Stolen Identity Read online

  “Hang on,” I said. “I’m thinking.”

  I looked for a place to stash the folder. It needed to be someplace safe, where no one would think to look.

  We rounded a corner and were in the main hallway leading toward the gym. Luckily, the sheer volume of students and teachers pouring into the corridor made traffic slow to a crawl.

  Then I saw it.

  There was a bulletin board up ahead on the right. Tacked-up flyers and announcements covered the rectangular corkboard. Courtney Terrill’s petition for more vegan options being served in the cafeteria hung from a large tack at the bottom of the board. Several wrinkled sheets dangled from a black metal clip.

  “Hand me the folder,” I whispered to Joe. “And cover for me when we get to the bulletin board.”

  “You got it.” Joe slipped me the folder.

  I shuffled to the right side of the hallway.

  Joe worked on the distraction; he spun around and began walking backward. “Hey! I know whose fault this is!” he shouted. “It was the stink Benny made in chemistry class last week.”

  As a few of our fellow students laughed, I reached up and unhooked the petition from the tack. I pulled out the manuscript pages and clipped them to the back of the stack of pages as fast as I could.

  “I bet the government thinks he came up with a formula to get superpowers,” Joe continued. Everyone laughed again.

  “You may call me Spider-Benny!” Benny shouted to the crowd.

  Once the pages were in place, I hung the petition back amid other Benny nickname ideas and more laughter. “No, Super-Benny!” “Benny the Hulk!” “Bat-Benny!”

  I dropped the empty folder, and Joe and I shuffled into the gym. We were surrounded by a discussion about how “Bat-Benny” doesn’t make sense, because Batman doesn’t have superpowers to begin with, and how the Benny-chemistry scenario is closer to how the Flash got his super speed. Of course, my brother was at the head of this serious philosophical debate.

  Inside the gym, Joe and I made our way to one side, trying to find some kind of privacy. The place was so loud with chatter we no longer needed to whisper.

  “That was way too close,” said Joe. “We really need to figure out who’s behind this. Fast.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, but who would it be?”

  “It has to be a student,” Joe concluded. “People would notice a stranger slipping stuff into lockers.”

  “Yeah, and students do that all the time,” I agreed. “So no one would care.”

  “How about the security cameras?” asked Joe. “I bet they recorded whoever did it.”

  I felt a knot in my stomach. “You mean the same ones that probably recorded us finding the pages and then hiding them?”

  Joe’s eyes widened. “We have to get to that video before the police think of it.”

  I followed my brother toward the nearest exit. I wasn’t worried about sneaking out of the gym. The place was chaos and filled with milling students. Paper balls and airplanes flew above everyone’s heads.

  We slipped out the side door behind the bleachers. The door led to the outside of the building, so we ducked as we ran past several classroom windows. I paused to see the police in the hallway beyond an open classroom door. Sure enough, they were going through all the lockers. They had a big job ahead of them, so I guessed that they wouldn’t take the time to check behind Courtney’s petition.

  I caught up with Joe at the end of the building as he peered around the corner. The side entrance was just ahead. He waited a moment longer before motioning me forward. Careful not to draw attention, we turned the corner and walked quickly toward the glass doors. Luckily, the hallway beyond was empty. We opened the doors and snuck inside.

  It was just two more turns before we reached the security office. Luck finally seemed to be on our side: the door was unlocked and the room was empty. The school security guard was probably helping the police with the locker search. We snuck in and shut the door behind us.

  Joe sat down at the desk in front of the main computer screen. Two smaller screens were on either side. They were each quartered off into eight camera views from around the school. After a few seconds, the screens would switch to a different scene.

  “Can you find today’s footage?” I asked.

  Joe tapped on the keyboard. “I already have, but we have trouble.” He pointed to one of the camera views. “That’s where we came into the building. This thing recorded us sneaking out and back into the school.”

  “We’re toast,” I said.

  “Not if I delete the file,” Joe suggested.

  “That’s destroying evidence,” I countered.

  Joe dug into his pocket. “Okay, ‘delete’ was not the right word.” He pulled out a small USB drive. “I’ll move the file to this. After we solve the case, we can turn it over to the police.”

  “And get busted by Lieutenant Wolfe for meddling,” I said.

  “Maybe she’ll just be happy we found the pages and all will be forgiven,” Joe suggested.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Or maybe we sneak back in and put the file back,” said Joe. “Either way, we don’t have time to search the video file right now. We have to take it with us.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled. “Okay, do it.”

  Joe tapped a few more keys. “Okay, first . . . let’s stop this thing from recording.” He glanced at me over his shoulder. “So we can get out of here without being recorded again.” He then plugged in the drive and typed on the keyboard. “Now, moving the file . . . whoa, it’s a big one.”

  A progress bar appeared on the screen as I looked at the changing camera views. The police seemed busy searching lockers and backpacks. Hopefully no one would bother with the security office before the file finished transferring.

  “Oh, man,” said Joe. “This is going to be awhile.”

  Only we didn’t have awhile. I paced back and forth in the small room to relieve some of the tension.

  When I looked back at the screen, the bar was only half complete. Joe was leaning closer to one of the screens.

  “What are those two doing?” he asked.

  I moved in and saw a police officer and the security officer marching down one of the hallways.

  “Where is that?” I asked. “Are they coming here?”

  “They sure are,” Joe replied.

  “We have to get out of here,” I said. “Pull the drive.”

  “I can’t,” said Joe. “It’ll corrupt the file.”

  “Forget the file,” I said. “We can’t get caught in here.”

  Joe leaned closer to the screen. “Just a little longer.”

  On the surveillance screen, we watched the two men turn a corner and walk down the hallway toward the security room. They were closing in.

  I took refuge in the small closet that housed shelves of old computer equipment and cameras. It would be tight, but we could both fit inside.

  “Come on,” I whispered. “We can hide in here.”

  Joe looked back and forth from the camera views to the progress bar. It still wasn’t finished. “Just a little more.”

  “Joe,” I whispered louder.

  The men walked into a view of the hallway outside. They headed straight for the security room door.

  “Good enough, I hope,” Joe whispered. He jerked the drive out of the computer and dashed toward the closet. He shut the door behind him just as we heard the security office door open.

  We held our breath, careful not to make a sound.

  “Okay, what do you need?” asked a voice from the other side of the door. It must’ve been the security officer.

  “The lieutenant wants all footage from today,” said the police officer.

  There was the sound of tapping keys and then, “Uh-oh.”

  “What’s wrong?” asked the police officer.

  “The system isn’t recording,” said the other man. “And there’s no file from today. It must not have been recordin
g.”

  The policeman groaned. “The lieutenant isn’t going to be happy. Come on. You better explain it to her.”

  “Why me?” asked the security officer.

  “Because she can’t fire you.”

  We heard the door shut behind them as they left, then waited a few moments before stepping out of the closet.

  We both signed with relief.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  “No kidding,” agreed Joe.

  We took advantage of our location and checked all the camera views before stepping into the hallway. Before long, we had mapped out a clear path back to the gym.

  6

  ON THE MENU

  JOE

  I WAS AFRAID OF THAT,” I said as I examined the file on my laptop. “When I pulled the USB drive, the file got corrupted.”

  Frank leaned across the table to look at the screen. “Can you do anything with it?”

  “Already on it,” I said as I opened one of my recovery apps. I dragged the file into the app, and a progress bar appeared. The bar on the security computer from that morning moved at lightning speed compared to this one. I set it to run in the background and put my laptop away. “It might not work, and it will take a couple of hours.”

  Frank sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to take our chances.”

  We sat in a booth in our usual after-school hangout spot: the Meet Locker. It was part coffee shop, part diner and basically everyone from Bayport High hung out here after school.

  Frank stared out the window. “I’m having second thoughts about where I hid the pages,” he said. “What if someone decides to take down Courtney’s petition?”

  I waved away the suggestion. “You chose the perfect hiding place, bro. That thing has been on the board since the beginning of the school year. The teachers won’t take it down because it’ll make them look biased. And Courtney hasn’t taken it down because it keeps getting more signatures.”

  “Really?” asked Frank. “People are actually signing it?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I replied. “Of course some of the names are Taylor Swift, Johnny Depp, and Barack Obama.” I smiled. “It’s a running gag for some of the guys.”

  Frank raised an eyebrow. “And how would you know about that?”

  I shrugged. “Let’s just say I know that Darth Vader flew in from a galaxy far, far away to sign it.”

  Frank laughed and shook his head.

  “Hey, guys!” Chet Morton greeted us as he walked up with two menus under his arm. “Fun day today, huh? I don’t know about you, but I got out of an algebra exam.” He slid a menu in front of each of us.

  I pushed mine away. “How long have you known us? And how long have we been coming here? We always order the same thing.”

  Chet grinned. “Who knows? You guys might change your minds today.” He glanced at the front of the restaurant. “I’ll be back in a minute to take your orders.”

  I raised a finger. “But we’re already ready to—” Chet was gone. I turned back to Frank. “What’s up with him?”

  Frank was peering over my shoulder toward the front, a grim expression on his face. “Heads-up,” he said. “We’re about to have company.”

  Lieutenant Wolfe strolled up to our booth. She did not look happy. “Well, well. Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Hello, Lieutenant,” Frank said. “Can we help you?”

  “And by ‘help,’ he doesn’t mean helping with the case,” I added. “Just to be clear.”

  “Is that so?” asked the lieutenant. “Well then, you wouldn’t know anything about the anonymous tip we received this morning, would you?”

  My brother and I glanced at each other. “Is that what the surprise locker inspection was all about?” asked Frank.

  The woman nodded. “Someone claimed the missing manuscript pages were hidden in one of the student lockers.”

  “Were they?” I asked.

  “No, they weren’t,” she replied. “An entire morning wasted.” She placed her hands on her hips. “But I wonder if two amateur detectives who aren’t supposed to be detecting tried to help by calling in the tip in the first place.”

  “I don’t know. It sounds as if the tip wasn’t so helpful,” Frank said. His lips tightened. “If someone really wanted to help, they wouldn’t have called in a useless tip.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t completely useless,” said the lieutenant. “I did learn something.”

  “Oh, good,” I said, trying to ease the tension. “What was it?”

  Lieutenant Wolfe grinned. “Someone spotted you two sneaking out of the gym.”

  “Not so good,” I muttered as I fidgeted with the menu. “Just a harmless bathroom run, that’s all.”

  “Really?” asked the woman. “Brother detectives never pee alone, huh? You won’t mind if I search your backpacks, will you?”

  I was about to oblige. After all, we didn’t have anything to hide. But Frank answered first.

  “What’s your probable cause this time?” he asked.

  I sighed. I knew Frank was irritated with the lieutenant, but this wasn’t how you keep a low profile. I thumbed the corner of my menu while they hashed it out.

  “Oh, no probable cause,” she told him. “But I do have a couple of theories. Since the general public doesn’t know about the missing pages, maybe you did call in the tip. We’d come up with nothing and you’d make us look foolish . . . again. Maybe you thought I would come to you for help.”

  Frank shook his head. “Of course not. And your other theory?”

  “That you two really did steal the pages. Hector Cruz knows this and he called in the tip. Then you boys snuck the pages out of school somehow. You already think you’re above the law—maybe you think you’ve earned these valuable pages from your favorite author. Maybe Hector sees what I see. He did lose his job because of you guys, after all.”

  I thought I heard Frank growl.

  “I’d give my opinion about your theories, but we’re not supposed to be working the case, right?” Frank said through clenched teeth.

  The lieutenant shrugged. “Either way, I thought two helpful citizens like yourselves would consent to a simple search.”

  “Again, I thought we weren’t supposed to be . . . helpful,” said Frank.

  I shook my head. He was really digging in. I thought I might as well look at the menu. Thought perhaps I could turn this day around and try something new. Chet always says a new snack could mean a new direction.

  I had no such luck.

  I opened the menu to find another missing page covering the sandwich options. Great. It was right there, in front of the police. I quickly shut the menu and tried to act naturally.

  “You know, your car is parked two inches over the legal distance from the curb,” said the lieutenant. “I was going to let you off with a warning.”

  “Blackmail now?” asked Frank.

  I slid my backpack over and handed it up to Wolfe. “It’s cool, bro,” I said. “We have nothing to hide, right?”

  The police officer took the bag and began digging through it.

  Frank rounded on me. “But we’re not criminals. They don’t have probable cause.”

  I reached over the table and grabbed my brother’s backpack. I locked eyes with him and hoped he’d get with the program. “We give consent, don’t we?”

  Frank must’ve seen something in my gaze. It was clear that he didn’t like it, but he gave in. “Okay, fine.”

  The lieutenant searched through each of our backpacks. Of course, there was nothing to find.

  “All right, Hardys,” said the lieutenant. She handed Frank his backpack. “Don’t forget what I said.” We watched her walk out of the diner and drive away.

  “Why did you give in?” Frank asked. “They had no legal right—”

  My brother shut up when I opened my menu, revealing one of the missing pages. His eyes widened and I shut the menu once again.

  “Check yours,” I instructed.

  Fran
k opened his menu to find another page. “Oh, boy.”

  I looked around the restaurant. There were a couple of lingering glances left over from Frank’s dustup with the police, but no one seemed to be actively watching us.

  I turned back to Frank as we both said, “Chet.”

  Frank slipped the pages from the menus and slid them into his backpack. We grabbed our bags and approached the front counter. Chet was busy wiping it down with a towel. As we got closer, he leaned forward and whispered, “What was up with the cops?”

  “Dude, why did you put those in our menus?” I asked.

  “And where did you get them?” asked Frank.

  Chet chucked. “Come on, it was just a prank. That guy—the friend of yours visiting from out of town? He asked me to do it. Said it would be the perfect joke after what happened with Hector. But he wouldn’t tell me what had happened. Will you guys let me in on this now?”

  “What guy?” asked Frank, ignoring Chet’s question.

  Chet cocked his head, clearly confused. “I’ve never seen him before, but he said he was from out of town so . . . He seemed to know you guys really well.” He pointed to the large front windows. “He was standing outside watching while you talked to the police. Oh, no. Did I do something wrong?”

  We turned and saw a thin guy wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses. The hood was pulled down so I couldn’t make out his face. When he saw us looking, he climbed onto a bicycle and pedaled down the sidewalk and out of view.

  Frank shoved his backpack at Chet, who barely caught it. I did the same. “Watch this for me,” he ordered.

  “Ditto,” I added. “You owe us.”

  I followed Frank as we ran onto the street.

  7

  DÉJÀ VU

  FRANK

  OF COURSE MY BROTHER THE track star pulled out ahead of me as soon as we began the chase. I thought about going back to get my car, but I figured I’d just waste time. Anyway, the guy on the bike pedaled so slowly, it was clear he had no idea we were even chasing after him. I figured we’d catch up in no time.

  I was wrong.

  Things changed when he glanced back and realized his mistake. He stood as he pedaled, pouring on the speed. He was putting distance between us—and fast.