The Inside Job (8 page)

“I just don't see any history that makes me think these people would steal,” Beatrix said for the thousandth time, shaking her head as she looked at photos of the party attendees. She'd easily grabbed them off the Internet—as it turns out, famous people get their pictures taken a lot.

“The friends, at least, are superrich. They can probably make a crime disappear,” I said. “Especially if they weren't stealing the art to sell, but just to keep. There was some guy who stole two hundred paintings once just because he was trying to put together a personal collection.”

“Right!” Kennedy said brightly—she hadn't been able to contribute much, and seemed pumped to know something. “He got caught, and his mom tore them all up to try and hide the evidence!”

Ben looked horrified. “Really? Two hundred paintings? I don't know what I'd do if someone tore up all my blueprints. How do you two know all that?”

My voice hitched, so Kennedy wound up beating me to the punch. “Our parents told us the story.”

And then we all fell silent again, because by this point, everyone had heard Otter's theory about my parents' thieving past. No one believed it, of course—at least, I hoped no one did.

“They knew a lot about a lot of stuff,” I said swiftly. “It doesn't mean anything. Agent Otter never much liked my parents. I think he's just trying to blame them, and we'll end up wasting time following that, got it? Let's focus.”

Kennedy took a big breath and then looked around the room. “I think Hale's right. Let's go through the list and start clearing people who were in the house twenty years ago.”

Walter clapped his hands. “All right, yeah. I trust you, Hale. You got us this far, right?”

I tapped the table, trying to hype myself back up. “Okay, so—tomorrow. Kennedy, why don't you visit the people who used to work in the house? Just nose around, get some preliminary information. Ben, want to go with her?”

Ben whooped. “Yes! It'll be perfect for me to test out the BEN-ray gun. It's sort of an X-ray gun. It'll send a digital X-ray photo to Beatrix's Right Hand. If we're able to get into anyone's house, we can X-ray safes or secret rooms to get a look inside. Plus I think I've gotten the misfires down to just one every ten shots, really.”

“Good. Be careful. With the BEN-ray gun, I mean,” I said. Ben looked a little affronted but then nodded reluctantly. Kennedy gave me a thumbs-up and a grin.

“And then, Beatrix—I'll need you to run mission control from here for me and Walter. We have all the comm devices here, right?”

“Yep, Ben and I packed them all,” Beatrix said.

“All right. We need those, and we need suits or something.”

“Suits? Are we going on a fancy date?” Walter asked, leaning his chair onto its legs. He balanced there for a moment and then tipped back to the floor.

“We're going to the Geneva Country Club,” I said.

When Otter woke up the next morning, Kennedy and Ben were already on their way to visit the homes of a few retired Hastings employees—a maid or two, and the butler. Beatrix had rerouted a dry-cleaning delivery to the
poney
farm, so Walter and I had suits on the way, and she'd also secured us cover identities—we were going in as the sons of some sort of oil baron. By the time Clatterbuck finished cleaning up the waffles he'd made everyone for breakfast, Walter and I had pinned and tweaked the suits so they looked passable.

“Not a chance,” Otter said when we came downstairs.

“What? Why not?” Walter said, turning in a circle.

“You look acceptable, Quaddlebaum,” Otter told Walter. “But, Jordan, that suit doesn't and never has fit you.”

“Obviously, but—”

“A rich person is going to know the difference between a tailored suit and something off-the-rack. And the people at the Geneva Country Club are rich. You need a different outfit,” Otter said. I wanted to scowl at him, but then I got a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Otter was right. Walter's suit looked off-the-rack. I, however, looked like someone had melted a suit onto me. The sleeves were too long, the neck was too small, and the pants went around my waist all right but then bunched up under my butt. I thought about the seamstress at SRS, Ms. Elma. Mean as she was, I wished she were here. She'd have the thing fitting perfectly in less than a quarter hour.

And then I scowled at
myself
, because there I was again, wishing for SRS.

“Let me think,” Otter said. Behind him, Clatterbuck hopped up and down on his toes. He looked like he might burst. Otter turned to look at him. “Don't tell me—you've got suits in your suitcase of disguises? Or wait, no—tuxedos. Ball gowns?” Otter sounded oddly hopeful.

“No—well, yes, but they'll fit only me. But I do know where I can find something for Hale and Walter. Hang on,” Clatterbuck said eagerly, and took off through the house. Curiosity got to me, Walter, and Otter; we followed
Clatterbuck, who stopped in the center of the hallway and yanked on a cord, revealing attic stairs. We climbed up after him into a surprisingly tidy attic. There were boxes everywhere, but they were neatly labeled, and plastic sheets protected what little furniture was there. Clatterbuck threw open the lid of a nearby trunk, the old-fashioned kind with an arched top.

“I checked the whole place for bugs the first day, and I saw these,” he explained as he rooted around in the trunk, his body blocking our view.

“Really?” Otter asked, impressed. I'll admit it—I think we all sometimes forgot that, strange as he was, Clatterbuck had been a League agent once. I felt smug on Clatterbuck's behalf, and I grinned at Otter's surprised expression.

“Here, here,” Clatterbuck said, finally rising from the trunk. He was holding . . . some folded khaki pants.

“Huh?” Walter asked.

“The style hasn't changed in . . . well. In forever, basically. So they won't even look out of date!” Clatterbuck said excitedly.

“Khaki pants?” I asked.

Clatterbuck laughed. “No!” He let one pair of pants unfold and then held them up for us to see. “It's a riding habit. This farm only does breeding now, but before the owners retired, they were a show stable. This is what you wear to ride a horse in a fancy show.”

I grinned. “Or what we'd wear if we'd just finished riding horses at a fancy country club?”

“Exactly!” Clatterbuck says, pleased. “And maybe I can find some hats! And a riding crop! And maybe we can even borrow one of the horses—”

I patted Clatterbuck's shoulder. “I think the clothes will be plenty.”

It took a few changes before Walter and I found habits that fit. Well, “fit” is a word I'm using very, very loosely.

Walter, given the fact that every day the guy practically grew another inch, looked like an honest-to-goodness Olympian. I mean, seriously—he could have walked right out and jumped on a horse and won the gold medal for the Republic of Muscle Tone. I, on the other hand, looked like a sausage being strangled. My legs barely fit into the spandex-y pants. They were a little too long, which only made me look shorter. The white shirt was decent enough, but when I tucked it in, my body kind of looked like a mushroom cloud of smoke erupting from the pants.

You'd think this kind of thing wouldn't bother me as much anymore, now that I wasn't surrounded by classmates making fun of me. You'd be wrong.

But we had work to do, so I sighed, gave Walter a
yeah, I know it's bad
look, and the two of us went on our way.

CHAPTER NINE

The Geneva Country Club was right on the edge of Lake Geneva, the lake the city was named after. It had a spectacular view of the snowcapped mountains and a billion old trees with gnarled branches thicker than my body. It also had a very big gate out front, with a very big security guard. He waved people in fancy cars through one at a time, smiling and greeting them in a variety of languages—it was pretty impressive.

“
Excusez-moi, monsieurs!
” the guard said, stepping in front of us.
“Peux-je vous aidez?” Can I help you?

I smiled at him brightly and answered in French, but I let my voice take on a bit of a British accent, since the Kessel brothers were at school in England. “Hello—Sven, yes? We're here with our father, Monsieur Theodore Kessel.”

“He's an oil baron!” Walter said cheerily. I did my best not to glare.

“Monsieur Kessel?” the guard said, eyeing Walter suspiciously. “But he went in ages ago. Why weren't you with him?”

I looked at Walter and folded my arms. “That would be because of my
dear
brother here, and his big mouth. Victor complained about father not sending any decent horses with us to school. Then they got in an argument. Then Father said that if we were going to be so unappreciative, perhaps it'd do us well to learn the value of hard work. And then—well, let me summarize it for you: he threw us out of the limo a kilometer back. I think my brother's a little dizzy from all the walking here,” I said, lowering my voice at the end.

Sven laughed broadly and gave Walter a pitying look. He dropped his voice a bit. “Well, that was a bold thing for him to say, seeing as how your father inherited his fortune, no? But let's leave that between us.” He winked. “All right, all right—go on in, gentlemen.
Passez un bon après-midi!
”

I grinned at him, and Walter and I hustled in. Walter looked like his heart rate was just now slowing—the whole bit about getting thrown out of the limo was off book, and it'd rattled him. What was crazy about Walter was that he
had
all the skills to be an amazing spy. It was just that he always freaked out and worried he
didn't
, and that wrecked him.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah. Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. I just haven't done any real fieldwork in . . . well. Since you and I were on that mission to the sports school for SRS.”

We walked toward the country club's main building, sidestepping golf carts and the occasional horseback rider—who were
indeed
wearing the exact same clothes Walter and I were. We stuck our chests out, like the proud sons-of-a-rich-guy we were, looking down only to check that our nails were clean.

The main building looked something like a castle—in fact, I think it used to actually
be
a castle. It was solid stone, with large, arched wood doors and honest-to-goodness turrets at the tops, which were dotted with white and red flags. Behind flower-covered windows, I could see giant leather sofas and ladies wearing thick pearl necklaces. Black cars were delivering a constant stream of fabulously dressed people to the wood doors, where a butler wearing white gloves bowed a bit and ushered the visitors inside. For a moment I worried that the butler would question us like the guard had, but no—when we walked up, he merely tipped his head to us, smiled, and held the door. We were in.

Now we just needed to find some kids our age. Here was what I figured—the books were likely stolen by one of the adults at Hastings's birthday party. Those adults were in their sixties now. And their kids—the ones who were Hastings's age—were in their thirties
and forties. But
their
kids would be around my age and, if I had to guess, didn't even know those fancy jeweled books in their family castle were stolen. Because, come on—what kind of parent would tell his children that dear old mom and dad were thieves?

We found a handful of kids our age down by the pool. There were only about six or seven total—hanging out at your parents' country club probably wasn't the most popular of activities—but together they looked like a
collection
. These kids all looked like variations on the same thing—the same way stamps or coins or different types of cats are all variations on the same thing. They all had the same bored expression. They all had on designer sunglasses. Almost all were tapping away on phones or tablets or laptops. The handful that wasn't was lying on towels, looking bored, or reapplying lip gloss (both the boys
and
the girls).

Two girls looked up as we walked into the pool area. Their eyes glanced off me immediately; when they saw Walter, they tipped their sunglasses down their noses and grinned.

I ducked my head so no one would see me talking into my comm. “Beatrix, we've got two girls—thirteenish. One brown hair, one blond hair. Blonde has a Band-Aid on her arm, the sort you'd get after you get a shot—”

“Okay, okay, hang on . . .” Beatrix typed frantically back at the
poney
farm. “Perfect—the blonde is Aria
Stoneman
—she's the youngest of the Stoneman family, and they were at Hastings's party. Pulling up records now . . . Looks like Aria just got inoculations for a glamping trip to Africa.”

“Glamping?” Walter muttered.

“Glamour camping. It's like camping, only the tent is a five-star tent with running water and a Jacuzzi.”