Case Closed #2, page 24
She laughs gruffly. It’s more like a short bark. “My life is over,” she says. “After this, there’s no coming back. There’s only one way out. And that’s to make sure Layla obeys me, and you four disappear.”
“What do you mean by disappear?” I ask with a gulp.
“I think you know exactly what it means,” Tuggle says. “You’re smart kids, so don’t play dumb.”
Is it just me, or is the air a little thinner in here? I can barely breathe.
“We have a right to know why,” Eliza says. “Why did you do this?”
“I—I didn’t mean to!” Tuggle whispers. “It all happened so fast! Layla . . . she said she wanted to leave me. The agency—we’d crumble without her. She’s our star client! I didn’t want to lose my business.”
“Oh!” Louise gasps. “I overheard you and Layla fighting about her contract. Is this why?”
“Yes, Layla wanted to cancel it.”
“Why?” Eliza asks.
“She . . . she found out about the kickbacks I was taking from the studio.”
“Kickbacks?” I ask.
Tuggle clears her throat. I can tell she’s uncomfortable, but she plows on like she needs to get this off her chest. Guilty conscience syndrome. “It costs a lot of money to run a business. I just needed extra cash flow . . . a little money, off the record, that wouldn’t get accounted as Layla’s income.”
“Why would Wolfgang agree to that?” Eliza asks.
“I told him that’s what Layla demanded, but on the condition that it was secret. That way I could get extra help, and Layla wouldn’t need to know about it. It wasn’t supposed to be forever . . . it was just for a little bit. But Guillotine blabbed to Layla about the arrangement, and next thing I know, Layla is firing me.” Tuggle lets out a strangled cry, and suddenly her voice sounds nasty and twisted. “But I made her. She was nothing before me. I got her commercials, I got her auditions, that ungrateful little brat.” There’s a pause, and then Tuggle says, sweetly, “Is it so wrong that I needed a little extra time to convince her to stay with me? Is it a crime to want to keep my star client?”
“It is when you kidnap her!” Eliza says, aghast.
“You tore the prop room apart,” I say.
“I had to. I can’t find Layla’s copy of the termination papers—the document she used to dismiss me. It’s the only evidence that could possibly incriminate me.”
“And you destroyed all the cameras? Why?”
“I couldn’t keep my eye on you three and Detective Serrano at the same time. I needed to keep this confined, under control. I couldn’t have you running all over the place snooping through whatever, and her finding out anything she could from people who know Layla well. Or finding that termination notice before I did. Smashing those cameras was the only way to stop everyone in their tracks and buy me more time. That’s all I ever wanted—more time.” She bangs her fist on my locker, and the clang echoes loudly in my ears. Ouch.
“If I don’t have Layla,” Tuggle cries, “my whole career is destroyed. I tried to see if I could get Brad instead. I thought maybe—just maybe—if I could replace Layla with another star, I could keep my agency and reputation afloat. But he only seemed interested in dating my client. Wanted me to put pressure on her. I realized he lacks star power. He is no Layla Jay.”
“Where. Is. Layla?” It feels like the millionth time I’ve asked.
“Here,” Tuggle admits. “On the studio lot. I hid her here, so I could have plausible deniability if she was found.”
“So,” I say, jiggling the locker door to no avail. “What now?”
“I can’t allow you to go,” Tuggle says. “For me, the only way out is to cover up this whole inconvenient ordeal. If I can convince Layla to stay with me . . . one last shot with her . . . but if she still refuses . . . and well, you four, obviously I have to . . .”
I don’t like the way she trails off. Not one bit.
“I’m very sorry. I have to go. I’ll be back. Look, kids, if I can think of a way out, I will take it. I don’t want to go through with it. But if I have to, I promise, it’ll be painless.”
“What will be painless?” I ask, my stomach twisting as her footsteps get farther away. “What will be painless? WHAT WILL BE PAINLESS?”
But I’m met with silence.
“Eliza,” I say, when I’m sure Tuggle is gone. “We have to escape these lockers . . . quickly!”
“I don’t know how,” she replies. “I’m locked in!”
“Me too.”
“Me three,” says Louise.
“I’m not!” Frank says. Suddenly, his voice is right outside my locker, and when I look through the vent, there are his shoes.
“Wait, what? Frank, you could have escaped this whole time?”
“Yup!” he said. “The back of my locker was loose. I pushed it out.”
“Why haven’t you escaped already?”
“I was playing dead. Like a possum. Or was it opossum? Opossum blossom! I play dead, and whatshername doesn’t pay attention to me. She pays attention to you.”
“Wow, Frank,” Eliza marvels. “That’s actually pretty smart.”
“Of course it is,” he boasts. “I’m the SMART Thompson, and don’t you forget it!”
I push on the back of my locker, and Frank’s right—it’s a little wobbly. So I push it harder, and with a loud clang it smashes open. “It’s a prop. It’s fake! Come on out, Eliza! Louise!”
Louise pushes the back of her locker out too, and crawls out. But Eliza doesn’t move.
“I think mine’s stuck!” she says. Frank, Louise, and I go to the back of Eliza’s locker and start to pull.
“Push!” I cry to Eliza.
“I’m trying!”
But it just won’t budge. Just our luck that Eliza is the only one sealed in tight. Without the combination to the lock or some kind of metal-melting power tool, there’s no way to get her out.
I look over my shoulder, down the hall. I know I should probably bust Eliza out, but Tuggle ran to deal with Layla. If I follow her quickly, I might get to Layla in time.
“If you have to go, then go,” Eliza says, reading my mind. “But if you’re going to stay and help me out, I think I know how you can break me free.”
* * *
TO BREAK ELIZA OUT OF THE LOCKER, CLICK HERE.
TO FOLLOW TUGGLE ALONE, CLICK HERE.
* * *
I HAVE TO call Mom. She’s our only hope right now.
I dial her number as I hear Eliza get pushed into a locker. Come on, phone—work with me here! But the cell reception is truly awful. It’s not even ringing.
Frank yells as he’s put in his locker. I wave my phone frantically around my locker. I have to get cell service . . .
Finally, in the top left corner of the locker, I’ve hit the spot! The phone rings and rings. Pick up, Mom! But she doesn’t pick up. It’s her voice mail. “This is Cat Serrano. Please leave a message after the beep.” BEEP.
“Mom, please pick up the phone!”
Tuggle curses and fumbles with my locker door. I have seconds left. “We’re at the studio! The kidnapper is—”
The locker opens, and Tuggle snatches the phone out of my hands, smashes it on the ground so hard it shatters, and drags me out of the locker.
“You sneaky little brat,” she says to me. The lights are back on, and I am face-to-face with Tuggle. And I expect her to look evil and snarling . . . but she just seems nervous. Her hands are shaking. “I was going to leave you kids in here while I figured out what to do with you and Layla. But now I see you are way too resourceful to be left alone.”
She drags me to the prop room, pulls my hands behind my back, and throws some prop handcuffs on my wrists. Then she tapes my mouth closed. She does the same to Eliza, Frank, and Louise—one by one—and when we’re all cuffed and muffled, she shuffles us into a van. She leaves for a few minutes and comes back with Layla, whose eyes are wide in panic. We’re all in the van together now, but we all are in need of rescuing.
The car starts, and Tuggle drives the five of us for hours. I can’t move, can’t escape. When the van finally stops, she opens the back doors. I gasp. We’re in some sort of snowy tundra. Alaska, maybe? Or Canada? But it seems even colder than that. Is it possible to drive to the North Pole?
“Wh-where are we?” I shiver.
“Somewhere no one will ever find us,” she says, shoving us all into an igloo. “We’ll stay cool while the investigation is hot. You’ll all learn to enjoy the simple life of ice fishing, polar-bear dodging, and ice-floe surfing. It’s like a vacation . . . only forever.”
CASE CLOSED.
“ELIZA, THIS LOCK is too hard! I need your help!”
“Well, I’m a little preoccupied, being stuck inside a locker,” Eliza says, “but I’ll try to help.” I slide the paper back through the vent. “It’s so hard to see in here. But . . . hmm . . . ,” she says, and I know the gears of her super-smart brain are turning. “I think we should start with what we definitely know. Look at the fourth clue: All of these numbers are incorrect.”
She slips the paper back to me, and I see what she’s talking about. “So if eight, five, and four aren’t in the combination at all . . . then you can cross them out wherever you see them.”
“Great,” Eliza says. “Now you know, if you look at the last clue, the number one is definitely part of the code. But not in the middle spot. So it’s either the first or last number in the code.”
“Cool!” I say.
“Wow!” Louise says.
“Yawn!” Frank says.
“Next . . . I think we should look at the first two clues. Because the first two are a paradox.”
“Pair of rocks?” Frank says.
“No, paradox. It means inconsistent, contradictory. So, in the first clue, it says one of the numbers is correct and in the right spot. And in the second clue, it says one of the numbers is correct but in the wrong spot. So . . . since the three is in the first spot in both of those, we know that the number three isn’t a number in the code.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” she explains, “the number three can’t be in the right spot and the wrong spot at the same time. That’s a—”
“Bear of socks!”
Louise snorts with laughter, and Eliza mumbles, “Close enough.”
We’re getting close to cracking the code—I can feel it. “If the number three is out, and we’ve already crossed out five because of the fourth clue, then the first clue tells us that the number nine is correct and in the correct spot. And!” I say excitedly, before Eliza can jump in. “Since we knew that the number one was either in the first spot or last spot, we can definitely confirm that the number one is first.”
“One blank nine,” she confirms. “We’re just missing that middle number.”
“Last piece of the puzzle,” Eliza says thoughtfully, mulling over the last steps. She sends the paper my way again through the locker vent—we’re playing an endless game of pass the puzzle. “The key to figuring out that last number is the third line down. It’s most illuminating. Two of the numbers in the third clue are correct. We already know nine is correct. So the other correct number is either two or seven.”
“Right,” I say. “But either two or seven could be the middle number. Unless . . .” My eyes drift up to the second clue. There is only one number that would make clue two and clue three true. Only one number they have in common. . . . Eliza! I think I’ve cracked it!”
* * *
WHAT IS THE CODE TO THE LOCKER?
IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 129, CLICK HERE.
IF YOU THINK THE ANSWER IS 179, CLICK HERE.
* * *
I DON’T CARE what Eliza thinks—we have to go after her.
I’m almost certain Tuggle ran in the direction of the writers’ room and the broken freight elevator, so I drag Eliza and Frank to that corner of the studio.
Suddenly, the freight elevator doors open. So much for it being out of order! Staring us in the face is a loader—one of those construction trucks that scoops things up.
Tuggle is in the driver’s seat, and the person in the passenger seat is bundled up tight and wearing a ski mask. Ten bucks says I know who it is.
Tuggle looks at us disbelievingly. She blinks slowly twice, with a nervous expression on her face, but then it changes to steely resolve. She drives toward us.
“RUN!” I shout.
But it’s too late. The loader scoops us off the ground, and the truck backs up. Down the freight elevator, onto the ground floor . . . Tuggle picks up steam and drives like a maniac out of the studio. There’s nowhere for us to run—it’s too dangerous to move out of the scooper. She could run us over. So we huddle together, doing the only thing we can . . .
We keep on trucking.
CASE CLOSED.
WHEN WE’RE DONE outlining the underdeveloped parts of Louise’s photograph, my mouth drops. The shadowy silhouette behind Layla is clearly a woman—and there’s the outline of a bun, with pens or pencils sticking out of it.
“Tuggle,” I say. “Agatha Tuggle.”
“What?” Eliza says.
“He said, ‘Tuggle! Agatha Tuggle!’” Frank shouts.
“I heard him the first time!”
“Then why’d you say, ‘What?’” Frank complains.
“Layla was running when you took this?”
Louise nods. “But I didn’t realize she was running away from something, or I would have handed in the picture earlier, I promise!”
Things are starting to click. In the coded note we found in Layla’s desk, she knew she was going to be kidnapped. Layla knew it couldn’t be Louise, because she was running from someone (behind her) and bumped into Louise (in front of her). Which means that Layla must have led us to Louise, hoping that Louise would have caught her other stalker on camera.
And Tuggle—she had been up and down the studio, telling everyone that actors were flighty and fickle. She had been saying that Layla’s disappearance was no big deal—that it was nothing. Well, of course she would say that. She was trying to stop people from looking for Layla!
My head is spinning, and when I look at Eliza, I can see the wheels turning in her head too. Her gray eyes flash.
I hold the photos out to Louise. “Thanks for your help. Please keep that photo safe for now. And don’t tell anyone about it.”
She silently takes the photos back.
“We should go tell your mom,” Eliza says.
“Absolutely.”
We head into the studio, but I gasp when I walk inside. The place is empty. Not even a ghost would set up town in here.
“Hello?” I call.
“HELLO HELLO HELLO!” Frank calls. “ECHO ECHO ECHO!”
“Where is everyone?” Eliza whispers, huddling closer to me.
I know we have our group of prime suspects, but the set has always been crowded with, like, a hundred other people. Without them here, everything is creepy. The lights above us seem creaky, and the lockers give me the shivers. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot something moving in the hall, but by the time I whip my head, it’s a shadow. A person-shaped shadow.
“H-hello?” I say.
* * *
TO FOLLOW THE SHADOW, CLICK HERE.
TO RUN AND FIND MOM, CLICK HERE.
* * *
I OPEN THE side panel in the elevator and start pulling the wires out between the letters H, A, T, C, and H. Pretty much undoing all our hard work from before. But it’s necessary.
As soon as I disconnect the wires, the elevator jolts. It stops dead.
“What did you do?” Tuggle says, panicked.
“I stopped the elevator.”
“Start it up again,” she demands.
“No.”
Tuggle screams in frustration. She paces the elevator so fast that it shakes on its cables. Then she grabs Eliza and turns to me with an angry snarl on her face. “I’m going to kill her!”
Eliza whimpers, but somehow she remains very, very still.
“Go ahead,” I bluff, and I manage to keep my voice from wobbling. “But you’ll be stuck in here with her body—and then my body, and Frank’s body, assuming you want to get all three of us. And when the police rescue you from this elevator, you can add three murders to your kidnapping charge. I’m sure a jury would love that.”
Tuggle throws Eliza at me, and I catch her. Eliza wraps her arms around me.
“Hey! She’s my sister!” Frank says, wiggling his way into our hug.
Tuggle runs a hand through her hair, trying to smooth her bun. Then she slips around me and plays with the emergency box, trying to get the elevator started again. She has no idea where the wires need to go, and I’m not telling.
I don’t know how long we sit in a corner together, watching her. But suddenly I hear a thump on top of the elevator. Tuggle and I both freeze and watch the ceiling . . . a square becomes dislodged, and someone is reaching their hands in.
The fire department!
“Stay calm,” a man says. “We’re here to rescue you. Come on, kid, you first.”
“No,” I say. “Take her first. She’s Layla Jay’s kidnapper. I don’t trust her on her own.”
“I . . . I don’t . . . these wild accusations . . . I need an attorney,” Tuggle mumbles.
The firefighters reach in to grab her. At first she struggles and wiggles and thrashes, but when it’s clear the firefighters have a firm grip on her, she goes boneless and limp. And then she’s gone.
After Tuggle is out, the firefighter reaches for Frank, then Eliza, then me.
When he brings me back to the studio floor, I’m surprised by the crowd of people. But before I can take stock of who’s there, Mom rushes at me, red as a beet.
