Double Trouble Read online

  “New brush—natural boar bristles, oval, your initials in platinum, dark wood. New pendant—Zen symbol, stainless steel and teak, rubber cord. New dental flossers—red plastic, mint-flavored floss,” she rattled off.

  Justin pointed at her. “So cute!”

  She pointed back at him. “So cute!” She gave the rest of us a wave as she headed for the door. “Have fun!” she called over her shoulder.

  “You heard her. Let’s have some fun!” Justin cranked up the music and started dancing with Belinda again. Kayla and Andrew started dancing too. Chet and our friend Maddy returned to the poker table.

  Ryan popped the DVD into the player. “I’ve already seen this once,” he told me and Joe. “It’ll be cool video wallpaper with the sound off and the music on.” He wandered over to the minibar and got himself a soda.

  Weirdly, the gorefest on the screen started making me hungry. No, that sounds ick. I mean I got hungry even though I was watching a gorefest. I headed over to the table of food. “Which one is the chicken liver spread?” I called to Justin.

  “That one.” Justin pointed to a bowl of gray goop.

  “I’m leavin’ it all for you,” I told him. It was definitely not anything I had any interest in ingesting.

  “Nobody likes that gunk except for Justin,” Ryan said.

  “And I don’t like it. I looooove it,” Justin exclaimed. He grabbed a bagel chip, used it to scoop up a whole mess of the apple-chicken-liver dip, then shoved it into his mouth. “Yum!”

  Then he spit a gob of half-chewed chip and dip onto the table. He grabbed a napkin and started frantically wiping off his tongue. “Burring! Waer!” he said, the words distorted by the napkin in his mouth.

  Justin pulled the napkin out. “Water!” he shouted. “My mouth is burning. Someone tried to poison me!”

  Motive + Opportunity

  “We need to make him vomit!” Maddy shouted. “No!” I barked. “Inducing vomiting is the correct procedure for only certain kinds of poison.” I rushed over to Justin. “Open your mouth and let me take a look.”

  He did it without question. “His airway seems okay,” I told Joe, who was already on Justin’s other side.

  “His pulse is okay too,” Joe reported. “A little fast, but fine.”

  “It looks like he has a chemical burn on the inside of one cheek and on his tongue,” I said. “We need to get poison control on the phone.”

  “I already called Syd,” Rick said, just as Sydney flew into the room.

  “Someone poisoned Justin! Don’t let him die!” Kayla shrieked.

  “I’m getting him to the hospital right now,” Sydney stated. “You okay to walk to the elevator, J?”

  “Yeah,” Justin answered, sounding freaked.

  I grabbed the bowl of chicken liver dip and handed it to Ryan. “Take this. They might need it to figure out what kind of poison he swallowed before they treat him.”

  “Right. Good,” said Sydney. “Make sure everyone gets out of the room, okay?” she asked me.

  “Of course.” We all stared as Sydney hustled Justin and Ryan into the hall. “Let’s all get our stuff together. We need to leave,” I said when they were out of sight.

  “I don’t see why we couldn’t stay awhile. Enjoy the flat-screen,” Brian said.

  “How can you be thinking about television?” Belinda demanded. “We don’t even know if Justin’s going to be okay.”

  “We should stay right here until someone comes and tells us how he is,” Andrew said.

  “Sydney wants us to leave,” I reminded everyone.

  “How did you two get to be BFFs with Justin Carraway anyway?” asked Brian.

  I couldn’t tell him we were on the Bayport High welcoming committee. He knew there was no such thing.

  “Our dad knows his manager,” Joe answered.

  “We’ll let you all know how he is as soon as we know,” I added.

  Joe and I herded everybody out and onto the elevator. We followed them out the main doors, then doubled back to the guest lounge on the first floor. It was huge and pretty much empty, a good place to go over the case.

  “So you think Elijah put the poison in the gross dip?” Joe asked.

  “He doesn’t like Justin. Maybe even hates him,” I answered. “But if you were going to poison someone, would you let multiple witnesses see you bring the poisoned food into the room?”

  “He was wearing a disguise,” Joe reminded me.

  “Yeah, but as soon as he picked up that camera, the disguise was blown. Elijah had to know that at least Justin and Ryan would ID him once he started taking pictures,” I said.

  “Good point.” Joe nodded. “But the guy needs to stay on our suspect list.”

  “Definitely,” I agreed.

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Elijah Gorman

  Hometown: Scranton, Pennsylvania

  Physical description: Age 27, 6’1”, 215 lbs., light brown hair, scruffy beard, brown eyes.

  Occupation: Photographer

  Background: Single dad, with two daughters. Supports the family by selling photos of stars.

  Suspicious behavior: Had a fight with Justin; had the opportunity to poison the dip.

  Suspected of: Poisoning Justin.

  Possible motive: Anger that Justin makes it almost impossible for Elijah to do his job.

  I thought for a minute. “You know, the food was in the room for a while before Justin ate the dip. Long enough for somebody to add the poison.”

  “With the fight and the dancing and the poker, there would have been time for someone to add the poison without anyone noticing,” Joe agreed.

  “And Sydney is the one who uncovered all the dishes. She might have been able to slip something into the dip. She definitely knows it’s Justin’s fav.”

  “She was really angry with him tonight.” Joe grabbed a cushion from the chair next to him and shoved it behind his head. “She basically said she had no life because of him. That’s a motive for killing someone, right?”

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Sydney Lamb

  Hometown: New York, New York

  Physical description: Age 34, 5’7”, 135 lbs., short brown hair, blue eyes, always wears gloves.

  Occupation: Justin’s publicist

  Background: Has been working for Justin most of her career.

  Suspicious behavior: Had a fight with Justin; had the opportunity to poison the dip.

  Suspected of: Poisoning Justin.

  Possible motive: Doing damage control for Justin is so time-consuming she has no life.

  “She could quit,” I said. “That’s a lot less messy than killing him—and a lot less likely to land her in prison.”

  “People do stupid things when their emotions take over,” Joe reasoned.

  “True.” You have to be logical when you’re an ATAC agent. But a lot of the people we go after aren’t logical at all.

  “Talking about emotion . . . ” Joe hesitated, then went on. “Emily got pretty emotional when I talked to her.”

  “She was furious at him during the shoot today,” I said, remembering her and Justin going at it. With Elijah urging them on.

  “She’s hurt, too, though. And sad. She almost cried when she was telling me how she thought she and Justin had something real,” Joe explained. “When he dumped her, it really crushed her.”

  “That’s definitely one of the top motives for wanting to hurt somebody—a broken heart,” I said. “You know what else is a top motive? Jealousy. I got to talk to Ryan for a while, and it’s hard to believe he isn’t jealous of Justin. I found out that Ryan didn’t choose to stop acting. When that show they were on as kids ended, their manager decided it would be a lot harder to get both of them work as actors. They were too old to need to share a part at that point. So the manager, Slick, tapped Justin. He thought he had a better chance of success.”

  Joe let out a low whistle. “Harsh.”

  “Very harsh,” I agreed. “And Ryan had the op
portunity to put the poison in the dip. He also knows that dip is Justin’s favorite.”

  “Even though Ryan is jealous, he also gets a lot out of having a star for a brother,” Joe commented. “Justin bought him a car. Justin pays the bills for his credit cards. Justin dies . . . bye-bye meal ticket.”

  “But like we were saying, emotion can beat out logic.” I stood up. “Let’s swing by the kitchen, see if anybody saw anything unusual. Maybe somebody slipped the poison in the dip before Elijah even got his hands on the food cart.”

  We walked over to the hotel restaurant. “Two?” the hostess asked us.

  “Actually, we just need to drop these off for my uncle,” Joe said, pulling a set of keys—his—out of his pocket. “He just called and said he locked his keys in the car.”

  “I bet you’re Tony’s nephews. You kind of look like him,” the hostess said.

  “Right,” Joe told her. “Uncle Tony.”

  “Go on back.” She nodded toward the rear of the restaurant.

  “That was too easy,” I said to Joe as we headed for the kitchen.

  “I’m so good I made it look easy, you mean,” Joe said. He started to push open the double doors, then froze.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Just look,” he answered, staring through the round window in one of the swinging doors. I moved over and looked through the window in the other.

  Caro stood at one of the long counters, chopping celery. “She’s really into being one of the Cleen Teens, and the CTs think Justin is a horrible influence.”

  “Working in the kitchen would make slipping some poison into Justin’s special order pretty easy,” Joe said.

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Caro Whittier

  Hometown: Bayport

  Physical description: Age 16, 5’5”, 125 lbs., light red hair, blue eyes, braces.

  Occupation: Student

  Background: Vice president of the local Cleen Teens chapter, skipped the fifth grade, middle child.

  Suspicious behavior: Works in the kitchen where the poisoned dip was prepared.

  Suspected of: Poisoning Justin.

  Possible motive: Justin’s death would get rid of a very bad teen role model.

  “Let’s not go in there right now.” I moved away from the door. “I don’t want to ask a lot of questions in front of Caro. If she is the perp, it would spook her.”

  “Can’t think of anything else we need to do here then,” Joe said.

  I nodded. “Let’s go home. Make a plan for tomorrow.” I started back through the restaurant.

  “My improvising worked pretty well today,” Joe answered. “So I think I’ll watch TV. But you plan if it makes you happy.”

  We took the elevator down a level to the hotel garage, still going over the pros and cons of planning versus inspiration.

  “ATAC wouldn’t have spent all that time training us if planning wasn’t important,” I told Joe as we walked toward our motorcycles. They were parked at the far end of the garage.

  “We needed the training. I’m all for the training. But once you have the training, you—”

  Joe stopped talking as one of the fluorescent lights overhead clicked off. Followed by another, then another, then another. Until the entire garage went dark.

  I listened hard. I heard a slight scraping sound. Then, for the second time that night, the sound of breaking glass.

  Thump

  The sound had come from the northeast corner of the garage. Cautiously Frank and I moved in that direction. We stayed low, even though I doubted whoever was back there could see us. Not unless his—or her—night vision was a lot better than mine.

  I picked up my pace. I didn’t want to lose whoever that was. Frank stayed right next to me.

  Up ahead I spotted . . . something. A darker section of darkness. I squinted. I thought it was a person.

  I picked up the pace a little more. And then I heard footfalls moving away. Fast. Whoever was over there had bolted.

  I charged after them, half bouncing off the bumper of an SUV. The thing was huge, but I still hadn’t seen it.

  Thump!

  Sounded like the person I was after had slammed into something too. Good. I veered in the direction the thump had come from. The footfalls got louder. I was close, very close.

  Suddenly I realized that now all I was hearing were my own sneakers slapping against the concrete. I froze. Where was the person I’d been chasing? Had he decided to hide because he’d realized he couldn’t outrun me?

  I turned in a slow circle, peering into the darkness around me. Where are you? I thought. Where did you go?

  A current of air brushed against my face. Had someone just moved past? I took a step forward.

  Pain blasted from my knees up and down my legs. I hit the cement hard. I tasted blood in my mouth as my teeth bit into my tongue.

  Before I could shove myself to my feet, the lights clicked back on. Thanks to Frank. I jumped up and stared wildly around the garage. The only other person I saw was my brother.

  “Are you okay?” he yelled.

  “Yeah. Whoever that was slammed me behind the knees with something that felt like a crowbar, but I’m okay.”

  “You’re definitely in better shape than that car is.” Frank pointed toward a sweet Lamborghini Murcielago—with broken headlights and a smashed-in windshield. Looked like it might have had a run-in with a crowbar too.

  “Doesn’t take a genius to figure out who owns it,” Frank commented. “It’s got a vanity license plate—STARCAR.”

  “You think somebody was upset they didn’t actually kill Justin and decided to take it out on his Lamborghini?” I shook my head. “That’s so wrong. That car is art on wheels.”

  “You sound more upset about what happened to the car than what happened to Justin,” said Frank.

  “The car is an innocent victim,” I answered. “Justin, well, I like the guy, but he does have a few character flaws.”

  • • •

  “So what’s Justin really like?”

  “I don’t think I could have danced with him. My knees would have been shaking so bad I couldn’t stand up.”

  “Is Justin as good-looking as he is in the movies? Is he really short? Tell me he’s not really, really short.”

  All these questions and comments were directed at Belinda at school the next day during lunch. Because by lunch, everyone had seen the picture of her dancing with Justin in the paper.

  “He’s not short at all,” Belinda answered. “Look at the picture.” There were multiple copies laid out on the long table. Belinda kept getting asked to sign them. “Look how much taller he is than me. And he—”

  “He’s okay, right?” Andrew interrupted.

  “He’s fine. He didn’t even have to stay in the hospital overnight,” Belinda said.

  Frank or I could have answered that. We were the ones who’d given Belinda the scoop. But the picture in the paper had made her the expert on all things Justin.

  “I think that might be my arm in the picture,” Chet volunteered, tapping an elbow that was almost out of the frame.

  “No, that’s Ryan. I remember he was over by us when the photographer whipped out his camera,” Belinda said.

  “Does Ryan still look exactly like Justin—like when they were little?” Sarah asked.

  “Totally.” Belinda brushed her hair away from her face. “But I didn’t have any problem telling them apart. Justin . . . he glows, you know?”

  Every girl around the table nodded. To me it was Belinda who had a shine about her. Her eyes were gleaming, and her cheeks were flushed.

  “That’s just on the outside,” Caro said. She stood up from the table behind ours. “If you could see his personality or his morals, they definitely wouldn’t be glowing. And Ryan’s probably would. He’s a lot better person than his brother. I bet if he was the star, he’d do some good in the world.”

  Frank elbowed me. And I knew why. Caro was sounding just like that stalker l
etter that had been delivered to the hotel. She was also sounding just like William Bost, but she’d probably gotten a lot of her theories from the Cleen Teens national president.

  Caro turned back to her own table, and that’s when I saw it. The black-and-blue splotch on the back of her calf.

  Had she gotten that running from me in the garage last night? I remembered the thump I heard during the chase. Whoever had hit something hard enough to make that sound was probably working a big bruise.

  Was it Caro?

  Justin Time

  “Wimps! Wimps! Wimps!”

  Our parrot, Playback, gave us his usual greeting when we walked into the kitchen after school. We didn’t teach him that. Guess who did? Yeah, Brian Conrad.

  “I didn’t realize how late it was!” Aunt Trudy exclaimed. She sprang up from the kitchen table, whipping something behind her back. I’d caught a glimpse of it, and it looked like a hairbrush. Why was she acting so weird?

  “Do you boys want a snack?” she asked. She backed toward the counter. “Maybe some pizza?”

  Okay, now the weirdness was squared. Aunt Trudy might offer up some fruit or something when Joe and I come home from school. But pizza? A few hours before dinner? No way.

  “There’s pizza?” Joe demanded. “I didn’t know there was pizza.” Joe always knows the location of any kind of snack food in our house.

  “Um, no.” Aunt Trudy struggled to slide open the drawer under the counter while still keeping her back—and whatever she’d hidden behind her back—to it. “But I could make some pizza. I know you love my homemade pizza! You go wash up, and I’ll get started on it.”

  I had no words to describe the weirdness level now. Joe shot me an I’m freaked by the freakiness look. Had he seen the hairbrush? Why was Aunt T working so hard to hide a hairbrush?

  Then I had a thought I really didn’t want to have. At all. A hairbrush was one of the items that had been stolen from Justin’s trailer yesterday. But there was no way Aunt Trudy would . . .

  You’ve got to check it out, I told myself. You can’t get caught up in emotions. You’re an ATAC agent. You see something that gives you any reason to be suspicious, you check it out.