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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.
