“HONESTLY, VELMA, IS THIS really necessary?”

Crouching next to me, Velma Dinkley practically hissed, “Shh!”

I hated to point out the obvious, but I did so anyway. “He’s not here yet. We don’t have to whisper.”

“But he could be here any second!” Velma countered.

I rolled my eyes but only a half roll. Because Velma was, as usual, kind of right. Even if she did look ridiculous.

As she nestled even farther down into the narrow space between the back of a bench and the brick wall of the dilapidated Crystal Cove movie theater (now playing: a six-month-old movie that everyone had already seen!), I resisted the urge to take a picture. Velma was dressed in head-to-toe black, including her ever-present combat boots. Even her hair was covered in a black knit beanie cap, and her new glasses—which were, you guessed it, black-rimmed—were slightly too big and covered half her face. She was definitely aiming for incognito but had landed more in the “Wow, is that girl trying to be invisible?” vicinity. Which, knowing Velma the way I do, was an equally plausible possibility.

“What do you think is going on with him?” Velma whispered.

I sighed. We’d had this conversation countless times since the day a few weeks ago that my best friend, Marcy Heller—well, my other best friend, since Velma Dinkley had inched her way back into the top tier—had warned me that Shaggy Rogers, one of Crystal Cove High’s most popular students, needed our help. What kind of help? Well, that was a mystery.

Luckily, Velma and I were pretty good at solving those.

“I honestly can’t even imagine what he could need our help with,” I confessed. I slunk down next to Velma and rolled my ankles until I heard a satisfying pop. Maybe my heeled boots weren’t the best choice for today’s stakeout. “Shaggy’s always been so … independent.”

Velma chuckled. “Independent. That’s a good word for it.”

“You would know.” I elbowed her. “You’re just like him.”

“What!” Velma winced when she realized how loudly she’d gasped. Her voice dropped to a whisper again. “You take that back, Daphne Blake!”

I shrugged. “Hear me out. Shaggy keeps to himself most of the time. He knows everyone, of course, but who really knows him?” Shaggy was easy to be friends with—if you brought him food and petted his Great Dane, Scooby-Doo, he was loyal to you for life—but there was only so much digging under the surface he allowed. He threw parties all the time, which helped cement his popularity at school, but he often disappeared during them, escaping to his bedroom to hang out with Scooby and listen to music. His mother was the chief of police, and his dad—he of the famous Rogers family that helped settle Crystal Cove—had a piece of every business in town. And even though we’d both known him forever, I couldn’t think of a single secret of Shaggy’s he’d ever revealed to me—not a single worry, or dream, or desire. “Even when we were kids, did you ever feel close to him like you did to me?”

Velma pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she considered this. Years ago, the four of us—me, Velma, Shaggy, and Fred Jones, now a hot member of our school’s in-crowd—were super tight. (I guess there were five of us, if you counted Scooby. Which Shaggy definitely did.) We even formed a mystery-solving agency, Mystery Inc., and spent a whole summer finding—and solving— mysteries.

We were ten years old and that was the best summer of our lives … until it wasn’t. It all fell apart thanks to me … but, I reminded myself, things were better now. Much better. Not only had Velma and I made up, but along the way I’d managed to mend my relationship with my mom, and Velma’s parents had rightfully regained ownership of their old house and property. Things were looking up for both of us.

“Shaggy is hard to get to know,” Velma admitted. She trained her serious brown eyes on me, large and intense through her prescription lenses. “And so am I. But don’t forget … you are, too.”

I scoffed. “Everyone in Crystal Cove knows me. And you can thank my mom for that!” Crystal Cove had already had a reputation, thanks to its mysterious history: Three hundred years ago, every resident of Crystal Cove disappeared, save for one. Poof. The Vanishing was enough for a town to make its name on, but then Crystal Cove had to go and do something else equally wild: A hundred years later, the entire town burned down. Poof, again. Shaggy’s great-great-great-whatever-grandfather, Samuel Rogers III, had rebuilt it from scratch. And now here we were: a quiet community on the California coast, surrounded by a sparkling sea on one side and snowcapped mountains on the other, with a history that hung in the air like an impending rainstorm.

Who knows what the world would think about Crystal Cove today if my mom hadn’t gone and designed a video game about it? Every kid who knew anything about gaming—and many who didn’t!—had at least heard about The Curse of Crystal Cove. Which meant my mom was practically a celebrity. And, in this town, so was I.

“Being popular isn’t the same as being known,” Velma countered. “And besides, I have a feeling you’d be popular even if your mom hadn’t created that game. You’ve just got that air about you. You know, that thing.”

I cast my eyes around while I thought about what Velma said. It was true that meeting people and getting them to like me had always been easy. I smoothed my long hair, being pretty had always been easy for me, too. It was funny how, for lots of kids, that was enough to grant me the power of popularity. I’d long ago learned it didn’t really matter what I was like inside. I had the smile, the clothes, and the prestige to get whatever I wanted. So, for a long time, I did. I’d decided recently, though, that maybe it was time to show more of me. The real parts.

I was so lost in thought that I almost didn’t notice what was starting to happen right in front of us.

Velma and I were on our first official stakeout since we’d sort of, kind of, basically reinstituted Mystery Inc. It was early Saturday morning—early to me, anyway—and one of those sharp fall days where the sun and wind bite against your skin. We were in downtown Crystal Cove, a broad, tree-lined street dotted with stores and restaurants, capped by a large public park on one end and the beach on the other. Traffic was light; just a few people wandered up and down the street or sipped steaming cups on the benches outside my favorite coffee shop, The Mocha.

As I surveyed the scene, I noticed a woman peering into the windows of the toy store. Suddenly, she checked her phone, gasped, and sped in the opposite direction.

“How did we know Shaggy would be here, again?” I wondered aloud, absentmindedly watching the woman from the toy store hurry down toward the beach.

“I tricked him into telling me!” Velma said. Her gleeful tone was muffled from the binoculars—yes, she’d brought binoculars—resting against her face. “I ran into him in the hallway after lunch and asked if he wanted to get coffee this morning, and he said he would be, and I quote, ‘like, doing some stuff or whatever downtown.’ ”

“Hmm.”

“I mean, I know I’m no hotshot reporter, but even I can manipulate people into telling me things sometimes,” Velma said. She winked at me, but the overall effect was ruined by her glasses sliding down her face again.

“Have you ever considered contacts?” I pushed them up for her—she was still gripping those binoculars—and made a face. “And I’m not a hotshot reporter. Just an intern.”

“The only junior to ever be chosen for the coveted Howler internship, you mean?” Velma nodded approvingly. “Seriously cool, Daph. I’ve always known you were super smart. I just didn’t know you wanted to write. I love it!”

I concentrated on scratching a spot of something—probably dried food from one of my little sisters—on the knee of my jeans and tried to keep my expression neutral. Writing was special to me. Sacred. So sacred, in fact, that almost no one knew I did it—all the time, filling up journal after journal. The Daphne Blake who was known to Crystal Cove High School had a certain reputation already, and being a brainy journalist was not part of it. But regardless, applying for the Crystal Cove Howler high school internship had been something I’d hoped to do next year, as a senior.

While the Howler itself was mostly a gossip rag, it was the only journalism internship in town. And it did have one section that rivaled the big-city papers: the editorial pages, which ran well-written opinions from important people all throughout California. Scoring their coveted internship was a guaranteed way to make college journalism programs notice you. And Mr. Grimm, my English teacher, had convinced me to apply last month, as a junior, and … well, I’d just completed my first week there. And it. Was. Awesome.

And not just because of Ram.

Now I was definitely blushing. Ramsay Hansen was the other Howler intern. But, unlike little old high school me, he was a college freshman, a journalism major at Hartwood University just a few miles away. It was his second semester interning at the Howler, which meant that he’d been assigned the task of showing me the ropes. And he did even that with aplomb! In fact, everything Ram did, he did with style. From his clothes—he wasn’t trendy in the way I was; it was more like he had a signature look that he’d managed to perfect in his nineteen years—to his work, which even Milford Jones (the owner and editor in chief of the Howler) complimented, to his writing, Ram had his stuff together.

It also didn’t hurt that he was one of the hottest guys I’d ever laid eyes on.

I cleared my throat. I’d told Velma about the existence of Ram, but nothing else. I wasn’t sure I was ready to. Plus, I didn’t even know what I would say. I’d only spent a few hours with Ram so far … but already, a tiny spark lit up inside me every time I thought about him. Right now, in a way, he felt sacred, too, just like my writing.

Velma exhaled and dropped her binoculars. “This is exhausting. I can’t believe how out of practice we are.”

I nodded, yawned. The ground was hard and I shifted my butt, wincing. When we were kids, our stakeouts would last hours. We’d pop Swedish Fish and Skittles and M&M’s to keep us going back then. I glanced longingly at The Mocha. Ram loved coffee, too, and I felt a lone butterfly begin to flap its wings inside my stomach. “What if we just grab a quick cup …”

Velma held up a hand. “Shh!”

I followed her gaze and froze. Down the block Shaggy had appeared, Scooby-Doo trotting next to him, as usual. Shaggy was in his trademark baggy pants and loose tee, his hair mussy and messy, looking like he’d slept funny. He had Scooby’s leash in one hand and a muffin the size of my head in the other.

I scooted closer to Velma. We were pretty well-hidden to most passersby—not a lot of people were entering the movie theater at this time of day—but still, if Shaggy saw us (or, more likely, if Scooby caught a whiff of our scent) we’d have a tough time coming up with a plausible cover story.

We remained still as Shaggy and Scooby sauntered a few more feet before abruptly turning into a tiny storefront. I gaped and met Velma’s eyes. She shrugged in response.

Antiques by Dee was a cramped, dusty antique shop that my mom had loved browsing in back when she lived here full-time; I hadn’t been inside it since she moved to San Francisco years ago. If memory served, it had mostly held stuff from bygone eras: rickety lamps with dangerous-looking wiring, musty-smelling clothes, vintage dolls that looked like they would come alive at night. I shuddered. What on earth could Shaggy want in there?

Velma voiced what I was thinking. “Does Shaggy have an antiques habit we don’t know about?”

I tried to imagine Shaggy collecting antiques. (It wasn’t hard to do; his father’s study was filled with old stuff, from Rogers family memorabilia to priceless artifacts like the famous Crystal Cove Crystal. Maybe antiquing as a hobby was genetic?) At the same time, a twentysomething couple rushed by, hand in hand, each of their faces trained on their phones. “Maybe Scooby has a thing for old fur coats?”

Velma tsked. I held up a hand; the last thing I needed was a lecture about animal cruelty. Suddenly, the door to the antique shop opened; a large brown nose poked out.

“Quiet,” Velma mouthed.

“I know,” I mouthed back.

Scooby and Shaggy stepped outside. Shaggy looked both ways, almost like he was deciding where to head next; then he made a left, Scooby trotting beside him, as they headed back the way they had come. Velma’s fingers tightened around the binoculars.

Thwack! The door to the movie theater opened behind us; an employee—I guessed, judging by his black polo shirt with the movie theater logo on it—rushed out, bursting into a jog as he made a left. I jumped in surprise, hitting my elbow on the bench in front of us. I groaned, which made Velma hush me.

“Relax, he’s too far away to hear us,” I said hotly, rubbing my throbbing elbow.

She sighed. “I guess you’re right. But look!”

Shaggy had paused in front of the gourmet grocery store.

“I guess everyone needs some fancy cheese once in a while?” Velma’s voice was thick with doubt. We watched as the automatic doors swallowed him.

I suddenly remembered the turkey-and-cheese sandwich I’d eaten in the Howler break room the day before, and how, while I was eating, Ram had stopped in to get something from the office fridge. He’d nodded at my sandwich and said, his eyes twinkling, “Nice lunch, Blake.”

“What’s so funny?” Velma interrupted my memory.

“Oh, just something Ram …” My voice trailed off once I realized what I was about to reveal. Too late. Velma’s eyes had lit up and she wiggled her eyebrows.

“Rammmmm?” She lingered on his name, mocking me. I couldn’t help it—I burst out laughing. It felt good. Since Marcy had moved away with her parents, I’d been hanging out with Velma a lot, but we didn’t usually talk about this kind of stuff. I’d missed it.

“Yes. Ram. I guess I … well, he’s really … I mean …”

Velma nodded, smirking. “I’m sure he is.”

“It’s not like that!” I swore. “He’s really … smart.”

“Smart? Uh-huh.”

The blush came fast and furious this time. I was powerless to hold it back. “Yes, smart. He can’t help it if he’s also … attractive.”

I could see Velma was dying to say something, but we both paused when yet another person rushed by us, practically jogging, in the direction of the beach.

“What is going on?” I wondered.

The whoosh of the gourmet grocery’s automatic doors interrupted us. We shrank back into our hiding spots—my butt was totally numb by this point—and Shaggy and Scooby bounded out. The muffin in Shaggy’s hand was gone, but in its place was a cookie nearly as big as Velma’s glasses.

“I guess he really was just … hungry?” she commented.

I shrugged. So far this stakeout was kind of a bust, and I was getting antsy.

But then Shaggy crossed the street and, quick as a flash, practically dove inside the jewelry store.

Now, I knew that jewelry store. Burnett’s was a Crystal Cove institution—it had been run by the same family for years. Upon the elder Mr. and Mrs. Burnett’s recent deaths, their middle-aged daughter, Noelle, had moved back to town to run the place. It was where my dad got my sweet sixteen present (a nameplate necklace that I hadn’t taken off since); it was where I’d bought Velma her tenth birthday present (a set of tiny amber studs that she still wore to this day). All the girls I knew browsed Burnett’s before every big dance or special event.

I chewed the inside of my cheek. Shaggy didn’t wear any jewelry, and he didn’t have any piercings. (At least, none in plain sight.)

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Velma muttered, her eyes glued to Burnett’s.

“Are we, though?” I countered. “He could be in there for any number of reasons. The holidays are almost here, for example.”

“Or maybe he has a secret girlfriend, like we thought!”

“I’m pretty sure that new freshman is Noelle’s daughter,” I added, chewing it over. “Maybe he likes her?”

“Oh, yeah, what’s her name? Taylor? Tabitha?”

“Taylor,” I confirmed. I’d noticed the new girl thanks, in part, to her tininess—she was short and thin and looked more like a sixth-grader than a freshman. At lunch, she seemed to spend her time skulking about the cafeteria, dubiously eyeing anyone who looked like they were having even a modicum of fun.

Noelle Burnett seemed fine, but her daughter sure felt like a downer, if you asked me.

Velma got a faraway look in her eyes. “Maybe …”

I could tell she was about to go off on some wild, and most likely wholly unfounded, tangent. I decided to get her back on track.

“Maybe Shaggy’s buying Scooby an anklet!”

“Daphne.” Velma gave me a look. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not taking this seriously anymore?”

I sighed. Velma was right. Part of me was lost in a daydream involving me and Ram and some kind of disaster that led to us being the only two people stuck inside the Howler offices. I forced my thoughts back to what Marcy had written before she’d left town: Shaggy needs your help. I may not have fully understood the relationship Marcy and Shaggy had forged, but I knew enough about both of them to believe she wouldn’t lie about that.

I was still processing the whole Shaggy/Marcy situation, to be honest. It had all started a few weeks ago when Marcy—my only best friend at the time, but now classified as my other best friend—had started acting super shady. Like, disappearing-for-entire-nights shady. Like, ignoring-my-texts-and-standing-me-up shady. Like, eventually-going-missing-altogether shady. I’d been desperate to find her—and luckily so was Velma, especially when other girls began disappearing. Together, we put our long-buried investigative skills to the test, eventually unearthing the real truth behind the disappearances.

Throughout the whole ordeal, we discovered that Shaggy and Marcy had had some kind of relationship. Whether it was romantic or not, we couldn’t be sure—neither was willing to explain—but it was, for sure, important to both of them. Fragile, even. And they were protective of it.

And that was why we were here, trying to track down Shaggy’s movements on this glorious Saturday morning. Shaggy needed our help, and Marcy had asked us to help him.

We just needed to figure out why and how.

“Should we go inside? Corner him?” Velma pushed her glasses up. Again.

“First can we get you some contacts?”

“Daphne!”

“I’m being serious!” I gestured at her binoculars. “You’d have both hands free. And you’d be able to see better through those things.”

She paused. “Well, my eye doctor did give me my contacts measurements at my last exam, so … I’ll consider it. Now can we please move on?”

“Let’s.” I stood up. My knees creaked. “Oof. I need a yoga class, stat.”

“Should we really go inside?” Velma straightened up, too. “That’s not quite how I envisioned this stakeout ending …”

“You got any better ideas, Dinkley?”

We gathered our stuff, ignoring the questioning glances from a family that had emerged from the diner next door and noticed us creeping out from behind our hiding spot, and crossed the street.

Downtown Crystal Cove had grown quieter over the past few minutes; there were fewer people strolling the streets. Even The Mocha looked like it had cleared out. As we approached Burnett’s, I cast a lingering glance in the shop window, where a collection of shiny bangles was calling my name. An unexpected thought rose up: Maybe one day, Ram would buy me a piece of jewelry from here …

Burnett’s door jingled as Velma pulled it open. I followed her inside, blinking furiously as my eyes adjusted to the dim light.

“Welcome!” Noelle Burnett trilled from behind the register. A slight woman, probably in her forties, Noelle reminded me of every art teacher I’d ever had, with her loose, drapey clothing, layered necklaces, and cropped, tousled hair. Even though she’d left Crystal Cove before I was born, I vaguely knew her from her visits and from the family photos her parents had proudly hung throughout the store. She was practically the same size as her daughter—tiny and almost frail-looking, like a strong wind could knock her over. They had matching dark brown eyes, and Taylor even kind of dressed like her mom—which, I realized, was probably one of the reasons no one had really made friends with her yet. (In our high school, clothes mattered. A lot.) “What can I help you girls with today?”

“Um.” Velma hesitated while I surveyed the store. Burnett’s wasn’t big, but with large jewelry displays towering in the middle of the floor, it was hard to get a full view of the place. Still, one thing was clear: Other than us, it was empty. Where had Shaggy and Scooby gone?

“Hi,” I said warmly, sticking out my hand. “I remember you from your visits. I’m Daphne, and that’s Velma. Your daughter is Taylor, right?”

Noelle’s eyes lit up. “You know my Taylor?”

“Well, I’ve seen her around,” I corrected, wincing as Noelle’s face fell. Thinking fast, I pointed at the window display. “Hey, can you tell me more about those bracelets?”

Noelle smiled. “I knew all the cool young kids would love them! Taylor told me they would! Here, let me show you.”

I tried not to roll my eyes—any time an adult called me a “cool young kid” I died a little inside—as Noelle fluttered over to me from behind the register. As she unlocked the case, Velma gave me an unidentifiable look, her eyes big and urging. I held up a finger to her. I had this under control. Jewelry was definitely my domain.

“Quiet morning?” I hoped my voice was casual.

Noelle finally opened the display case and pulled out the bracelets, leading me over to the register counter and meticulously laying out each one. “Oh, you know these gorgeous mornings. No one wants to be inside shopping!”

I noticed Velma step away and begin peering around the store. As Noelle insisted I try on the biggest, shiniest bracelet, Velma pretended to tie the laces on her boots, eyeing the space under the various tables sprawled across the room.

“Gorgeous,” I said, admiring my wrist as the light glinted off the bangle. It really was a nice piece, and it would go perfectly with my new cashmere sweater. In fact, it would also be a great birthday gift for my mom. I felt like I really owed her something special this year, now that we were actually communicating in more than just angry, one-syllable fights.

“I can give you a discount,” Noelle said eagerly.

But when Velma cleared her throat pointedly, I hurriedly put it back onto the counter and changed the subject. “Hey, so, I thought I saw Shaggy Rogers come in here a minute ago?”

Noelle blinked, her eyes bright and innocent. “Hmm, no, I don’t think so.”

I faltered. “Oh. I could have sworn …”

“So what do you think of these?” Noelle’s expression changed as she gestured to the bracelets. “They look perfect on you.”

I could feel Velma behind me. I knew her well enough to know that she’d finished scouring the store, and that, more importantly, she wasn’t going to let Noelle change the subject so easily.

“They’re really lovely,” I said, pasting a sweet smile on my face. “But I, uh, forgot my wallet today.”

“Me too,” Velma interjected. “Actually, that’s why we were looking for Shaggy. He, um, has my wallet.”

Noelle frowned. “I thought you said you forgot it?”

“I did,” Velma said quickly. She pushed her glasses up her nose and added, “At Shaggy’s house. That’s why he has it. And that’s why I need him. We need him.”

Noelle swiftly gathered up the bracelets. I noticed she was exerting an awful lot of concentration on spacing them out evenly. We were losing her. And Velma, I could sense, was losing patience.

“Noelle,” I said quickly, placing a hand on the bracelet I’d tried on. “We saw Shaggy and Scooby-Doo come in here just a few minutes before we did. Can you at least tell us which direction they went? Because we didn’t see them leave, and … well, we just need to talk to him. Please?”

She finally lifted her head and met my eyes. Her gaze was unwavering. “Shall I wrap this up for you? You can come back for it when you find your wallets.”

I could feel Velma’s scowl without even looking at her. But I just smiled sweetly. Noelle was playing at something, and even though I didn’t know what, I still knew how to play. You don’t become the most popular girl in school without getting your hands a little dirty.

“Maybe some other time,” I said warmly, pulling back my hand. “Maybe I’ll ask around and see if the other kids at school like them as much as I do.”

Noelle stiffened. But before she could reply, almost simultaneously, text alerts rang out from my and Velma’s phones.

Velma was the first one to check. Her cheeks reddened as she did. She grabbed my elbow and I winced (it was the same elbow I’d whacked against the bench outside). “Follow me,” she whispered, her voice low and urgent.

“Bye, Noelle,” I called, pretending she hadn’t just lied to our faces. She didn’t meet my eyes as she waved us out.

In the sunlight, I squinted and waited until the door to the shop was firmly closed behind us. “Well, that was bizarre.”

“We have bigger things to worry about,” Velma hissed. She held up her phone. I peered at it. Then, gasping, I checked mine. While Velma’s text was from her mom, and mine was from our classmate Sammie Daniels, they had the same overall message: Get to the beach NOW. Something is happening!

I heard feet pounding all around us. The Mocha’s doors were flung open; so were the gourmet grocery store’s, and the diner’s. People were flooding out into the streets, heading toward the beach. Some of them were running. All of them appeared frantic.

I felt a funny buzzing in my stomach; I reached out to grab Velma’s arm. “Are you as scared as I am right now?”

“Hey!” Velma called to the next group of people that had piled out of the diner. It was Nisha Shah, Shawna Foster, Haley Moriguchi, and Trey Moloney; certainly people I’d think nothing of talking to. But I knew then that Velma was as worried as I was. Because Velma definitely wouldn’t talk to them if she could help it, not unless she absolutely had to. “What’s going on?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Trey responded. He was halfway down the street already, and his voice rang out over the crowd. “It’s the beach!”

“What about it?!” I called back. My heart was pounding now, adrenaline coursing through my veins.

Haley yelled something in response, but it was hard to hear her over all the noise. I felt a pang of anxiety. “Velma, did you hear what Haley said?”

Velma nodded and pushed her glasses up her nose. “Treasure,” she said. “She said treasure has washed up on the beach.”