Rock Harbor Search and Rescue (14 page)

Emily couldn’t help the disappointment building in her chest. She’d thought they would have hard evidence against someone by now. Something they could take to the sheriff. As it was, Olivia’s parents would be home from their cruise on Saturday—just two days away, and then Olivia would go home.

“Hey, I really think we need to check out Valerie more.” Olivia sat up and wagged her finger. “Not like you did at the table. Boy, was your dad upset with you.”

Emily’s face burned at the memory. “Yeah, he almost grounded me for
being rude
. I was being a little nosy, but I was trying not to be too obvious about it. You didn’t think I was rude, did you?” It hurt so much that Dad thought she could not only steal something, but be a liar too. She needed to prove to him that she wasn’t either.

“I didn’t think you were rude. You were just making friendly conversation. Valerie never answered the question about that Mary Dancer necklace that guy bought her either.”

“Now I’ve let her know we know about the guy.”

“There wasn’t much about her on the Internet. Aside from her modeling stuff.”

Emily crossed her arms over her chest. “You looked her up online?”

“I had to find something to keep me busy while you were
doing Josh’s laundry.” Olivia grinned while heat rushed to Emily’s cheeks. “I got busted by Naomi too.”

“What?” Emily bolted upright. “What did she say? What did you do?”

“It’s okay. She caught me searching for Valerie and asked me about it.” Olivia shrugged. “I told her the truth—that I want to be a model someday and Valerie was the first one I’d met in person. I wanted to know more about her.” She grinned.

“And Naomi bought that?”

“It’s all true.” Olivia nodded.

“Wow.” Probably a good thing she hadn’t been here. Naomi would’ve seen through Emily in a heartbeat.

“But I didn’t find out anything except her modeling stuff.”

“Not even some juicy gossip about her?”

“Nothing important. Other than the report that she was recently named the model for Surf’s Up.”

“Still no clue who the man with her at the festival is?”

Olivia shook her head. “I didn’t want to try to find more personal stuff with Naomi in the room.”

Emily smiled. “But Naomi isn’t here now.”

They rushed back to the computer. Images upon images loaded on the pages of articles Emily clicked on. Valerie smiling into the camera. Valerie pouting. Valerie in a bathing suit. Valerie in a wet suit. Valerie with a surfboard. Valerie with a male model.

Olivia shook her head. “See? I told you. Nothing but her modeling stuff.”

“Maybe we need to look at older stuff.” Emily selected the fifth page on the search engine’s main listing.

Another page, much like the ones before, loaded. Emily scrolled down. “Hey, these pictures look older, don’t you think?”

Olivia peered over her shoulder. “Yeah, her hair is shorter.” She leaned closer to the monitor. “And her nose is wider.”

“Are you saying she’s had a nose job?”

“Yeah, I think so. Go back even further.”

Emily did, then scrolled down that page.

“Stop!”

“You see signs of more plastic surgery?”

“Nope, I see him.”

“Who? Uncle Greg?”

“No.” Olivia took the mouse from Emily and highlighted a shot of what looked like a party. Valerie stood in the forefront, posing with another girl. “There.” She tapped the screen on a man in the background, holding something that looked like a handbag. “Him.”

Emily squinted, then sucked in air. “It’s the man Valerie was with at the festival.”

“Can you print that picture?”

“Sure, but for what?” She set the picture to print.

“I can talk with one of the guys in my computer class. He’s always telling me about some program he has that can do searches with a picture. Maybe he can find out who the guy is.” Olivia shrugged as the printer hummed. “And as a last resort, at least you’d have the man’s photo to give to Sheriff Kaleva.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled with our assistance,” Emily said sarcastically before she grabbed the paper off the printer and stared at the image.

“You never know. Or we could give it to Inetta and see if she recognizes him.”

“I’d rather not get her involved unless we have to. He seemed nice enough at the festival. I don’t want to go around accusing innocent people. I know how that feels.”

“I agree.”

Emily handed the paper to Olivia. “It’s not that clear.”

“It’s okay. You’d be surprised what this guy can do. He’s amazing. Even the teacher asks him for help when her computer messes up.”

“Speaking of teachers, I’d better get on my pre-algebra homework. I have two pages.” Emily shut down the computer.

Olivia followed her down the hall. “At least you don’t have Rachel Zinn in your class to annoy you. That girl goes out of her way to be Mr. Neese’s pet when she doesn’t even understand basic equations.”

She’d almost forgotten. “Speaking of Rachel, I nearly ran her over this afternoon.”

“What? Why haven’t you told me?” Olivia wore the sternest expression ever. It reminded Emily of Dad when he was really mad.

Emily giggled, then proceeded to tell Olivia about the incident. She finished with, “So now that I think about it, Rachel is my prime suspect. We know for a fact she was at both mine and Mrs. Dancer’s booths, she’d take it and then put my copy in its place just to get me in trouble, and for some reason she doesn’t like me. It all fits.”

“We need to talk to Gretchen and hear her side.” Olivia sat backward on the chair in front of Emily’s desk. She tapped her painted nails against the wood back. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me as soon as you got here. Instead, you bored me with laundry details.”

“I’m sorry. My mind’s scattered.”

“But I think you’re right. Something’s off with Rachel being there this afternoon.” Olivia’s nails glimmered under the overhead light. “You really have no idea why she seems to dislike you so much?”

“I don’t know. I’ve tried to figure it out but can’t. It’s not like I missed one of her birthday parties or something as kids.”

“I know. I can’t think of anything either. And about the time she started disliking you, she started treating me oddly as well. I mean, she’s not as mean to me, but she’s not my friend anymore, you know?”

It hurt to remember how Rachel used to be. Emily shrugged. “Yeah, but only toward me and you. Me, mostly. You probably just because you’re my best friend.”

“Maybe. Have you thought maybe she acts like she does around you because you both have a crush on Josh?”

Heat burned Emily’s cheeks, but she shook her head. “She started acting like that long before we even met Josh.”

“Hmm.” Olivia tilted her head. “Well, you should probably figure that one out. It must be a big deal if she’d do something as serious as stealing a necklace to get you in trouble.”

A car door slammed outside just as Charley began barking, his toenails clicking against the kitchen floor.

“Naomi’s back.” Emily closed her math book and stood. “I do need to figure out why she hates me, but not by asking her.”

“You know, Em, if she’s willing to steal to get you into trouble, there’s no telling what she’ll do to you next.”

ELEVEN

“You are not going to believe this.” Olivia grabbed Emily’s arm at the lockers after school on Friday. “Come on.” She dragged Emily out into the school’s courtyard, then around the corner to the vacant playground. She dropped her backpack on the ground, sat in one of the swings, and waited for Emily to do the same and sit in the swing beside her.

“What? I have to get to the gym.” Emily looped her arms around the chains of the swing and noticed Josh and several other members of the surf team heading in that direction. She sat straighter and tucked her hair behind her ears.

Olivia followed Emily’s line of focus. “Oh? Well, if doing laundry for Josh is more important than learning who the guy with Valerie was . . .”

Heat flashed up Emily’s neck, but she ignored Olivia’s sarcasm and stared at her best friend. “You found out?”

Olivia rolled her eyes and stretched her legs, letting the swing gently sway to the right and left. “If you have to go . . .”

“Shut up.” Emily giggled and shoved Olivia, knocking her
feet out from under her so she went into a swing. “Come on, Liv, tell me.”

Olivia grinned and stopped the swing beside Emily. “Okay. The guy from my computer class, Charles, scanned the picture and tweaked it to make it clearer. Then he loaded it into some program he has that basically searches all graphic images on the Internet and spits back a list of web pages that the image and similar ones are on.”

Interesting. “They have programs like that?”

“Apparently.” Olivia leaned her swing closer to Emily’s as a group of kids walked by.

Once they’d passed, Emily said, “I’ve seen that on TV, but I didn’t realize they were real. I mean, real and where anybody could use them.”

“I don’t know. What I do know is Charles got several hits on Valerie’s friend. Excuse me, her business manager.”

“He’s her business manager?”

Olivia nodded. “After Charles found his name, which is Kenneth Lancaster, by the way, he did an Internet search to find out information about Mr. Lancaster.”

“And? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Are you
sure
you wouldn’t rather be doing laundry or something?”

Emily bumped her swing against Olivia’s. “Come on. Tell me.”

“Well, it seems Mr. Lancaster doesn’t have the best reputation in the world.”

“Really?”

Olivia nodded. “We found a lot of tabloid reports where models fired him for mishandling their money.”

She sucked in her breath. “He stole?” Her pulse sped up at
the thought that maybe this whole nightmare would be over soon.

“The articles didn’t exactly say that. Just guessed that he’d mishandled their money.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. But there were three different models who fired him using that exact phrase. Oh, and one who not only fired him but has stated she intends to sue him as well.”

“For what?”

Olivia shrugged. “We couldn’t find out exactly, but Charles said he’d continue to do research for me.” She blushed.

Emily grinned. “Does someone have a crush on Charles?” It was fun to pay back a little.

The red in Olivia’s face deepened. “No. I mean, he’s nice enough, but no. No.”

Emily giggled lightheartedly. She so understood her friend’s fluster. She felt the same way whenever she talked about Josh. It was worse when she got around him. “I’m just teasing.”

“I know.” Olivia smiled. “But all the info we found on Mr. Lancaster doesn’t explain what he’s doing here in Rock Harbor.”

“I don’t guess agents go on important photo shoots with their clients, huh?”

“No. Think how many clients most modeling agencies have—it’d be impossible for an agent to go on all the important jobs with all their clients.”

Made sense. “So why is he here with Valerie for her big Surf’s Up shoot?”

“Exactly.”

Hmm. It seemed like every time they’d turned over a new lead, they were only hit with more questions. Too many questions,
too few answers. And she was running out of time. Olivia’s parents would be home tomorrow.

Olivia glanced at the gym. “You’d better get going. Laundry’s probably calling.” She grinned. “Charles said he’d call if he found out anything. He said he could search better at home anyway because the school has certain websites and search engines blocked.”

“I’ll see if I can find out anything more about Malia Spencer. See you in a bit.” Emily jumped out of the swing, grabbed her backpack, and jogged toward the gym. She quickly went inside, turning down the dark hall to reach the team room just outside the locker room where the coach’s office sat.

Seven guys and three girls made up the Gitchee Gumee Surfers. They were already dressed in their old wet suits. They all stopped talking and stared at her as she walked into the team room. Her face burned, and it was as if her feet took root right in the tile floor.