The North Star

by Shepherd

  Sophia shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Suddenly, Zach leaned forward and peered into the darkness beyond the patio. He beckoned silently with his arm, and the others joined him. He pointed down to the garden and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Don’t look now, but I think someone’s spying on us.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  “I bet it’s the thief!” Vishal said softly. “Maybe we can surprise him. Come on!”

  “Hold up a sec,” Zach whispered. “We need a plan.”

  “No time for that!” Vishal threw his leg over the railing and dropped softly as a cat onto the lawn below. Evie followed.

  Sophia kicked off her heels and ran barefoot down the steps. Zach hesitated for a moment before hurrying down the steps after Sophia. “This is a very bad idea,” he mumbled to himself.

  The four met up under a tree near where the spy was hiding. “Okay, so what do we do now?” Zach asked.

  “I say we rush the hedge and grab him!” Evie said.

  “No way,” Zach argued. “He could be armed. One of us should go and get the cops while the others keep an eye on him.”

  “Oh, sure. Because if there’s one thing cops always do, it’s listen to brown kids like us,” Vishal said sarcastically.

  “What do you think, Sophia?” Zach turned to look for her, but she was gone. “Oh no!” He grabbed Vishal’s wrist and pointed. Sophia had her back against the hedge and was creeping sideways toward the spy’s hiding spot.

  “Fan out,” Evie whispered. “Let’s try to surround him.” She dropped to her hands and knees and slithered under the hedge to the other side.

  Zach threw up his hands in frustration. “Seriously, Vish. Are we the only ones around here with any sense of self-preservation whatsoever?!” Vishal was gone, too. Zach looked back at the house. Should he go get someone?

  Just then, there was a rustling in the hedge and a loud crash of branches. Sophia screamed and jumped back as someone exploded out of the hedge. A shadowy figure knocked Zach to the ground.

  Zach grabbed the intruder’s ankle, tripping him. The intruder stumbled and fell onto one knee, but before Zach could get up the man recovered and broke into a lurching run. Zach heard shouts and more crashing as Evie and Vishal searched for a way through the hedge.

  Sophia took off after the intruder. Zach struggled to his feet and followed, but by the time he caught up, Sophia stood alone in the clearing. The intruder had disappeared.

  Still panting, Zach bent at the waist and checked himself for injury. No tears in his pants, and no blood. Good. He brushed a few leaves off of the sleeve of his navy-blue fleece.

  Sophia paced the clearing, her bare feet streaked with mud and wet grass. “I can’t believe he got away. Did you get a good look at him?”

  Zach shook his head. “He had on a hooded jacket, so I only caught a glimpse of his face.”

  “What did he look like?” Sophia asked.

  “White guy. Light eyes. That’s about all I could see.”

  Sophia nodded. “Sounds about right.”

  Zach’s eyes widened. “Do you know who it is?”

  Sophia shrugged uncertainly. “I didn’t get a good view, either, but it kind of looked like my great-aunt’s ‘friend,’ Evan Masterson.” She put air quotes around friend, her voice dripping with sarcasm at the word. “He’s, like, thirty years younger than she is. He’s a tennis instructor at the country club.” She rolled her eyes. “So predictable. You know how the rest goes.”

  Zach most emphatically did not know, but he nodded politely and tried to look worldly and wise. “Yeah, sure. Of course.” He made a mental note to ask Evie about it later.

  Evie and Vishal jogged up. “Sorry,” Evie said. “It took us a few minutes to get through the hedge.” She picked at the twigs stuck in her braids and grimaced. “My girl at the salon is going to kill me.” She peered into the shadows of the side yard. “You lost him?”

  Zach nodded. “But Sophia thinks she might know who it was.”

  Sophia filled Vishal and Evie in on her suspicions.

  “But why would this Evan Masterson guy be hiding out here? Wasn’t he invited to the party anyway?” Evie asked.

  “Exactly,” Sophia said triumphantly. “I bet you anything he stole the North Star. Why else would he be out here lurking around like some creepy . . . lurker?”

  A smile played at the corner of Vishal’s mouth. “Yeah, the whole lurking thing is def suspicious. Except that, you know, you also caught us in your garden.”

  “Yeah, well, you weren’t lurking,” Sophia said huffily. “Come on.” She scanned the ground. “We have to find some clue that will prove what Evan was up to.”

  The group searched for clues. They rounded a corner, and Sophia pointed at something near the house. “I knew it!” She hopped gingerly across the gravel path, yelping as the hard stones dug into the soles of her bare feet. She crouched down next to a broken ornamental pot and looked up at the others, her eyes shining. “See? This isn’t supposed to be here. Look at the drag marks.” The heavy pot had left a trail of matted, scuffed grass in its wake where it had been dragged from the patio nearby.

  The others bent down and took a closer look. The blue-and-white pot was enormous, at least four feet tall; it lay on its side in two jagged pieces. Sophia pointed up to the open second-floor window directly above. “That’s my mother’s dressing room. Evan must have dragged the pot under here and used it to get through the window. That’s why he was hanging around in the yard. I bet he was planning to put the pot back to cover his tracks.”

  “Maybe,” Zach said, looking at the window high above. “But that’s a really long drop. Even with the pot’s help he’d have to be, like, a ninja to get up there.”

  Evie pointed at a nearby patch of soft mud. Footsteps led away from the pot and back to the party. “Somebody was here all right, but it wasn’t the person hiding in the hedge.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  “Unless the intruder changed his shoes before hiding in the hedges, then these footprints don’t belong to the person we chased through the garden,” Evie continued. “The shape of the shoe print is totally different.”

  Sophia sighed in frustration. “I need to get back to the party.” She looked down at her dirty feet, her shoulders hunched in failure. “Not that there’s any point to it now. With the North Star gone, there won’t be anything to bid on at the auction next Saturday.” She trudged back toward the house, the others in tow.

  Zach exchanged glances with Evie and Vishal, and when he spoke, his voice was filled with bravado. “Don’t give up so soon. We’re gonna get that necklace back for you.” He nudged the other two. “Right?”

  Evie looked startled, but she flashed a confident smile. “Oh, yeah. Totally!”

  Vishal caught the mood. “No doubt!” He jumped up to touch a tree branch as they passed under it, and when he landed, he put some extra swagger in his step.

  When the group returned to the patio, Sophia hosed off her dirty feet and dried them on a fluffy beach towel from a bin near the pool. She stepped back into her shoes and led the others inside to the drawing room, where the party guests sat wearily, waiting to have their individual names and statements taken down by the uniformed officer seated at a table in the corner.

  Sophia tapped the officer’s shoulder. “Excuse me.” The officer ignored her and continued writing down answers in his slow block print. Sophia tapped again. “Excuse me!”

  The officer sighed and looked up. “Now you’ve gone and made me lose my place. What can I do for you, little girl?”

  Sophia leaned forward and dropped her voice. “These kids and I were just outside and we saw an intruder, and I’m fairly certain it’s the perpetrator. I suggest you and your fellow officers go check it out.”

  The officer rolled his eyes. “Very funny. Now if you don’t mind, I have real work to do.”

  Sophia’s face was tense, and her voice rose. “I assure you, officer
, this is no joke. Please hurry! He’s probably getting away as we speak!” She pointed to the French doors that led outside.

  The officer stood up, and a look of relief passed over Sophia’s face. But instead of taking action, he folded his arms and glowered. “Now, listen, kid, I’ve tried to be nice. I don’t know who you think you are, but a very serious crime has been committed. So go find your mommy and daddy and don’t bother me again.”

  Sophia drew herself up to her full height. “Do you have any idea who I am? I’m Sophia Boyd, and this is my house! Perhaps you’d feel more comfortable speaking with my father, Dashiell Boyd?”

  The officer blanched. “I’m sorry, Miss Boyd, we’ll check it out right away.” He fumbled for his radio and mumbled into it. He turned back to Sophia. “We sent some officers to take a look. Is there anything else?”

  Sophia declined and turned away, her hair whipping around her face. The other kids gaped at her. “Wow,” Vishal said. “If I said that to a cop, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have acted like that.”

  Sophia shrugged. “The police are here to protect and serve, aren’t they?” Vishal and the twins just looked at each other.

  Zach tapped Sophia’s elbow. “In the meantime, you said the necklace was stolen sometime during the first hour of the party, right?” he asked in a whisper.

  Sophia nodded. “But it was probably more like the first half hour. Anyone walking in the hallway by the kitchen would be able to see the schedule, and my mom was supposed to put on the necklace no later than seven forty-five.”

  Evie nodded. “And the thief wasn’t about to get caught red-handed in case she went upstairs early.” She looked around the room curiously, her eyes narrowing. “So who was here in the first half hour of the party?”

  Sophia pointed to a man in a brown suit who stood huddled behind a cocktail table that had been shoved in the corner. “Arturo Gonzales was the first to arrive. He’s the curator of the Minneapolis History Museum.” The man’s thinning brown hair was combed over a gleaming bald spot, and he dabbed repeatedly at his forehead with a limp and crumpled handkerchief. His brown-and-tan-striped tie had been loosened, and the top button of his shirt was undone. A half-empty cocktail glass sat on the table in front of him, the beads of condensation on the outside forming a growing wet patch on the white tablecloth.

  “Next was Gwendolyn Fairbanks, former diva of the Metropolitan Opera.” She nodded her head in the direction of the piano, where the tall woman imperiously waved a gloved hand in the direction of someone seated on the piano bench. The diva smoothed the front of her burgundy velvet gown as opening chords of a melody sounded, and her rich contralto voice filled the room, causing the other guests to look up in surprise. “Diva is just the right word, don’t you think?” Sophia murmured softly. Evie grinned.

  “That’s Gideon Doheny and his fiancée, Abigail Morris. He’s a venture capitalist.” Sophia caught the quizzical looks on the other faces. “He invests money in other people’s companies.” The others nodded. “Abigail is a kindergarten teacher and an animal lover. She also fosters dogs.”

  “Cute!” Evie said. “I’ve always wanted to do that, but my mom won’t let me.” She felt sorry for Abigail, who looked uncomfortable standing next to her fiancé and his friends. Her sandy-brown hair was cut simply, shoulder-length with bangs. She wore a sleeveless black dress with ballet flats. Her athletic build, late-summer tan, and mosquito bites on her legs showed someone who was more comfortable outside than at a fancy party. She wore no other jewelry than the massive engagement ring on her left hand, which she twisted nervously, her brown doe eyes watching the faces of the other partygoers.

  Gideon was telling a boisterous story to a group of people, a glass of champagne in his hand. Occasionally he would punctuate a line with a sweeping gesture, and a dribble of champagne would slop over the rim of the glass. His voice was the loudest in the room. Zach recognized him as the pink-shirted man he had seen in the window earlier. The one with the fake-sounding laugh.

  Gwendolyn’s aria ended, and she took a deep curtsy. There was a scattering of half-hearted applause in the room, until Gwendolyn’s glare urged a more robust response from her captive audience. From the other side of the room a wolf whistle split the air. “That’s right, viewers. I’m bringing opera diva Gwendolyn Fairbanks to you live! Don’t forget to subscribe to my channel for other surprise concerts, pranks, and celebrity appearances!”

  Evie craned her neck to see better, her eyes shining. “Oh, my gosh! That’s Jasmine Jetani! She has, like, the nineteenth-most-popular YouTube channel in the world!”

  “That’s a weirdly specific number,” Zach said. He eyed the rainbow-haired YouTuber in distaste. She had flipped her phone around and was filming herself waving and putting bunny ears behind the heads of the fusty old men standing in front of her. Her pink sequined dress seemed aggressively sparkly against the muted tones of the room. “Ugh. What do people see in her? She’s so . . . pointless.”

  Evie folded her arms. “Really? And this is coming from someone whose favorite YouTube channel is some guy talking while he’s playing a video game. Talk about pointless!”

  “Hey, at least those videos are funny!” Zach said defensively. He nudged his friend. “Back me up, here, Vish.”

  “You’re on your own for this one, dude. I learned a long time ago never to get in the middle of a Mamuya throwdown.” Vishal watched the party guests. Some paced like caged animals. Others sat slumped in their chairs, tapping at their smartphones or staring blankly into space. Did one of these people have something to hide? “Were there any other guests here early?”

  “None that I can remember, other than a few flocks of old people. They stuck together, though, and they all seem way too frail to be jewel thieves. Some of them barely seem to know what day it is!”

  Zach laughed. “So, the folks in this room are our only suspects?”

  “You mean other than Evan Masterson?” Sophia challenged.

  “Sure, yeah. Other than him.”

  Sophia nodded. “Those are our suspects.”

  CHAPTER

  7

  Vishal nodded his head in the direction of the man in the brown suit. “He looks way too nervous. Let’s start with him.”

  Sophia led the others over to the corner. The group noticed the guests’ looks of surprise as they crossed the silk patterned carpet. Sophia smiled graciously, completely in her element. Zach tried to capture her easy confidence. He stood up straighter and squared his shoulders. Nobody better mistake me for the valet, he thought. Evie met the other guests’ eyes coolly, forcing herself not to try to smooth her ruined braids. Vishal simply grinned and gave a cocky salute when any guest’s eyes lingered too long on the disheveled group.

  When they reached the cocktail table, they found Arturo Gonzales poking listlessly at his lukewarm cocktail, his eyes darting back and forth. Tiny beads of sweat clung to his wispy mustache.

  “You look a little warm,” Sophia said. “Can I offer you something cooler to drink? Some iced water?” Sophia’s voice startled Arturo out of his uneasy reverie, and he took an unconscious step away from her, almost as though he were trying to keep the tall table between them.

  “No!” he said curtly. “Thank you, but it’s been a very long night and I’d just like to go home. Quite frankly, this whole evening has been simply a disaster.”

  A look of hurt flashed across Sophia’s face, and the curator’s brittle tone softened somewhat. “Of course, it’s far worse for you and your family, I imagine. It must be awful to lose such a precious heirloom.” He looked down at his hands. “Such a piece of history . . .” he said wistfully.

  Zach nodded his head in an exaggerated expression of woe. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

  “Why indeed!” Arturo said bitterly. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my business, it’s how many selfish people there are in the world. People who want to keep precious artifacts locked away for themselves, instead of sharing them w
ith the world.” His hands tightened into fists. “The North Star necklace is a precious piece of history. It doesn’t belong in a safe. It belongs in a museum!”

  “How did you know it was kept in a safe?” Zach asked suspiciously.

  The curator rolled his eyes. “The North Star’s primary stone is twenty-seven carats. A similar diamond sold at Sotheby’s for two-point-five million dollars last year. Only an idiot wouldn’t keep it in a safe.”

  Vishal whistled. “Two-and-a-half million dollars. That’s a lot of money. I wouldn’t have guessed the Minneapolis History Museum had that kind of money to bid.”

  Arturo looked away. “Of course we do,” he said stiffly. “Our museum has a world-class collection.” His eyes blazed. “World. Class.”

  Evie noticed the smirk on Vishal’s face and put her hand on his arm, stopping him just before he made a quip that would send the curator completely over the edge. She smiled. “Oh, yeah. Definitely. We went there on a field trip last year, and we were all so impressed with . . . you know, everything, really. Such great stuff. Well done.”

  Arturo relaxed. “Well, I’m glad at least someone thinks so,” he said grudgingly. “Honestly, you have no idea how difficult it is to keep a collection fresh and relevant, especially with these new budget cuts.”

  Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “Budget cuts? And how did those impact your bid?”

  Arturo shifted uncomfortably. “Well, it could make things a bit of a challenge were the auction to go ahead as planned.” He forced a smile. “But I’m confident I could have secured the extra funds.”

  “Well, it looks like you won’t have to worry about that now that the necklace is missing,” Zach said pointedly.

  The curator drew himself up to his full five-foot-seven-inch height. “I don’t know what you think you’re implying, young man, but I am certainly not responsible for this evening’s misfortune! I haven’t left this room the entire night!”

  Evie folded her arms. “You’re lying.”