Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn Read Free Book Online Page A

signings.” And Edge would be standing there, his arm slung around me, staving off the reporters and throngs of fans.
    “You seem kind of far away today,” Edge says. “What’s up?”
    “I’m just tired.”
    “You’re not mad at me?”
    “Why would I be mad at you?”
    “I know you’re not the president of the Mardi Cooper fan club.”
    “Oh. That.” I shrug. “Ancient history. Anyway, it’s nice of you to help her out.”
    “That’s a relief to hear. Because, um, I’m sort of taking her to the Hitchcock film festival.” He scrapes at a piece of tape stuck to the glass countertop.
    “What?” A thought bubble explodes above my head. Asterisks, number signs, ampersands, and exclamation points shoot off in every direction.
    “Yeah, at the Egyptian. Tomorrow night. Can you believe she’s never seen a single Hitchcock movie? She’s going to get laughed out of film camp.” Scrape, scrape, scrape.
    “That’s a shocker.” I practically dive into the nearest box and take my time rummaging for a stack of Spawn so Edge won’t see my face.
    What would it take to get noticed by Edge? By my dad? By anyone? Everyone but me has a Special Thing they can do. Edge has his films. Mardi has her school spirit, and now, apparently, killer music videos with waverunning ghosts. Reika rocks the school literary rag with her poetry. My parents have careers that are taking off. What do I do? Doodle in a sketchbook, knowing I’ll never be brave enough to share Kimono Girl with the world.
    I need a Big Thing, to make my dad and Edge and everyone else finally notice me. Suddenly, it’s not enough to find a lead or two on the van Gogh case. I want to find that art.
    And Edge and I could solve this mystery together, just like Kyo and Mika.
    “I thought the band’s song was kind of depressing, you know?” Edge is saying. “But Mardi convinced me it’s actually atmospheric, kind of mysterious.”
    “Speaking of mysterious, here’s a mystery. A real one.” I set down the comics, and I tell him everything that went down last night.
    “Zounds!” he exclaims when I’m done. “And you’re really going to Japan next week?”
    “No joke.” I take out my sketchbook and show Edge the characters I was working on last night—the Scarf, Sockeye, the Cormorant. I explain how their real-life counterparts might be suspects. “But Skye Connolly is the prime suspect in my mind.”
    Edge studies my pictures. “Yeah, maybe she used your dad to get a job with the Yamadas and get access to their private collection. Now she has the art. She doesn’t need your dad. So she ditches him and plans her getaway. Which she’ll finance with her ‘cash windfall.’”
    “Exactly!” I smile. I love how talking to Edge always feels like building something.
    Edge is looking at my sketches. “These are really good, by the way.”
    “Thanks.” I smile wider. “So. Where do we start looking for clues?”
    “We?” Edge puts down my sketchbook. “You said the FBI was on the case.”
    “They are. But does that mean we can’t look for the drawings or tail a suspect?”
    “We don’t have police badges. We can’t get search warrants. We can’t wiretap phones. We can’t analyze forensic evidence. Hell’s bells, we can’t even drive!”
    “That’s all TV and movie stuff. There are other ways to look for stolen art. Plus, it’s not against the law to look for lost objects if you’re a concerned citizen.”
    “I guess not.” Edge looks doubtful.
    “Did I mention the Yamadas are offering a one hundred thousand–dollar reward?”
    “Crikey. That’s a lot of dough.”
    “It is.” Edge’s family, like mine, does not exactly have a lot of extra money lying around; he’s going to camp on scholarship. “Think of the film equipment you could buy.”
    He tips his head. He seems to be thinking.
    “And if we recovered the van Gogh drawings, drawings that most of the world hasn’t seen, it would be a really big deal for the art world.