The Vanishing Game Read online

  JAMAICA—High school senior Hector Rodriguez, 18, says his future looks bright. “I have the opportunity to go to college now,” he tells a reporter. “My parents are so proud. And two years ago, this wouldn’t have seemed possible.”

  Indeed. Two years ago, it might have seemed more likely that Rodriguez would end up in prison once he reached adulthood. The teenager admits that he spent his free time prowling the streets, often engaging in criminal acts like burglaries and car theft. “I was bored,” he says. “I didn’t know better.”

  But in the last year, Rodriguez cleaned up his act and rededicated himself to his studies. He now maintains a 3.2 GPA at Bayside High School, and last week he was chosen as the recipient of the Daniel J. Elliott Scholarship Award for Previously Troubled Youth.

  “We are so proud of Hector,” says board member Maggie Elliott. “He’s completely changed his life in a short amount of time, and he deserves the best chance he can get for a successful future.”

  A tiny photograph was printed alongside the article. He was decades younger and had considerably more hair, but that definitely looked like Daisy’s father staring back at us.

  “Huh,” I said, not sure what to make of this.

  “So Hector had a rap sheet too,” Frank said, tapping his lip. “At one point. When he was young.”

  “It’s weird that he neglected to mention that to us,” I said. “I mean, since Cal’s crimes are all from his youth too.”

  Frank and I looked at each other.

  “Search for Cal Nevins,” I suggested on a whim. “Cal Nevins of Jamaica, New York.”

  Frank typed all that in, and this time only one article popped up.

  It was from the New York News. STRING OF CAR THEFTS TROUBLES JAMAICA RESIDENTS.

  Frank clicked on the link, and we quickly skimmed down. The article was talking about a string of four or five car thefts that had occurred in the same neighborhood about twenty years ago—right around the time Hector got his scholarship.

  The last paragraph contained an intriguing bit of information.

  Cal Nevins, 18, a local teenager, has confessed to the most recent crime, the theft of a white Chevrolet Cavalier from Bayside High School teacher Peter Winewski. Although the police admit that fingerprints collected from the car do not match Nevins’s or Winewski’s prints, they have accepted Nevins’s confession and have sentenced him to two years in prison.

  I whistled. “Two years,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s a long time. Especially so young.”

  Frank pointed at the screen. “I’m more interested in this bit here,” he said. “ ‘Fingerprints collected from the car do not match Nevins’s or Winewski’s.’ Do you think there’s a chance he didn’t do it?”

  I frowned. “Why would he confess if he didn’t do it?”

  Frank turned to me with a knowing look. “Maybe he was covering for somebody?”

  • • •

  “Joe!”

  Daisy opened her front door looking pleased to see me, and I felt a little twist in my gut. I’d been neglecting her ever since the G-Force case kicked into high gear. I really liked her, but I have a tendency to disappear into a case . . . which is not exactly great for the love life.

  Now I pasted on a smile. “Hey, Daisy. I . . . missed you. I thought we could hang out.”

  Daisy smiled back. “That sounds great. I’m actually making brownies. Let me stick them in the oven, and maybe we could watch a DVD.”

  “Perfect.”

  Daisy led me into the small but neat living room, where she gestured to the couch. “Seriously, I just need to put them in the pan and put the pan in the oven. Shouldn’t take me five minutes. You check out our DVD collection and pick out something you like.”

  She walked over to a bookshelf, picked up a big book-style DVD organizer, and then walked back to hand it to me.

  “Oof!” I said jokingly.

  Her eyes crinkled. “We like movies in this family,” she said with a chuckle. “You can rule out the second half. Those are all in Spanish.”

  I nodded. “Thanks for the tip.”

  Daisy smiled again, then gestured to the kitchen. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and then disappeared down the hallway.

  As soon as her footsteps disappeared down the hall, I set the DVD book on the couch next to me. I’d been in Daisy’s house a couple of times before. When we first started dating, she’d invited me over for a family barbecue. I’d spent just enough time inside to know that Hector’s home office was the next room down the hall toward the kitchen.

  Stealthily, I stood up and tiptoed to the entrance to the living room. I listened, and could hear Daisy scraping the sides of a bowl in the kitchen at the end of the hall.

  I sucked in a breath and walked down the hall and into Hector’s office.

  Hector’s home office was actually nicer than his Funspot one—possibly because Daisy’s mother also used this one to do Funspot’s accounting. An older desktop computer sat on a neat wooden desk, and dark wooden bookshelves, all laden with books, lined the walls.

  I searched the titles on the shelves as fast as I could. On the shelves behind Hector’s desk, I found what I was looking for—tall, thick hardcover tomes that could only be one thing.

  Yearbooks.

  I scanned the spines. Some were from Ocean City, New Jersey—those must be Daisy’s mom’s. But next to those I found three bright orange books with blue foiled lettering on the side: BAYSIDE HIGH SCHOOL. I selected the one from the same year as Cal’s confession and pulled it out.

  I quickly flipped it open and started scanning the signatures on the endpapers. Fatima Lupo, Billy Cardigan, Jamal Parker, Deanna Vanuto. Finally I flipped open to the senior photos and scanned the names. McMahon, Miele, Murray, Mynowski . . . I flipped the page.

  A smiling, fresh, young Cal Nevins stared back at me. He looked utterly different from the man I’d met. More innocent.

  Happier.

  I could hear Daisy clanging a pan around in the kitchen. She must be about to put the brownies in. I had to hurry. I flipped to the back of the yearbook and began crazily searching the signatures. No . . . no . . . no . . .

  There it was. Two pages from the back, a full-page note.

  But the only part that mattered to me was the salutation.

  To Hector, my best friend, my brother from another mother, I’m so proud of you. . . .

  “What are you doing?”

  You would think I’d be used to getting caught snooping by now, but I still jumped about three feet in the air, dropping the yearbook to the floor. Daisy did not sound the least bit amused. When I pulled myself together enough to turn around, I saw that she wore a hurt expression, with a crease of confusion tucked between her eyebrows.

  “I’m sorry,” I blurted.

  “Is this for the case?” she asked, moving forward. She stepped around me to pick up the yearbook, examining the cover. “This is my father’s. Do you suspect my father now?”

  I shook my head. I had absolutely no idea what to say. “Not exactly. I, ah . . . I was just passing your father’s study and . . . I got curious . . .”

  Daisy was frowning at me. I could tell she wasn’t buying any of this. “Did you really come over here to spend time with me?” she asked.

  You would also think I would be a really smooth liar by now. I’m not.

  “Ah . . . ah . . . I . . .”

  Daisy sighed and shook her head. “I don’t think this is going to work out, Joe. I like you, but . . . you never tell me what’s going on. I think you’d better leave.”

  I found my voice then. “I’m so sorry, Daisy.”

  And I was. But I had to admit that somewhere along the line things got turned around: Now solving the case was more important to me than getting the girl.

  We Hardys are messed up that way.

  Daisy took my arm and led me to the door. “Good-bye, Joe. And obviously, you don’t have to work on my dad’s case anymore. I think we’re fine without you.�
�

  I was out on the stoop with the door slammed in my face before I could even reply.

  TRUE CONFESSIONS

  11

  FRANK

  SO SHE THREW YOU OUT,” i said with sympathy as Joe and I dug into bowls of Aunt Trudy’s homemade maple-cinnamon ice cream. It’s better than Ben & Jerry’s, I swear. Cure for whatever ails you.

  Joe ate a spoonful and nodded. “She slammed the door in my face. Not that I can really blame her.”

  “It had to be kind of a shock to find you snooping in her dad’s stuff,” I said.

  Joe sighed and nodded again. “I don’t know how else I could have done it, though. She would never have let me in there. Remember how upset she was when we questioned Luke? Imagine if she knew we suspected her dad of hiding something.”

  I nodded sympathetically, eating my ice cream. It was true. Even though she’d hired us, Daisy had been a little touchy about us investigating her case—almost as though she wanted to do it with us.

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” I said.

  Joe poked at his ice cream. “Maybe,” he said. “I have to admit, I don’t think Daisy and I were meant to be. Not if she can’t handle my investigating things.”

  I nodded, spooning up the dregs of my ice cream and wishing there was more.

  “And Hector was hiding something,” I pointed out, hoping it was okay to change the subject.

  Joe nodded, looking relieved to talk about this. “Cal was his best friend. His best friend.” He paused. “Strange how that didn’t come up when we talked to him earlier.”

  “And strange how his own criminal history never came up—only Cal’s,” I added.

  “He could never explain why he hired Cal even though he didn’t trust him,” Joe said. “It seems almost like Cal had something on him.”

  “Like that they were both bad kids?” I suggested. “That Hector’s rap sheet was just as long as Cal’s? Until he reformed.”

  Joe cocked an eyebrow. “Unless Hector never really reformed.”

  We were quiet for a few seconds, letting that sink in. I thought of the articles we’d found. Hector’s not wanting Daisy to talk to Cal. All that Hector had riding on Funspot’s success, and what Cal had done to derail it.

  “I think we need to talk to Hector,” I said.

  • • •

  “Hi there, boys.” Hector looked surprised, and not entirely happy, to see us standing outside his Funspot office bright and early the next morning. I was sure he’d heard about Joe and Daisy’s breakup from his daughter—and also, possibly, that Joe had been snooping around in his office.

  So if his friendliness had lessened a little, I guess I could understand.

  “We need to talk to you,” Joe said simply, without hesitating. “Is this a good place?”

  Hector looked from him to me. He sighed. “As good a place as any,” he said, sitting back in his chair. I noticed that he didn’t invite us to sit down.

  “You knew Cal as a kid,” I said, wanting to cut to the point as quickly as possible.

  A flicker of surprise moved across his face, quickly followed by resignation. “How did you find that out?” he asked.

  “A combination of the Internet and your high school yearbooks,” Joe admitted. “I’m sorry for snooping. But I had the sense you weren’t being entirely honest with us.”

  Hector looked from us down to his desk. Suddenly his expression changed to utter despair. He put his head in his hands and groaned. “I didn’t want to believe he would do this,” he said miserably. “I still can’t believe it!”

  I glanced at Joe. Poor guy. But we still needed the whole story.

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” I asked.

  Hector sighed again and ran his hands through his hair. Then he sat up in his chair and seemed to try to pull himself together. “Cal was my best friend growing up,” he said. “We lived in Queens. You probably know that already.”

  Joe nodded. “Jamaica, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Hector said. “There were some tough guys in our neighborhood. Gang members, petty criminals. Cal and I, we both got into some trouble when we were kids. Our mothers worked, we had a lot of free time on our hands. And we were troublemakers. We gave our parents a hard time.” He sighed.

  “Go on,” I urged.

  “We started stealing cars and breaking into places when we were teenagers,” Hector said. “Younger than you two. Think middle school. It was stupid of us. We almost always got caught, and by high school we both had terrible records. It was then—when I was a junior in high school—that I realized what an awful path I was on. I had to make some changes if I was going to survive. I was going to be eighteen soon, and charged as an adult if I got into trouble again. I knew I couldn’t survive in prison. I wasn’t that tough.”

  He looked down at the desk again. “So when I was sixteen, I just stopped. I retired as a criminal. I cleaned up my act. For a year or more I studied hard, I excelled in school. I pulled up my GPA to a B. When I was a senior, I applied for a scholarship for troubled kids who’d reformed themselves—and I won it. Suddenly I was going to college!”

  Joe nodded. “But then . . . ?”

  Hector’s face fell. “Then . . . I had a chemistry teacher at the time who was really hard to please. I was never good at being on time, and one time I was late to his class—the third time that semester, I think—he announced that he was giving me a zero on the test that day. I started doing the math in my head, and I realized I could fail the whole semester—just because of being ten minutes late. Can you imagine?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. Every high school seems to have a legendarily tough teacher like the one Hector was describing. Bayport actually had several—but I’d been lucky enough to stay on their good sides so far.

  Hector shook his head. “Anyway. I tried to talk to the guy, but he wouldn’t listen. I was furious. I told Cal what was going on, and of course he felt terrible for me. He was almost as excited about my scholarship as I was. He’d planned to work for a couple years, save up some money, and join me at college. We talked about starting a landscaping business together.”

  “But,” I suggested.

  “But,” Hector repeated, sighing. “This teacher was going to ruin my chances, or so I thought. So I suddenly had this great idea. I would steal his car to get back at him.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Really?

  “It was stupid,” Hector said quickly, seeing my expression. “Of course I realize that now. But I was angry, so angry. So I did it. After school that day, I stole the guy’s car—right out of the teachers’ parking lot. I was planning to keep it for a few days and then return it—just to teach the guy a lesson. But he reported it missing right away. And they found the car—parked in a vacant lot right by my house.”

  He shook his head and sighed again.

  “It was only a matter of time until I got caught. I’d been sloppy and my fingerprints were all over the dashboard. So I told Cal what I’d done, and he didn’t hesitate. ‘I’ll take the rap for you,’ he said. I tried to tell him no, it wasn’t worth it, but he insisted. He said I would have done the same for him. And he said he’d take the sentence, a couple years or whatever—and then I could pay him back. Help him get into college, or find a job. He said he knew I’d make it up to him.” Hector closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “So Cal was arrested,” I supplied. “And sent to prison for two years.”

  Hector nodded. “I tried to pay him back,” he said in a strained voice. “I really did. But the Cal who came out of prison wasn’t the same kid who’d gone in. He was different, almost broken. He struggled with drugs, he couldn’t commit to anything. I set him up in community college, and he wouldn’t keep up with the classes. Finally I gave up. I cut off all ties with him.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That must have been hard.”

  Hector nodded again. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I saw that I wasn’t helping him, I was enabli
ng him. I hoped that if I cut him off, he’d see that he had to get his act together.”

  He paused. “And eventually Cal did. He started working as a carnie, traveling around the country. He got good at what he did. But I don’t think he ever forgave me. I tried to reach out to him, but he always ignored my calls or letters.”

  “Until he showed up here,” Joe said.

  Hector nodded. “Until I bought Funspot, and suddenly here was Cal, applying for a job. I was thrilled, thinking we would be friends again. But Cal made clear to me that he hadn’t forgiven me for abandoning him all those years ago—after all he did for me. He said he just needed the job. He was tired of traveling and wanted to be closer to home.”

  Joe raised his eyebrows. “So you hired him?”

  “I did.” Hector frowned. “But first I checked him out. I found out what I told you about his former employer—about the threat against the coworker. I told Cal my concerns, and he basically told me to hire him or I would regret it. I didn’t know what he meant, but I assumed it was that he would tell everyone about the car, that it was me. And I couldn’t handle Daisy knowing about that. I’d worked so hard to try to set a good example for her.” He paused, then leaned forward and rubbed his eyes. He looked exhausted, I realized—like he hadn’t slept in days.

  “In fact,” he said, “what he had planned was much worse than that. And now I feel terrible, for putting those kids in danger.”

  We were all quiet for a minute. I felt bad for Hector, but it was hard to get around the enormity of what had happened to Kelly and Luke as a result of whatever had gone down between Hector and Cal as kids.

  “What do you think he did with them?” I asked finally. In the end, that was the only thing that mattered: getting Kelly and Luke back.

  Hector looked up at me. His eyes were wet and red-rimmed. “I have no idea,” he said, his voice full of despair. “I realize now that I never really knew Cal at all.”

  “Daddy!” Daisy’s sunny voice called from the lobby, and then suddenly there she was, standing in the doorway of the office. “I went to the Coffee Stop and brought you breakfa—oh, it’s you two!”