Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn Read Free Book Online Page B

It’s important.”
    Edge is looking at me intently now. “Okay. I’m in. You have to get to that meeting at the Yamadas’ house this Sunday, with your dad. View the crime scene. Ask questions. And we need to get on Skye’s trail. See if she’s up to anything suspicious. Where did you say she worked?”
    “Some art conservation firm in Belltown. I’ll look it up.”
    On the computer, only one link comes up for art conservation in this small downtown neighborhood. Moore and Leavey Fine Art Conservation, on First Avenue and Virginia.
    Edge jots the address on a sticky note.
    Jerry opens his office door with a bang. He stands in the doorway, Big Gulp in hand. “This guy again?” He glares at Edge. “Violet, didn’t I talk to you just last week about your friends hanging out here? If they’re not buying, they have to go.” He waves at Edge. “Bye-bye.”
    “There aren’t any customers here. I’m getting the restock done.”
    “Are you working or are you wasting time gabbing?” Jerry demands.
    I look past him, at the racks. At Superman. At all the other heroes flying on covers, punching through barriers, slashing at bad guys with swords or ray guns, with waves of energy. With webs. I think of Kimono Girl, and how I want her to be really tough.
    “Actually, neither.” I set down the box cutter. “I’m quitting.”

8
    I ’m not sure how much we accomplished by following Skye around downtown Seattle all afternoon, but least Edge didn’t talk about Mardi. And it was fun .
    As Edge sits down at his computer later that same day and uploads the video from his camera, I sit in a chair beside him and reluctantly slide the blonde wig off my head. I’m almost sorry our stakeout is over. I loved feeling like somebody else.
    While Edge connects the video camera to the computer and starts the upload, I comb out the tangled wig with my fingers and mentally replay our day.
    After I walked out of Jet City Comics, Edge and I hopped a bus downtown. We camped out at a Tully’s Coffee across the street from Moore and Leavey Conservation. Near lunchtime, Skye came into the Tully’s and ordered a drink. She was carrying a large black portfolio case tucked under one arm, with a brown portfolio peeking out from the top. “Mitsue said the drawings were in a portfolio!” I whispered. “And that brown one in there looks old, doesn’t it?”
    Edge whipped out his camcorder, and we were on her tail fast. We followed Skye down Pine Street and into Pike Place Market, pretending we were tourists in case she happened to turn and notice us with a camera.
    She stopped in a seating area to eat a sandwich wrap and to call someone on her cell. Then we followed her several blocks to First and University, and into the Seattle Art Museum. We pooled our money and bought two student-rate tickets. We checked all the galleries and exhibit halls, but we’d lost her. Then Edge spotted her going down the escalator to the lobby . . . without the big black portfolio case. Then she hurried back to her office.
    “I burned you a DVD.” Edge hands me a jewel case. “Let’s see if we got anything.”
    Clip by clip, we go through the footage on his computer and relive our stakeout. We grin at each other when we discover the audio feed picked up her phone conversation.
    “Do you think they’ll offer that much?” Skye says with a mouthful of sandwich. “Anything less, it’s just not worth all the work that I . . . Okay, then, wish me luck!”
    In the next scene, Skye passes the magazine stand on First and Pike. I lean forward. I notice two Japanese men in blue raincoats. One man is thin, the other stocky. They duck behind a magazine rack when she passes, then emerge and follow her down First Avenue.
    “Edge, these guys were near Margo’s gallery last night. For two hours.”
    “At your dad’s show?”
    “No. They just stood in the rain by their car. A green Prius. I saw them during the reception, near an alley, and I saw them across