She shrugged and walked out the door. “I’m going to keep looking out here,” she said.
“Okay,” I said, pocketing Kimbal’s old phone. When I got home, I’d jump on the WiFi with it and see if any other emails might load. My uncle was clearly hiding something, and I’d just uncovered a big piece. I should send the emails to Watkins. But what if Kimbal hadn’t done anything to hurt my mom? What if he’d only been trying to help me all along? What if turning in these emails got him fired or worse?
I searched the room a little more but didn’t find anything else. I went out to the living room and sat on the couch, thinking over what I’d discovered. I should probably tell Grace.
She found me there, hands behind her back.
“You found something?” I asked.
“Some bullets in a drawer in the kitchen. And this in the bathroom.” She pulled out a dirty magazine and waggled her eyebrows.
Eww.
She tossed the magazine on the floor and fell onto the couch beside me. “How about you?” she asked.
I told her about the phone and the emails. She wanted to see them, so I gave her the phone.
“What are you going to do with this?” she asked.
“Take it home,” I said, “read every email, then probably transcribe them.”
“Send them to me when you’re done?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Or I could transcribe them,” she said. “I’m probably a faster typer than you.”
I laughed and snatched the phone from her hand. I tucked it into my back pocket. “There’s no way I’m letting you transcribe anything.”
She scowled. “Why not?”
“Grace, have you read your own texts? You can’t spell.”
She gasped. “I can too spell. Texting is different from writing reports.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll believe that when I read one of your reports.”
She laughed, then said, “I’ve missed you.” She took my hand. “Just hanging out with you. How you tease me.”
I met her eyes. My stomach flipped. “I missed you too,” I said.
Her smile sort of stopped my breath. Here I’d been hanging around all these actresses, but Grace blew them all away. When she leaned in and kissed me, I was so glad I could kiss her back without having to feel guilty.
Oh, happiness.
And so passed an indeterminate amount of time where I got lost in Grace’s hair and her lips and the smell of coconuts.
She suddenly jumped up and walked toward the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I should go home.”
“Oh-kay,” I said, my thoughts slowly clearing. I got up and followed her to the door. That’s when I saw the phone in her back pocket.
Kimbal’s old iPhone.
I patted the back pocket on my jeans. Sure enough, it was gone.
I ran past her, slapped one hand against the door, just as she was opening it. Then I darted forward and pulled the phone from her pocket.
“Hey!” she said.
“What’s this about?” I asked, waving the phone in front of her cold, blue eyes.
“It’s not yours,” she said. “If you take it, then you’re stealing it from Mr. Kimbal.”
“And I’m okay with that,” I said. “I’m not okay with you stealing it from me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. You write the reports if you have such amazing spelling. See you tomorrow.”
And she left.
I tried to pretend it didn’t matter, but I was totally ticked off. I mean, who did she think she was, pickpocketing me? Where had she learned to do that? And why did she want to write the reports so badly, anyway?
I made sure the house was put back together, then walked home in the dark. I tried to push aside my Grace frustrations while I figured out what to do about Kimbal. The guy had left the country, so it sure seemed like he was running from something. I might as well tell Mr. S and Prière about the emails and where I’d found my journal. The way Grace was acting tonight, she’d likely report it herself.
I decided to pull an allnighter with the phone and call Prière tomorrow, though he’d probably show up at my house anyway to bake with Grandma. I had until morning to see if there was anything else on the phone worth knowing.
When I got home, I used Kimbal’s phone to jump on the WiFi. I forwarded the Kimbal/Diane emails to myself, then dug around some more. I made one more breakthrough, or so I thought. I found an email to Kimbal from Michael Renwat, the balding Asian international distributor that Diane had so desperately wanted me to glimpse on.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: meeting
I heard you are working with Diane again. I’ll be in the country next month and would love to get together. Give me a call and we’ll set something up.
Mike
PLAYNOW
6 rue Pernelle
72041 Paris - France
[email protected]
Tel. +33 1 52 10 37 95
I did a search, but there were no more emails from Renwat in the phone, and Kimbal hadn’t written back. My guess was he’d called the guy, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was who Kimbal had met in Paris.
It gave me an idea. I smiled and felt like the Grinch as I typed out an email to Diane. I didn’t want to use her email since she’d never given it to me, so I sent it to Ving’s Messenger.
Hey, Ving. Could you pass this on to Diane? I had a dream tonight and wanted to let her know. It was about my uncle, Dave Kimbal, and that Renwat guy she introduced me to at the New Year’s party. They were in a city. Somewhere in France, I think. They were walking down a street, talking about how long it had been since they’d seen each other. I thought it was weird and that Diane would want to know. Any idea how my uncle knows Mr. Renwat?
Spencer
Oh yes. I was good.
I hit send, then wrote a report about breaking into Kimbal’s place, finding the phone, and everything I’d gotten off it. I saved a copy on my desktop, then emailed it to Prière, Mr. S, and Watkins.
Donesville.
I was pretty sure these conversations were enough to get the attention of the Mission League’s Internal Profiling office. If they hadn’t already opened a file on Kimbal, they would soon.
No wonder he’d fled the country.
REPORT NUMBER: 22
REPORT TITLE: I Attend the Dawning Party of a Cult and Live to Tell the Tale
SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Spencer Garmond
LOCATION: Valeria Silver’s Residence, 979 Bel Air Road, Los Angeles, California, USA
DATE AND TIME: Thursday, March 7, 4:35 p.m.
Prière and Grandma were sitting beside each other on the upholstered chairs in the living room when I got home from basketball practice the next afternoon. Isaac was at the kitchen table, eating one of Grandma’s cinnamon rolls.
“You shouldn’t have broken into Dave’s house,” Grandma said.
I guess they’d read the report I’d sent out last night. I sank onto the couch across from Prière. “I felt like he was hiding something,” I said, “and I was right. He stole my journal.”
“Oui, that is true,” Prière said, “but because of how you came to find this information, the phone and journal cannot now be used as evidence in a trial.”
“Since I’m his nephew, I didn’t think anyone would accuse me of breaking in,” I said.
“How did you get in?” Isaac asked.
I shrugged. “Picked the lock on the back door.”
Grandma sighed. “That’s breaking in, Spencer.”
“Totally,” Isaac added.
“Nephew or not, the phone would still not be admissible in a trial,” Prière said.
My hopes sank. “So what? If I hadn’t found it, we wouldn’t know for sure that Kimbal had a connection to Diane. Now we do.”
Prière rubbed his mustache. “Oui, it is very disturbing.”
“So was I right, then, about my dad being innocent?”
“Spencer . . .” Grandma glared at me.
“Come on. The field office has to have translated his journal by now. They must know something.” I’d managed to finish a little over half on my own.
“I have something,” Isaac said, getting up from the table. He picked up a manila envelope I hadn’t seen sitting there and carried it to the living room. He fell onto the couch beside me and handed me the envelope. “Pictures from the surveillance cams in the bank.”
I tore open the envelope and pulled out a series of photos. The first was of me and Grace standing in the bank lobby. I continued through the stack.
And there he was.
My father was wearing a straw fedora. From one side, he looked identical to Kimbal, except I’d never seen Kimbal wear slacks, loafers, and a hat like that. From the other side, his face was burned. It wasn’t all that easy to see with the hat and the angle of the camera, but they’d enlarged it a great deal. No way this person was Kimbal.
“They confirm identification?” I asked.
“They believe this is Aleksander Halvorsen,” Isaac said.
I looked at Grandma. The light coming in through the window glared on her glasses, so I shifted to see her yes. “What do you think?” I asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” she said.
I paged through the rest of the photos, then came to a plastic sheet protector. Inside were pages cut from my dad’s journal. The pages he’d written about his life and me.
My throat grew tight, and I swallowed.
“Moreland said those weren’t part of the intercessor’s journal, so they aren’t Mission League property,” Isaac said. “He thought you might want them.”
“Thanks,” I said, sitting very still and trying to rein in my emotions. “I don’t suppose you got word on Kimbal’s alibi from the night my mom died?”
Isaac nodded to the pages I was holding. “There’s one more there,” he said.
Under the sheet protector, I found a transcription from an interview that had been done at the field office years ago. I scanned it, expecting to see the name Liam Halvorsen. But it was a different name that jumped out at me.
“Anastasia Vespa?” I asked, scanning the words. Something about dinner and dancing with Liam Halvorsen.
“Agent Kimbal’s alibi,” Isaac said. “He was on a date the night of the fire.”
The hairs on my arms stood at attention. “With someone named Anyastasia?”
“Pictures were a match to her,” Isaac said. “Moreland has reopened the case.”
I sat back on the couch, slouching against the cushions. Again I met Grandma’s gaze, and this time there were tears.
“He fooled us all, Grandma,” I said.
“No one more than me,” she said. “And if he did what you think he did, he will be brought to justice.”
I shivered at her icy tone and knew she’d been excellent at her job of catching bad agents.
Kimbal didn’t stand a chance.
● ● ●
My basketball team beat St. Augustine on Wednesday, but before I could even think about Saturday’s game against Crenshaw, Grace and I would be going to Valeria Silver’s Dawning Party Friday night. I imagined it would be like Kip’s Jolt Revolt party, just like any other party until someone broke out the iVitrax-laced brownies and tried to hold a séance.
I might have thought this was no big deal, but before we left, we had a meeting at my house to prepare. Joining me, Grace, and my grandma, was Mrs. Thomas, Mr. S, Prière, a Mystery Sloan, Bridges, and Isaac, who’d brought a duffle bag filled with what he called toys.
The first thing he pulled out was a small, rectangular Band-Aid. “This here is an S. O. S. bandage. Where do you want it?”
I lifted up the sleeve of my T-shirt, baring my shoulder. “What’s it do?”
Isaac stuck the Band-Aid to my shoulder. “If you get in trouble, peel it off, and fold it in half. It’ll break the pod under the cotton, which will trigger the beacon and message my phone.”
“Nice,” I said. “I assume you’ll be tracking us through my necklace.”
“I’ll be tracking you through your necklace,” Isaac said. “I brought Grace some bling of her own.” He went back to the duffle bag and pulled out a little black box.
“Isaac, you shouldn’t have,” Grace said.
He removed the lid and grinned. “You’d look good in a necklace, but I thought these might be more your style.”
They were a pair of earrings, silver ones that were shaped like little megaphones with the word “CHEER” engraved into them.
Grace gasped. “They’re adorable! I can’t believe you have earrings with trackers.”
“We don’t,” Isaac said. “But we can put our trackers in anything, so I went shopping.”
She took the earrings and started to put one on. “You are so thoughtful. And brilliant.”
“About time someone noticed,” Isaac said. “Now, where do you want your Band-Aid?”
Grace sat down and had him stick hers on her ankle while she put on her other earring.
“If you get into any trouble at all, activate the beacon,” Grandma said.
“And don’t forget that your phone can take recordings,” Prière added.
“Go right to the field office afterwards for a drug and alcohol test,” Mr. S said.
“Do you need the address for the field office?” Prière asked.
“I’ve got it,” I said. “Everyone stop worrying. We’ll be fine.”
They didn’t stop worrying. It took us another twenty minutes to get out the door, and another ten before we were able to drive away.
“How late are we?” Grace asked as I headed toward the freeway.
“We’ll make it,” I said, but by the time we hit the 101, traffic was already slowing to a crawl. No way was I going to risk the 405. I’d just drive over the mountain like I did to get to Brittany’s place, but since Valeria lived in Bel Air, I had to stay on the freeway all the way to Sherman Oaks. I got off on Woodman, then took Ventura to Beverly Glen Boulevard and started up the mountain.
“Lot of people out tonight,” I said.
“Hope they’re not all going to the Dawning Party,” Grace said.
I doubted that very much.
I filled Grace in on the information Isaac had brought me about Kimbal.
“I’m sorry, Spencer,” Grace said. “I know what it’s like when someone you love betrays you.”
“Yeah, I don’t much care for it,” I said.
“I’ve been talking to Brittany a lot lately,” she said.
“Yeah? What about?”
“Valeria. You said they’d gotten into that fight New Year’s Eve, so I figured it was a good place to start. I think Valeria is jealous of Brittany’s success. She also doesn’t like that Brittany isn’t as into the cult as she is.”
“What does that mean?”
“Brittany doesn’t want to make the cult her whole life, and Valeria says she’s being lazy. I think all the séance stuff actually scares Brittany.”
“It should.”
“So far I’ve just been asking questions and listening, but I was thinking about telling her about my faith and how it helped me. Do you think I should?”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s always a good idea.”
“I’m worried it might freak her out, you know? And if it did, it might mess up my investigation.”
“I hear you. But there’s that verse in Timothy about God not giving us a spirit of fear. And then it says not to be ashamed of our testimony. That’s part of our life. Brittany won’t get mad at you for talking about your life. So maybe just tell her about you and leave out the ‘you should try it’ part.”
“That’s a good idea. Thanks.” Grace smiled, and I suddenly felt very mature and adultish.
Once we passed Mulholland, we’d pretty much reached the top of the mountain. Then the road narrow
ed and there were signs warning of the downhill grade. For a while, things looked a lot like Brittany’s neighborhood, with hedges, hidden driveways, and garages almost at the curb.
About five miles from Mulholland, we turned right onto St. Pierre Road and things started looking ritzy. Every driveway was gated. The Banana shifted to handle the sudden incline as we wound up through the hills, passing one mansion after another. Took a right onto St. Cloud Road and another right onto Bel Air Road, still climbing. We saw nothing but hedges, sculpted hedge trees, fences, brick walls, and impressive gates, all hiding the mansions from view.
Finally we reached 979 Bel Air, which was a fancy brick driveway with stucco half walls on each side, shadowed by tall but sparse Ponderosa Pines. I pulled into the driveway and stopped at an intercom box. I gave my name, and the brown wooden gates swung inward. I pulled up into an open area paved in the same brick as the driveway. The place was already packed with twenty-some cars. I wedged the Banana between a white Fiat and a Honda Accord.
“This place is beautiful,” Grace said.
It was an impressive house, that was for sure. Two stories covered in beige stucco to match the half wall that had lined the driveway. The place had a red, Spanish-style roof and narrow sage green shutters on all the windows. It screamed sophistication and money yet wasn’t one of those modern houses that was trying too hard, like Brittany’s house of half glass.
“Let’s pray first, okay?” Grace said. “I’m actually kind of scared.”
“Good idea,” I said.
Grace started the prayer and I finished. Then we got out and headed for the door. A guy in a black suit started toward us. He was carrying a clipboard.
“Names?” he asked.
We gave him our names. He must have found us on his list because he walked us to the house and opened the front door. “Enjoy.”
Just inside the foyer, a table had been set up before a curtained archway that led deeper into the house. Two women were sitting on chairs behind the table. There were four people in line ahead of us. It wasn’t long before we made it to the front. We gave our names and the women gave us all kinds of stuff: an envelope with our name, nametags, swag bags, and T-shirts. But they made us leave it there—our phones too.
The Profile Match Page 20