Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to calm down and think. A detective rule my grandfather taught me popped into my mind: Always remember that crime scenes are three-dimensional. Look for clues on the floor, all four walls, and the ceiling. I searched my office, looking for something that might not be as it seemed.
My office was tiny. I finished in just a few minutes and didn't find a thing. A second bang echoed from the backyard. I flinched and stood still, waiting for another sound. Nothing happened. It was too quiet.
Dropping to my knees, I crawled back over to the window and peeked out over the sill. Sledge was slinking around the yard with a piece of rain gutter in his hand, peering into every corner while he pretended to be working. He was spending a lot more time looking around than installing rain gutters. Hmm.
No time to waste watching him.
I went back to the cupboard and read the second clue again.
Things in this room are not always what they seem.
Pushing my desk chair over to the wall and standing on it, I shined the flashlight back into the cupboard. Then I stuck my whole upper body inside, twisting around and looking at the back of the front wall, and feeling all over. The cupboard was definitely empty. But when I reached up and pushed on the cupboard's ceiling, it flexed. I aimed my flashlight up there and saw a thin seam around the edges. Shining the light into the corners, I noticed four screws that had been painted to match the dull beige of the cupboard.
The cupboard had a false ceiling.
I ran down two flights of stairs, hoping to find a friendly workman.
A thin guy named Ignado who had greasy black hair was threading heavy curtains onto a rod in the living room. I looked at his leather tool belt while he and a pale man with bags under his eyes balanced the rod and lifted it onto big brackets. Ignado finally noticed that I was watching him and turned to look at me. One of his eyes was brown and the other was a cloudy blue. The blue-gray right eye didn't follow his left one. It reminded me of Alexa's old dog when it went blind.
I cleared my throat. "Excuse me, but can I borrow your screwdriver for a second?" Ignado looked at me suspiciously like he wondered why I wanted to use his tool. "I'm trying to hang a picture, and I need to screw in a hook," I fibbed. "I'll bring it right back."
"No problem," he said, handing it to me slowly. "I ain't using it." When I smiled at Ignado I got a smirk in return.
"Thank you," I said, backing away from him.
I ran up the two flights of stairs and up my spiral staircase. By the time I got to the top of the turret I was out of breath. Standing on my chair, I aimed the flashlight at one corner of the ceiling and started to work on the screws. The paint made them really hard to turn, but I finally got all four of them out. Then I pushed the top of the cupboard up, turned it on its side, and lowered it through the opening.
My heart started to pound. Above where the false ceiling had been, a tattered, yellowed envelope was taped to the wall.
Just as I reached for the envelope, "Skylar? Skylar!" my father shouted from somewhere below me. "We need your help downstairs. Now please." I could tell by the sound of his voice that he meant right now. It sounded like he was standing in the hall outside my bedroom, so I scrambled off my chair and closed the cupboard door, leaving the mysterious envelope taped high up inside.
I hurried down the stairs so I could return the screwdriver before helping my dad. Ignado gave me a creepy smile. "How'd it go?" he asked, focusing on me with his brown eye while the cloudy blue one stared blindly into the area above my head.
"Good. Thanks," I said, handing him the screwdriver while I took a quick look around the raw, dusty room.
He held onto the tool, staring at me hard before he pulled the screwdriver away from me. "Be careful," he said, wrapping a dirty hank of hair behind his ear.
"Of what?" I asked, wondering if this was some kind of a threat.
"Remodels can be real dangerous," he warned as a bald guy with a huge belly let a thick beam crash loudly to the floor.
I had to load kitchen cupboards right up to dinnertime. Then we unpacked books in the library until it was time to go to bed. I kissed my parents goodnight, changed into my nightgown, and brushed my teeth. After turning out my light, I opened my detective kit and groped around in the dark until I found my penlight. Then I crept up the spiral staircase and tiptoed across my office floor.
Quietly opening the cupboard door, I stood on my chair and aimed my penlight beam at the false ceiling. Stretching my arm up as high as I could reach, I moved the panel to the side and snatched the yellowed envelope down off the wall.
It looked old and was stained, and some of the corners had been nibbled away by rats, roaches, or something even more disgusting. I pried open the flap, hoping to find a treasure map that would lead me to Xandra's jewelry box. I pulled out an old piece of unlined paper, and carefully unfolded it."What could this possibly mean?" I asked the shadows.