Sleepover Stakeout (9780545443111) (4 page)

Apparently,
Zane had been waiting for me while I was waiting for him. We must have passed in the hallway, but since I was apparently half blind, I hadn't noticed. Now, though, as I rounded the corner, I saw him leaning against my locker. And, I swear, when he saw me, his eyes lit up.

My heart did a little flutter thing, but I told myself to be brave.

“So,” I said when I reached the locker, “what's your secret?”

Zane's eyes widened. His mouth dropped open and he didn't say anything at first. Then, “Secret? What do you mean?”

“Saturday night … you said you had to tell me something.”

“Oh, right.” His expression returned to normal, relieved even. “It's not a secret, though. Just something you guys need to know.”

You guys.
Meaning me, Darcy, maybe Maya. He wasn't spilling whatever secret he had right now. Though, from the look on his face, he definitely had one.

“What do we need to know?” Darcy asked.

“When we were walking home from school last Friday,” Zane began, “Maya told me you guys had opened a case to help her figure out that weird voice she'd heard. She told me you were coming over for a sleepover Saturday night and she was soooo excited. She was actually talking loud for once. Maybe … too loud.”

Darcy scratched at her dark mop of hair. “Go on….”

“Hunter was walking behind us,” Zane said. “I can't be sure if he heard or not, but —”

“There's a chance he knew we were having the sleepover,” I said, filling in the rest. “And he might have done the voice thing, to freak us out.”

“So he didn't come outside because he heard us walking through his yard,” Darcy chimed in. “He knew about everything ahead of time. He'd set it up.”

“Maybe,” I said, not wanting to get ahead of ourselves. “There's also a chance he
didn't
hear your conversation, right?”

Zane nodded. “I can't be sure either way. I just thought you should know.”

“Thanks.” I smiled.

Darcy's phone buzzed and she checked it. “Fiona just texted. She's at the café already and has three cookies with our names on them.”

As much as I wanted to stay and chat with Zane longer, you can't keep Darcy from waiting cookies. So I was whisked away with barely enough time to wave good-bye.

 

“I
don't know if this is possible, but it tastes even better this time,” Darcy said through a mouthful of cookie.

The Java Lamp was busy. Conversation and laughter filled the air while music played lightly from the speakers in the ceiling.

I nibbled at my cookie. Darcy was right — it was fantastic. I took small bites to make it last longer. Even though, compared to other cookies, this one was Jupiter-size. (That's the largest planet in our solar system. Just so you know.)

“Thank you, Abigail Mattimore,” Darcy said, and we all laughed. If Abigail hadn't gone all psycho over where Trey went on Fridays, we wouldn't have been on the case that led us here.

We all held our cookies up and toasted. “To Abigail!”

We filled Fiona in on everything that had happened on Saturday night, including Slade's threat about the Old Witch, and Zane's warning about Hunter.

“So now we're thinking it might all be some sort of prank,” Darcy finished up.

“Did anyone talk to Maya today?” Fiona asked.

“I didn't,” I said, feeling a little bit guilty about it. But, in my defense, I had a lot on my mind. A bad grade on my science quiz, the possibility of wearing glasses the rest of my life, and Zane, for starters. Still, I should have stopped and said hi to Maya at some point, even if we didn't have anything new on the case.

Darcy chugged from her glass, leaving a chocolate milk mustache above her lip. “I didn't either. But, to be honest, I barely notice the girl. She's so small and quiet.”

I frowned, imagining what it must be like moving to town in the seventh grade when all the other kids know one another. Add Maya's natural shyness on top of it …

“We should try harder to talk to her during the day,” I said. “She's only lived here a few weeks and has no friends.”

Darcy said, “But she's a client.”

“So?” I crossed my arms. “Fiona was a client and now she's our friend. Aren't you glad we talked to her?”

“She
did
buy me this cookie,” Darcy said with a smirk. Fiona jokingly stuck her tongue out at her.

“Moving on,” I said. “Let's make a list of suspects.”

Darcy whipped her case notebook out of her backpack. It was just a regular notebook with a black cover, but we used it only for Partners in Crime business.

“Let's start with the obvious,” I said. “Hunter Fisk.”

“Evidence?” Darcy said, pencil poised to fill in the column.

I listed off, “He lives right next door to Maya. He may have heard that we were coming over. And he just
happened
to come outside to scare us when we were investigating. Plus, he has a history of teasing Maya.”

Darcy finished writing and moved on to the next column. “Motive?”

I thought for a moment. “Does being a jerk in general count?”

Darcy nodded. “I'll write ‘bully behavior.'”

Fiona had been twirling a strand of hair around her finger while we talked. Now she stopped and said, “Wait a second. Hunter heard about the sleepover the day before.”

“Yeah, so,” Darcy said.

“But Maya first heard the voice long before that,” Fiona said.

Duh!
I'd always underestimated Fiona's smarts. “That's true,” I said to Darcy. “She heard it on two Saturdays before Hunter knew about our sleepover. So maybe Hunter came out to scare us the night of the sleepover, but he has nothing to do with the voice.”

Darcy frowned at this complication. “Next suspect.”

“What about the Old Witch?” Fiona asked.

“That's just a story,” I said. “She doesn't abduct kids or any of that stuff.”

“Yeah, but the voice still could've been her, right?” Fiona said.

Good point.
I nodded and Darcy spoke as she wrote. “Evidence: lives across the street, is creepy. Motive: to eat children.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please.”

Darcy snickered. “It's in pencil. I can always change it.”

“Okay, next suspect,” I said, wanting to move this thing along.

Darcy tapped the pencil on the table. “Zane Munro.”

I gasped. “What?”

Darcy shrugged. “We have as much evidence on him as we do the others. He lives a couple houses down from Maya.
And
he was outside the night of the sleepover.”

I stammered, “But — but he would never! What motive could he possibly have?”

Darcy held her hands up. “I have ‘to eat children' down as one motive here. Obviously, it's too early in the case for motives. We can't exclude any suspects from the list just because you have a huge crush on them.”

My face turned a fiery red. If I were a volcano, hot steaming magma would have been shooting out of my head.

“Girls, girls,” Fiona said. “Let's focus on facts here. Right now, any neighbors of Maya's are suspects.”

“And really,” I said, “
suspect
is too harsh a word. The person didn't do anything wrong.”

“Creeping Maya out is wrong,” Darcy said.

“But we still don't know for sure that someone's trying to scare Maya,” I protested. “Isn't it more likely that something is really going on outside on Saturday nights, and whoever is involved has no idea that Maya can hear them on the baby monitor?”

Fiona leaned back in her chair. “How could a baby monitor just pick up a conversation from outside the house? I think we need to know more about how those baby monitor thingies work.”

Darcy reached into her backpack and whipped out a bunch of papers she had printed out from various websites. “Done!”

I looked through the stack. There was a lot of tech jargon and articles about frequency interference. Darcy had really done her research. Unfortunately, she'd have to translate.

The song playing through the café speakers ended and I waited for a few seconds until the next song started. We didn't need to whisper when the music covered our conversation.

“What does all this mean?” I asked.

Darcy folded her hands on top of the table. “Imagine that the baby monitor is like a tiny radio station. And the little plastic antenna is the radio station's transmitter. Anyone within range of the radio station can pick up whatever music is playing, as long as they have a radio.”

Following along, I said, “So anyone who has the same baby monitor can hear whatever is said?”

“It doesn't even have to be the same one. Or even a baby monitor. It just has to use the same frequency and be within the range.”

“What do you mean, frequency?” Fiona asked.

“It's like a bandwidth … or a channel. So as long as someone is transmitting on that channel, whether it's from another baby monitor, a CB radio, a walkie-talkie, or whatever, if they're in range, then you can possibly hear it on your monitor.”

I flipped to the next page in Darcy's stack and saw an article about problems with baby monitors in close quarters. “What's this all about?”

Darcy looked at the article. “Oh, it's about the challenges people face when there are several families living in the same apartment building. If they have the most common types of baby monitors, they can hear all sorts of stuff from each other's apartments. So they have to be sure to buy a more expensive monitor or one that doesn't work on the same frequency as their neighbors.”

“What kind does Maya's family have?” Fiona said.

Darcy grinned. “Interesting that you ask.” She pulled the bottom paper from the stack. “Theirs is the Baby Sounds 2000. The most inexpensive model, at only sixteen dollars. And therefore one of the most common.”

“So maybe all we have to do is figure out if any of her neighbors have the same one,” I said.

“How do we do that?” Fiona said.

“We can start by seeing if anyone even has a baby,” Darcy said. “Maya probably wouldn't know, though, since she just moved in.”

Hmm. That was true. And she was shy enough talking to her peers. Talking to strangers must be even worse. “We could find a way to ask around,” I suggested. “But first we need to know what the range is, right?” I aimed my question at Darcy since she was the pro at tech stuff.

Darcy drummed her black-painted fingernails on the tabletop and smiled. “Leave that to me.”

I
slid into my seat in social studies a few minutes before the bell. The required reading pages for that night were written on the board, so I pulled out my notebook to copy them down. I reminded myself to double-and triple-check afterward that I'd written the right numbers.

Darcy sat next to me and peered at my notebook. “What are you doing, testing your signature?” She added in a dreamy, singsong voice, “Ms. Munro. Mrs. Norah Munro. Mrs. Norah Burridge-Munro.”

I resisted the urge to cover her mouth with my hand. “I'm copying the assignment off the board, Darcy,” I hissed. “You should be doing the same thing.”

Darcy chuckled. But then she stopped. “Why are you making that face? You're not really mad, are you? You know I'm just kidding around.”

Totally confused, I said, “What face?”

“That squinty-eyed look you were just giving the board. Like you wanted to kill it.”

I groaned. In all the case drama, I hadn't had a chance to tell my BFF about my news. “I'm squinting because I can't read the board very well. I might … need glasses.”

“Oh,” Darcy said slowly, making a giant O with her mouth. “When did you find out? Why didn't you tell me sooner?”

I felt a pang of guilt. It was true; Darcy and I usually told each other everything immediately. “Just yesterday,” I explained. “I'm going to the eye place tonight.” After reading the note from Mr. Mahoney, Mom and Dad had spared no time in getting me a quick appointment at an eyeglass place at the mall. They also conveniently make your glasses in one hour as you wait, so tomorrow I could be showing up at school with four eyes.

Darcy shook her head. “And I'm getting my stupid braces on this afternoon!”

I patted her hand. “That stinks. I'm sorry,” I said sadly.

“But hey,” Darcy said, brightening, “I did some Internet research last night on the range of Maya's baby monitor. I have computer lab next. If I finish the class work early, I'm going to use the rest of the time to figure out the area of Maya's neighborhood we have to work with.”

“Cool,” I said. I had no doubt she'd finish her computer work early.

Mrs. Feldman, our social studies teacher, strolled in and started talking about a new project we had to work on: a paper on World War II. She said, “You can work on this project individually or in teams of two.”

Darcy looked over at me and whispered, “Partners?”

“Always,” I said back with a smile.

 

After
the last bell, Fiona came up to my locker and said, “Close your eyes and say ‘oh' real slow.”

Um, ooookay. Though I was suspicious, I let my eyes close and said, “Ohhhhhh,” until I felt a gooey grossness on my lips. My eyes snapped open and caught Fiona with a little pink wand in her hand. It was a lip gloss sneak attack.

“What are you doing?” I snapped.

Fiona shook her head and capped the gloss. “It was wrong.”

“Yeah, no kidding. You can't just walk up to some unsuspecting person and makeup them.”

She rolled her eyes and put one hand on the hip of her belted red sweaterdress. “I'm not saying I
did
anything wrong. I'm saying my
idea
was wrong. I thought the thing your look was missing was a little shimmering lip color. But that's not it.”

I almost growled at her. “Fiona. Just give up already. I look how I look.”

She tilted her head to the side. “When astrologers find some new thing in the sky and they don't know what it is, do they give up?”

“It's astronomers, actually, but no, they don't.”

“Then I'm not giving up either. I will find the right stylistic choice for you. If it's the last thing I do!” She raised her fist in the air dramatically.

Darcy chose that moment to walk up to my locker. She raised her eyebrows. “I don't know if I should ask what's going on or run like the wind.”

“Run,” I said, laughing. “Run while you can.”

She waved a piece of paper in the air. “But then I wouldn't be able to show you guys where our suspects live….”

I snatched the paper out of her hand. “You did it? You figured out the range? You're a genius!”

Darcy gave a little bow.

Fiona peeked over my shoulder. “What are we looking at here?”

I squinted at the paper. Now that I realized I was doing it so much, it seemed like I was squinting all the time. I brought it closer to my face, and the photo got clearer. It was a satellite picture, an aerial view. “This is Maya's neighborhood,” I said.

“Once I found out the range of the baby monitor,” Darcy explained, “I figured out the radius around Maya's house that her monitor could pick up. Then I used Google Earth and Maps to create this.”

“Go, you!” Fiona said to Darcy, sounding impressed. I was impressed as well, but I'd expect nothing less from my tech-savvy BFF.

Darcy pointed at the house in the center. “That's Maya's.” Her finger moved down and to the left. “This is Hunter's.”

And the one to the left of that was Zane's, I thought to myself.

A red circle was drawn over the map, with Maya's house in the middle. Inside the circle were two houses across the street, a large chunk of the woods behind Maya's house, one big house to the right, Hunter's house on the left, and half of Zane's house.

“So,” I said, “if we stood in any area inside the circle and used some equipment that transmitted on that frequency, Maya could hear it on her monitor?”

“As long as her monitor was on at the time, yeah,” Darcy said.

This was really good work. My heart pumped with anticipation. “Now we know exactly where it could be coming from,” I said. “Great job narrowing it down!”

Darcy beamed. “Thanks! And now we can case the neighborhood after school tomorrow and figure out if anyone in those houses has a baby.”

“Tomorrow?” I said. “Let's do it now!” I was really excited. This was our first solid lead.

“Yeah, I can't do it tomorrow,” Fiona said.

“But I can't do it now.” Darcy looked at me. “I'm getting my braces, remember?”

Oh yeah. But I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to get answers we could have now. “Fiona and I will do it today,” I said brightly. “And then we'll text you or call with what we find out.”

Darcy's expression soured. “But … what will you say to people when they come to the door? I'm the best liar in our agency,” she added modestly.

That was true. I was about to backtrack when Fiona said, “Leave it to me. I was the lead in the school play last year. Acting is just like lying, right?”

“Right,” Darcy said coolly. She put the piece of paper into my hand, turned on her heel, and left.

Fiona grimaced. “Wow, she's in a really bad mood because of those braces, huh?”

I nodded slowly but wasn't quite sure. I knew the idea of braces was bothering Darcy. But I had the feeling there was something more going on.

 

A
half hour later, Fiona and I parked our bikes in front of Maya's house. We had Darcy's map, and we had a plan. I knew our story, and Fiona said she'd do most of the talking. So now we just had to start knocking on doors. Meanwhile my nerves were knocking all around my stomach.

I'd been super excited at the prospect of getting answers, but now … not so much about walking up and talking to random strangers. Thankfully, Fiona had enough confidence for the both of us.

“Let's see,” she said, taking the map. “Half of the circled area is in the woods, so we can skip that, obviously. I know Hunter doesn't have any younger siblings, and his older brother's in college, so no baby monitors there. What about Zane?”

She raised her eyebrows at me. Like I was the authority on Zane Munro. I blushed. “He has a sister, but she's in high school,” I said sheepishly. “No babies.”

The corner of Fiona's mouth lifted up a bit. “We could knock on his door anyway, just to be sure….”

I gave her a look. “I get this enough from Darcy.”

Fiona waved the map at me. “I'm only teasing. I think your crush on him is adorable.”

I grimaced. “Wonderful. Glad I could entertain you. Moving on …”

Fiona returned her attention to the map. “I guess we should do the house on the other side of Maya's, then. After that, we'll do the ones across the street.”

Anything that got the topic of conversation off The Crush That Would Never Be Returned.

We walked down the sidewalk, skipping over cracks. I always avoided stepping on them, and it was funny to find that Fiona had the same habit. We reached the house on the other side of Maya's and stopped. It was green with dark red shutters. There were no telltale signs of kids — no swing set, basketball hoop, or abandoned tricycle. But there was one car in the driveway, so someone was home.

The owner apparently loved garden gnomes, because they lined the narrow path to the front door. There was a laughing gnome, a napping gnome, a golfing gnome, a guitar-playing gnome, and more. Except one spot where it looked like a gnome had been taken away, and only a small circle of dead grass remained. Maybe he went for gnome repair?

We got to the front door, and Fiona rang the bell. I stood beside her. My hands were fidgeting so much, I put them behind my back.

“Do you remember your lines?” I asked.

Fiona said, “No problem. It's just like a play.”

A moment later the front door swung inward and a face appeared behind the screen. He was bald, maybe in his late sixties, and he narrowed his eyes at us.

Oh no. A grumpy old man.

“What're you sellin'?” he snapped.

Fiona smiled wide. “We're not selling anything, sir. As part of a community service project, we're going door to door handing out coupons for diapers to any family with babies or toddlers.”

(And hoping that you didn't actually ask for those coupons … since we had none.)

We figured if someone really wanted the coupons, Fiona could turn to me, and I could pretend that I thought she'd brought them and we'd wander off pretend-confused.

Hey, we made it up on the way there. It was the best we could do.

The man's frown softened a bit as Fiona continued to flash her giant smile.

“My babies are thirty years old,” he said. “But that's a nice thing you're doing.”

“Thank you, sir,” Fiona said.

And then we backed away. Quickly, before he got grumpy again.

In the house across the street, we found a young woman who only had a million cats. No babies. That left us with only one more house to check.

The Old Witch's house.

Fiona and I stood before it, gazing. The house must have been beautiful years ago, but now it was kind of sad-looking. The pale blue paint was peeling. One of the wooden porch steps sagged. The yard was full of weeds that were probably taller than Maya. The black mailbox was a bit crooked on its post and the stenciled name,
WOLFSON
, was faded.

“Do we really need to knock on this door?” Fiona's voice trembled a bit. That confidence she'd had before seemed to disappear. “I mean, everyone knows she lives alone.”

“If anyone really lives there at all,” I whispered. I still wasn't convinced the old lady actually existed.

“Maybe we could just creep up and peek in the windows.” As Fiona pointed at the house, the silver bracelets on her wrist jangled.

“You're not exactly dressed for sneaking around,” I said, motioning at her loud jewelry. “Let's just go up to the front door and knock like normal people.”

“But she definitely doesn't have a baby,” Fiona insisted.

“Yeah, but the voice could still be her. Maybe she has a monitor for some other reason. Maybe she needs help right now! At the very least, we can get some clues.”

Fiona frowned. “Or get eaten.”

I shivered, but we slowly stepped forward, closer to the house. A tiny sound escaped Fiona's lips. Then another. Was she … holding back a giggle fit?

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She covered her mouth for a moment, then said, “Sorry. Sometimes I laugh when I get nervous. I can't help it. It happens during horror movies.”

“Well, this isn't a horror movie.”

“Tell that to the creepiest house in the world!” She pointed at the front door. “I mean, if that's not haunted, I don't know what is.”

“Let's just get this over with,” I said.

My heart started pounding faster, but my brain told me to move forward.
Use logic
, it said.
She's not a
kid-snatching witch. She's just a little old lady.
I gingerly stepped up the rickety porch steps and to the front door. I looked to my side, but Fiona wasn't there. I turned around.

She was still standing down on the grass.

“Fiona!” I hissed. “Get up here! You have to do your lines.”

She shook her head. “You do this one. I'll stay here.”

I groaned. It seemed I had no choice. My hands were shaking, but I lifted one in the air to make a fist, ready to knock on the door.

Before I could, though, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. The window to my left had a white lace curtain. And it moved, like someone had taken a peek at me.

“Norah?” Fiona said nervously. “Norah, let's go.”

No
, I thought. I'd come this far. I lifted my fist and knocked three times.

Only silence. I looked at the window again, but the curtain didn't move. I heard a scrape, like someone reaching across the door, maybe to open it. I took one step back.

“Norah! Come on!” Fiona yelled, more insistent now.

A thump came, then a dragging sound, then another thump … clump … clump … coming to a stop right behind the door.

I stepped forward and leaned my face near the wood. “Hello?” I called.