The Case of the Bad Twin Read online

  The Case of the Bad Twin

  Piper Investigations Book One

  Shannon Greenland

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  The Gator in a Tux

  Read Chapter One!

  From the Author

  Books by Shannon Greenland

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  “Smile!” The reporter says, and I plaster a big grin on my face.

  A flash goes off, and as the reporter moves in close to take a few photos of the time capsule, Principal Berger smiles down at me. “Penny-Ann, I’m so proud of you. None of this would have happened without you.”

  I love hearing those words. “Thank you, Mr. Berger. I know everyone’s wanted something like this for years. I’m just happy I could make it happen.”

  Behind me, Josie scoffs, and I ignore her.

  With a pat on my shoulder, Berger strolls across the school library to talk with some of the summer school teachers who have wandered in.

  Turning to Josie, I tighten my long ponytail and my smile falls away. “Listen, just because I’m in charge of this thing doesn’t mean you have to be a poo-head about it.”

  Her dark brows lift. “Poo-head?”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Fine, Miss Little Perfect. You and your time capsule have a great time at the ceremony.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “No, I’m not coming!”

  “But…” I worked so hard putting everything together. The whole island is coming. Like it or not, Josie is my best friend.

  She snatches her backpack off a nearby chair. “Oh, and count me out on your ‘save the turtles’ summer project.”

  With that, she charges out of the school library, and I yell, “Fine! I didn’t want your help anyway.”

  From his crouched position next to the time capsule, the reporter glances up at me, and I plaster on another smile. “Sorry about that. Josie and I do this all the time.”

  The reporter stands. “Time capsule, save the turtles, and you also raised money for the skate park. You sure have a lot going on for a twelve-year-old.”

  “Just turned thirteen. Piper Island is named after my family,” I proudly tell him.

  He taps his notepad. “Yes, I have that notated here. That’s some legacy.”

  I nod to the table where all the time capsule items, carefully researched and chosen, are neatly laid out. One item to represent each decade Piper Island has been an official city, six items in all. All donated by local residents.

  From the 1960s, the photo of Grandma Susan, the first mayor, signing the paperwork that made us officially Piper Island.

  From the 1970s, an old plastic figurine dressed as our school mascot, a mako shark, to commemorate the opening of our public school.

  From the 1980s, Grandpa Jack’s hand-carved mermaid to memorialize him starting the weekly Craft and Farmer’s Market.

  From the 1990s, a VCR tape of when the President of the United States came to Piper Island on vacation.

  From the 2000s, a small album containing photos of when Piper Island was hit with back-to-back hurricanes, displacing our residents for months.

  From the 2010s, a national magazine that listed Piper Island as a top ten place to visit.

  Six items in all, followed by my handwritten note to whoever in the future might open it. “You done taking photos?” I ask the reporter. “I’d like to put them in the capsule now.”

  The reporter nods, and as I begin carefully placing them in a pre-arranged configuration, he snaps a few more photos. I place the last item in, and right on top, I lay my handwritten note. It’s the coolest thing to think one day in the future, someone will unbury this and read my writing. Someone will know this island is named after my family.

  When I’m done, I swivel the top closed and pat it proudly with my hand. I can’t wait for the burial ceremony next weekend. It’s going to be great.

  Principal Berger crosses back over to me. “Let’s stow it in my office for safekeeping.”

  Chapter 2

  The next morning I peddle Lolli, my red beach bike, onto our six through twelve campus. It used to be a K through twelve school, but about ten years ago they split things up and now the younger kids have their own school in the southwest corner of Piper Island near the ferry.

  Being Saturday, the campus sits empty, and I glance at my phone propped in my basket. It’s a few minutes ‘til nine. Good, Principal Berger should be here by now. With the ceremony next weekend, I have a ton of things to do, but today is all about phone calls. I need to follow up with the food trucks, and the band, and the face painter, and the carnival booths, and about a million others.

  Excitement bubbles around inside of me. This is going to be great.

  I round the football field, cruise past the two-story brick building where the high school classes are held, zip around the one-story building where the middle school classes are held, and then cut across the common area toward the administrative building.

  As I slow to coast around the last corner, my shoulders tense when I see Officer Crawl’s car sitting right behind Principal Berger’s tan four-door. Climbing off my bike, I roll it past Crawl’s cop car and wish, not for the first time, Piper Island had more than two cops. Why couldn’t it have been the other one?

  It’s been three years, but Officer Crawl still gives me the side-eye every time he sees me. Granted, I was there when he busted my mom on the mainland, and granted I was participating in her latest con, but give me a break, I was ten years old then. That was three years ago, but it’s like Officer Crawl keeps waiting on me to mess up again or follow in my mom’s footsteps, or whatever.

  Wedging my kickstand down, I grab my vintage messenger bag that Grandpa Jack used to carry, and I open the front door and swing inside. I step left across the hallway and through the propped open interior door that leads into the administrative area. Principal Berger and Officer Crawl stand in his office in the back corner, and both of them glance up at me. It occurs to me then with their thinning gray hair, bushy brows, and pooched bellies, they kind of look like old-man brothers.

  I step up to the counter that divides the waiting room from the secretary’s desk and the principal’s office. Ignoring Officer Crawl, I focus on Principal Berger’s strained face. “What’s going on?” I ask.

  With a sigh, he runs a hand over his thin hair. “Someone broke in here last night and stole the time capsule.”

  “WHAT?”

  Mr. Berger steps from his office. “Luckily that’s all they took.”

  Luckily that’s all they took? Did he really just say that?

  Turning around, I look up at the security camera in the corner to see where someone spray-painted the lens black. I swivel around to the door I just walked through to see the knob scraped and p
icked where the person broke in. Beside the door sits the security panel, and I jab my finger in its direction. “They knew the code?”

  “Apparently,” Principal Berger says. “Because the alarm was never triggered.”

  Or rather they knew where to find the code. Principal Berger changes the code every month and the school secretary can never remember it, so she writes it down in the back of her desk calendar.

  If I know that, other students probably do, too.

  No, this can’t be happening. I worked so hard on that capsule. Who would break in here specifically to take it? It doesn’t make any sense. There’s nothing of real value in it. Everything is more sentimental than anything else.

  “Did you dust for prints?” I ask, and Officer Crawl just looks at me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “It’s a time capsule,” Officer Crawl says in this bored tone that makes me grit my teeth. “Nothing else was taken. This was a prank, obviously. We’re not going to dust for prints. Besides, do you know how many prints we would find? Between teachers and students, way too many people come in and out of this area.”

  I plant my hands on my hips. “So you’re just writing this off as a prank? You’re going to do absolutely nothing?”

  Clicking his pen, Officer Crawl slides it into his clipboard. “I’ll ask around, of course, and Principal Berger’s going to send out an email to all the parents and students. Someone has to know something.”

  “B-but.” I shoot Principal Berger a desperate look, and in return, he sends me an I’m-sorry smile. An I’m-sorry smile? He’s got to be kidding.

  Principal Berger walks Officer Crawl out of the administrative area, and I charge straight past the counter and into Berger’s office where we put the capsule last night. I stare at the corner where it was sitting right next to his potted tree. A corner now empty except for the gray carpet and the tree.

  I turn a slow circle, my gaze traveling over his office—the tree, the dark wood desk, the fake leather chairs, the row of black file cabinets, the picture frames with Berger’s kids and grandkids, the piles of papers, the folders… Nothing looks different. It looks just like it did last night.

  Kneeling down, I look under everything and other than a few dusty clumps, I find it empty. As I’m standing back up, my eyes track back across to the tree, and something glints in the dirt. I move the leaves aside and pull out a black leather bracelet with black and brown beads.

  I know this bracelet.

  Principal Berger strolls back into his office. “Penny-Ann, I know how disappointing this is. I know how hard you worked. We should probably—”

  “Don’t cancel the burial ceremony. Not yet. Will you give it a few days?” My fingers curl around the bracelet. I think I might know who pulled this prank. I’m not going to tell Principal Berger, though, not until I know more.

  “Okay,” he agrees. “We’ll give it a few days.” Pulling his chair out, he sits down behind his desk and opens his laptop. “I’ll send an email out to parents and students like Officer Crawl suggested. Hopefully, we’ll get a response. Hopefully, someone will know something.”

  Yeah, well, while he’s doing all that hoping, I’m heading straight to Rocco Garcia.

  Chapter 3

  The last time I saw Rocco Garcia was a week ago on the last day of school. He was coming out of the ocean sporting orange and white board shorts, a surfboard under his left arm, and water dripping from his dark hair. His light eyes narrowed in on me, and I ignored my squishy stomach as he strutted straight toward me. He came to a stop, his bare feet protruding onto my striped beach towel, and gave me a squinty-eyed study that I returned with my best-bored expression.

  Those light eyes shifted off of me and over to Clover, my Pocket Beagle. As if on cue, her dark eyes popped open and her whole body waggled in excitement as it did every time she saw Rocco.

  Dang dog.

  “You’re dripping on me,” I said, to which Rocco responded by leaning over and shaking his head, getting me, Clover, and my book even wetter. But I didn’t respond because that’s what he wanted so instead I just kept looking at him as if he was the most uninteresting person in the world.

  He grinned at my dull expression, and his dimples sunk in. “See you around Penny-Ann Piper.” Then he turned and walked off. Or rather strutted.

  As I said, that was a week ago and the last time I saw him.

  He lives on the north end of Piper Island, and I figure this is as good a place to start as any.

  Fifteen hot Florida minutes later, I pull up alongside the apartment building where Rocco and his grandmother live. It’s two-story and brick with eight total units. They live in the bottom right one.

  I sit here for a minute pondering his front door. If I told Officer Crawl I found Rocco’s bracelet in the tree, would Crawl come here? Probably not. I’m sure he thinks everything else is way more important than looking for a missing time capsule, though I’m not sure what. This is a small island and the most exciting thing that ever happens is an occasional shark siting.

  If I were Rocco and I had stolen the capsule, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be hiding out somewhere, staying low.

  Okay, so what am I going to do exactly? What if I knock and Rocco actually answers? Do I just say, I found your bracelet, and I think you stole the time capsule? I would like to know why and also, may I have it back, please?

  Yeah, right, he’d laugh.

  Or what if I knock and his grandmother answers? Ugh, his grandmother. I’ve encountered Mama Garcia off and on over the three years I’ve lived here—at school, in the grocery store, at the Craft and Farmer’s Market, etcetera—and she’s always in a perpetual bad mood. Adults usually like me, but not Mama Garcia. I don’t care how many smiles I’ve given her, none of them seem to work.

  Either way here goes nothing. I throw my kick stand down and march across the dry grass to the front door. A little green speckled lizard clings to it, and I’m careful not to jostle it as I rap my knuckles against the wood panel. Straightening my silk neck scarf, I take a step back and wait.

  A few seconds go by, and I knock again with no answer. I can’t say I’m surprised.

  I cut off around the side of the apartment building to the back, noting all the blinds are drawn. I find one with a slight gap and step up, cupping my hands around my eyes, but the gap isn’t enough for me to really see anything. I have a quick image of someone’s face suddenly appearing, like in a horror movie, and I immediately step back.

  Maybe the neighbors know something.

  I start knocking on doors, but of the eight units, only one opens. It’s an elderly lady, propped up with a walker.

  I put on my best Penny-Ann smile. “Hi, I’m looking for Rocco Garcia. Have you seen him?”

  The woman grins, and her mouth lights up with an impressive set of dentures. “Who?” she yells.

  “Rocco Garcia,” I yell back.

  Still, with the grin, she shakes her head. “Not for a few days, I think.”

  “Okay, thanks.” With a sigh, I head back across the dry grass to Lolli.

  For a good solid minute, I stand with my hands on my hips, staring up and down the one-way street, like I think Rocco and the time capsule will miraculously appear.

  But, of course, nothing happens.

  Just as I’m about to peddle away, a loud clanking car rattles down the street, slowing as it nears, and then pulls right into the small parking lot of the apartment building. Out of curiosity, I decide to wait and see.

  The door creaks open on the gray dented two-door and out steps a tall, skinny boy who probably just got his driver’s license. Piper Island is small, and I know pretty much everyone, but I don’t know this boy. Maybe he’s from the mainland.

  With his dark hair and skin, he looks like Rocco. It could be a cousin or something. He crosses over the same dried grass I had, retrieves a hide-a-key from under a weathered porcelain frog, and lets himself into Rocco’s front door.

  Hm, interesting.
/>   I scoot my bike over and under a tree, not really hiding, but also not completely out in the open, and I wait to see. Maybe Rocco hid the time capsule in there and sent this boy to retrieve it.

  A few minutes go by, and the boy comes back out of the house carrying a blue and black backpack that could easily hold the capsule. He tosses it into his open window, cranks the engine of the tired car, and backs out.

  I wasn’t thinking I might be following someone, but that backpack may have the capsule. This whole thing could be over within a matter of minutes. Lucky for me, the car is barely holding on and the speed limit on Piper Island averages around 30.

  Still, I throw my weight into peddling and anticipation jigs around inside of me as I begin to follow my lead. I don’t bother with the sidewalk and stay instead in the street. This is when I really wish I had a bike with gears. Ooh, and a siren. That would be cool.

  This part of Piper Island switches back and forth in a maze of single-lane streets, cut off every block with a stop sign, and every time the unknown boy comes to a stop, the car hiccups and nearly shutsoff, making it easy for me to track.

  Eventually, he pulls over in front of an old one-story stucco home with a yard full of rocks. Grabbing the backpack from his car, he knocks on the front door, and someone, though I can’t see who, opens it. The boy disappears inside, and a few minutes later he reappears without the pack.

  He climbs back in his rackety car and clanks off, but I stay right where I am. Grabbing my coconut water from my basket, I take a big swig as I stare at the home, wondering if Rocco is in there going through everything inside the capsule.