Arts and Thefts

by Allison K. Hymas

  “Let’s hope Aaron doesn’t see me either,” she said.

  “No sign of him yet?”

  “Nothing. Though that’s not encouraging, since nobody saw anything at Diana’s or Justin’s paintings.”

  “Fair point. I’m going to go check with Becca. See if anything happened with her.”

  I left and speed-walked toward the photography section, thinking about what Larissa had said. No one had seen anything when the other sabotages happened. Why? How were the saboteurs doing it?

  I was so deep in thought that I almost ran into Becca coming from the opposite direction.

  Before I could say anything, Becca said, “I’m not abandoning anything. The judges showed up, judged Henry’s piece along with a bunch of other ones, and left. No reason to guard his anymore. They’re running really late.”

  “No kidding,” I said. “They got held up by the investigations.”

  “The park is emptier,” Becca said. “Even the volunteers are heading to the tent. The saboteurs have a better chance to attack now.”

  “At least we have a window to catch these guys. Case thinks the judges haven’t seen the sculptures yet at all. And apparently, ‘everyone knows Sandra will take Best Overall.’ ”

  Becca’s eyes widened. “They’re going after Sandra. We have to get to the sculpture garden.”

  “Do that. I want to check on Case’s picture first.”

  “He probably got judged hours ago. He’s fine.”

  “Maybe, but I want to see for myself.”

  Becca nodded and hurried to help Larissa, and I moved toward Case’s painting. There it was, on Wall C, with nothing amiss. Perfectly safe. I heaved a sigh of relief and started walking back to the sculpture garden.

  How were the saboteurs doing it? How could they get close enough to the art to ruin it when the paths weren’t as empty as they were now? It didn’t make any sense.

  A couple of volunteers, both teenage girls, were shutting down a snow-cone stand. One of them had spilled some syrup on her vest and was trying to rub the blue out of the orange.

  Pressure seemed to build in my head as I watched the volunteers. Vests. Orange vests, like Aaron’s, designating them as trusted employees. Uniforms.

  Have you ever noticed that people in uniform don’t get seen? I’d told Becca. The uniform is seen and processed, but not the face. People in uniform blend into the background.

  That might be it! An orange vest, worn at the right moments, prevented anyone from really seeing or caring what they were doing. It’s not strange for an art contest employee to be near the art; no one would think anything of it!

  Aaron could have easily walked up to Justin’s art and smeared paint on with a sponge. But what about Diana’s sabotage? That wasn’t Aaron. How did that saboteur escape notice?

  The vest was with his partner. His partner took the vest to hide in plain sight while attacking Diana. He must have returned it to him later, before I saw Lee and Aaron talking.

  My heart stopped. Lee. Aaron. Talking like they knew each other. Lee hadn’t been wearing his gray vest then. But Aaron had been wearing his orange one. I’d never seen the two of them wearing their vests at the same time, not even that first time when Aaron had gotten Becca and me into the tent.

  It made sense. Diana had said she hadn’t seen Lee, but if Lee had been disguised as a volunteer, wearing the orange vest, Diana might not have realized who he was even if she had seen him near when the sabotage had been committed.

  Hands shaking, I pulled out Becca’s camera and flipped through the pictures she had taken of the pictures on Lee’s camera. Photo after photo of Quinn, and there it was: the picture with them and their art. There was Quinn’s hamster painting. And there was Lee with his melting Rubik’s Cube.

  The Rubik’s Cube with the shiny paint. The paint like house paint. Recycled house paint, used by an artist with a pricey medium. As discussed in a conversation between two people who weren’t supposed to know each other.

  I do one favor for the guy and he thinks he owns me, Aaron had said. A favor like sabotage?

  Red paint. Orange vest. Gray vest. Two saboteurs. Wow, I can be stupid sometimes.

  Lee. Where had I seen him last? Heading away from the sculpture garden, and he was wearing the vest. He was going to attack someone. He was going to do it soon.

  I had to stop him. I ran through the deserted paths.

  My skin prickled. I was hyper-alert, noticing everything from the wasp sting on a kid’s elbow to the way parents have a certain look on their faces when they run into their friends. (The kids have a look too. Theirs can best be described as, “Oh no, this is going to take forever.”)

  No sign of him. Where was he?

  I kept moving. Man, I wished I had some awesome spy music to listen to while I did this. It was so intense, searching for Lee. I had to stop him. I did. Becca, Quinn, and Larissa were looking for Aaron, and I didn’t have time to warn them about Lee. This one was on me.

  Think, Wilderson. He’d been walking away from the sculpture garden. Where was he going instead? Was Hack right? Was Lee going to ruin the awards ceremony itself ?

  I raced past the aisles, looking down each one. It was faster but no more fruitful. Nothing in the paintings, nothing in the photographs—and then I was at the tent, and there he was.

  People were talking, walking into the tent, ready for a ceremony that would have to be late. Lee stood outside the tent, to the side, alone. Just staring at his phone. Not typing a message or laughing or anything else people do when looking at a phone. Weird.

  This was my chance, while he was distracted. I circled behind him and tugged on his gray vest’s collar hard enough to pull him backward.

  “Hey!” When Lee saw who I was, he narrowed his eyes. “You. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I thought I saw a spider,” I said. “Just getting it for you.”

  “Some detective you are,” he said. “First you accuse two innocent girls of a horrible crime, and now you’re seeing bugs where they have no business being.” He sounded offended that I’d insinuate that spiders would ever touch him with their dirty little legs.

  “My bad,” I said. “But maybe you can help me. I have a question for you that may get the Eccles sisters in the clear.”

  I’d said the magic words; Lee paused and looked at me.

  Smiling, I said, “Why is your vest bright orange on the inside?”

  LEE’S EYES WIDENED AND HIS jaw dropped. He took a step back, and I moved toward him, smiling. I had him and he knew it. He was wearing his evidence, and I’d bet the phone had some incriminating texts on it. Nothing would stop justice from taking him down.

  “We got you,” I said. “Come quietly, and don’t make a fuss.” I reached out for Lee.

  Before I could touch him, a crash echoed through the empty park. It had come from the sculpture garden. Lee’s mouth curved into a triumphant smile.

  Sandra. My head whipped toward the sound, my gaze following volunteers and officials hurrying toward the commotion.

  When I turned back, Lee was gone. I saw his back disappear into the twisting paths.

  That little monster. I pictured wax slamming against the concrete central area of the park, shattering.

  I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. We’d lost. Sandra had lost.

  No. I couldn’t accept that. I knew who the saboteurs were. The least I could do was make sure they didn’t get away with it.

  Moving slowly at first, but gaining speed, I ran into the paths after Lee.

  I swear, I heard Becca’s voice in my head as I ran: If you don’t catch that little saboteur, I will personally drag you into detention as soon as we get back to school.

  So I did. I ran deep into the photography and paintings, chasing someone who was already too far ahead for me to see.

  Maybe I should contact my eyes in the sky. I pulled out my phone to call Quinn. Larissa had sent me messages from Becca’s phone. You have to see this, she said, and
had attached pictures of art carnage. Sculpture pieces lay strewn on the ground.

  I stopped and looked at the pictures. Oh, wow. Putting the phone away, I smiled grimly. Lee was going to suffer.

  But first I had to find him. I cleared Wall D and dashed into C.

  And there he was, standing in the empty path, like he was just admiring the art, his vest hanging open so I could see the orange lining.

  “Here to bring me in, ‘detective’?” he said, putting air quotes around the word.

  It took everything in me not to grab the guy by the collar and slam him up between the art. “How could you?” I asked. “You sabotaged artists. You attacked Sandra. No one deserved to have you or Aaron destroy the art they worked so hard on.”

  Lee shrugged, totally unsurprised when I said Sandra had been sabotaged. Like I knew he would be. “Why would you care? It’s not really your line of work, is it, thief ?”

  Lee was playing with his phone, flipping it over in his hands, unperturbed.

  “I’m not a thief.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Retrieval specialist, right? I hear you prefer to be called that.”

  “What else have you heard?” I didn’t like this. Instead of running, Lee was playing some kind of game, and I didn’t know what it was.

  “Enough to know that sabotage isn’t really your area of expertise. I’d understand if you were here to steal back someone’s stolen art, but this? Shouldn’t you leave this to Becca Mills?”

  “What do you know about Becca?” I asked.

  “Lots of things. I know she has an impressive case history. Her work with the gum-smuggling ring is inspired. And the mystery-meat recipe case? Amazing.”

  I took a step closer to him and placed my hand in my pocket. It rested right on top of Becca’s camera. “How do you know about Becca? You don’t go to our school. Those cases had nothing to do with you.”

  “Same way I knew about you, though, I admit, I was warned about Becca. You showing up was a surprise.”

  “Who warned you?”

  “Someone who likes to follow your careers. Both of yours. Great work on that Mark case, by the way. Really clever how you tricked him into bringing the key into school in his pocket. Excellent teamwork, I have to say.”

  “How?” No one knew Becca and I had worked together on the Mark job. No one. We made sure no one knew.

  Lee shrugged. “You ask the right people, you get the right answers. After I saw you viciously attack an innocent girl and her sister, I became very interested in who this Jeremy really was. A thief who works with a detective. Talk about identity crisis.”

  “Who did you talk to?” I needed to know. If word was out about Becca and me, if Case and Hack found out . . .

  “Someone who knows everything about what happens in Scottsville.”

  “A name, Lee.”

  “Not telling.”

  “That’s it. It’s over. I know who you are and what you did. Come quietly and maybe the Detectives Mills will go easy on you.”

  Lee smirked. “I’m not going anywhere. You won’t tell anyone about me. You know why?”

  This couldn’t be good. “Why?”

  “You tell anyone about what I’ve done today, I’ll tell Casey Kingston and Paul ‘Hack’ Heigel who you spent all day with. Yes, my source told me about them, too.”

  My blood ran cold. Looking at him, his eyes cold like a shark’s, I knew he would do it. “I’ve had it backward,” I said. “I thought Aaron was the mastermind. But it was you the whole time.”

  He scoffed. “Do you really think a finger painter could come up with a plan like this? It took foresight and the right connections. Aaron was convenient.”

  “Right, since he had access to the judges’ schedules and the orange vest you’re currently wearing. Too bad the schedule got messed up, and that only one of you could have the vest at a time.”

  Lee nodded. “A problem, but a small one. We had enough time to take out the top painters, like Aaron wanted, and you just heard him finish the job.”

  “If he’s out there now, how come you’re the one with the vest? Did your plan get that out of control, or do you just not care if Aaron gets caught?”

  He gestured at the empty walkway. “Have you seen how empty the park is now? A bright orange vest would stand out. It’s better for him to look like everyone else. Besides, why should I care what happens now that he’s taken out my biggest competition?”

  I clenched the fist not in my pocket. “How dare you? Sandra did nothing to you. You could have won on your own merit.”

  “You bet I could.”

  “Then why didn’t you trust that to save the day? How did you even meet Aaron?” I sputtered, before I realized. “Your mysterious source. Of course.”

  “My friend told me about a disgraced painter who might be willing to take out a little of my competition, for the right price.”

  “What was that price, by the way?”

  Lee smiled. “My source gets half my winnings for setting this up. Aaron did it just for the revenge. The torment he’s endured over the last year has made him very angry, and I had a need for that anger. The partnership made sense. My friend agreed.”

  It was my turn to scoff. “Sure, because anger is always such a good thing to have. You watch out or my anger is going to be a big problem for you.”

  He smirked. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Oh wait, that’s your thing, isn’t it?”

  I wanted to hit him. But I held it together. “And I thought sculpture was your thing,” I said. “That can’t be true, though. You don’t even trust yourself to win without resorting to sabotage. Wow. What a great artist.”

  Lee scowled. “You don’t know what it’s like. Imagine working so hard, just so she—just so you can win this contest. Then you find out the prize is even better than you thought, and you can go to Harris Arts and then . . . and then . . .”

  “And then Quinn would notice you,” I finished. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? The girl next door? That’s why you used your parents’ leftover house paint to spice up your sculpture by painting it. That’s why you took that same paint and slathered it all over your competition.”

  “That paint was supposed to help me win the contest,” Lee grumbled. “If it wasn’t going to work on my art, it could do its job covering everyone else’s art.”

  “And all this for a girl.”

  “She’s not just some girl! She—” Lee bit his lip. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “So explain it to me. How can a guy like you, using recycled materials in his art, get a girl like that to notice you?”

  “By being better! By winning. By doing what it took to outshine everyone else!”

  Lee’s eyes were wild. I was hitting some pretty raw nerves. I kept going.

  “Like getting help, long before the contest even started. Before you knew the prize was going to change.”

  “The prize didn’t matter to me. Winning was the only thing that mattered, right from the start.”

  “Winning? Not having a good time while still following the rules?”

  “Rules?” Lee laughed. “There are no rules in art. There’s only what you can do.”

  I took another step closer. “So what could you do, Lee?”

  He looked at me like I had empty tubes of paint for brains. “What could I do? I could talk to a friend and get a partner to help me. I could make Aaron’s orange vest reversible so we could use it to get close to the art and then flip it around and hide in the crowds again. I could bring the can of paint my parents used to paint the kitchen and keep it in a toolshed by the tent. I could sabotage Diana while Aaron distracted the crowd, and I could hand him the vest as he went to get Justin.”

  “Then you could hurry to the tent to make sure you had an alibi,” I said, another piece of the puzzle snapping into place. “After all, if Aaron got caught, you could claim innocence and that untalented hack of a finger painter would go down for your dastardly plan.”r />
  “Exactly.”

  I shook my head. “You did all of this, just to get the attention of a girl?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Well, you got her attention, but not in any good way. Don’t you remember? Because of what you did, Quinn got accused instead. You threw her to the wolves. That’s cold, man. You didn’t even throw blame elsewhere when I accused her.”

  Lee looked at the ground, nervous or ashamed, I couldn’t tell. “I didn’t feel bad letting you chase her. I knew it would throw Becca off my trail, and in the end, Quinn wouldn’t get blamed. She’s too sweet and clearly innocent except to lunatics like you.”

  “So you win the contest but lose the girl. That sounds like a great trade, all things considered.”

  “I won’t lose her,” Lee said. “Because I’m not getting caught. Aaron might be, but not me because you’re going to let me go. You won’t tell anyone about our little conversation because you don’t want your friends knowing that you ditched them all day to play detective with Scottsville Middle’s best snoop. What would Casey say?”

  Nothing good. But never let them see you sweat. I shrugged, showing more confidence than I felt. “I’m sure Case will understand in time. See, everything I have done today has been to protect my friends. But I’ve seen how you treat your friends. You are awful to Ethan. As for other people, well, that’s obvious. You attacked Sandra. You sabotaged Diana’s painting. How dare you stand there and pretend that you’re going to get away with all of this?”

  “Because I will!” Lee yelled. “Diana, Justin, and Sandra didn’t deserve Best Overall; I did. So I covered Diana’s art with paint.” His eyes sparkled. “And Aaron took care of Justin and Sandra. Nothing stands in my way anymore. I’m going to win.”

  “Not if you’re disqualified. Becca was watching Sandra’s sculpture. She probably has Aaron in custody now. He’ll talk. He’ll tell the cops what you did.”

  “Weren’t you listening?” Lee said, laughing. “Aaron sabotaged Justin’s painting and Sandra’s statue. He has things to hide too. He won’t say anything.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But you’ve already done it for him. I think I have what I need.”