Into Thin Air Read online

  Before long, pale light was shining through my window. Time to get ready for school.

  • • •

  “You look terrible,” Frank told me when I stepped into the kitchen. He didn’t look too hot himself, so if he was telling me I looked bad, I knew I really looked bad.

  I leaned close enough to the microwave to catch my reflection in the glossy black surface. Yikes! Pale skin, dark circles around my red-rimmed eyes, three new zits circling my chin. I was sure to be really popular at school today.

  Aunt Trudy breezed into the kitchen and smiled at me. “Morning, Joe.” Her smile faded quickly. “Oh dear. Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “Not much,” I admitted.

  She nodded, all business. “Let me get you some coffee. I made it extra strong today, for you boys.”

  I smiled and squeezed her shoulder. Thank goodness for Aunt Trudy. She gestured for me to take a seat at the table beside Frank, then flicked on the TV that hung under our cabinets as she hurried to the coffeemaker.

  The morning news was on. “Coming up next,” a deep voice intoned. “In the wake of yet another mysterious disappearance, is the troubled amusement park Funspot changing hands again? One possible buyer might look familiar.”

  I gave Frank a quizzical look as Aunt Trudy pushed a hot mug into my hands. “Hector’s selling the park?”

  Frank shrugged. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. But it doesn’t surprise me.”

  I took a long sip of the coffee. The news was coming back from commercials.

  “And now, after his own daughter’s disappearance, is Hector Rodriguez ready to sell the troubled amusement park Funspot—to its former owner?”

  The picture cut from a smiling anchorwoman to a grizzly-looking white-haired man, who stood outside a slightly dingy yellow clapboard house. The text at the bottom of the screen identified him as DOUG SPENCER—FORMER FUNSPOT OWNER.

  A reporter pushed a microphone into his face. “Mr. Spencer, is it true you’re in talks to purchase Funspot back from Mr. Rodriguez?”

  Doug Spencer smiled patiently. “No comment,” he said. “I’ll say only that these are tragic circumstances, but maybe everything will work out for the best.”

  The reporter sent it back to the anchorwoman, who quickly launched into another story about rabid raccoons or something. I’d stopped paying attention. “Doug Spencer?” I said to Frank.

  He looked thoughtful. “Do you remember what Hector’s wife said last night?” he asked.

  I nodded. “ ‘You forced that poor man to sell it to us,’ ” I replied. “She had to have been talking about this guy—this Doug Spencer.”

  “And if he was pressured into selling it, of course he’d want it back,” Frank pointed out.

  I took another long sip of coffee, considering. Could Doug Spencer have wanted Funspot back badly enough to take some very drastic actions?

  My mom came tripping into the kitchen, shoving her toes into a very pointy-looking high heel. “No time for breakfast,” she gasped. “I’ve got a showing in ten minutes. Last-minute New York people, but they seem really interested in the mansion on Juniper—”

  Rrrrring. Rrrring!

  She was cut off by the ringing of our landline.

  The phone was right next to my mother, so she grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

  As the person on the other end spoke, her brow slowly furrowed. “Yes, they’re here,” she said. “I’m their mother. What is this about?” She glanced at Frank and me. “I see . . . I see. Hold on.”

  She pressed the receiver against her shoulder and turned to us. “It’s some lawyer,” she said, “representing somebody named Piperato. He says his clients are desperate to meet with you two.”

  She raised her eyebrows so high, they nearly hit her hairline. I knew what that expression meant. It meant, What are you boys doing that lawyers are calling the house?

  Frank looked at me. “Tell him we want to hear what they have to say,” he said. My mother shook her head and relayed the message.

  “Maybe talking to them will give us some clues,” Frank whispered to me.

  I sure hoped so. Because I wasn’t going to survive many more sleepless nights.

  AWKWARD!

  3

  FRANK

  SO WHAT DO YOU KNOW about Doug Spencer?” I asked as we made the short drive to school.

  Joe startled. I realized after I asked the question that he might have fallen asleep. He looked at me through hooded, red-rimmed eyes. “What?”

  “Sorry. I asked you about Doug Spencer,” I explained. “What do you know about him?”

  Joe looked out the windshield at the gray, gloomy weather. His expression looked just as bleak. “Nothing,” he said. “Nada. Diddly and squat. Why?”

  I shrugged. “You were dating Daisy for a few weeks,” I pointed out. “I thought maybe she’d mentioned him? Especially if Hector bought Funspot from him under some kind of duress.”

  Joe shook his head. “Daisy never mentioned him at all. I wish she had. I wish I had some idea what happened to her.”

  I’d just pulled into the BHS parking lot. I slid the car into a space and put it in park. Then I reached out and patted Joe’s shoulder. “I know this must be tough for you, bro.” Really, you just had to look at him to see that.

  Joe nodded. “Thanks.” He sighed, sitting up and grabbing his backpack. “Well, since Daisy’s not around to ask, we’re going to have to settle for the next best thing,” he said.

  I frowned. “Which is?”

  Joe turned and looked at me. He was wearing a super-sleepy smirk. “Penelope Chung.”

  • • •

  Penelope Chung is not exactly a huge fan of mine. The night the G-Force first opened, and we got to take its inaugural ride, Penelope was my setup “date.” Let’s just say she was not the Princess Kate to my Prince William. She was utterly bored by me and my science talk, and she made that completely clear.

  But a case is a case, and clearly, it was more important to find out what happened to Daisy than for me to feel, well, like I was not something disgusting that Penelope had just stepped in. So I gamely approached her table with Joe that day at lunch.

  “Hey, Penelope,” Joe said without preamble, barging right into the middle of a conversation Penelope and her friend Jamie King were having. “Can I ask you something?”

  Penelope and Jamie looked up. Jamie, who we’d learned from questioning her the week before was a bit of a drama queen, looked stunned and horrified.

  “Oh . . . em . . . gee,” she said, adopting that “mean girl” accent that every girl between the ages of thirteen and thirty seems to know how to do. “You guys . . . just no. This is, like, totally awkward.”

  Joe looked at her, cocking an eyebrow. “Awkward?” he asked, like it was a foreign word he’d never heard before.

  Jamie widened her blue eyes. “You guys. You know you can’t sit here, right? I know Daisy’s not here right now. But Joe, you and Daisy broke up.”

  Joe made absolutely no response, except to look back at me. He looked exhausted. I got the feeling he was having serious trouble understanding what Jamie was talking about.

  It was time for me to step up. “Actually, while I totally agree that it would be awkward for us to sit at your lunch table,” I said, giving Joe a pointed look, “we don’t want to. We just wanted to see if we could talk to Penelope for a second and ask her an important question. Okay?”

  Jamie looked like she didn’t quite believe me, but she shrugged and turned back to her Cobb salad. “Whatever. I guess you’d have to ask her.”

  Obviously. Which is what we were doing.

  But I digress. Penelope was looking at the two of us like we’d just crawled out of a sewer. She didn’t exactly look thrilled to talk to us. But she sighed and dropped her napkin on the table, then stood and faced us. “Okay. But let’s make it quick.”

  Joe nodded and led the way to the far end of the cafeteria, where the uncool kids—like ours
elves—usually ate. We settled down at a four-top table. Penelope sat reluctantly, looking around like uncoolness was a contagious disease.

  Joe got right to the point. “We wanted to ask you about Doug Spencer,” he said.

  Penelope frowned. “The Funspot guy?”

  I nodded. “The guy who sold Funspot to Hector. Did Daisy ever mention him?”

  She sighed, looking off into the distance like she was trying to remember. “She told me that he didn’t really want to sell Funspot,” she said. “But he was running out of money. Her dad saw it as a business opportunity. He made Spencer an offer, but it was for less than he wanted.”

  Joe looked intrigued. “But he did sell it eventually?”

  Penelope nodded. “He had to. He said he just couldn’t make the park work in this economy. It needed too many repairs and stuff.” She stuck her index finger in her mouth and started nibbling on the fingernail.

  I glanced at Joe. “Did she ever meet him?” I asked Penelope. It seemed clear that Spencer might have an ax to grind with Hector. But how would that lead him to Daisy? And how did this play into what the Piperato Brothers had done?

  Penelope put her hand down and swallowed. She suddenly brightened, as if she’d just recalled something. “She met him a couple times,” she said. “He came to the house to sign papers or something. She said he was really weird to her—giving her a lot of the side eye.”

  I was confused. “What does that mean?”

  She let out a frustrated sigh. “You know. The side eye?” She turned so that she was facing ninety degrees away from me, then gave me a once-over out of the corner of her eye. Her eye traveled from the top of my head all the way down to my shoes. Then she turned back in her seat and looked at me dead on.

  She gave me a duh kind of look. “The side eye is creepy. Definitely creepy. Wait a minute. . . .”

  She trailed off, hostility sneaking back into her voice. Her eyes unfocused, and then suddenly she turned and glared at Joe.

  “Are you asking because you two are investigating her disappearance?”

  I glanced at my brother. “We . . . uh,” was as far as I got.

  “Yes,” Joe told Penelope, “we’re trying to figure out what happened to her.”

  Penelope’s glare intensified. Her eyes flashed. “That’s just great,” she said snottily. “After all, you guys did such a great job of solving the G-Force case and keeping Daisy safe, right?”

  Before either one of us could respond, Penelope jumped to her feet. Her eyes narrowed, and she fired this parting shot before she stomped off:

  “Maybe if we’re all lucky, this investigation will end in a murder!”

  I gulped into the silence that followed Penelope’s exit. Other uncool kids were looking over at us, no doubt curious what the Hardy Boys had done this time. But their reaction was nothing compared to Joe’s. He was staring down at his hot lunch, stricken, like Penelope had ripped out his heart and stomped on it right in front of the whole student body.

  I tried to make a joke. “Now that,” I said, poking Joe in the shoulder, “was awkward!”

  Joe looked up at me like I’d just run over his puppy. (Have I mentioned that I stink at making jokes?)

  “Sorry,” I said, softening my voice. “Listen, Joe, we’ll get to the bottom of this. We always do.”

  Joe swallowed hard, pushing his tray away like he’d lost his appetite. “We’d better,” he said.

  • • •

  Later that afternoon, I was shoving books from my locker into my backpack when a tiny piece of paper fluttered out. My heart quickened, remembering our recent investigation into the possible existence of a nasty criminal organization called the Red Arrow. When I picked up the paper, I was totally expecting to see the little triangle-with-legs doodle that was the Red Arrow’s symbol, implying that I’d been marked for further punishment. But instead what I saw was an angry message scrawled in black marker:

  STOP LOOKING FOR DAISY OR YOU’LL REGRET IT.

  THE UGLY TRUTH

  4

  JOE

  I STARED AT THE NOTE Frank had given me as he pulled out of our school parking lot and started the drive to the Seaside County Jail.

  “Penelope,” I said, searching the block letters for any resemblance to her cute, girly handwriting. “It has to be. Right?”

  Frank shrugged. “Who else knows that we’re investigating?”

  I considered. “Chief Olaf kind of knows. Hector. Maybe Luke.”

  “It could be Luke,” Frank pointed out.

  I was doubtful. “And he snuck into our school to slip this note in your locker—when he should have been at Dalton Academy?” I paused, then added, “After we just told Penelope? And she was clearly upset? And she goes to our school?”

  He sighed. “I agree, Penelope makes the most sense,” he said. “I just think we should keep an open mind. We talked to all kinds of people while we were trying to find Kelly and Luke. Or maybe someone’s figured out what we’re doing who we don’t even know about.”

  Well, that was comforting.

  We rode in silence for a few minutes. I looked at my brother’s profile as he drove, and I couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking.

  I figured I had to say it.

  “We can’t stop investigating.”

  Frank stopped at a stoplight and looked over at me, surprised. “Of course not,” he said. “We have to find Daisy.”

  I settled back in my seat, relieved.

  Ninety percent of the time Frank and I think alike. I was glad this was one of those times.

  • • •

  The Seaside County Jail is a place the Hardy Boys know well. We’ve sent tons of crooks there. So we greeted our friends in security and wasted no time in being led to the big shared visitation lounge. It was a loud, cold room, the size of our school’s gym, filled with tables where inmates could speak with their visitors. A few minutes after we sat down, I caught sight of the Piperato Brothers being led in.

  Greg and Derek Piperato looked very different without their usual hipster outfits. Without a zoot suit and a fedora, Greg’s handlebar mustache looked a little ridiculous, especially balanced against the bright orange of a prisoner’s jumpsuit. The Piperatos had been in jail, awaiting trial for fraud and kidnapping. The elaborate hoax they’d dreamed up to gain publicity for the G-Force had bitten them back, big-time.

  Also missing was the brothers’ usual affected attitude. As he was being led in, Greg Piperato (always the nicer of the two) looked at Frank and me like he was a starving man, and we were the last drumstick in all of America.

  Or something like that. I don’t know, I was tired.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” Greg said as he and his brother slipped into their chairs across the table. “We were afraid you wouldn’t. We know we haven’t, ah, exactly gotten off on the right foot?” He chuckled awkwardly.

  “You constructed an elaborate hoax that caused a lot of people a lot of fear and heartbreak, all to get publicity for an amusement ride, and we caught you,” Frank replied drily. “So yeah, we’re not best buds.”

  Derek’s desperate eyes clouded over with anger. “You self-righteous little worm! I—”

  But Greg held up his hand, and Derek was instantly silenced. He stared down into his lap, pouting.

  “As I was saying,” Greg went on, “I don’t think we’ve really gotten to know each other.” He paused and tried to catch Derek’s eye, giving him a hopeful look. Derek nodded. “If you knew us, you’d know there’s no way we could do what we’ve been accused of.”

  I wasn’t convinced. “There has to be a way,” I replied, “because you left a digital trail. What about all the e-mails from you to Luke and Kelly, telling them how to fake their disappearances?”

  Derek jumped in his seat, and Greg held up his hand again. Derek sighed and turned back to his lap.

  “We didn’t send those,” Greg insisted.

  I looked at my brother. Hmm. Of course it made sense for Greg t
o lie to us in this situation. But his calm manner—along with the utter certainty in his voice—had me intrigued.

  I could tell Frank was feeling the same. “Prove it,” he said simply.

  Derek sighed again. “We can’t,” he said.

  Greg held up a finger. “My brother is right. We can’t prove that we didn’t send those e-mails. I can only tell you the truth, and hope that you believe me. Remember, legally, we do not have to prove our innocence. The state has to prove our guilt—beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  He had a point. I looked at Frank, who nodded slowly.

  “Tell me about the e-mails,” I said.

  Greg leaned closer. “It would not have been difficult for someone to hack into our e-mail,” he explained. “We love engineering, but we’ve never been computer people. We shared the same password for our accounts, which was, I’m ashamed to admit, ‘password.’ ”

  Frank groaned. Being a bit of a computer geek, I’m sure he was personally pained by such lazy password choosing.

  “It doesn’t even have a number,” he muttered, shaking his head.

  “Exactly.” Greg waited for Frank to meet his eyes, then turned and looked me straight in the eye too. “Anyone with basic computer literacy could have hacked into our e-mail and sent those messages. And if this were someone close to the case—someone who, say, was trying to mislead the authorities . . .”

  This was all sounding a little too reasonable. “But Luke and Kelly think you did it,” I pointed out. “The whole time, they believed they were being instructed by you—and, after they had ‘disappeared,’ cared for by you.”

  Derek suddenly pounded on the table. “Lies!”

  Greg turned and gave him a slow-burning glare. “Derek,” he said, and his brother seemed to calm down before our eyes. He shook his head, frowning down at the table again.

  Greg then turned to us. “Those children never saw us,” he pointed out. “It was Cal, the ride operator, who was transporting them and bringing them food. He has since disappeared, so he can’t tell anyone who was truly behind the crime.”