on the counter. Sydney quickly stepped inside and shut the door behind her. “While I have you two alone, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “You haven’t known Justin for very long, but, well…” It seemed as if she was trying to find the right words. “Do you think he’s been acting strangely?”

  Frank and I looked at each other. Should we tell her the truth or not? Then I decided—she cared about Justin and should know. “Yes, actually,” I said. “It started in Atlantic City, once Ryan left.”

  “I thought so too!” she exclaimed. “So it isn’t just me.” She sat on a chair and leaned forward. “Now I want you to tell me the truth. It won’t get Justin in trouble, I promise. Is there any reason I should worry about his behavior? More than usual, that is.”

  “What do you mean?” Frank asked.

  She bit her lip. “In his world, and at his age…well, you always worry about bad influences. Drugs. Drinking. That kind of thing.”

  “We’ve never seen any evidence of that,” said Frank.

  “Really,” I assured her. “Nothing at all.”

  She looked relieved. “That’s great! Do you think you could kind of keep an eye out for that sort of trouble? I’d rather deal with it myself than have it come out because of a DUI or a story in a tabloid.
”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “You got it,” Frank added.

  “Now let’s go take care of our boy!” she said.

  “It’s going really well,” Rick Ortiz told us. They’d been shooting an hour and were ready to change the camera positions, so everyone got to take a break. I watched Emily go back to her trailer, but Justin jumped up onto a loading dock and pulled out his cell. He made a couple of calls, and then started texting.

  What is wrong with that picture? Then I remembered. “Hey, did you give Justin his phone?” I asked Frank.

  Frank looked at me like I was a little on the dim side. “Uh, you were there? Sydney asked me not to.”

  “Check him out.” I nodded toward Justin, who was chatting away. Then he flipped the blue device shut and slipped it into his pocket.

  “He’s Justin Carraway,” Frank reminded me. “He could have lots of phones. One for every day of the week. One with streaming video, one with—”

  “Okay, okay, you’re right,” I said.

  Rick walked up to Justin and handed him a plate of food.

  “Or,” my brother continued, “someone else could have brought it to him. People are constantly running errands for him.”

  “Must be nice,” I murmured. Yes. I admit it. Sometimes I envied Justin. I mean, how could you not?

  But I wouldn’t want the whole Justin Carraway package. The fans could get totally psycho, people tried to sponge off you, and you were always surrounded. It must be hard to know who your real friends were.

  That made me want to find Ryan even more. Justin might deny it, but he really needed his twin. Ever since Ryan vamoosed, Justin had been a lot more on edge.

  And that made everyone around him nervous.

  FRANK 3

  Hong Kong Challenge

  I was watching TV in my room after the shoot that night when my phone rang. “The timing is perfect!” Sydney Lamb gushed.

  I held the phone away from my ear. She was speaking very loudly. Probably because of all the noise I could hear in the background.

  “The timing of what?” I asked.

  “The premiere of Hong Kong Challange, of course!” Sydney said. “The film needs to shoot the flying scenes over the next few days, and now that Justin isn’t going to do them I can set up some other appearances. Isn’t that great?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I couldn’t figure out why she was telling me this. I already knew about the shots—Rick had shown us the shooting schedule earlier.

  “It’s all been arranged,” Sydney went on. “You and your brother have tickets to the premiere and the party at Glow, the new hot spot. And the hotel held more rooms than we actually need, so we’ve got space for you! Happy, darling?”

  “That’s awesome, Sydney!” I exclaimed.

  While we were in Atlantic City, Justin had invited us to attend the premiere in New York City, but he hadn’t mentioned it again. I had wondered if we were still going. He seemed to be running hot and cold toward us these days.

  “What’s awesome?” Joe asked, coming into my room.

  I gestured for him to be quiet, then snapped my fingers, hoping he’d understand that I wanted something to write with. He just stared at me.

  So much for brother-to-brother telepathy.

  Sydney was blabbing a mile a minute, and I darted to my desk. I wrote the details on the back of an envelope. “Yup, got it,” I said.

  “And you know that request I made about keeping an eye on…things?” Sydney said. “It goes double in New York.”

  Now I understood. Even if Justin hadn’t invited us, Sydney was going to make sure we went to New York City to help babysit. That was cool with me. I actually liked the guy and didn’t want to see him going down a bad road.

  And if I had to attend a major movie premiere in the Big Apple, well, who was I to argue?

  I clicked off with Sydney and grinned at Joe.

  “So?” he said. “You going to tell me what that was all about?”

  “What’s it worth to you?”

  Joe lunged at me, but I held the envelope out of his reach.

  “Glad I didn’t unpack,” I said, “’cause I’ve got a party to go to in New York City!”

  Joe managed to snatch the envelope out of my hand. “The premiere?” he asked.

  “Yup. They’ve given Justin a couple of days off, so we can hang up there for a few days.”

  “This is turning out to be a really great summer vacation!” said Joe.

  “Five-star all the way,” I agreed. “I don’t think we’re even going to have to work to convince Mom that we should go.”

  “Aunt Trudy is going to be so jealous,” Joe said.

  “I wonder if the director is annoyed,” I said. “Justin has these days off because they’re shooting the flying scenes.”

  “The ones Justin swore he’d be able to do,” Joe said. “I don’t get it. How did he get such great reports from his flying teachers in L.A. and then totally freak during a simple descent on our way to Atlantic City?”

  I shrugged. “I’m just glad we managed to land in one piece.” I flipped open my phone again. “Speaking of one piece…”

  I dialed Tom Huang in Atlantic City. Before Phillip Yu went into the ocean, the crime lord had been trying to recruit Tom to join one of his gangs. Hopefully, now that Phillip was gone the syndicate would leave him alone.

  “So far so good,” Tom said after I asked him. “And while you’re in New York, there are some great restaurants you should check out in Chinatown.”

  “Are they the kind of restaurants where you’re not sure you want to know what you’re eating?”

  “Exactly!” Tom laughed. “My mouth’s already watering. Maybe I’ll come join you.”

  As I hung up, Dad walked into the room. “Thought you’d want to know. William Bost has been sentenced and is being transferred to prison today.”

  Bost was the president of the Cleen Teens organization—and Justin’s stalker. We were able to stop him before he took out Justin by switching prop bullets for real ones. “Glad to hear it,” said Joe.

  “He still insists he had nothing to do with the murder of the paparazzo, though,” Dad added. “So it really might be an unrelated crime.”

  “Maybe Elijah took a picture that someone didn’t want published,” Joe suggested.

  Dad nodded thoughtfully. “His camera was never found. The murderer could have taken it.”

  “Elijah was mostly tailing Justin,” I pointed out.

  “That guy was tailing anyone and everyone,” Joe argued. “We were just so focused on Justin’s stalker that we didn’t think about anything but a link to Justin.”

  “Links to Justin. Right,” Dad continued. “We’re still investigating his manager’s involvement in the bootlegging scheme.”

  “I hate to think that Slick was the industry insider,” I said. “We really believed he was doing everything he could to protect Justin and Ryan in the business.”

  “Money makes people do crazy things,” Joe said. “We’ve seen that time and time again.”

  “So far nothing has turned up in Slick’s bank accounts to indicate he was involved in something on the side,” said Dad. “Untangling the illegitimate bootleg business from Phillip Wu’s legit businesses will take awhile. But don’t worry—ATAC agents are on it. We’ll keep you informed.”

  Joe

  “Yeee-ahh!” I burst through the swinging doors of the movie theater with a hard kick. We had just watched the premiere of Hong Kong Challenge, Justin’s newest movie release. It had me totally psyched.

  I whirled around and crouched in a defensive pose. I slowly moved my hands into position for a hard chop. “Time to kick it up a notch,” I growled at Frank, quoting the movie’s soon-to-be-famous catchphrase.

  Frank just raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he said. “Here? Now?”

  I glanced around. Paparazzi lined two sides of the red carpet (yes, it really is red). Anything I did would wind up on the net, on some gossip show, or in a tabloid. “You got a point.” I straightened back up. “Where’s Justin? He wasn’t sitting anywhere near us.”

  “Probably meeting and greeting other famous people inside,” Frank speculated.

  “Or preparing himself for the onslaught,” I said, eyeing all the reporters and star watchers.

  “There must be a million cameras and reporters here,” said Frank.

  People stood along the edge of the carpet, holding mikes and speaking into film cameras. Sydney Lamb paced along the sidelines. She was probably worried how Justin would behave. Sometimes he really played to the press. Other times…well, there was a reason he was a favorite of the tabloids. He could put on quite a show. Sometimes he was the hero and sometimes he was the villain. Which was it going to be today? Flip a coin.