Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls (22 page)

In a final burst of rage I gave a warbling battle cry. I swiped at her and snagged the fabric of her shirt. I ripped fiercely, tearing a chunk of her tight, baby blue oxford.

Then out of nowhere I heard a familiar yell.

“Hiiiii-ya!”
There was a thump and fake Lulu’s lips formed a stunned Kewpie
O.
The cavalry had arrived. Daisy had come to my rescue! I’d recognize the sound of her karate chop anywhere.

The doppelganger, who was still crouched on top of me, twisted around. Daisy towered over us, standing proud like a superhero. “How about picking on someone with a brown belt?” she asked sweetly.

That was enough for Dark Lulu. She jumped up, cautiously backing away from us. I stared hard at her and noticed a strange mark near her hip bone—right where I’d torn her shirt. I looked closer and gasped. It was a tattoo. A silver shark!

Wide-eyed, I pointed and opened my mouth, but before I could speak, the anti-Lulu swung around and leapt for the turnstile.

Daisy helped me to my feet. We raced up the subway stairs after the tattooed faker—but it was too late. She had disappeared.

“So close!” Daisy moaned. “We almost had her.”

“Daisy,” I said, still gasping for breath. “That was . . . I mean . . . Fake Lulu—she’s not just any girl.”

“I can see that,” Daisy said impatiently. “She’s freakishly strong. She should join the carnival.”

“I mean.” I was stumbling over my own words. I could barely believe what I was about to say. “I mean,
that
was Berlin Silver. She’s alive!”

IN A DAZE WE MADE our way to the nearby Halo City Public Library. Mostly I was looking for some peace and quiet; someplace where I could recalibrate my out-of-whack mental compass.

Daisy and I made our way to a reading room. Unfortunately, my mind simply wouldn’t rest. There were too many questions clanging around in it.

For instance, was that girl in the subway really Berlin? My brain insisted that she was. But if so, why was she dressing like me?

My brain also insisted that Berlin Silver was dead. But how could that be when she had just tried to push me in the way of an oncoming train?

Finally, who was the shark girl the police found in the bay? Why did she and Berlin have the same tattoo? How were the two of them connected?

After about five minutes of sitting in silence, I didn’t feel any more decompressed than before. I stood. “I’m itching for more information,” I said. “Let’s see if we can dig anything up on Berlin.”

“Let’s start with the shark girl article,” Daisy said. “You know. The one that made you think Berlin was dead in the first place.”

“Might as well,” I said. I gave a resigned sigh. “That’s what Nancy would do, right?”

Daisy threw an arm around me. “Come on, super-sleuth. Let’s find a computer.”

It wasn’t a challenge to locate a free one. Even in the main room at the Halo City library, they seemed to understand that the age of Gutenberg was long gone. Now it was the age of Microsoft, and what the cavernous room lacked in printed tomes, it made up for in computer terminals.

We pulled two chairs up to the nearest screen and called forth the newspaper database. HALO CITY SHARK GIRL, I typed, hitting the enter key with a bang. To my surprise not one but two articles appeared on the monitor—one from a week ago and one from that very morning.

SHARK GIRL AUTOPSY REVEALS DETAILS, the more recent headline declared. I clicked to see the whole article. Daisy leaned in to study it with me, and we hadn’t even read past the lead paragraph before my mouth dropped open in thunderstruck amazement.

The rest of the article mostly recapped the origin of the story and described the tattoo found on the body. But I only skimmed it anyway. My brain was already whirring, trying to piece the information together.

“So Berlin’s been alive all this time,” Daisy said when she was done. “Charlie was right. The tattoo
was
a coincidence.”

I tapped my chin, considering. “I’m not so sure,” I said.

“What?” Daisy shook her head in disbelief. “How can you not be sure? You told me it was Berlin who attacked you in the subway. And it says right here that the shark girl can’t possibly be her.”

I couldn’t explain it, but something was nagging me—insisting that there was more here than met the eye. But what, exactly? What was everyone missing? I needed some time to think it through.

“Let’s go to Macaroni’s,” I said. “My treat. I’ll explain everything then.”

We made the walk to the restaurant, which was six blocks away, in silence. As we strolled, I twisted all my facts and hunches together in every combination, like a Rubik’s Cube, lining up all the elements into an answer that made sense.

Daisy was having a hard time being patient by the time we were seated at Macaroni’s. “Come on, Lulu,” she begged. “Quit keeping me in suspense! This is worse than waiting to get my grades on report card day.”

“Just hold your horses till the food comes,” I told her. “I need your help hammering everything out.”

At least we didn’t have to hem and haw over what to order. They only serve two things at Macaroni’s and, luckily, they happen to be the two most delicious menu items in Halo City—homemade macaroni and cheese and chocolate milk shakes. Once you eat mac ’n’ cheese at Macaroni’s, you’ll never go back to the neon orange box kind.

When the food finally came, I dug in with gusto. I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner the night before. I polished off the plate in three minutes flat. Then I grabbed my milk shake and took a long, languid sip. It was delicious.

Finally, stomach satisfied, I whipped out my notebook. “Okay,” I told Daisy. “Let’s figure this out. I think we’ve got all the information we need.”

“I don’t see how,” Daisy said. “Especially when you consider the shark girl. Lulu, she died four months ago. It can’t have been Berlin. We’ve been going to school with her since January.”

“January,” I said. “Exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“The shark girl died in January. Right before we met Berlin.”

“Okaaay.”
Daisy still wasn’t following.

“The girl we saw today was the girl we’ve been going to school with. The girl we
thought
was Berlin. She and the girl in the river had the same tattoo.” I paused, letting the information sink in.

“So?” Daisy asked.

“So the girl we thought was Berlin is an impostor. She’s been impersonating Berlin since January, when she killed her and took her place.”

Daisy’s face was blank with utter shock. She dropped her fork to her plate. “How can that be?”

“Add it up. ‘Berlin’ hasn’t seen her mom in months. She’s been avoiding her. She’s only talked to her on the phone, and even then Mrs. Silver said she sounded different. She chalked it up to sinuses, but she must have been wrong. And get this. The picture on Berlin’s driver’s license—the one in her file—it didn’t even look like her. I assumed she’d just gotten a nose job, but her mom swore she hadn’t. Now it all makes sense. All this time we thought we knew Berlin Silver—but it’s been someone completely different passing herself off.”

Daisy rubbed her forehead, taking it all in. “But why?”

“That’s the real question. Who and why?” I paused to think about it. “Berlin Silver isn’t a bad person to be. For one thing, I’m sure her parents give her tons of money. She can buy anything she wants. Whoever is impersonating her could have wanted her allowance.”

“Lulu, this is unbelievable,” Daisy said.

“I know,” I said. “But it’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

A look of worry crossed Daisy’s face. “Let’s say you’re right. This twisted impostor is impersonating
you
now. What if she wants
you
out of the way?”

“It’s possible.” I nodded. “But you know, the really freaky part about all this is that I don’t think she realizes she’s
impersonating
me. On the train platform she really thought that she was me and that I was the impersonator.”

“If that’s true, it only makes her scarier,” Daisy warned. “The worst thing about crazy people is how unpredictable they are. Just look at my mom!”

“You’re right,” I decided. “We need to find this impersonator and stop her before she decides that there’s not room enough for two Lulus in Halo City.”

“Which brings us to our next question,” Daisy said. “If the impersonator isn’t Berlin Silver, who is she?”

I had an idea about that too. I dug my hand into my pocket and retrieved the nameplate necklace. I slapped it on the table. The overhead light bounced off it. We both looked down and stared. It just lay there, practically screaming.

I put pen to paper and wrote it down.
Fake Lulu = fake Berlin = SOMEONE NAMED HATTIE.

DAISY HAD TO be at Little Edie’s for the afternoon shift, and I was undecided about my next move, so I headed back to the apartment. The first thing I did was Google the name Hattie, which, of course, pulled up only a candle maker in New Jersey and a bunch of genealogy charts from colonial times. I tried a few other combinations: Berlin Silver = Hattie, Hattie Berlin, Berlin Hattie, Berlin Hattie Silver. Nothing. Now I was stuck—all I could do was hope something would come to me.

So far, revelations had appeared at exactly the right moment, from out of nowhere. Marisol’s mom had been right. I needed my friends, but when push came to shove, real answers came from within.

I thought about the way Hattie had demanded that I give her back my purse while we were struggling on the train platform. I looked over at my trusty old bag, sitting where I’d left it on the corner of my desk.

I’d gone through the purse the day Sally-slash-Lisa returned it to me, so I already knew that everything I’d lost was still inside. I dumped the contents out on my bed. My ID, an old tube of lipstick, receipts, scribbled unintelligible notes, photo booth pictures of me with Daisy and Charlie. A snapshot of my mom and dad, when they were young and stunning. Nothing all that interesting, really, but all of it was suddenly more precious than ever. I took an old, smudged sales slip from the bodega down the street (
toilet ppr/.99, cffee flters/2.99
) and clasped it to my bosom sentimentally. “I’ve missed you, old receipts,” I said aloud, not caring that it’s crazy to talk to yourself.

I gave the empty purse one last shake and found that it didn’t quite feel empty. I shook it again more vigorously. Nothing else came out, but when I listened carefully, I could hear a faint jingling sound. I turned the purse over and searched the inside. That’s when I noticed something new—a small tear in the lining. I opened the mouth of the purse a little wider and fished around in the hole. I grasped something hard and slightly sharp. I pulled it out of the lining and held it up to the light. A key!

It was small and dull and silver colored, hanging on a no-nonsense dog tag key chain. Engraved on the chain was a brief legend in fancy script:
The Barbara. 349.

The key obviously belonged to the Barbara Hotel—the most famous flophouse in Halo City. It had long been a refuge of the down-and-out and glamorous. It clicked immediately that a wannabe like Hattie-slash-Berlin would have been attracted to it.

All sorts of messed-up stuff had happened at that place, but it was all messed up in the most stylish way possible—with legendarily troubled celebrities involved. It was where Judith Johnson, famous actress of the 1960s, had died of an overdose on painkillers and where Claudia Fujitsu had stabbed her husband, the punk god Alan Evil, in the seventies. In the eighties Pinky Bernstein, the seminal performance artist, had gotten busted for running a large-scale counterfeiting operation from the penthouse—claiming it was all in the name of art.

And those were just the highlights. The list went on and on. True, not much had happened at the Barbara since Pinky’s capture, but maybe Hattie wanted to be the hotel’s next notorious tenant.

It was a brand-new lead, and a promising one at that. I had to get to the Barbara ASAP!

Since Daisy was working, I called Charlie. I punched in the number, my stomach fluttering and my mind zooming off in every direction. I clutched the hotel key tightly as the phone rang . . . and rang.

Where was that boy?
I knew I couldn’t wait; I was going to have to go it alone.

I took a metal spatula from the kitchen to use as a weapon, just in case. After my pathetic encounter with Genevieve, I’d decided that I wasn’t ready for a knife fight. Until then I’d have to settle for less-lethal kitchen implements.

I hurried to the Barbara Hotel, which wasn’t a long walk from my house. The weather was still nice, but evening was approaching, and the sky had taken on a different, more violent character. It was a jarring shade of pink, with dark purple clouds.

If it had been a different situation, it would have been a stunningly gorgeous sunset. But walking past the warehouses and chop shops that lie on the edge of that neighborhood near the hotel, I knew the sky was telling me to watch my step.

The streets were deserted and I brandished the spatula, ready to swat at anything that dared to cross me.

 

The Barbara Hotel is right on Dagger Bay. It’s tall and majestic in its own dilapidated way, and it appears to rise right up out of the water. It’s one of the oldest hotels in Halo City, and you can tell. Ivy crawls up the red brick facade, and the stone lions that guard the entrance are cracked and eroding. The windows are all frosted over with dirt, and that day there didn’t seem to be a light shining from any of them.