I So Don't Do Makeup Page 15

I guide Grandma in the direction of the empty seat on Lacey’s side. Then I swoop up a handful of business cards and a basket of freebies and start circulating through the crowd.

  There’s an odd, mildly irritating smell that I can’t identify. Maybe someone’s cooking a new dish in the food court?

  “The first thing you’ll notice about Naked Makeup is the superiority of the product.” While talking, Lacey unbraids Grandma’s hair. “You’ll love wearing it. Love the way it makes you look. And love the way it feels.” She waves the spray bottle. “Hair Repair Extraordinaire. We call this our hair miracle in a bottle.” She uncaps it. “Goodbye, frizz!”

  Lacey sprays it liberally on the top of Grandma’s hair. Then she lifts up chunks and sprays under them. And then she sprays around Grandma’s ears. “Hello, manageable hair!” Lacey sprays the limp, shoulder-length dark hair of the twentysomething girl seated next to Grandma. “Hello, shine!”

  Amber steps close to Lacey, her hands out, ready for the miracle spray and the microphone.

  By now I’m finished giving out the freebies. I position myself at the side of the crowd, where I have a good view. Will’s still at the front, the only person sitting on the floor.

  Junie’s across from me. Our eyes meet, and she gives me a thumbs-up.

  Mom breezes in next to me. “Everything looks secure.”

  The crowd is quiet, expectant. Mr. Peabody’s eyes jump from Lacey to Amber to the crowd to the beauty clients to Josh and Nick. He’s nodding to himself, looking pleased.

  It’s all dramatic and well timed. They’re so professional, Amber and Lacey could be a Las Vegas act.

  “Goodbye, frizz!” With arcing arm movements, Amber sprays the first client on her side, a mother with short, curly mousy hair. “Hello, management and shine!” Amber moves to the fourth client, a teen with long, straight blond hair.

  “Why is Hair Repair Extraordinaire the best hair product on the market? Because it works. It works on dry hair. Or on wet hair.” Amber zips to the end of the kiosk, where she and Lacey meet up like a choreographed dance act. “And it works fast for those mornings when you’re getting ready for work or for school.”

  “So fast that our first client is ready to be brushed out,” Lacey says into the mic Amber’s holding.

  The two cosmeticians sashay to Grandma. Lacey picks up a large vent brush.

  Suddenly, I sniff a faint sugar + cinnamon smell.

  Mrs. Howard!

  The scent’s getting stronger. She’s getting closer. She’s here to spy on me. And she’ll spot Mom! Right in the middle of the mystery I’m not supposed to be solving.

  “Mom!” I whisper, panic bubbling up my throat. “It’s Mrs. Howard! You gotta leave. Now.”

  “Too late, Sherry,” Mom says. “She sees me.”

  Within milliseconds, the Cinnabon smell lands full force behind me. Mrs. Howard remains silent. Spying like a big sneaky ghost.

  I turn my attention back to the beauty show and ignore her.

  “First, you brush the product through the hair evenly,” Amber comments.

  Lacey places the bristles on Grandma’s crown.

  Grandma clamps her eyes shut.

  The brush on an angle, Lacey pulls downward.

  A clump of Grandma’s frizzy gray hair hits the ground.

  chapter

  thirty-one

  It all happens in painful slow motion.

  At first, there’s utter and complete silence. Like that expression about hearing a pin drop.

  Then a gasp ripples through the crowd.

  Amber and Lacey have turned to stone, like the White Witch from Narnia just sledded by and zapped them with her evil wand.

  Mouth totally agape, the twentysomething girl next to Grandma lifts a hand to her scalp. A hunk of dark hair comes away in her fist. She screams.

  Grandma opens her eyes. She looks at the girl with a handful of hair and a bald patch on the side of her head. Grandma’s eyes dart to the floor where the clump of her gray hair lies like a dead animal. She combs her fingers through her bangs. Strands come loose. She screams.

  From the other side of the kiosk, Amber’s two clients race over. Their eyes widen like Frisbees. They put their hands to their heads and pull out tufts. They scream.

  Finally, the mall manager comes to life. “Move along, people.” With big arm movements, he shoos the crowd away. “The situation is under control.”

  Which it totally is not. Four screaming women. Two frozen cosmeticians. Two guys taping. Clumps of hair dotting the ground.

  One mother ghost caught at the scene of the crime. One spying guidance-counselor ghost.

  And me. A girl who signed her grandmother up for this event. A grandmother who wore her braid for decades. Poor Grandma.

  Twinkle gone from his eyes and smile gone from his lips, Mr. Peabody says all serious and military to Amber and Lacey, “Give me the spray.”

  Amber hands it over in a jerky strobelike motion.

  “Lock up the kiosk.”

  In a daze, Lacey follows his orders.

  A security guy strides up to Mr. Peabody.

  “Don’t leave this kiosk. Don’t let anyone near it,” Mr. Peabody says. Without even looking at Amber and Lacey, he points his arm. “You two. My office. Now.”

  Josh and Nick are catching it all on tape.

  Will is handing out coupons for his hot sauces.

  Like zombies, Amber and Lacey do what they’re told. They’re ashen, almost translucent.

  Junie moves next to me. “What’s he going to do with them?”

  “He’ll release Amber to her parents because she’s a minor,” my mother says to me. “He’ll hand Lacey over to the police.”

  Yikes. I pass the info on to Junie.

  The smell of burnt sugar is nauseating.

  “Christine,” Mrs. Howard says with low and controlled fury. “Look on top of the kiosk.”

  I hear my mother suck in a breath. “The foreign Academy! How long has their agent been here?”

  I sniff. So that strange smell isn’t from the food court. It’s the foreign Academy spy.

  “He witnessed it all,” Mrs. Howard says. “Sherry, you have ruined everything.”

  chapter

  thirty-two

  Josh, Junie, Nick and I are in the food court.

  All around us, people are buzzing about the incident at Fantabulous You!

  Mrs. Howard’s words swim in my head. Sherry, you have ruined everything. I have to talk to my mother.

  I couldn’t face food right now if you paid me, but Josh and Nick are scarfing down roast beef sandwiches. What is it with guys?

  “I don’t get it,” Josh says. “When did Will get a chance to mess with the hair spray?”

  I’m wondering the same thing. Amber and Lacey checked out all the product last night. The baby powder was undisturbed. Lacey didn’t even unpack the hair spritz until this morning. Josh and Nick stuck to Will like Krazy Glue. Junie and I were on him once he got to the kiosk.

  “It wasn’t Will,” I say. “That’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

  “That’s logical,” Nick says. This is a big compliment from him.

  “And I bet the culprit was there, in the crowd, watching,” I say. “Bad guys often return to watch their handiwork.”

  “Let’s look at the tapes,” Junie says.

  Nick’s already unzipping the camera bag closest to him.

  The smell of coffee wafts by me. My mother!

  I excuse myself, race to the restroom and lock myself in a stall. Anyone hearing me talk will assume I’m on my cell.

  “I went to the office,” my mother says.

  “How are Amber and Lacey?” I ask.

  “Amber left with her parents.” She pauses. “Lacey’s pretty upset. The police used words like ‘assault’ and ‘aggravated assault.’ That really scared her. They’re escorting her down to the station for more questioning.”

  “Poor Lacey.”

  “The best
thing we can do for her is to catch the real perp,” my mom says.

  “Any idea what was in the product to make the hair fall out?”

  “Hair-B-Gone,” she says. “It’s a hair-removal spray or cream you get at the drugstore. It comes in a yellow bottle. You apply it to your legs and let it sit for five or so minutes. Then shower and the hair rinses off.”

  “How’d you figure that out?”

  “One of the officers sprayed it on his arm. It’s just a guess at this point. We’ll know for sure after the lab does testing.”

  “Doesn’t Hair-B-Gone smell gross?” I ask.

  “You can get it scented. And the hair spritz probably wasn’t straight Hair-B-Gone, just cut with it. Otherwise, those women would be bald.”

  Ack. Eek. Ike. “Anyone could buy Hair-B-Gone.”

  “Certainly. Will could.”

  I tell her why I think we were totally on the wrong track with Will. “I wanna get back to the tapes. There’s gotta be something on them. Especially because Josh and Nick were filming from different angles.”

  “Where’s Grandma?” Mom asks.

  “She went home. She said she needed to spend some time with her birds and think over the whole experience.”

  “How upset was she?”

  “Not as upset as I was expecting,” I say. “But, uh, I’m sure Sam’s spot as her fave is pretty safe.”

  “Grandma doesn’t love Sam any more than she loves you. It’s just a different kind of relationship.”

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t just talk her into a public hair-loss ordeal.”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “Mom”—my throat goes all tight—“Mrs. Howard said I ruined everything.”

  She blows out a long breath. “Let’s take care of this case first, and then we’ll worry about Mrs. Howard and the foreign Academy.”

  “I feel horrible.” Tears prick at my eyes. “I wrecked things for a lot of people and ghosts.”

  Someone bangs on the stall door. “Hurry up!”

  “But if we solve this case, you’ll have saved Lacey’s business and kept a lot of customers safe.”

  My mother has a way of always making me feel better.

  There’s more insistent pounding on the door. “Don’t be a selfish jerk. Go talk on your phone somewhere else. This is a public restroom.”

  “I’m heading over to the station,” Mom says. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I really mean it.”

  “I know, pumpkin.”

  And I know she really is distressed about the foreign Academy position going up in smoke. But my mother? She’s so not a drama queen. Especially during an ongoing investigation.

  “Sherry?” Junie calls out. “Are you okay?”

  “That your friend hogging the stall?” a girl snarls. “Tell her to get out.”

  I open the door. “Sorry,” I say to the scowling girl on the other side. “Avoid the chicken teriyaki bowl.”

  “Amber just texted,” Junie says. “The police think it was Hair-B-Gone.”

  I nod. “My mom just told me.” Yay Amber for texting. Now I don’t have to come up with an explanation for how I know about the Hair-B-Gone. “I’m dying to watch the tapes.”

  We sprint back to the food court.

  Nick sits, holding the camera, while the rest of us huddle over him, jostling to see the small playback screen.

  “What’re we looking for?” Josh asks.

  “Anything, anybody,” I say. “Just point out even the smallest thing that strikes you as odd.”

  When the tape ends, Junie says, “I didn’t see anything weird. Did anyone?”

  Nothing but head shakes.

  I break into a cold sweat. There has to be a clue on the tapes.

  Nick pops in Josh’s tape.

  I’m staring so hard my eyes are watering. It’s like I don’t want to blink in case I miss the one little something that turns into the one big something.

  And then I spot it!

  chapter

  thirty-three

  I clap and spin in a circle. “That’s it! That’s it. I saw it!”

  “What?” Junie says. “What did you see?”

  Josh squeezes my shoulder.

  “Way to go, Sherry,” Nick says.

  “Give me the camera, Nick, and I’ll show you guys.” I reach for the equipment. I hit Rewind, then Play; then I slow it all down.

  Lacey lifts the brush and sets it on Grandma’s hair. She drags downward. The camera follows the hair as it plops to the ground. And then Josh, my beautiful, wonderful Josh, had the presence of mind to scan the audience.

  Everyone’s eyes are focused in the same direction. Everyone’s mouth hits the ground.

  One person smiles.

  “Look at her,” I point at the screen. “Just look at her.”

  “Crystal!” Junie says, stunned.

  Crystal leans forward. Probably to get a better view. A bright yellow bottle begins to slide from her pocket. She shoves it back in.

  “Hair-B-Gone,” I say.

  “We never even suspected her.” Junie slaps her forehead in frustration.

  “When do you think she messed with the hair spritz?” Nick asks.

  “This morning, while she was helping Amber get ready for Fantabulous You!, Amber was rushing all over the place, doing a zillion things,” I answer. “For sure, she left Crystal alone. She totally trusts Crystal. So does Lacey.”

  “I guess Naked Makeup, with help from Amber, was luring away Crystal’s clients.” Junie snaps her fingers. “And remember her talking about getting a huge promotion to Montreal if she kept her sales up? Amber said it was her dream job.”

  “And she saw that her sales were dipping all of a sudden, so she must’ve decided to take control of the situation and shut down Naked Makeup.” Nick leans over and turns off the camera. “Sherry, we’ll make a DVD for you with all the material from both cameras.”

  “Thanks, Nick.” Who knew he could be so helpful.

  “This isn’t enough to go to the cops with, right?” Josh takes a bite of his sandwich.

  “Not even close.” I sip from Josh’s Sprite.

  “We need to find out where Crystal got the Hair-B-Gone,” Junie says. “Because there’s a definite pattern to how she’s procuring contaminants. And the pattern is they’re all from nearby.”

  Junie is crazy for patterns. And I’m starting to see how useful they are.

  “She could easily have gotten habanero peppers from Will’s kiosk for the lip gloss,” Nick says.

  “And for the night cream with the extra papaya acid? Crystal’s the queen of face peels. Maybe she just grabbed something from her own makeup counter,” I say.

  “Probably all she did was yank up a couple of prickly pear cactus plants from the mall garden and shove spines in some of the hand cream bottles.” Josh takes another bite.

  “For the sake of argument”—Junie straightens her glasses—“let’s assume the Hair-B-Gone comes from nearby. The closest place is the drugstore on the second level.”

  “We can go talk to the cashiers.” Nick jumps up. “Everyone who works at the mall knows everyone else who works here.”

  “And she wears a lot of jewelry,” I say, “which makes her easy to recognize.”

  “The mall security cameras might’ve picked her up entering or exiting the drugstore. And it’ll be time-stamped.” Josh rolls up the paper that wrapped his sandwich and lobs it into the nearest trash can. “I talked to the security guys yesterday about doing a segment for Revealing Phoenix. They were way cool and helpful. Plus, a couple of them played polo in high school, and we really connected. I’ll go back and talk with them some more. I bet they let me watch a bunch of their tapes. Who knows what got caught on those.”

  Head cocked, I smile at my three friends. “You guys are the best. We’re gonna nail her. Crystal doesn’t stand a chance against us.” I flutter my fingers in the air. “I’m going after fingerprints. That bottle of Hair-B
-Gone is somewhere. Quite possibly in the trash can at the kiosk. She probably got all her contaminants at the mall. I bet she leaves her trash here too. Crystal’s a lazy crook. And that really works in our favor.

  “We’ll keep in touch with our cells.” I stand. “Let’s go find some hard evidence!”

  Adrenaline rushes through me, filling me with extra energy and speed. I jog toward the Naked Makeup kiosk and its cute pink + butterflies trash can.

  Mr. Peabody ordered one of his security guys to stand guard, but Lacey always leaves the trash can in the same place. So I figure I’ll just skip around there, fake-drop an earring, and root in the trash while fake-hunting for the earring.

  I’m especially optimistic because I’m remembering Amber, Lacey and Crystal complaining about the trash service at the mall and how there’s never any pickup.

  When I get to the kiosk, the security guard’s leaning against an end and texting with one hand. He looks about sixteen. He barely even blinks as I skip close. Unfortunately, he’s right by the trash can, but I think I can handle the situation.

  I pull out my phone and start chatting with nobody.

  “He is so not my type.” I skip past the guard. “Besides which, he’s my older brother’s best friend’s teacher’s brother’s kid. Even if he asks, I am so not going to the dance with him. Think how embarrassing it would be for everyone if we started dating and then broke up. I can’t do that to my family.”

  The security guard shoots me a “could you be more stupid” look.

  Good. He’ll pay less attention to a moron.

  I drop to my knees by the trash can and start feeling around the floor with my free hand.

  “Excuse me,” he says. “You need to move along. No one’s allowed here.”

  “My earring just fell out. It was a gift from my fifth-grade Christmas party. Which means sentimental value, if you’re wondering. It’s the only school souvenir I have from that year.”

  “Move along.”

  Still slapping the floor, I say into the phone, “No, I’m not talking to you. It’s this security guy.” I look at his badge. “His name’s Adam. And, yeah, he’s cute.”

  “I can hear you. I’m standing right here.” Adam waves.