Finding the Forger (2 page)

“Listen,” Sarah continued, “you’re not coming up with suggestions—how will we get Kerrie to the party and keep it a surprise?”

“I could invite her over to my house,” I volunteered. “She could do my hair!” I looked at my watch. Speaking of hair, I was going to have to hurry if I wanted to be on time at Kerrie’s for today’s hair appointment. And I suspected Kerrie would be annoyed if I was late.

Sarah shrugged. “What if she won’t go? You know how she sometimes turns an invite out into one over to the house?” Sarah still wasn’t used to thinking of the Daniels family as her family, even in a temporary sense. So she always referred to their home as “the home” or “the house”—never “my home,” or “our house.”

“She’s interested in Russell Cooper, isn’t she? Maybe I can say he’s there or something.”

“Bianca, how in the world would you get Russell Cooper to your house? Does Doug know him?”

“Well, only a little.” Russell and Doug moved in different circles. While Doug was an average guy, Russell was on the debate team, taking AP Physics, AP Calculus,
and
AP English, and applying to Harvard and Yale next year. “But he’s a guy. Guys can ask guys to do things that girls can’t.”

Sarah let out an exasperated sigh. “That’s not the only problem. Getting the food and stuff in without Kerrie’s seeing is going to be a major hassle. And the invites and the music—I thought it would be neat to find any song we could with ‘sixteen’ in it and play it.”

“That would really embarrass her,” I said. “Good idea.”
Embarrassing your friends is, after all, a symbol of your deep affection for them.

“You need to do the invite list,” Sarah added. “I don’t have a handle on all her friends.”

“Okay,” I said, cringing. Putting together the invitation list would be a bear. Our school had a rule—no invitations given out at school unless the whole class is getting one. That meant I’d have to actually find addresses for people and send cards to their homes.

Hmmm . . . maybe this was something Doug and I could do together. Images of a cozy afternoon sitting at my kitchen table, hot chocolate in hand, music on the CD, family members secured in closets so they wouldn’t embarrass us, ran through my head. Could be fun. “I’d love to do it!” I finally said.

“The biggest challenge is going to be finding a day to do this,” Sarah said, crumpling the now-empty cellophane wrapper in her hand. She strode to a nearby trash bin and tossed the paper in. “Every time I suggest doing something lately, Kerrie backs off.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“She’s doing it to you, too?”

“Well, not exactly.” Actually, not at all. I sensed Sarah was nudging up to a heart-to-heart about Kerrie, which made me a little uncomfortable. Then again, the last time I’d turned a deaf ear to a friend’s problem had almost ended disastrously, so I stepped up to the plate and dived in, to mix metaphors. “I think she’s just a little grumpy because things aren’t the way they used to be.”

“But she was the one who insisted I stay with them!” Sarah straightened and stared into the distance. Sitting on her hands, she turned to me, her eyes shining with the unshed tears of the falsely accused. “She had to convince
me
!”

“Life is funny, isn’t it?” I said. Would I make a great counselor
or what?

(“Failing every grade?” No problem, I’d advise—life is funny.)

(“Parents getting divorced?” No sweat—life is funny.)

Squaring my shoulders, I continued. “I mean, I have a feeling Kerrie didn’t really know what she wanted. And now . . .” Way to go, Bianca. How to finish that phrase—”And now, Sarah, she’s stuck with you.”

“What I mean,” I said after clearing my throat, “is Kerrie probably didn’t realize that sharing her home with a friend actually means sharing. She probably expected everything to stay the way it was. For example, the computer.” I was getting into this. Feeling like a schoolteacher, I stood in front of Sarah. “The computer used to be just Kerrie’s—in her room for her personal use. Mr. Daniels had his own computer in his study. Now where’s Kerrie’s computer?” I knew the answer to this, but when teaching, it’s important for the student to say the answer out loud.

“In a corner of the dining room.”

“Right. So you
both
can use it for homework. And what about the TV?”

“Well, there’s a TV in the living room and one in Kerrie’s room.”

“And Kerrie has to share it with you, right?”

“Right, but I hardly ever ask to watch anything special. The only times I watch in there are when she invites me to watch something with her.” Sarah looked frustrated and annoyed, curling the strap of her backpack around her finger over and over again. She looked at her watch, and I knew she was thinking of going into work early just to get away from this uncomfortable discussion, so I sped up.

“Exactly. She’s asking you to watch with her because she feels
it’s the right thing to do, but she’s probably remembering those glorious days when she was Empress of the Remote all by herself and didn’t need to think of anyone else’s feelings.”

“Well, if that’s all it is, I can use the computers at school, and I just won’t watch TV with her at all,” Sarah said with a “harrumph” in her voice.

That wasn’t all there was, though, but I didn’t feel comfortable delving into the deep recesses of a kid’s relationship with her parents. Kerrie probably didn’t like sharing attention with her folks, especially her father, whom she adored. It was one thing for Kerrie to give up TV and computer privileges for the sake of family harmony, but quite another for her to sacrifice a parental relationship when she really needed one. Besides, Sarah would be off at college in less than a year and Kerrie would be back in single-child heaven. As much as I loved Kerrie, I thought she needed to do a little more giving in this regard.

To get away from this uncomfortable topic, I changed the subject.

“How’s the internship going?” I asked, nodding toward the hulking museum.

She shrugged. “It’s okay. But there’s some weird stuff going on. Like my boss—Fawn Dexter—is on the phone a lot.”

“So?”

“So she closes the door whenever she sees me or somebody else coming. And she talks low, in a whisper, like she doesn’t want us to hear.”

“Maybe it’s confidential museum stuff.”

“No, I think it’s something personal. I can hear her laughing and kind of flirting, if you know what I mean.”

Ah yes—the old flirt voice, recognizable to any woman over
the age of twelve. That little hush, that mellow giggle, that smooth whisper. So what if Sarah’s boss was using it?

Speaking of the flirt voice, that’s exactly what Sarah used when a stranger started approaching us. Dressed in tan slacks and dark blazer, he was dark-skinned, dark-haired, and pretty darn good-looking. When Sarah saw him, she stood and smoothed her uniform skirt the way you do when you want to make sure you look your best. Not that her skirt needed smoothing. She was like a bird preening. I got the picture. She liked this fellow.

“Hector!” she called out in this throaty, come-hither tone. “I was just getting ready to start work.”

“Me, too,” he said, joining us.

“Bianca, this is Hector Gonzalez. He goes to UMBC and works part-time here as a security guard.” Sarah turned to me. “Hector, this is Bianca Balducci, my friend. We go to school together.”

“I gathered,” he said, looking at our uniforms and smiling. He had a nice warm smile that showed off even teeth. “Come on, you’re going to be late. Don’t want to create a bad impression.”

“Hey, my brother goes to UMBC!” I said. “Economics major. Tony Balducci. Ever run into him?”

“Nope. But it’s a big campus,” Hector said, then reached out his arm and touched Sarah on the elbow as a signal it was time they got going.

Was it my imagination or was Sarah blushing? She looked down at her feet and picked up her backpack. I made a mental note to add Hector Gonzalez to the invitation list for Kerrie’s party, which we’d probably schedule sometime after the first of the year.

As they say in those old novels, I made ready to leave. But as I walked away, the quiet of the old museum was broken by several cars screeching into the little parking lot like they were just finishing
a car race. Hector turned and looked at them, narrowing his eyes as he figured out who they were.

“Police,” he said to Sarah. Then he checked a pager on his belt. “Silent alarm went off. You stay put. I’ll see what’s up.”

As Hector walked away, Sarah looked at me kind of wild-eyed. “I might give Connie a call later, if that’s okay,” she said.

A
LARM AT MUSEUM goes off and Sarah wants to talk to my PI sister Connie? Not good. The last time Sarah had wanted to talk to Connie was when Sarah was in deep doo-doo. Would she never learn?

“You can tell
me
whatever you want to tell Connie,” I said. “We’re practically partners.” Well, this wasn’t entirely true—I was still only on the short list for summer clerical help in Connie’s PI office, but a girl can dream, right?

Sarah grimaced, looked at her watch, sighed heavily, and looked like she was going to clam up.

“C’mon,” I urged. “Something’s bugging you.”

She swooped her hand toward the museum. “I told you. Something weird’s going on. My boss has been talking to a private detective agency . . . about hiring them.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know!”

“Something else is bugging you. What is it?”

Sarah looked at the door Hector had gone through.

“I’ve overheard Fawn saying things about Hector.”

“So?” Was I good at interrogating or what?

“Bad things, I think.” Sarah chewed on her fingernail. “Like ‘he’s the only one who’s been around each time.’”

“Each time
what?
”

“I don’t know!”

Before I could ask more questions, a door opened behind her and several police officers wandered out.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Sarah said, then disappeared into the building.

With that unsatisfying conversation bumping around in my head, I caught the bus on Charles Street for Kerrie’s. By now, my irritation-meter was in the red zone. Sarah and I hadn’t planned much of the party, so it was a mostly wasted half hour. She’d hinted at a museum mystery, but left important details out. And now I was headed to Kerrie’s to give her equal time, when I had other, better things to do.

Things like Christmas shopping.

Specifically, I needed to get started on finding a gift for Doug. This would be our first Christmas as boyfriend/girlfriend, and the gift-giving scene is fraught with peril. Buy something too expensive and it looks like you’re trying to ratchet up the relationship too fast. Buy something too small and it looks like you don’t care enough. Plus, it’s hard to buy for boys to begin with. It could take weeks of shopping to get the right thing. I was already behind schedule.

Speaking of shopping, the Dougster himself had told me after school he was headed to the mall with his mom tomorrow afternoon. That had sounded promising, and I had immediately imagined him looking at an expensive but significant piece of jewelry, or some rare perfume, or a watch, a silk scarf, a CD of love songs—and I hadn’t even begun concocting a plan for dropping hints. But
then he’d told me he “needed some new clothes” and my hopes hit the floor with a thunderous splat.

Luckily, I managed to snag a bus right away and landed on Kerrie’s doorstep exactly two minutes before our appointed meeting time. Her mood was considerably lighter than it had been at school earlier, which I attributed to the fact that she had the house, and me, to herself.

Her house was in Fells Point, an area of town near the Harbor that was undergoing some urban renewal. Since her father was a lawyer and her mother a doctor, Kerrie’s house always looked . . . well, like two well-compensated professionals paid the bills.

“I have a fantastic idea for your hair!” Kerrie shouted, brush in hand.

Warning bells should have gone off then and there. Since when does any good come from those words—“I have a fantastic idea for your hair”? But who was I to stand in the way of friendship? Kerrie needed coddling and my hair would have to do.