“So, you’re a snoop, Ruby Redfort.”
Ruby spun around, and losing her balance, she toppled off the chair and landed in an undignified sprawl on the cool rubber-coated floor.
She was eye level with a pair of bare feet — the toenails painted red.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to, it was sort of an accident, the door kinda opened on its own,” Ruby stammered.
“What next? It wasn’t me?” LB’s voice was chilly. She wasn’t mad — she was furious.
“I’m not making excuses or anything — just saying it was an honest accident.”
“You accidentally opened a concealed door? Accidentally dragged a chair into a private room? Accidentally stood on it and started accidentally examining my personal photographs? What complicated accidents you have.”
“Well, when you put it like that it sounds kinda bad,” said Ruby.
“Too much curiosity can be fatal,” said LB. “Something it is wise to remember.” This statement sounded a little sinister and Ruby quickly picked herself up off the floor. She noticed she had torn a hole in her jacket — a huge rip down the left sleeve — which only added to her humiliation.
“I’m sure I didn’t see anything important — by the way, that’s a very nice picture of you. When was it taken? You look kinda young, is that your boyfriend?” Ruby was pointing at a picture of a girlish looking LB, who was smiling warmly at a good-looking young man. However, the real life LB was not smiling, she was glaring. If Ruby thought she was going to distract LB with the old flattery and fast talk routine then it seemed she had a great deal to learn about LB.
“If it wasn’t for your test results and what we already know about you, I might be sorely tempted to think again.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m not a snoop, not normally anyway . . .”
“OK, cut the baloney, Redfort. You have one chance but use it carefully because right now I’m this close to telling you to take a walk.” LB was holding her thumb and forefinger very close to represent the amount of slack she was prepared to give Ruby — it wasn’t much, about a millimeter.
Ruby kept her mouth shut.
LB pointed at the chair and Ruby sat down, but before anything could be said, a light flashed on LB’s desk intercom.
She sighed an exasperated sigh and said, “Now, I am going to leave you for about three minutes, certainly no longer; try not to touch anything. Sit on your hands if you have to.”
LB left the room. Ruby sat completely still for two minutes and fifteen seconds — not a twitch until she spotted a small, brightly colored object that had fallen under LB’s desk. She couldn’t help herself; she reached out and picked it up. It was a key ring, with a sort of puzzle attached. It had letter tiles you could slide around to form words, or perhaps a word.
The door opened — Ruby quickly palmed the key ring and tried to act normal.
LB sat down. “I’ll cut to the chase. We need you to go through some files. We recently lost our code breaker, and we find ourselves one very valuable brain down.”
“How did you lose him?”
“Her, actually — she died. She was on vacation, mountain climbing.”
“She fell?” asked Ruby.
“Avalanche; by the time they dug her out it was too late. They never did find her climbing partner.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Ruby, popping some bubble gum into her mouth.
“Could you lose the gum,” said LB. It wasn’t a question. Ruby lost it.
“She was unlucky, there was no warning, it took everyone by surprise.” LB paused as if collecting herself. “Anyway, Lopez was working on a case, code name Fool’s Gold. They uncovered a plot to rob the Twinford City Bank, though we still have no idea who is involved.”
“The Twinford City Bank? The unrobbable bank?” said Ruby, astonished. “When is it planned for?”
“The evening the gold bullion arrives from Switzerland. It will be deposited in the Twinford bank on April twenty-second, and the robbery is set to take place twelve hours later.”
“So, if you know all this, why do you need me?”
LB didn’t say anything for a long moment; perhaps she was wondering if she could trust this short, green-eyed kid from Twinford. Then, taking a slow breath she said, “We got a call from Lopez. She was three days into her vacation when she left a message with Buzz. She said, ‘Tell the boss I missed something first time around. Tell her I saw it in the mirror and it all made sense.’”
“That’s it?” said Ruby, “Kinda cryptic isn’t it? Who’s the boss?”
“That would be me,” said LB coolly. “Naturally she wouldn’t have wanted to say anything obvious over an unsecured line. She said she would be in touch that evening when she got back from her climb. She had booked herself on the very next flight home. She was cutting her vacation short by ten days.”
“Do you have any idea what she was talking about?” asked Ruby.
“We can be sure she was talking about a code — one she had missed. She must have figured it out while she was away.”
“Did she have it with her?” said Ruby.
“Of course not. It is strictly forbidden to take classified information out of the Spectrum building. So we know that whatever she missed has to be in the Fool’s Gold files. Which is why we want you to go through them in the same way she would have gone through them. See if you can’t find what she didn’t see first time around.”
Ruby frowned. “What do you think she meant when she said she ‘saw it in the mirror’?”
“She’s referring to the local newspaper, the Twinford Mirror — that’s where all the codes were hidden.”
Ruby looked perplexed.
LB waved her hand impatiently; she needed to get on. “It will all be explained to you tomorrow. You will return here. Agent Blacker will take you to the file room where you can read through all Agent Lopez’s papers and try to get a grip on this case. Understood?”
“Uh-huh.”
“OK, so get out of here.”
ON THE WAY BACK TO CEDARWOOD DRIVE, Ruby tried to work her Ruby Redfort powers of persuasion on Hitch.
“Don’t you think it might be a good idea for me to have some kind of little radio device so I can radio in?”
“Radio in to where?”
“To HQ,” said Ruby.
“No kid, you don’t radio in to HQ. You always go via me.”
“OK, so I should be able to radio in to you.”
“And why would you need to do that?” said Hitch.
“Well, you know, in case I need to get hold of you super quick,” said Ruby.
“And you can, by using that incredible gadget known as the telephone.”
“But what if there is no telephone, or say someone was on it and I had to run all over looking for another one?”
“I imagine you are a pretty good runner.” It was clear Hitch was unmoved by Ruby’s argument.
“Oh, man, can’t I have some little radio walkie-talkie gadget?” pleaded Ruby. “What’s the big problem?”
“The ‘big problem,’” said Hitch, “is you getting in over your head. Look, kid, this is a desk job, OK? You are being hired to go through files and decipher information. It is not a matter of life and death, and let’s not make it one.”
“But what if it is? What if I find something out — something kinda vital . . . to everything! And I need to follow it up on the double — get on someone’s tail before they disappear; you know, step in before something bad happens.”
“Kid, you do any ‘stepping in’ and you will be stepping out of Spectrum for good. You find something out, you sit tight. No drama, no heroics. Sitting tight is a rule — you got that?”
“Oh, man!” sighed Ruby. “Did anyone ever tell you that you can be a royal pain in the derriere?”
“All the time kid, so you’d be wise to remember this — you never act alone. That’s another rule.” Hitch looked her in the eye. “You hearing me kid?”
Ruby nodd
ed. She was hearing, but it was hard to be sure if she was listening, and hearing and listening are two very different things.
Back at the house, Ruby went straight to the living room and listened to the messages on the family answering machine. She just wanted to be sure that the school hadn’t called and said something that would lead her parents to find out about her skipping.
Maybe Mrs. Digby will have phoned from Miami or wherever in tarnation she has gone.
There were several messages for her father from the detective, explaining that they had “no more leads”— several from her father for her mother, unusually bad-tempered, complaining about the airline and how there was “still no sight nor sound of their luggage”— one from the dry cleaner to say they were “having trouble with the tomato stain and would have to send the jacket away for super cleaning.”
The final message was from Freddie Humbert and basically went on and on about his problems with the bank security system and how he was “up to his ears in it” and “wouldn’t be able to attend the museum meetings or indeed play golf for the foreseeable future.” Right at the end he said, “Don’t forget to tell that cute daughter of yours to give us a call. Quent would love to see her.”
Ruby made a face. A couple of hours with Quent Humbert was all she needed. She was about to erase the message when her father popped his head around the door. “Jeepers!” blurted Ruby. “What are you doing home?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Got off work early. I didn’t mean to make you jump. You checking the messages? Any good ones?”
Ruby pressed the playback button. “I don’t know, I didn’t listen.” She headed upstairs to her room and checked her personal answering machine. There was a message. It was from Clancy.
“Hi, Rube, where were you today? You didn’t say anything about skipping school. Are you sick? Whatever — give me a call, OK? Hey, don’t erase me, don’t erase me . . . aaaahhhh.”
It was a classic Clancy Crew joke. Ruby smiled as she erased the message. Darn it, though, what was she going to tell Clancy? She hadn’t thought about that when she had promised to keep it zipped. She couldn’t lie to him — she never lied to him — but she had sworn she wouldn’t talk. Hitch was right, code breaking was easy compared to keeping a secret like this. She needed to think. But all she could think was, Darn it! Dad is sure to make me call Quent.
She picked up her backpack and rummaged for the Spectrum Escape Watch, but it wasn’t there. She was about to panic when she remembered she had stuffed it into her jacket pocket.
Now where is my jacket?
Then she heard her mother calling.
Geez, now what?
“It’s time to eat!” called her mother.
The watch would have to wait — her mother was a stickler when it came to “dining time.”
The meal seemed to drag on for just about ever. Ruby was finding her folks less than scintillating company. Most of what they said she had heard from her history teacher, Mrs. Schneiderman, and she certainly was in no hurry to hear it all again.
“Don’t you just love the legend of the Jade Buddha, Brant?” cooed Sabina.
“Love it,” replied Brant.
“It’s kind of romantic, don’t you think? To look the Buddha in the eye at the stroke of midnight — you know, as it rises up through the floor — and in that moment double your wisdom, and halve your age.”
“Desperately romantic,” agreed Brant through a mouthful of steak and tomato.
“I mean, imagine getting younger at the same time as you get wiser.”
“Never to decay or fade away — wouldn’t that be swell,” enthused Brant.
They burbled on like this all through the main course and partway through dessert.
“Hey! How about we have some kind of lucky draw,” said Sabina. “You know — put your name in the hat and you get the chance to look the Buddha in the eye on the stroke of midnight!”
“Like a lottery? Buy a ticket, win eternal youth?”
“You got it.” Sabina could hardly contain herself.
“I think it’s a swell idea,” said Brant. “What do you think, Ruby honey? Swell idea or what?”
Ruby didn’t answer; she was miles away.
“Ruby?”
“Huh? What?” said Ruby with a start.
“Your father and I were just wondering if there should be a Jade Buddha lottery with one lucky winner.”
“Lucky winner of what?”
“One lucky winner to look the Jade Buddha in the eye at midnight!”
“Why would they want to do that?” asked Ruby, genuinely bewildered.
“Ruby, are you OK?” asked her mother. “You don’t seem to have heard a word we have said.”
“Sorry,” said Ruby. “Just a bit distracted, I guess.”
“I’ll say,” said her mother.
“Well,” said her father. “I think I might just go and call Marjorie and Freddie — they’re gonna love the idea.”
“Oh yes, do, do, do!” said Sabina. She was quiet for one split second and then exclaimed, “I am wondering if it isn’t time we talked about canapés. What do you think, Ruby? Maybe serve ice-related canapés, on account of the Buddha being found in an iceberg?”
Ruby, desperately wanting not to get stuck at the table talking to her mother about the mind-numbing subject of iced finger food, decided to make a swift exit.
“Mom, just gotta walk Bug.”
“But I already walked him an hour ago,” said Sabina.
“Oh, yeah, well, I promised him,” called Ruby, already halfway down the stairs.
“Who promises a dog?” said Sabina.
On the way back from her walk, Ruby made a stop at the tree on Amster Green. She wanted to see if Clancy had left something for her. He had. A coded note, folded in two.
It translated as:
Are you in some kind of trouble? I saw that
butler guy of yours and his fancy car —
I don’t trust him.
Ruby felt a pang of guilt as she carefully refolded the note and put it back in the tree as if she had never read it.
Back home she dejectedly climbed the stairs to her room. She closed the door firmly behind her and her thoughts returned to the watch. She knew it was safe inside her jacket pocket — only thing was, where was her jacket?
Luckily, Mrs. Digby had taken to sleeping in the bed at the far end of the warehouse in the Redforts’ guest room. She had always wanted to try it out — the mattress was pocket sprung.
She pulled on her robe and tiptoed silently along the far side of the warehouse, where she was hidden from sight by huge cargo crates. From here she had a pretty good view of what was going on, and she did not like what she saw. There were several thuggish men tearing at the furniture, pulling open drawers and cupboards, opening jars, ripping into feather cushions. Mrs. Redfort’s jewelery boxes were simply tipped upside down and emptied onto the floor. None of the thugs seemed at all interested in the contents once they had rummaged through them, yet these jewels were worth many thousands of dollars.
Mrs. Digby, who was finding it hard to restrain herself from marching right out there and giving them a piece of her mind, was relieved to hear a woman’s voice shout out, “Just what do you numbskulls think you are doing?”
About time, thought Mrs. Digby.
The woman continued. “We are looking for something very small and highly valuable, how are we supposed to find it if you have turned the whole place on its head!”
Silence from the numbskulls.
Couldn’t have put it better myself, thought Mrs. Digby. She couldn’t see the woman from where she hid but she guessed she must be quite a force to reckon with, since for the next eleven hours the men went painstakingly through every item of the Redforts’ home, picking it up, opening it, inspecting it, and then replacing it.
What in tarnation are those creeps looking for? wondered Mrs. Digby.
Whatever it was, it seemed they didn’t find it.
RUBY GOT HERSELF UP AND READY nice and early. She was looking forward to going back to Spectrum and finding out more of its secrets. But first she had to find the Escape Watch, which meant locating her jacket. She was pretty sure that she must have left it in Hitch’s car, in which case it was safe — but what if he had found the jacket and looked through her pockets? She wouldn’t put it past him. In which case she was in big trouble.
But when she got downstairs Hitch was in the kitchen quietly studying a piece of toast.
“Is that piece of toast private or can anyone eat it?” she said.
He looked up. “Strictly confidential,” he replied, hurriedly biting into it. “So, you excited about your first day as a code breaker?”
Ruby gave him a withering look.
He winked at her. “Just pulling your leg, kid, I know you’re far too cool to get excited about things.”
She gave him another withering look and started for the back door.
“Where you going?”
“To get my bike. I might as well leave now. I can pick up breakfast at the diner.”
“No, that’s not how it’s going to be, kid. Strict instructions from the top: I’m going to drive you in to the Spectrum office each day and I’m going to collect you when you’re done.”
“Oh, man!” Ruby rolled her eyes. “I don’t need you driving me around. I’ll take my bike, OK?”
“Not OK, said Hitch firmly. “I gotta make sure no one tails you and I need to make sure you are all present and correct in one piece. If I’m not available then someone else will drive you home.”
Ruby opened her mouth to argue but Hitch simply held up his hand. “This is non-negotiable.”
Ruby said nothing.
“Get yourself in the vehicle pronto. We need to get going.”
“But I haven’t had breakfast!” protested Ruby. “Most important meal of the day and all that.”
“We’ll pick something up on the way, OK? Now scram. I’ll be with you in a split second.”