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  Finally a massive shudder shook through him, as if his whole body had gone on overload and shut down. His shoulders sagged and his jerky legs and arms went limp. He shook his head and turned away. Strangely, while he still jerked and flinched slightly, it was nothing like before.

  Now something else caught Kai’s attention. A dark green dump truck with TOWN OF SUN HAVEN written on the side was weaving through the blankets and umbrellas along the beach. The back was piled high with scrap wood. The truck stopped directly inshore from Screamers, and Dave McAllister, the stocky red-haired chairman of the Sun Haven Surf boardroom, jumped out along with two guys wearing light green Town of Sun Haven coveralls. Big Dave pointed at a spot on the sand and the two town employees climbed into the back of the truck and started tossing out the scrap wood.

  Kai watched with interest. He had to assume that delivering scrap wood for Fourth of July bonfires wasn’t part of a typical town employee’s job description. Dave McAllister worked for Buzzy Frank, Lucas’s father, not for the town. Yet, there he was giving orders to the two guys off-loading the wood. If Buzzy Frank didn’t outright own the town of Sun Haven, he sure came close.

  Kai started up the beach. The strange guy had stopped about a hundred feet away and was watching him. He and Kai exchanged another look. It seemed as if there was something the guy urgently wanted to communicate, but was unable to. Kai felt bad, but it wasn’t his problem.

  Four

  Kai had just let himself in through the back door of the T-shirt shop when Pat came into the back room and handed him a credit card. “Run off a charge for two hundred and sixty plus tax, and ten blanks of this,” the Alien Frog Beast from planet Dimwit ordered, adjusting his thick, square-framed glasses. Then Kai’s father disappeared through the back door that led to the parking lot outside.

  Kai looked down at the silver card. A Fuji Bank Visa. Clearly from Japan. This was one of Pat’s favorite scams. Anytime he got his hands on a foreign credit card, he’d run off blanks and then overnight them to certain “business associates” he knew in Nevada who used forged signatures to get cash advances. By the time the tourists from Japan got home and found out they’d been scammed out of thousands of dollars, they’d be halfway around the world and unable to do anything about it.

  Kai laid the credit card on the desk where the pile of unopened mail was growing larger every day. Not only did Pat never throw out garbage—electing instead to let food wrappers, papers, and junk fall to the floor—but he also never opened mail. After all, the only mail that came to the store was junk and bills, and since Pat never paid bills, he saw no reason to look at them.

  One letter, however, caught Kai’s eye. It was addressed to a Mr. Pat Garrison and had a cancelled stamp instead of the usual red postal machine mark that was the sign of junk mail and bills. Kai slid it out from the pile of unopened envelopes and took a closer look. The return address was EBF Realty, 467 Seaside Highway, Sun Haven, and it looked both personal and official. Kai tore it open.

  DEAR MR. GARRISON,

  IT HAS COME TO OUR ATTENTION THAT YOU AND YOUR SONS ARE LIVING FULL TIME IN THE STOREFRONT PREMISES WE HAVE LEASED TO YOU AT 3 EAST STREET,SUN HAVEN. PLEASE NOTE THAT SUCH INHABITATION IS A VIOLATION OF YOUR LEASE AGREEMENT. WE REQUEST THAT YOU FIND APPROPRIATE LIVING ARRANGEMENTS IMMEDIATELY. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF YOUR LEASE AGREEMENT AND WILL RESULT IN EVICTION AND FORFEITURE OF YOUR SECURITY DEPOSIT.

  SINCERELY,

  EBF REALTY

  The back door opened and Pat came back in. “Got those blanks?”

  “No,” said Kai.

  “What the hell?”

  “I’m not helping you rip people off,” Kai said.

  “Damn you.” His father scooped the credit card off the table and started running blanks from it in the credit card machine.

  “You might be interested in this.” Kai held up the envelope.

  “What is it?” Pat asked.

  “Letter from your landlord saying they know we’re living here and if we don’t move out they’re going to evict us and keep the security deposit.”

  “Screw ’em,” Pat said.

  “This letter was dated almost two weeks ago,” Kai said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you hear from them again soon.”

  His father shrugged as if he didn’t care. He finished running the credit card blanks, and headed out to the front. Kai followed him, curious to see who was getting scammed this time.

  Out in the store a Japanese man, his wife, and two children were all having custom T-shirts made that said, “We’ve been to Sun Haven” on the front and had one of the nicer and more overpriced, colorful transfers of a sunset on the back.

  “Here you go, Mr. Asoki.” Pat handed the credit card back to the man. “I’ve taken care of the credit verification. Before I forget, do you want color guard on these shirts?”

  Kai glanced over Pat’s shoulder at a pad on the counter on which his father had written “$260.” Kai quickly did the math. Two hundred and sixty dollars for four T-shirts came to sixty-five dollars a shirt. That was close to a new record. The Alien Frog Beast must have been in heaven.

  “What is color guard?” Mr. Asoki asked.

  Pat pointed at the colorful sunsets on the backs of the shirts. “So when you wash these clothes, the colors don’t run.”

  “Run?” Mr. Asoki scowled.

  “Come off.” Pat gestured. “So the colors don’t get on the other clothes in the wash.”

  “Ah.” Mr. Asoki nodded and spoke to his wife in Japanese, then turned back to Pat. “How much is color guard?”

  “Usually ten dollars per shirt, but since you’re buying four, I’ll do them all for thirty dollars. Of course, it’ll have to be cash since I already put the charge through on your credit card.”

  “Very good,” said Mr. Asoki.

  Kais calculation had just increased the total charge to two hundred and ninety dollars. That plus the tax, which Pat charged but never filed with the state, put the total bill over three hundred dollars. Slightly more than seventy-five dollars a shirt. Definitely a new record.

  Pat handed the T-shirts to Kai. “Color guard.”

  Kai hesitated. There was no such thing as color guard. It was just another scam. The colors in the heat transfers never ran. All he was supposed to do was take the shirts in the back, wait a suitable amount of time, then bring them out front again. Usually Kai refused to participate in Pat’s scams, but he knew today it wouldn’t matter. If he didn’t do it, Pat would have Sean do it, or Pat would do it himself. Either way, Mr. Asoki was going to get soaked.

  Kai took the shirts into the back room and dropped them on the desk. Once again he gazed down at the pile of unopened bills, the blank credit card receipts, and the landlord’s letter lying on the desk. Bills that would never be paid. Receipts that would be used fraudulently. A letter that would probably be ignored. It all meant the same thing. The clock had officially begun to tick. How much time was left before the bill collectors started calling? Before the phone and electric were turned off? Before an investigator from the credit card company knocked on the door? Before the landlord changed the locks?

  Kai’s time in Sun Haven was starting to run out. Sooner or later it would mean another 3 A.M. escape. Another two-or three-day drive. Another resort town with unsuspecting victims to scam. There was only one thing Kai could be reasonably certain of. The next place wouldn’t have a beach, waves, or surfing.

  Five

  At dinnertime Pat gave Kai five dollars and the usual warning to be back at the T-shirt shop in fifteen minutes or else. The “else” part made Kai laugh. There was nothing Pat could do if he was late. Recently Kai had gotten into the habit of taking as long as he wanted for dinner.

  Tonight he was feeling hungry. The five bucks wasn’t even enough for two slices of pizza and a Coke. The balance came from whatever he had in his pocket, but after he’d eaten the two slices, Kai was still hungry. The answer was a stop at the shop where Shauna worked
, a thin sliver of a place simply called Ice Cream.

  As usual on a warm summer night in Sun Haven, there was a line out the door and onto the sidewalk. Through the window Kai could see Shauna and two boys behind the counter. All three were wearing bright green T-shirts that said, “I Scream for Ice Cream.” Kai got in line behind three young women wearing tiny bare-belly tees and tight shorts. One of them turned and gave him a broad smile. She had sun-streaked brown hair, green eyes, and a diamond stud in her right nostril.

  “Hey,” she said as if she knew him. Her girlfriends now turned and smiled at him as well.

  “Hi,” Kai answered a bit uncertainly. He thought she looked familiar, but he couldn’t imagine where he could have known her from.

  “Fairport Surf, remember?” the green-eyed young woman said. “You asked me about that yellow Rennie Yater board.”

  Now Kai remembered. She worked in the surf shop in Fairport where Kai had seen the Yater, which looked very similar to one that had been stolen from Curtis Ames’s shed a week earlier. “What’s up?”

  “Just looking for something to do,” the young woman said. “Fairport’s dead at night. You know, all families with little kids. We thought maybe there’d be some action here.”

  “So what happened to that Yater?” Kai asked.

  “It sold the next day,” she said. “Nine hundred bucks used. Can you believe it?”

  “Definitely,” Kai said. New or used, the board was one superfine stick. “You didn’t happen to find out where it came from, did you?”

  “I asked Rick,” she said. “He’s the owner of the shop. He said he bought it from this guy.”

  “What guy?” Kai asked.

  “He didn’t know the guy’s name. Only that he had long bleached-blond dreadlocks and drove a red Jeep.”

  “Did the guy happen to mention how he got the board?”

  “Rick didn’t say.”

  “Does your boss always buy great used surfboards from strangers?” Kai asked.

  “He’s pretty careful about that,” she said. “The guy must’ve seemed okay. I’ve seen creepy people come in and try to sell Rick boards and he’s told them to get lost. I don’t think he’d take a board if he knew it was stolen.”

  “Even a Yater he could get cheap and make a lot of money on?” Kai pressed.

  The young woman twirled her streaked hair around her finger. “Well … he does pay me off the books, so I guess it’s possible.”

  She seemed uncomfortable discussing her boss’s honesty, so Kai decided not the push the question any harder.

  “You live around here?” the young woman asked.

  “Sort of.”

  “Want to hang out with us tonight?” she asked.

  “I would, but I gotta get back to work.”

  “Where?”

  “T-shirt shop over on East Street.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She glanced at her friends. “Maybe we’ll stop by later.”

  “You can if you want” Kai said. “But the owner doesn’t like it when people hang around and don’t buy anything.”

  “Then maybe we’ll buy something,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t,” Kai answered. “At least not there.”

  The young woman frowned. “So, uh, what time do you get off work?”

  “Around ten.”

  “Maybe we’ll come by then.”

  “You know any other cute guys?” asked one of her friends.

  Kai thought of Bean. While he wasn’t exactly cute, and seemed kind of gawky, Kai had noticed that there was something about him girls liked. Booger, on the other hand, was too young for this crowd.

  “Let’s see what happens,” Kai said.

  “Great,” said the girl with the streaked brown hair.

  By now the line had moved inside the ice-cream shop. In the chill of the air-conditioning Kai realized a pair of cool eyes were on him. He turned and saw Shauna looking at him, and at the young women he’d been talking to. Kai waited while they ordered ice-cream cones and paid.

  “See you later,” the green-eyed girl said. She and her friends left the shop. Being next in line, Kai now came face-to-face with Shauna.

  “‘See you later’?” she repeated.

  Kai lifted and dropped his right shoulder.

  “Aren’t they a little old for you?” Shauna asked.

  Kai lifted and dropped his left shoulder.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  “So what’s good?” Kai asked, pointing at the tubs of ice cream under the glass counter.

  Shauna rolled her eyes. “It’s ice cream, Kai. It’s all good.”

  Kai leaned forward against the glass counter and whispered, “I’m kind of broke.”

  Shauna’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “You should have asked your girlfriends to treat you.”

  “Forgot,” Kai said.

  Shauna let out a big sigh. “Okay, what flavor?”

  “Uh, vanilla with Reese’s topping?”

  “Wait for me on the sidewalk,” she said, then turned to the next person in line. “Can I help you?”

  Kai went back out to the sidewalk. With Fourth of July weekend approaching, the town was getting crowded. Families trekked up and down the sidewalks, and minivans and SUVs clogged the streets. Kai heard a honk. A long, black hearse stopped at the curb. Kai stuck his head in the passenger window. Bean was sitting behind the wheel. Booger was sitting next to him.

  “Your dad let you out?” Bean asked.

  “I’m cutting class,” Kai answered. “What’re you guys up to?”

  “Looking for wood for the bonfire,” Booger said.

  “Why don’t you have a town dump truck deliver it, like Lucas does?” Kai kidded him.

  “Is that sick or what?” Bean asked.

  “His dad pays for that wood,” Booger said. “For everybody else, going out and finding the wood is part of the fun. Buzzy just buys a truckload.”

  “You know why, don’t you?” Bean asked.

  “Because Lucas and his friends can’t be bothered?” Kai guessed.

  “Not just that,” Bean said. “If Buzzy Frank is gonna have a bonfire, then it’s got to be the biggest bonfire.”

  For a fraction of a second Kai felt the urge to make sure their bonfire was bigger than Buzzy’s this year. But that was stupid. It was exactly that kind of dumb competitive thinking that led to fights over surf breaks. If Buzzy Frank was so insecure that he had to have the biggest bonfire around, that was his problem.

  “So when do we actually start building?” Kai asked.

  “Probably tomorrow, once the wind blows the surf out,” Bean said. “Waves are supposed to be good early. You gonna be out there giving Lucas grief?”

  “I’m not giving anyone grief,” Kai said. “I’m just surfing where I feel like surfing. Why don’t you come with me tomorrow morning?”

  “To Screamers?” Bean jerked his head at his long board on the rack he’d built into the back of the hearse. The rest of the back was half filled with scrap wood. “Sorry, dude, but I value this stick too much to see Sam run it over.”

  “That’s not gonna happen,” Kai said.

  “What’s not gonna happen?” Shauna asked, handing him a large vanilla cone covered with Reese’s topping.

  “Thanks, Shauna. You’re the best,” Kai said.

  “I bet you say that to all the girls.” She pretended to pout.

  “No, only the ones who give me free ice cream,” Kai said.

  Shauna punched him hard in the shoulder.

  “Ow!” Kai yelped. “Where’d you learn to hit like that?”

  “Old boyfriends,” Shauna said.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Kai said, rubbing his shoulder. “I’ll make sure I don’t become one.”

  “Hey,” Booger said from inside the car. “Can I get free ice cream too?”

  “Only if you can take a punch,” Shauna said.

  “Forget it, I’ll get some at home,” said Booger.

  “Now that I’v
e served my purpose, I guess I can go back into the shop,” Shauna said, a bit sourly.

  “Wait,” said Kai.

  “Yes?” Shauna brightened hopefully.

  “Any of you ever see a guy around here with bleached-blond dreadlocks?”

  Shauna’s expression dimmed just as fast as it had brightened.

  “I have,” Bean said.

  “What do you know about him?” Kai asked.

  “Uh, mostly that he’s got long bleached-blond dreadlocks. Only, they’re not really blond. They’re kind of this gold color.”

  “Goldilocks!” Booger said.

  “But no three bears, or pigs,” said Shauna.

  “What else do you know about him?” Kai asked.

  “That’s about it,” Bean said. “No, wait. I think he was at my high school prom. He’s a deejay or something.”

  “Know where to find him?” Kai asked.

  “Maybe the yellow pages. Sometimes those guys put up flyers on bulletin boards and stuff. You could try Blockbuster and a couple of places like that.”

  “Why do you want to find him?” Shauna asked.

  “Because I think he may have sold one of Curtis’s boards to the owner of Fairport Surf.”

  “The yellow Rennie Yater you were talking about a couple of weeks ago?” said Bean.

  “That’s the one,” Kai said. “Listen, maybe you guys could do me a favor, okay? Ask around about this guy. Let me know if you hear anything.”

  “Go undercover?” Booger asked eagerly.

  Bean groaned. “You go undercover, Boogs. The rest of us will just ask around.”

  By the time Kai got back to T-licious almost forty-five minutes had passed. He expected to catch hell from Pat, but he really didn’t care. His father was all bark and no bite. Kai only wished he’d figured that out sooner.

  Walking down the sidewalk, Kai saw someone standing in front of the T-shirt shop with his arms crossed. At first he didn’t think anything of it. Husbands and boyfriends often stood outside while the wives and girlfriends went in to shop. But then Kai took another look. Something wasn’t right. Maybe it was the way the guy stood directly in front of the T-shirt shop door. And he didn’t exactly look like a tourist, either. With his dusty boots and jeans, sleeveless black T-shirt and sweat-stained red bandanna around his head, he looked more like he’d just spent the day doing construction work.