Stupid, stupid, stupid. Cooper bounded up the stairs two at a time. Fudge shouldered past him and pulled ahead, even though she couldn’t possibly be sure where he was going. He burst into his room just as his mom dropped a wad of sheets on the floor. For a second he stared at the bundle wondering if she had somehow rolled the hard drive up inside.
“Looking for this?” Mom held up the computer component.
“Yeah, thanks, Mom.” Cooper stepped forward and reached for it.
Mom pulled it back. “Not so fast. First I want to know what this is all about.”
Stupid mistake. He’d have to wing it. “An auxiliary hard drive. You know, a backup.”
“Whose hard drive?”
“A friend from school. They got a new computer with tons more memory. They didn’t need the backup space anymore so he offered it to me.” He gave what he hoped looked like a casual shrug. “I figured we could always use the extra memory so I took it.”
She bounced it in her hand like she was testing the weight. More like testing the truth of his story. “And why hadn’t you told us about it?”
He had to turn this around. Get her to stop asking questions by asking some of his own. “He gave it to me Tuesday. I got sick and forgot all about it. I put it on the bed so I’d remember to tell you. That’s where it was, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“If I were trying to hide it, why would I leave it on the middle of my bed?”
She didn’t answer.
Cooper was getting good at this little diversionary tactic. But he knew this could still go either way. He had her playing defense now, which is where he wanted her. If he let up the pressure, she’d jump back on offense. But push too hard, and she’d likely push back. “Gordy is going to help me hook it up this weekend. Sound okay to you?”
“Maybe. What’s this boy’s name?”
Busted. “Jeff.” Where he came up with that name, he didn’t know. It was the first name that popped into his head.
She eyed him. “Jeff?”
“Uh-huh. Jeff Williams. His family just moved here from Canada.” Sometimes the more outrageous the lie, the more believable it was. Nobody would expect someone to lie that openly, so they figure it’s the truth. Politicians did it all the time. He reached for the hard drive.
She pulled back again and wagged a finger at him. “Not so fast, Cooper MacKinnon. I think I’ll hold onto this and see what Dad says tonight.” She tucked it under one arm, picked up the bundle of sheets, and started out of the room.
Not good. Time for the trump card. “Don’t you trust me?” He tried to paste a surprised, hurt look on his face.
Mom turned. “I’ve always trusted you, Cooper. But that doesn’t mean that sometimes I shouldn’t check to be sure I can keep trusting you.” She smiled and left the room.
Cooper stood there for a second. Fudge looked at him with eyes that seemed to know everything. She looked disappointed in him. Or worried for him. She had good reason to be.
He followed his mom down the stairs to the laundry room. She put the hard drive on the counter and started feeding the sheets into the machine. It was crazy. Every cop in Rolling Meadows would love to get their hands on that little thing. So would the men that sent Frank into some kind of twilight zone between life and death. And here it was, just sitting out where anyone could see it.
“Did Gordy go home?”
How was he going to get the hard drive hidden again? What would he tell his dad?
“Cooper?”
He snapped his attention back to his mom. Too late. Her eyes flicked to the hard drive. Stupid. Cooper wanted to kick himself. She’d followed his gaze and caught him looking at it. That would only fuel her suspicions.
She cocked her head and looked at him. “Is Gordy still here?”
“I think so, but I’ll check.” He trudged to the front porch, relieved to dodge any questioning about the hard drive. Gordy must have read the situation just by looking at his face.
“She saw it?”
Cooper nodded. “Confiscated it too. Wants to talk to my dad about it.”
“We’re dead.” Gordy jammed his hands in his pockets and turned away. “Now what?”
“I’ll figure out something.” Cooper hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. But if his dad plugged the auxiliary drive into the computer, and he would, he’d figure out Cooper was the mystery witness. Goodbye Code of Silence.
“Hiro wanted me to tell you one more thing.”
Cooper groaned. “There’s more?”
“Ken wondered if somehow organized crime was involved.”
“Now there’s a comforting thought.” This whole thing was getting insane. Organized crime? He wanted to think through that possibility. What it would mean. But right now, at this moment he had to figure out if he should turn himself in or not.
He glanced over his shoulder at the house. The last thing he needed was for his mom to overhear. He stepped off the porch and headed for the driveway, motioning Gordy to follow. “The real question is this. Do the police really have Lunk’s dad in custody or not?”
“And how are we going to find out?”
Cooper thought for a minute. “We could see if Hiro could ask her brother.”
“What if he gets suspicious?”
Gordy was right. Asking questions like that would be risky. “Why do you think Hiro warned me?”
“She’s your friend.”
“You sure about that?”
“Definitely. She may be steamed at you, but deep down we stick together. Right?”
Cooper felt a twinge of guilt. He should have set his alarm so he could have warned Gordy before school this morning. In a way he really had ditched Gordy today. And things with Hiro were pretty shaky. Still, it was a good sign that Hiro warned him. Maybe their friendship hadn’t taken quite the hit that he thought it did.
“Isn’t that right, Coop? We stick together.”
“Yeah, always. And I’m sorry about ditching you today. Really sorry.”
Gordy nodded. “It kind of hurt, you know?” He gave Cooper a sideways glance. “But I’m okay now.”
Neither of them said a word for a minute or two.
“Okay. Let’s figure this out. If they really have Lunk’s dad, also known as Mr. Lucky, somehow I need to go in or he’ll be back on the streets,” Cooper said. “But if they don’t have Mr. Lucky, and I show up at the police station …”
“You’re toast,” Gordy said.
“Or worse,” Cooper said. “I turn myself right in to Detective Hammer, and he just happens to have an Elvis mask in his trunk …”
“In which case,” Gordy made a fake gun with his hand and put it to his head, “he’ll be giving you a ride in the trunk too.”
“Thanks, Gordy.” Cooper wrestled with his thoughts. Turning himself in seemed more and more risky. If he could be sure they really had Lunk’s dad in jail it was a pretty safe bet that Hammer was clean. Then he’d tell his parents everything. Maybe they’d call a lawyer. Or give an exclusive interview to the Daily Herald. The more people he told the better.
And if Hammer was involved in the robbery somehow, with enough people knowing, Hammer couldn’t touch them. What would be the point? It would be too late to stop Cooper’s eyewitness testimony, and the surveillance hard drive would be turned in as evidence. In a sense, Cooper would handcuff the cop.
But if Lunk’s dad wasn’t in jail, Hammer was dirty. What else could it mean? He’d probably have to talk to his parents anyway, but at least he’d know who the enemy really was. An idea started forming.
“We need to know if Lunk’s dad is in jail.”
Gordy grinned. “Sure. We just go to Lunk’s house and ask if his dad can come out and play. Sounds easy.”
Cooper shook his head. “We check Lunk’s shed. See if he’s inside.”
“Great idea,” Gordy said. “We just bang on the shed door. He’ll come out and pound both of us.”
“Not if we don’t get close to the shed.”
Gordy looked confused. “How you going to do that?”
Cooper checked over his shoulder. “With the potato gun.”