Stolen Identity Read online

  Joe kept pace at first. My brother knew how to pour on the speed himself. But legs were no match for wheels, and our culprit soon pulled away. I wasn’t even in the race when I saw the bike turn right down Swenson Avenue, though it looked like Joe still had him in his sights.

  Taking a risk, I took an immediate right down Juliana Street. If the guy doubled back, maybe we could corner him.

  I ran as quickly as I could down the sidewalk. My side began to ache, but I kept going. Luckily, it was after closing time for most of the local businesses; I didn’t have to worry about plowing over anyone.

  I reached the intersection of Juliana and Winslow Boulevard and skidded to a stop. As I’d hoped, the cyclist had doubled back; now he sped down the sidewalk in my direction. I backed away and hid behind the corner of a building. Maybe the guy hadn’t spotted me yet.

  I peeked out to see him getting closer. Behind him, Joe had turned the corner and was still in pursuit. A few more feet and I’d leap out to block his path. I hoped I would be enough of a surprise to make him stumble. Maybe even fall off his bike.

  Just then, the cyclist cut left and darted into the street. Tires squealed as a car braked, almost slamming into him. The guy wobbled on his bike but kept crossing the road. He disappeared into an alley on the other side.

  Joe and I crossed after him, both of us more careful than the rider. We ran behind the stopped car and darted into the alley after him.

  I trailed Joe as we sprinted down the narrow alleyway. There was no sign of the cyclist, but we didn’t slow down. Growing up in Bayport, we both knew that this alley was a dead end. If we hurried, we could have the guy cornered.

  We slowed when we saw the bicycle lying on the ground. I scanned the area, looking for places where the guy might be hiding. There was nothing but the empty alley ending at a tall wooden fence.

  “Think he climbed over?” I asked Joe between heaving breaths.

  “He didn’t have to. Look.” Joe pointed to a broken plank in the fence.

  We ran up to it and I pulled half of the wide board away. There was a jagged gap just big enough to squeeze through. Joe carefully shimmied to the other side.

  “Come on,” he said.

  I pushed through the gap and found myself in a very familiar place.

  “Déjà vu, huh?” asked Joe as he scanned the construction site.

  We’d had a narrow escape here a few years ago when this was little more than a vacant lot. My brother and I had been after a couple of bank robbery suspects. The trail had led us here and the bad guys caught us. We had been tied up and placed in an excavation about to be filled with cement. If we hadn’t escaped, Joe and I might’ve been underneath the slab spread out before us.

  It looked as if construction was underway again. Large steel girders jutted out of the slab, and stacks of building supplies and construction equipment filled the area. The site was deserted and silent, so the workers must’ve gone for the day. A tall chain-link fence sealed off the rest of the area. We hadn’t heard the fence rattle, so it was a good bet that the guy hadn’t climbed over. He was still here . . . somewhere.

  I caught Joe’s eye and motioned for him to go left. I would go right. Maybe we could flush out the guy faster if we split up.

  We both crept silently through the site. I didn’t exactly know what we’d do when we found the mystery man. If we could capture him and turn him in to the police, the pages would be returned. But we’d still get in trouble with the lieutenant for investigating in the first place. Maybe she would go easy on us since this guy was obviously trying to set us up.

  None of this made sense, though. Who was this guy and what did he have against us?

  An engine roar interrupted my train of thought. It came from Joe’s side of the construction site. I looked over to see my brother freeze in front of a tall stack of bricks. He was trying to find the source of the noise too. That’s when the bricks begin to move.

  “Look out!” I shouted as I sprinted toward Joe.

  My brother looked left and right, everywhere but at the stack of bricks behind him. The engine noise echoed around the site, making it hard to pinpoint.

  As I neared, the tower of bricks leaned toward him and Joe looked up just as the stack began to loom over his right shoulder. Without thinking, I dove toward my brother and tackled him to the ground; my momentum carried us clear of the falling bricks. We watched as they smashed onto the spot where Joe had just been standing.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as we got to our feet.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Joe replied.

  The rumbling died and the sound of footsteps filled the air. The culprit ran through the construction site, back toward the alley. He was halfway through the gap in the fence before Joe and I got up to speed.

  “Ah!” the guy shouted as his leg caught on the jagged board.

  It barely slowed him down. By the time Joe and I reached the fence, we heard the bicycle speeding off. I peeked through the hole and spotted the suspect turning out of the alley, getting away.

  8

  UNINVITED GUEST

  JOE

  WHAT’S THAT WEIRD SMELL?” FRANK asked as we walked into our house.

  “I hope it’s not dinner,” I replied with a wince. “Although Aunt Trudy does like to experiment.”

  We weren’t happy about losing the mystery guy. However, we both agreed that we were lucky the police hadn’t spotted our chase through Bayport. How would we explain that? Training for my track meet?

  We yelled greetings to Aunt Trudy as we climbed the stairs and went to straight to our rooms. I was anxious to see if my computer had rebuilt the security footage. I perched on my bed and pulled my laptop out of my backpack, tapping my foot as the computer powered on.

  Now, I’m not the neatest Hardy brother. My desk isn’t cleared off and organized like Frank’s, but I know where everything is when I need it. I have a very complex “pile” system. I can always tell when something has been added to it.

  I was just about to move aside last night’s homework papers (placing them onto the correct pile) when I saw an unfamiliar sheet of paper lying on top. Picking it up, I realized that it wasn’t so unfamiliar after all: it was another stolen page from the manuscript.

  With page in hand, I turned to go show Frank, but my brother stood in the doorway holding up a page of his own.

  “Aunt Trudy?” we shouted in unison.

  “Yes?” she replied from the kitchen.

  Frank and I moved to the head of the stairs. “Did someone stop by today?” Frank asked.

  “Yes, dear,” she replied as she stepped out of the kitchen and into view.

  Frank and I hid the pages behind our backs.

  Aunt Trudy wiped her hands on her apron. “The exterminator came by for the yearly treatment.”

  “That’s the smell,” whispered Frank.

  “Glad it’s not dinner,” I whispered back.

  “Was he ever alone up here?” Frank asked her.

  Aunt Trudy shook her head. “Heavens, no. I know better than that.” She squinted up at us. “Is anything missing?”

  “No,” I replied truthfully. “Nothing’s missing at all.”

  Our aunt clapped her hands together. “He did ask me to pull out everything from under your bathroom sink. I probably didn’t get it all back the way it was.”

  I nodded. “That was it. Thanks, Aunt T.”

  She turned and waved. “Dinner will be ready soon.”

  I returned to my room thoroughly creeped out. Frank followed me in and shut the door.

  “Dude! He was in our house,” I said. “In our rooms.”

  “I know,” agreed Frank. “Not good.”

  “We have to go to the cops now,” I said.

  “Yeah, but tell them what?” Frank asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know . . . breaking and entering?” I replied.

  “Except that nobody broke in,” Frank explained. “Aunt Trudy had an exterminator in and we have stolen goods in our rooms.
”

  “What about Chet?” I asked. “He can vouch for us.”

  “Yeah, but he’s one of our friends,” Frank countered. “It’ll just look like we’re getting our friend to lie for us. This thing with the pages turning up in our possession is just too unbelievable. What if the lieutenant really thinks this would be our way of making them look bad? Or worse, thinks we actually stole the pages?”

  “Then what do we do?” I asked. “The guy was in our house.”

  “We need more evidence.” Frank pointed to the laptop. “Maybe we have the guy on video.”

  “Oh, yeah! I almost forgot.” I sat down and opened my laptop—the footage was ready. “Let’s see what we have. . . .”

  I opened the file and a group of folders appeared. There were twelve camera views to choose from, each with their own video from the day. I played the video from the first folder. It showed a grainy black-and-white view of one of the empty hallways.

  “Hey, it worked,” I said, leaning closer to the screen. “Where is that?”

  Frank studied the screen. “I think that’s in front of Mrs. Meehan’s art room.”

  I searched the rest of the folders and found the two that showed our lockers. Frank’s locker was closer to the camera on his video file, so I started with that one.

  Like the beginning of all the other videos so far, the hallway was empty; school hadn’t started yet. I fast-forwarded until students began coming into view, then I slowed the queue a bit but kept the video running at triple speed. A figure zipped by Frank’s locker.

  “There,” Frank said, pointing to the screen.

  Rewinding, I got past the point where the figure appeared on-screen and played it at normal speed. The person walked into view and quickly slipped something through the vents in Frank’s locker. We recognized her. It was another one of our friends. Amanda Paul.

  9

  THE SPIDER’S WEB

  FRANK

  THE NEXT DAY AT SCHOOL, before we did anything else, Joe and I checked our lockers for any new stolen pages. Luckily, my locker was just as I had left it. Joe’s locker was a disaster area, but that was just as he had left it as well. No new pages had mysteriously appeared.

  The night before, Joe and I had decided to talk to Amanda at lunch so we could both question her at the same time. We attended our separate classes and tried to act like everything was normal and someone didn’t have it out for us. Hopefully, Amanda would have some answers.

  My morning classes seemed to go on forever. Plus, it was hard to concentrate when my mind kept going back to the case at hand. When the lunch bell finally rang, I got to the cafeteria as fast as I could. Joe was already there, waiting at the main door.

  “She get here yet?” I asked.

  “Nope.” Joe shook his head.

  We tried to act casual as students filed past. We didn’t want to look like we were waiting to interrogate someone.

  “How do you want to play this?” Joe asked. “Start slow, harmless questions? A little small talk? Then maybe go into good Hardy, bad Hardy?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I think we just need to find out what she knows.”

  “Hey, guys,” said a voice.

  It was Amanda. She’d totally snuck up on us.

  “You get those notes yesterday?” she asked.

  “What notes?” I asked.

  “The envelopes I slipped into your lockers,” she replied. “You had to have seen them.”

  “Uh, yeah, about that . . . ,” I said. “We were just looking for you. We wanted to ask you about those.”

  “Wait,” said Joe. “You think you put notes in our lockers?”

  Amanda shrugged. “Yeah, what else would they be?”

  “Uh, never mind that,” I said. “Why did you put them in our lockers?”

  Amanda looked puzzled. “Eric asked me to. He didn’t sign them or anything?”

  Eric Watts—another one of our friends.

  Joe shook his head. “No, he didn’t.”

  “Wait a minute.” She narrowed her eyes at us. “If you didn’t know Eric sent the notes, then how did you know I put them in your locker?”

  Joe and I glanced at each other. “Uh, someone saw you do it,” Joe replied.

  Yeah, we did, I thought. On video.

  Amanda raised her hands and laughed. “Okay, whatever the prank was, I’m not involved. Don’t shoot the messenger, all right?” She turned and waved to Courtney Terrill, who was walking right toward us.

  My heart leaped into my throat. Had Courtney checked the petition? Had she told anyone?

  “Hi, Courtney,” Joe squeaked as she approached us. “What’s up?”

  “Hi, guys.” Courtney greeted us. “Hey, Amanda. I’ve been trying to catch up with the Hardy brothers all day. We have important business to discuss.”

  “Sounds serious. I’ll leave you guys to it.” Amanda gave us a little wave and joined everyone else filing into the lunchroom.

  “So, uh, what’s the, uh, business?” I stammered. Yikes, usually we were way more smooth with these types of things. The manuscript pages were making me nervous.

  “It’s about the crime exhibit at the Bayport Museum.” She swung her backpack around and began digging in it. “Hold on a minute.”

  I took a deep breath. I’ve learned it’s best to wait in these situations. Let the other person reveal their hand before you launch into excuses. Clearly, Joe had learned the same thing. I looked over to see him put his hands in his pockets.

  “Got it!” She pulled out a small reporter’s notebook and pen. “So, you guys are the teen detectives of Bayport. I’d love to get a quote from you about the exhibit. I’m writing an article for the Bayport High Gazette, and I think it would be interesting to get your take on it.”

  I let out a huge sigh of relief. We were in the clear.

  “I’m not sure what to say . . . but it sounds cool!” Joe beamed. “Though, for the record, I’ll always be loyal to the dinosaur exhibit. Triceratops forever.”

  Courtney laughed, “I’m all about the space exhibit myself. What about you Frank, thoughts on the new crime exhibit?”

  “Everyone should check out the history of fingerprinting. It’s a fascinating story that most people don’t know about.”

  “Great. Thanks, guys!” Courtney put away her notebook. “This article is going to be great. I’m hoping it will good enough to make people realize I’m more than just the vegan girl, you know? That’s just one of my passions.”

  “Totally!” Joe said. “You’re also Courtney Terrill, Bayport High’s star reporter.”

  Courtney smiled and went to join her friends in the lunchroom.

  Joe and I stared at each other in disbelief.

  “That was close,” said Joe.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “And we still need to go talk to Eric.”

  We quickly spotted Eric across the lunchroom, sitting at a table with a few of our other friends. Joe was able to drag him away without arousing suspicion. We gathered beside the wall.

  “What’s up, guys?” Eric asked.

  “Amanda said you had her put something in our lockers?” I asked.

  Eric’s face was blank for a moment. For a second there, I wondered if he was behind the entire thing and he knew he was caught. Then his face lit up.

  “Oh, yeah.” He smiled. “The letters from your cousin.”

  “Our cousin?” asked Joe.

  “Yeah, the guy said he was visiting from out of town and wanted to surprise you,” Eric explained. “He asked me to slip some letters into your lockers. I didn’t have time, so I asked Amanda.”

  “Letters?” I asked.

  “Hey, I didn’t read them!” Eric laughed.

  “What did this guy look like?” I asked.

  Eric shrugged. “I don’t know . . . tall, thin. Maybe a couple years older than us.” He frowned. “How long has it been since you’ve seen him? You don’t remember what your cousin looks like?”

  Joe and I shared a look.
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br />   Eric’s eyes widened. “Oh, snap! You’re on a case, aren’t you? Was that not really your cousin?”

  Joe flinched and glanced around.

  I shushed Eric. “Keep it down. The police don’t want us working any cases.”

  Eric put his hands in his pockets. “All right, all right.” He glanced around. “I’ll keep it on the down low,” he whispered. “Just let me know how it turns out, all right?”

  “We will, man,” said Joe. “And thanks.”

  Eric returned to his table and Joe and I got in line for lunch. We got our trays and chose an empty end of one of the tables, near the wall.

  “All that and nothing to show for it,” Joe began. “We still don’t know who has it out for us.”

  “We just know that this guy is using all our friends against us,” I added.

  “You know what this is?” Joe asked between bites. “This guy is going full Moriarty on us.”

  It took me a second to catch Joe’s meaning. “Oh, yeah. You’re right.”

  Professor Moriarty was Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis. Moriarty was a criminal mastermind who mirrored Holmes’s intelligence and cunning. He was famous for surrounding himself with a spider’s web of minor criminals. That way, if any were caught, their crimes would never lead back to the man in the center of the web, the professor himself. Because of this technique, many characters in the Holmes stories doubted the villain’s very existence. In the end it took all of Holmes’s detective skills to flush him out and lead to their final battle at Reichenbach Falls.

  “So, how do we find out who our Moriarty is?” Joe asked.

  “It’s someone who knows way too much about us and our friends,” I said.

  “And someone with a grudge,” Joe added. “Obviously.”

  “You still think it’s someone we put away?” I asked.

  Joe nodded and took another bite. “Yeah, this person is trying to make us squirm. And clearly has a plan. My only question is who? There’s a long list of people that would like revenge.”

  “We’ll go over our notes tonight,” I said. “Before that, we have to get those pages back from behind the petition.”