He wasn’t on his own anymore. There was Kami to think of now.
Chapter Fourteen
A Life of Crime
It was before eight on Tuesday morning and Kami was already late to her own meeting when Ash, clearly also late, caught her on the stairs and said, “Can I have a minute?”
Kami hesitated. “Yes,” she answered. “You can have exactly one minute. Talk fast.”
Ash looked like he felt stressed out having a deadline, but he gave it a shot. “I’m sorry for what I said about Jared. I have to admit I was thrown by how tight you two seemed after knowing each other five minutes, but even if I don’t like the guy, it’s obvious he’s had a rough time and it’s good he can talk to someone.”
Kami had to give him points for being mature. He looked at her, blue eyes earnest, and she had to give him many more points for being charming. “So, are we okay?” Ash asked.
“Yes,” said Kami. “We’re okay. So, now do you want to come upstairs and be part of my unstoppable investigative team?”
Ash ducked his head. “Yeah, all right. So …” He trailed off.
“Talk while you walk,” Kami urged. “Time’s a-wasting. Bells will soon be a-ringing.”
He followed her at an easy lope while Kami hurried up the stairs. “You said you wanted to do an interview at Aurimere? I haven’t found an old-fashioned white shirt yet, but I wondered if you wanted to come over tonight?”
“Sure, if I have time after we break into the lawyer’s office.”
“I’m sorry,” Ash said. “What?”
Kami held the door of the headquarters open for him. “Come in. I want to explain my plan to the group.”
Ash went in, casting a look that was half amused and half dubious back at her. His stride toward his desk was checked when he walked into the line of Jared’s glare.
Ash gave him a chilly glance, then continued to his own desk.
Jared turned his attention to Kami. Do you want to go out with him?
We agreed to try to stay out of stuff like that when we were fourteen years old. You remember when we were fourteen!
Kami shut and locked the door. She’d meant her comment to Jared to be another efficient door-closing, but instead she got hit with Jared’s feelings, forcing her to turn and look at him. He was leaning forward, arms folded on his desk. Kami found herself caught in the doorway looking back at him.
Yes, said Jared. I remember when we were fourteen.
Angela coughed into her hand.
Kami realized that to all appearances she and Jared had just been lost in each other’s eyes for the past two minutes. She was used to moments of deep imaginary-friend-related embarrassment. She swallowed this one fast, then clapped her hands together and surveyed her team. Holly was perched on top of Angela’s desk, face bright and eager. Angela was kicked back in her chair, looking despairing about the entire universe and Kami in particular. Ash sat forward in his chair, polite and attentive.
Kami could feel Jared’s anticipation in her head. He knew what she was about to say. She told the others about finding the guesthouse card in the woods. “So we’re going to have to discover who was staying in the Surer Guest on the night the fox was killed,” Kami concluded. “And I thought of something else we could do: I want to know who owns the land that hut is on. It’s possible the hut was built for a purpose.” She beamed around at them. “Isn’t this great, guys? Two leads!”
Everyone was not looking as thrilled as she would have wished.
“You want to know who owns the land, so we’re breaking into a lawyer’s office?” Ash asked.
“I see that you have a few doubts about this plan, Ash,” Kami said. “And I commend you on your caution. But I’ve already tried the library and the Internet, and we don’t want anyone to find out we’re asking around, do we? I mean, I already got pushed into a well. Plus you don’t have to worry about anything going wrong. I used to play in the office with Mr. Prendergast’s daughter Nicola.”
Until Nicola had decided Kami was too weird to stay her friend.
“Mr. Prendergast has all the deeds to practically every piece of property in town in his third filing cabinet,” Kami said. “And it just so happens that I knocked on his door on my way home Sunday and asked to use his bathroom, and left a piece of cardboard holding his bathroom window just a tiny bit open. So this whole thing is going to be a snap!”
“This whole crime is going to be a snap,” Angela clarified, rolling her big brown eyes.
“ ‘Crime’ is a harsh word, Angela,” Kami said. “We’re investigating a crime. If we could make matters clear to the police, I’m sure they would look at these deeds. But we can’t, so we are forced—yes, forced!—to do this ourselves. Morally, this is legal.”
“Legally, not so much,” Angela observed, and uncrossed her legs. “Okay, let’s pretend I’m fool enough to go along with this.”
“You really think five of us are going to break into a lawyer’s office and not get caught?” Ash asked skeptically.
“No,” Kami rushed to assure him. “I’ll be the only one who breaks in. I mean—goes in. Via the window. I won’t be breaking anything.” She smiled beneficently around at them. “And all you guys have to do is be my lookouts.”
Angela looked resigned. Holly looked intrigued. Ash looked unsure but as if he didn’t want to back down. Kami figured that was good enough. She overcame a moment of hesitation and glanced at Jared. All the lights in his crazy gray eyes were dancing. A shiver went through her, a ripple of his delight. She felt again the way she had at the Crying Pools and at her house, the thrill of sharing your secret soul and having someone think it was wonderful.
“Aw,” he said. “How come you get to have all the fun?”
The only problem with Mr. Prendergast’s office was that it was on the High Street. A lot of the postcards in Crystal’s Gift Shop had some portion of Sorry-in-the-Vale’s main street on it, the honey-colored buildings on the street or behind low stone walls, the casement windows gleaming. The oldest buildings were weather-pitted, spotted with lichen, like the inn, the Bell and Mist, and the secondhand bookshop run by Mrs. Pike. Most of the buildings were soft gold Cotswold stone against the bright blue of the sky, cut by random turrets and gently spinning weather vanes.
It was all very nice, but most of the people in Sorry-in-the-Vale had seen it a thousand times, so it was hardly a social whirl. Still Kami noted a few more people on the street than she was entirely comfortable with. She also noticed that a few people were giving their group strange looks, but she wasn’t sure if that was because of the presence of the Lynburn boys or because she had a guilty conscience.
Kami thought about her mother telling her how the town regarded the Lynburns. People seemed to respond to them with either awe or fear, and neither made any sense. Particularly not awe directed at Jared, who was kind of a weirdo.
“You doing okay?” Kami asked, falling into step with Holly so she could give her arm a squeeze and also drop a hint in her ear.
“Yes,” Holly decided after a moment, and smiled. “I’m just not hardened to a life of crime like you.”
“Give it time,” Kami said. “So, I’ll need two pairs of lookouts, one for the front and one for the back of the place. Maybe you could”—she lowered her voice—“pair off with Jared?”
Holly looked startled, her mouth going through a variety of expressions before settling on amused. “Oh, it’s Ash for you, is it?”
“What?” Kami said. “No.” She found herself blushing, but it wasn’t a totally awful feeling. She was surprised at how much fun it was, talking about boys with a girlfriend. Angela’s steady dislike of most of the world meant that she had scorned all Kami’s previous crushes.
Holly smiled as if she thought it was fun too. She lowered her voice, as if she was telling Kami a pleasant secret. “You don’t have to choose one right away, you know.”
“Uh,” said Kami, “I’m not really hot enough to juggle two guys….” Holly made
a protesting noise. Kami grinned at her and went on. “But thanks for the thought. You’ve got the wrong idea, though. Jared is not into me like that at all. He told me that you were gorgeous.”
“Well,” said Holly, so used to hearing it that she didn’t blush. She gave Jared a speculative glance.
“Think about it,” said Kami, and hurried to catch up.
Jared shot a look over his shoulder as she did so. There’s a card up in your little sweetshop advertising Pomeranian cross puppies free to a good home, he observed.
What’s your point?
I’m not a puppy, said Jared. You can’t give me away.
Kami and Jared were still arguing in their heads when they reached Mr. Prendergast’s office. Kami waved to the broad front steps leading up to the front of the house and the plaque winking in the sun, and to the back, where a few of the buildings around shared a small common. The pairs of sentries could pick their own places. Kami had things to do, offices to break into. She couldn’t decide every little thing.
You did think she was gorgeous. Which she is. She is gorgeous, and she owns a motorcycle. Holly is your perfect woman, and I am just trying to help.
Well, don’t, Jared thought.
The bathroom window was on the left side of the building, caught in the shadow of the office and a little stone wall, the slate stacked instead of held together with cement. Kami scrambled onto the wall and wiggled the window. Even though it wasn’t latched, it stuck slightly in the frame.
Then it was open.
Fine, since you are totally ungrateful and you hate things that are awesome, I won’t, Kami thought back. She braced her palms on the sill and boosted herself up. There was a moment when her hips stuck in the frame, and she had to slither over the toilet, using the porcelain edges for handholds. She ended up sitting triumphantly on the bathroom floor.
Victory! Kami announced, leaping up and running into the office with her arms spread wide like an airplane. If I wasn’t going to be a world-famous journalist and if I didn’t have such respect for truth and justice, I could be an amazing master criminal.
I still don’t see why I couldn’t break in too, Jared complained.
Good luck getting in that window with, like, two people’s fair share of shoulders, Kami thought. That’s part of why I would be such a great master criminal. I am so small and so nimble. Built for cat burglary! She almost nimbly tripped over a box of files on Mr. Prendergast’s floor, and decided she should concentrate on her first crime rather than mentally build her criminal empire.
The third filing cabinet, which bore a peeling yellow sticker that said DEEDS in Mr. Prendergast’s looping handwriting, was tucked between two big bay windows. Kami felt that this was poor positioning. The white plastic blinds looked very flimsy.
Kami skirted around Mr. Prendergast’s desk and dropped to her knees by the filing cabinet, pulling out the bottom drawer. She found some leases and went through them to check that nobody was renting the hut in the woods.
There are a couple of people standing in front of the building, Jared reported uneasily. They’re looking at us suspiciously.
Kami closed the cabinet drawer with a slam. She instantly regretted the noise and bit her lip hard.
Retreat was impossible. Kami sprang to her feet and pulled out the top drawer. Here were the deeds of property ownership! She rifled through them, recognizing houses and farms, fields and woods.
You maybe want to get out of there, Jared advised. These people aren’t going away. If one of them spots you through the window—
Well, do something! Kami commanded.
Like what? Jared demanded.
Like anything! Do I have to think of everything? Kami asked, hands flying through the files. This was jointly owned by Robin, Lillian, and Rosalind Lynburn, and this, and this … Have a big dramatic breakup!
Well, Jared said after a minute, all right.
Kami didn’t have time to dread discovery or worry about the violent explosion of glee from Jared. He liked getting into trouble.
Kami liked getting results. She hadn’t realized how much of Sorry-in-the-Vale the Lynburns owned. It must be half the town. Lords of the manor, indeed.
She was not surprised to find they owned the land where she’d calculated the hut stood. It didn’t impress her as significant. The Lynburns owned almost the entire wood. Her fingers moved automatically, pulling out the next file. It was the deeds to the Glass house.
The Lynburns owned that too.
Kami stood transfixed.
Kami’s grandmother had said years ago that she and Kami’s father stayed in the Glass house because it was all they owned free and clear. Kami’s parents might lie to her for her own good, the way parents did, but Sobo had never lied. She’d been a believer in the stark truth.
So was Kami. But this made no sense. This couldn’t possibly be true.
Kami made her mind up fast. She drew the deed out of the drawer, folded it, and slipped it in her jeans pocket. Then she ducked down and ran, half-crouched, to the bathroom. She scrambled onto the toilet, launching herself onto the sill. In her haste, she overshot and landed on her hands and knees on the strip of grass between the building and the wall.
Kami took a moment to catch her breath. Then she stood, still dizzy, and looked into the faces of Holly and Angela. They were peering around the side of the building from the back, Holly’s bright curls mingling with Angela’s black waterfall of hair. They were both helpless with laughter.
Oh my God, what have you done? Kami demanded. She led the charge to the front of the building, where Jared stood at the top of the steps, looking pleased with himself.
At the bottom of the steps was a ring of amazed onlookers, and Ash with a split lip.
“Hi, Mrs. Thompson. Hi, Mr. Stearn. My gracious, Jared, is that the time?” Kami asked loudly. “We have to go!”
“Is what the time?” Jared asked, giving her a brilliant smile. The smile and the feeling that followed it flashed through her like sunlight.
Kami raised her eyebrows. I think it’s probably beat-down-for-Jared o’clock, she said. Once I find out what you did.
They made it halfway up the street, to the statue of Matthew Cooper, who had died heroically sometime in 1480, and then everybody collapsed. Holly and Angela fell in a heap at the base of the statue, Ash leaned against it, and Jared leaned back against the railings that ran along the front of the inn and smiled like a devil.
“He is totally insane,” Ash said, at the same time as Holly said, with equal conviction, “That was hilarious.”
“What happened?” Kami demanded.
“Some people stopped in front of the office,” Angela said. “I don’t think they suspected anything, though; they were just looking at the Lynburn boys acting crazy.”
“Who left them together at the front of the house?” Kami asked, giving Holly an accusing glare.
“You didn’t say who was meant to go where,” Angela said calmly. “I don’t like Jared and I am indifferent to Ash, so I made Holly come with me. It’s not my fault there’s no such thing as the perfect crime. Anyway, I’m glad I did it, because I—and he—” Angela’s face was usually sternly beautiful. It was weird to see her sentence swallowed by a laugh.
Angela laid her head down on Holly’s shoulder while Kami looked around for answers.
“He punched me in the face,” said Ash, who understandably did not seem to find the situation humorous at all. “And then he yelled at me for sleeping with our personal trainer!”
“I was told breakup scenes were a good way to distract people,” Jared said with beautiful simplicity.
“Ash looked so surprised,” Holly said. “He had no idea what was going on. He said, ‘I didn’t sleep with our personal trainer! We don’t even have a personal trainer!’ ”
Angela and Holly giggled. Ash held the back of his hand to his bleeding mouth and glared.
Jared was still grinning like a maniac. “In that case,” he told Ash solemnly, “I
will consider taking you back.”
Kami sighed. “You are the worst team of operatives any master criminal has ever had.”
Chapter Fifteen
Burning or Drowning
Kami ran home to change out of her criminal mastermind jeans into a debatably datelike dress for Ash. Dad called out to her as soon as she was in the door. “Kami, ring for a forklift and tell them it’s the usual problem: we’ve got a Montgomery asleep on the floor.”
Kami peeked around the door, vaguely surprised Angela had made it there so fast. Instead, she found Rusty stretched out on the hearthrug with his arms behind his head.
“You disgraceful object,” said Kami. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m buying a shotgun,” Dad announced. “I live in the country. A shotgun is a reasonable thing to own.”
Kami abandoned the issue of Rusty’s home invasion in order to run upstairs and put on a black dress with white polka dots, and red tights. Then she had to go back to the sitting room because the best mirror was over the fireplace and she wanted to check her lip gloss. “Rusty, Dad needs to work and I’m going out, so you’re babysitting.”
“I like that word,” Rusty said, settling down for a nap. “Come, babies. Let us sit together.”
Tomo sat down in the vacated space by Rusty’s head and began pulling his hair. Rusty smiled beatifically and did not open his eyes.
“Why are you putting on lip gloss, my daughter?” Dad asked. “Trip to the library? Trip to the nunnery? I hear the nunneries are nice this time of year.”
“Not a date; I still remember Claud,” Rusty said, and grabbed her ankle. “I forbid it.”
“You introduced me to Claud,” Kami pointed out.
“I’m a bad person,” Rusty mumbled. “I do bad things.”
“Is this true, Kami? Are you going out on a date?” Dad asked tragically. “Wearing that? Wouldn’t you fancy a shapeless cardigan instead? You rock a shapeless cardigan, honey.”
“I’m not going out with anyone,” said Kami, almost sure it was true.
Rusty tugged at her ankle until she knelt beside him. “He sounds nice,” Rusty murmured, as if mostly asleep. “And maybe it will distract you from chasing maniacs in the woods. I’ve been worrying about you.”
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