The X-Factor Read online

  The vigil was really drawing a crowd. Even the protesters from outside were peering in curiously through the gates.

  “Come on.” I turned away, deciding we might as well take advantage of the uproar if we could. “Maybe it’ll be easier to scout around the park while everyone’s distracted here.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Joe agreed.

  We’d barely gone two steps when the sounds of angry shouting came from nearby. Glancing over, I saw several security guards dragging a young woman toward the gate.

  “Let me go!” she was screeching, clawing at the guards. Her long, straight brown hair was falling over her face, which was streaked with tears. She looked pretty hysterical. “You have to let me go! This is an outrage!”

  “That’s enough, miss,” one of the guards said firmly. “We’re going to have to ask you to leave now, before we get the police involved.”

  “You can’t stop me, and neither can the cops!” the young woman shrieked wildly, breaking loose from the guards and almost crashing into some of the younger Bret fans. “I’ll never leave the site where my beloved Bret died. Never! And if you try to make me, you’ll be sorry. You’ll all be sorry!”

  Fanning Out

  “Okay, call me crazy, but that kind of sounded like a threat,” Frank said as the guards caught the nutty Bret fan and dragged her outside.

  “You’re crazy,” I said automatically. But I was already drifting after the guards. That skateboard bomb had turned up after Bret died. Not to mention us almost getting plowed under by that tractor. Could this crazed fan be trying to avenge her idol’s death or something? It seemed pretty whacked-out. Then again, criminals aren’t always rational.

  The guards finished ejecting the young woman, though we could still hear her yelling outside. Most of the guards hurried back inside, but one stayed in the entry, keeping an eye on the woman. Guess he drew the short straw.

  Frank and I hurried over to one of the others. “Hey, what was that all about?” I asked.

  The guard glanced at me. He was a big, beefy guy with a gold tooth. For a second I thought he was going to brush us off.

  But then one of the other guards joined him. “Yo, aren’t you the two secret agents?” the second guy asked us.

  I winced. McKenzie had totally blown our cover by telling the media he’d brought in a pair of secret agents to figure out who was sabotaging the park. Obviously, the guests at the park still had no idea who we were. But it hadn’t taken long for most of the staff and crew to figure it out.

  “So what did she do?” I asked, not really answering the question.

  The first guard rolled his eyes. “She came this morning with the rest of ’em, I guess.” He gestured toward the younger fans, who had resumed their crying and singing. “All I know is we got a call that she was trying to pry up the floorboards off the stage.”

  “Huh?” Frank looked confused. “What do you mean? Why would she do that?”

  The second guard grimaced. “Said she wanted to keep the ones that Johnston guy was standing on when he died. Pretty sick, huh?”

  “That’s not all.” A third guard had overheard our conversation and wandered over. “Ox says she’s been causing trouble all day. She already stole bits off a bunch of other attractions—all the places where Bret Johnston shot publicity photos, pretty much. Even managed to pry loose one of the rocks at the edge of the cliff-diving wall.”

  Well, that explained why the cliff-diving attraction was closed. I figured that Ox dude must have ordered it shut down until it could be checked for safety. But where did the giant tractor come in?

  Before I could figure that one out, Frank elbowed me in the side. “Come on,” he said as the guards wandered off. “Let’s see if we can talk to her.”

  “You think there’s something here?”

  “Who knows? But you heard what they said about the cliff-dive thing. What if she was the one who left that tractor up there? She might’ve driven it up to help her snag that rock, then left the parking brake off or something.”

  “Sounds kind of far-fetched,” I said doubtfully.

  “Yeah. But we’re not exactly rolling in better theories right now, at least until we track down Nick or Lenni.”

  He had a point. We hurried out through the gates. The regular bunch of GX protesters was gathered out there. All of them were sort of hanging back, keeping a wary eye on Miss Superfan. I couldn’t blame them. She looked pretty crazed.

  “Excuse me, miss?” Frank was already hurrying over to her. “Can we ask you a few questions?”

  She glared at him suspiciously. I couldn’t help noticing she was actually kind of cute. “What do you want?” she snapped.

  When she lifted her arm to brush back her hair, I saw that she had a large tattoo of Bret Johnston on her wrist. Whoa. Now that was hard-core fandom.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Zana Johnston. What’s it to you?”

  “Johnston?” Frank echoed. “Wait, you’re not actually related to Bret Johnston, are you?”

  “Only in spirit.” Zana’s eyes fluttered half-shut, and she let out a melancholy sigh. “I knew from the first time I saw him on TV that Bret and I were soul mates. That’s why I legally changed my last name to match his. I was sure that one day we would meet, and he would realize our destiny too.” She ran the fingers of her other hand over her tattoo. “But now it seems we were never destined to meet in this world.”

  “Um, okay.” Frank is pretty good at keeping his cool in even the weirdest situations. But this was pretty weird even for him—he was starting to look a little wigged out.

  “So we heard you were up on the cliff-diving wall,” I put in. “Did you, um, drive a tractor up there?”

  “What?” Zana looked confused. “Why would I do that? Wait, did Bret drive a tractor while he was here? I didn’t hear anything about that! You have to tell me everything!”

  I had the feeling that if we said that Bret’s magical backside had ever so much as touched the seat of that tractor, she’d rush back in and drag it out of the lake with her bare hands. It was tempting to try it and see. But I knew Frank wouldn’t approve of that.

  “No, sorry for the confusion,” said Frank. “Er, thanks for talking to—”

  “I still can’t believe my Bret is gone!” Zana clutched at her hair. Actually, it looked like she might have pulled out a handful. “It just doesn’t seem real.…”

  She went on like that for a while. Frank and I stood there and listened. I don’t know about him, but I was just waiting for a good moment to bolt.

  Then I noticed Lenni heading our way from the parking lot. She didn’t seem to notice us at first. Instead she headed straight for the group of protesters. They were still hanging back from crazy Zana.

  Lenni walked up to one of them, a frizzy-haired woman who looked about forty. Frank and I had talked to her a few times, so we knew she was a local resident who was concerned about the environmental impact GX would have on the islands. Lenni seemed to know her too. She handed the woman a PowerUp sports drink and chatted with her for a moment.

  Then she finally spotted us and hurried over.

  “Hey,” she said to us as Zana paused for breath. “I heard you guys were looking for me.”

  Zana blinked at her. “Who are you?” she demanded. “Are you here to help memorialize Bret too?”

  Lenni looked confused. “Who? Oh, you mean that singer who croaked the other night?”

  Zana looked outraged. “Don’t you dare speak that way of my Bret!” she cried. “It’s bad enough that fate has wrested him from this life without having to listen to such things!”

  “Fate?” Lenni’s mouth twisted into a wry little smile. “Well, you might want to check with the cops, but I’m thinking fate didn’t have much to do with it.”

  “What?” Zana yelped. She looked so freaked out that I expected her head to start spinning around. “What are you talking about? Are you saying Bret’s death was the result of foul play
?”

  It was all I could do to keep from rolling my eyes. I mean, who talks like that? Frank and I are in the business, and even we hardly ever use phrases like “foul play.”

  Zana clenched her fists and shook them at the heavens. “I swear, if I find out someone is responsible for my love’s early demise, I’ll make them pay! Mark my words!”

  Then she rushed for the gate and started arguing with the guard. I felt sorry for the guy.

  “Is she for real?” Lenni said, staring after her.

  Frank shrugged. “I guess she’s pretty upset about Bret Johnston’s death.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” Lenni shook her head. “I mean, I saw those teenyboppers earlier, okay? But really, what kind of grown woman gets so freaked over some lame celebrity? Seems almost too crazy to be true, you know?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “You think she’s faking?”

  “Maybe.” Lenni lifted one shoulder. “She could be a plant. You know—someone Tyrone hired to act nutty enough to make all the protesters and vigil holders look so bad that the cops will come and clear them out once and for all.”

  I exchanged a dubious look with Frank. “Whatever,” I said. “But listen, we really do need to talk to you.…”

  We moved out of earshot of the rest of the people outside the gates. Then we told Lenni about the cliff-diving incident. She seemed surprised to hear it.

  “Cliff diving?” she said. “I thought all that kind of stuff blew up with the mountain.”

  “Not this,” Frank said. “It wasn’t part of Mount McKenzie. It’s over in the northwest corner by the boating lake.”

  “Oh. Well, I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But you should know McKenzie thinks you had something to do with that skateboard bomb.”

  She frowned. “Are you for real? I saved his stupid park by kicking that bomb up in the air! If it’d gone off and taken out Cody Zane, GX would’ve been history for sure. Even Tyrone McKenzie doesn’t have enough dough to bribe his way out of two celebrity deaths!”

  “You have a point,” said Frank. “And I’m not saying we think you did, okay? But obviously someone did it, and we need to know who. Along with who blew up Mount McKenzie. And who messed with the Leap the other day and almost got me and Cody killed.”

  Lenni scowled at him, kicking at a rock on the pavement. “Believe me or not, I don’t care. But I’m telling you, it wasn’t me. I don’t know anything about who messed with that board, or the explosion, or the rumors on StopGX, or any of the other stuff.”

  Hang on. We hadn’t even mentioned StopGX.…

  Before I could say that, my cell phone rang. It was McKenzie.

  “I want you two over here right now,” he barked when I answered. “There’s been an incident at the RCA park!”

  Fight or Flight

  McKenzie hung up before Joe could say a word. “So what’s an RCA park?” Joe asked after he told us what McKenzie had said.

  “That’s easy,” Lenni spoke up. “RCA stands for radio-controlled aircraft.” She smirked. “In other words, it’s where overgrown little boys can go play with their remote control toy planes.”

  “Oh, right.” Now I remembered seeing the place. “Come on, we’d better get over there and find out what’s up.”

  We said good-bye to Lenni and headed back inside the gates. “So what kind of trouble could there be with model planes?” Joe asked as we jogged down the main path.

  “Guess we’ll find out.”

  When we reached the RCA park, McKenzie was practically sputtering with rage. A small group of celebrities clustered nearby. A bunch of model aircraft lay scattered lifelessly on the grass. They actually looked pretty cool. There was everything from a miniature World War II Luftwaffe fighter to a model of the Wright Brothers’ plane.

  “I thought most of the celebs left after the preview thing,” I murmured to Joe. “After Bret Johnston died and Cody got hurt, none of them seemed too eager to stick around, even with all the VIP treatment.”

  Joe shook his head. “Some of them are still hanging out. I saw Mr. Bleach Blond actor dude there coming out of the arcade earlier, and I know Sprat stuck around for the skateboarding finals this morning, so it’s no surprise he’s still here either.”

  I nodded, realizing he was right. It seemed almost impossible that only a few hours had passed since the medical chopper had carried Cody Zane off that morning. But now that Joe mentioned it, I did remember seeing Sprat at the competition. It’s pretty hard to miss a guy who’s thin as a snake with spiky platinum blond hair. Especially one who’s on TV every week. Sprat hosted his own show, Gotcha, on one of the cable music channels. I’d seen it a few times. It mostly consisted of Sprat and his buddies playing obnoxious pranks on other celebrities. Sometimes when they got bored with that, they’d build weird go-carts and race them until they crashed, or rig up public trash cans to blow up when someone dropped something in, or other similar types of stuff. It was all pretty juvenile, but oddly entertaining. I guess that’s why it was a big hit.

  McKenzie spotted us and strode over. “Where were you?” he demanded. “Took you long enough to get here!”

  “Sorry, sir,” I said. “We were just, uh, investigating something over by the entrance. So what happened?”

  Sprat leaped forward to answer. “It was crazy, man!” he exclaimed, seeming more excited than upset. “We were all just chilling, testing out some of the planes and having a good time. Then all of a sudden, all the planes, like, freaked out!”

  He waved his skinny arms around wildly. The other celebrities were all nodding along.

  “Freaked out? What do you mean?” Joe asked.

  “It was like they all, you know, attacked us!” one of the other celebs spoke up. I vaguely recognized him as an actor on a popular TV drama series, but I didn’t know his name. “It was wild! I just hope the one that hit me doesn’t leave a bruise, or my agent will have a cow.”

  McKenzie’s scowl deepened at that. “Well?” he snapped at Joe and me. “What are you going to do about this?”

  “First of all, we should probably see exactly what happened.” Joe grabbed for the nearest set of controls.

  “Joe, wait,” I blurted out.

  But it was too late. Joe twisted the power knob. One of the planes lying there, a model of a sharp-nosed Raptor fighter jet, suddenly came to life. It flew up, then started looping around wildly. I had to duck as it headed straight at me.

  “Turn it off!” I shouted.

  Joe hit the power again, and the plane crashed into the ground in front of him. “Oops,” he said sheepishly. “Sorry about that.”

  I sighed. Mr. Impulsive strikes again. “Okay, it looked like that thing was trying to fly back at Joe, who was holding the controls.” I walked over and nudged the Raptor with the toe of my sneaker. “My guess is someone is messing with the radio signal, redirecting all the planes to do that.”

  “Wild,” Sprat said. “I’ll have to try that on the show sometime.”

  McKenzie ignored him. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me a few yards away from the celebrities, who had started talking excitedly among themselves.

  “Luckily, nobody was badly injured—this time,” he hissed at me and Joe, who’d followed us. “But some of those boys got a little banged up when the planes hit them, and you know how whiny celebrities can be.” He rolled his eyes, then stabbed a finger at each of us. “I need you to get to the bottom of this—now! Before it puts me out of business!”

  It was obvious he was trying to keep quiet so the celebrities wouldn’t hear him. But his voice was rising rapidly to its usual volume. Namely, loud. Most of the celebs were glancing over curiously. Plus, I noticed that a guy with a video camera had appeared out of nowhere. He was filming as they talked about what had happened. Great.

  “We’ll get right on it,” I assured McKenzie quietly.

  McKenzie sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Ticket sales are already down,” he muttere
d. “If this gets out—well, I’m starting to wonder if it’s all worth it.”

  He seemed to be talking more to himself than to us. “Don’t worry, sir,” I told him. “Joe and I caught the last two culprits. We’ll get this one too. Just give us time.”

  “That’s exactly what I don’t have.” He glared at us. But he looked a little calmer. “Keep me posted.”

  After he stomped away, Joe and I headed over to question the celebrities. Unfortunately, the arrival of the cameraman had turned Sprat into even more of a spaz than before. He was full of bluster as he postured for the camera.

  “Whoever did this better watch out,” he said. “If this is some lame rival show or something, I’ll make them sorry they ever messed with the Sprat Man. If they want to mess with me, I’ll mess them up!”

  He swaggered around in a little circle, waving his hands. Half the other celebs were laughing and cheering him on. The other half were sort of backing away, looking anxious and muttering to one another. I thought I heard one of them say something about getting out before they “did a Bret.”

  In any case, we couldn’t get much useful information out of any of them. Especially not without giving ourselves away to the cameraman.

  “Maybe we should move on,” I murmured to Joe as Sprat started boasting about how tough he was or something, getting right up in the camera and making faces. “We can talk to these guys individually later. But I doubt any of them knows anything.”

  “I hear you.” Joe nodded.

  We turned to leave. Just then we saw Ox Oliver hurrying in. “Excuse me,” he said in a deep, rumbly voice. “I’ll have to ask you all to step outside. I’ve been ordered to close down this attraction until further notice.”

  Sprat frowned. “Says who, man?” he complained. But when the other celebrities headed for the exit, he shrugged and followed.