California Schemin'

  “Haven’t we found out enough?” Bess whispered. “This place is nuts. Period. Let’s pack.”

  “Girls!” Inge called to us. “I don’t see you preparing.”

  “Nancy,” Bess said as she dug her nails into my arm. “What are we going to do?”

  IDENTITY REVEALED

  “We’re not walking forward,” I told Bess. “Stall as much as you can while I think of a way out.”

  The first person to fire walk was Mia. She waved her arms in the air as she scurried across the glowing coals. Roland and the others were cheering so loudly I couldn’t tell if Mia was screaming or not.

  At the end of the path, Roland greeted Mia with a big hug. I wanted to barf.

  “Ralph, you’re next!” Roland said with an excited little hop.

  Ralph stood barefoot. “Bring it on!” he shouted.

  “Go, Ralphie! Go, Ralphie!” Linda chanted as her husband sprinted from one end to the other.

  “Ralph’s feet don’t seem to be burned. Neither were Mia’s. Do you think there’s some scientific reason no one is getting hurt?” Bess asked me.

  “If there is,” I said, “this is one experiment I’m not willing to conduct.”

  Terrence had slipped behind us at the back of the line. “I know Daisy is really into this,” he said. “But I think it’s nuts.”

  I was about to agree when an earsplitting shriek filled the air. Danielle collapsed on the sand. She was on her back, clutching her left foot.

  “Owww! I burned my foot!” she wailed.

  I glared at Roland as Bess and I hurried over to her. “Sizzling hot coals have a way of doing that,” I said angrily.

  “Danielle will be fine. All she needs is a little cold water,” Roland said.

  “What she needs is an emergency room,” Bess insisted. “Nancy and I can drive her to the hospital—”

  “Absolutely not!” Inge interrupted. “We have perfectly good natural remedies right here at the retreat.”

  It was déjà vu. Inge had repeated almost exactly what she’d said in the emergency room—when she’d kept Brad from getting medical help the day before. Now she was doing the same with poor Danielle.

  Too stunned to speak, Bess and I watched as two attendants helped Danielle to her feet, or at least the one that wasn’t injured.

  Roland remained eerily calm. “Girls? Would you like to rejoin the line so we can complete the challenge?” he asked Bess and me.

  I no longer needed an excuse.

  “After what happened to Danielle,” I told Roland, “I’d rather not go through with the challenge.”

  “Me neither,” Bess agreed.

  Roland glared at us.

  That’s it, I thought. Any second Roland and Inge are going to demand that we leave the retreat. And we’ll never know the truth.

  Amazingly, he smiled.

  “This is only your first day,” Roland told us. “Resistance is perfectly normal.”

  “It is?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.

  “Of course,” Roland said. “By admitting your reluctance with total honesty, you both have passed the challenge.”

  “Everybody return to your rooms,” Inge shouted. “There will be a quiz on chapter seven in Roland’s book tomorrow.”

  “A nonjudgmental quiz!” Roland added.

  “At least we got out of fire walking, Bess,” I said as we trudged back to the mansion. “Not that we’d ever do it in the first place.”

  “I hope Danielle gets the attention she needs,” Bess said with a sigh.

  The others were filing through the door into the mansion. Bess and I were about to follow when I noticed something on the side of the entrance—a pile of white plastic bags. When I took a whiff, I knew what was inside.

  “Garbage bags,” I said. “What are they doing on the beach side of the house?”

  Bess looked from the bags to the ocean. “So they can load it onto the yacht and dump it into the ocean?” she asked. “Do you still believe that, Nancy?”

  “As detectives, we have to consider all options,” I said. I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of the bags. “As soon as we get to our room, I’ll send this evidence to George.”

  “What?” Bess teased. “You’re not going to read chapter seven in Roland’s book?”

  “Maybe I will,” I teased back. “After what happened on the beach, I’ll need something to help me sleep.”

  It was way after midnight by the time Bess and I got to bed. We were so exhausted that we practically passed out on the bare mattresses.

  We slept for a total of three and a half hours before we walked into the dining room the next morning. The other guests looked equally exhausted. I read what was on the breakfast menu: sugar-coated cereal, glazed doughnuts, and hot chocolate.

  As Bess and I sat at a table, I noticed something else: Band-Aids on the upper parts of everyone’s arms.

  “Excuse me,” I asked Daisy. “What are the Band-Aids for?”

  “Vitamin shots,” she answered.

  In the seat beside her was Terrence, his eyes glassy and his voice flat as he said, “Why don’t you sit with us?”

  “No, thanks, Terrence. Bess and I want to…um…quiz each other on chapter seven of Roland’s book,” I told him.

  Bess and I found an empty table.

  “Vitamin shots, as if,” I whispered.

  “They’re probably getting pumped with that sodium pentothal George told us about,” Bess said. “Did you see how loopy Terrence was?”

  “Yeah, but Daisy was okay,” I said.

  The sudden crackle of the PA system made us jump.

  “Good morning,” Inge’s voice greeted everyone. “After breakfast we will gather on the beach for mediation and visualization.”

  “Sounds harmless,” Bess said. “As long as we don’t have to sit on burning coals.”

  After finishing breakfast, we picked up yoga mats and headed to the beach. The white trash bags were still stacked near the door and smelled even worse.

  “Find a spot to place your mats, girls,” Roland called to us. “Then close your eyes and let your thoughts drift.”

  The other guests were already meditating. Instead of a rubber mat, Roland sat on a Persian-style rug trimmed with golden tassels.

  I led Bess to the bushes separating the retreat’s beach from ours.

  “Why do you want to sit here?” Bess asked.

  We began unrolling our mats. “I texted George on the way out and told her to meet us here,” I said. “Let’s see if she found out anything.”

  “I hope no one saw you use your phone,” Bess said.

  I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. A little meditation and relaxation couldn’t hurt, especially after the last few days. But just as my thoughts began drifting…

  “Psst.”

  My left eye snapped open. I turned my head to see George behind the bushes.

  “How long have you been there?” I whispered.

  “Just got here,” George said, kneeling on the sand. “There was no garbage on our beach this morning. But wait until you hear the trash I dug up on Roland.”

  I made sure Roland’s and Inge’s eyes were shut. “Go ahead,” I whispered to George.

  “Roland has a criminal record,” she replied. “His real name is Marty Malone, and he was arrested for embezzlement a few years ago.”

  I remembered my father once explaining embezzlement to me. It was the crime of stealing money or property from an employer, a company, or the government. Pretty serious stuff.

  “Roland owned a real estate agency in San Francisco,” George went on. “He stole money from his clients and his employees.”

  Bess had wiggled closer to the shrub to listen. “No way! I wonder how he resurfaced as ‘Roland,’” she said.

  “I don’t know, but this guy sounds nuts,” George said. “Why don’t you come back to the house before things go too far? Mia is an adult. She can look after herself.”

  I shook my head.
“We’re already onto something,” I said. “Roland is endangering his followers and injecting them with ‘vitamin’ shots.”

  “Which is probably that drug you told us about,” Bess added.

  “Ladies?” a voice called. Roland looked disapprovingly at us.

  “Talking does not help the renewal process,” he said. “Please continue to meditate silently.”

  George ducked, and Bess and I quickly shut our eyes. All I could see was the face of Roland—or Marty Malone.

  So Roland is a criminal, I thought. Why am I not surprised?

  “We survived meditation,” Bess said as we climbed up the spiral staircase a few hours later. “What’s next?”

  “Something called Confrontation Celebration,” I replied. “I heard Brad and Danielle mention it on the way in.”

  But when we followed the other guests to a small room off the sanctuary, my stomach did a triple flip. It was the same room those horrific insults had come from.

  “I think I just figured out what Confrontation Celebration is,” I told Bess as we entered the room.

  Inge directed us to a semicircle of chairs facing Roland. Once we were seated, he spoke. “If you are going to abandon your old self, you must know what you are about to give up.”

  I looked at Bess from the corner of my eye. Hadn’t we just done this?

  “Daisy, stand up, please,” Roland said. “Tell the group what you would like to change about yourself.”

  Daisy stood up and grinned. “Oh, wow!” she said. “I eat way too many red velvet cupcakes, but the ones at the bakery down the block from me are so incredibly good that I can’t resist.”

  “What word do we use for people like Daisy?” Roland asked.

  Bess raised her hand. “Foodie?”

  Brad sneered. “More like a gluttonous, disgusting pig! Oink, oink, oink!”

  Omigod! Soon everyone—except us—was shouting, “Fat, disgusting pig! Pig! Pig! Oink, oink!”

  Horrified, I looked at Daisy. Her face turned bright red. She started to shake and looked on the verge of tears.

  Suddenly Bess called out, “Next!” She jumped to her feet and placed her hand on my shoulder to gently push me back into my seat. “Okay, let’s see. What don’t I like about myself?”

  Everyone waited until Bess snapped her fingers and said, “I know. I can be too girly sometimes. You know, a lot of pink and ruffles and glitter.”

  “In other words, you’re a shallow, vapid loser!” Roland said, emphasizing the last word.

  “Loser! Loser! Loser!” the others chorused before Bess could reply.

  I looked up at Bess. She seemed to be taking it amazingly well. She smiled and nodded at the insults being hurled.

  “Thanks, you guys,” Bess said when the shouting was over. “I feel better already.”

  “You were able to take that?” I whispered after Bess sat down.

  “Sure.” She shrugged. “Look who’s saying it, Nancy—Roland!”

  But Daisy wasn’t doing so great. I could see her hanging her head.

  Oh, help, I thought. When will this be over?

  After each guest had been “confronted,” Roland spoke again.

  “All the new members have passed our most difficult challenges,” he declared. “So everyone in this room is ready to board the Renewal Cruise.” Cheers filled the room. He continued, “We’ll sail tonight at seven o’clock sharp.”

  As we left the room, the others chatted about the cruise.

  “I’ve been on a Renewal Cruise before,” Danielle said.

  “Is it on the yacht?” I asked.

  Danielle nodded. “There’s food, music, meditation, and personal growth exercises.”

  “What does that mean?” Bess asked.

  “You’ll find out,” Danielle said with a tiny smile.

  She hobbled away to the dining room for lunch, her foot still injured.

  “Food, music,” I said quietly. “And…garbage?”

  “Do you think we’ll be sailing with those bags?” Bess asked.

  “As Danielle said, we’ll find out,” I replied. “In the meantime, let’s see if that garbage is still outside.”

  We passed the spa rooms on our way outside. Instead of garbage, I smelled scented candles and fresh flowers.

  “Oh, wow. Look!” Bess said. She pointed to a door marked SPRAY-TANNING BOOTH. “I always wanted to see one of those.”

  We stepped inside the unattended room and looked around. The spray-tanning booth wasn’t hard to find. It was a huge glass cylinder with a sliding door. The glass was frosted blue, making it privately opaque.

  “These are practically retro,” Bess explained. “Nowadays most people get tanned with handheld sprayers.”

  “How does it work?” I asked.

  “The spray nozzles must be inside,” Bess said. She slid the door open and stepped inside. “Let’s check it out. There’s room for two in here.”

  “You want me to go inside there?” I asked. “What if it starts to spray?”

  “The controls are on the outside,” Bess said. “Come on, Nancy. Hurry up and get in!”

  I could see the controls Bess was talking about. “Okay,” I finally said, and went inside. “But let’s make it fast, before a Lotus or Ivy or Cinnamon shows up. We don’t want to get kicked out of the retreat.”

  Bess turned slowly, checking out the apparatus.

  “Those must be the nozzles,” she said, pointing to what looked like regular shower nozzles. “I think they move up and down as they spray, so they get every part of your—”

  SLAM!

  A light flashed on as Bess and I whirled around. The glass door had slid shut. Bess grabbed the handle on the inside and gave it a pull.

  “Great!” she grunted as she tugged at the handle. “The door won’t open. Now what do we do?”

  I was about to call for help when I heard a loud WHOOOSH!

  Bess and I shrieked: Nozzles went off at us, spewing spray tan at full blast!

  Without goggles to protect my eyes, I squeezed them shut. “Besssss!” I screamed. “Shut this thing off!”

  “I don’t know how!” she shouted back. I could hear her fists pounding on the door. “It’s run from the outside, remember?”

  “Great!” I cried above the whooshing noise. I started pounding on the booth too, shouting for help.

  After about sixty seconds, the door slid open a crack. I reached my arm out and opened it the whole way.

  Bess and I tumbled out of the booth. I gasped. We were covered in a slick, orangey spray from head to toe.

  “Oh, no,” I cried. “Look at us!”

  I heard footsteps outside. I ran to the door and looked out—racing away was Mia Casabian!

  “Mia, stop!” I called.

  But she kept running. If I hadn’t been so exhausted, I would have chased her.

  “It was Mia who locked us in,” I said as I went back into the room.

  “Why would she do that?” Bess said, shaking her head. “She’s supposed to be the sensible and nice Casabian.”

  “Because she’s protecting Roland? Or herself? Mallory and Mandy were right when they said Mia’s a different person. She’s frightening,” I answered. “Look at us. Our skin is ruined and so are our clothes.”

  “How did Mia even trap us?” Bess wondered, examining the sliding door. “There’s no lock on the outside.”

  “She could have used this.” I spotted a broom on the floor next to the booth and picked it up. I slid it through the door handle and tried to pull the door open.

  “This does the trick,” I said as I took the broomstick out and leaned it against the booth.

  “Was she spying on us?” Bess asked.

  I nodded at the door and whispered, “Speaking of spies…”

  Inge was standing in the doorway, her eyes burning.

  “What are you doing in here?” she demanded. “The spa equipment is not to be handled by guests.”

  I was tempted to tell Inge that we’d
been locked in the booth but changed my mind. For all we knew, she was in on it. We couldn’t risk being kept from the cruise that night.

  “Sorry,” I said, shrugging. “We were just curious.”

  “I hope this stuff comes off,” Bess said, raising a rust-colored arm.

  My skin started to itch as Bess and I followed Inge down the hall. Amber, another employee, greeted us in a room equipped with showers and stainless-steel bathtubs.

  “Too much of a good thing?” Amber asked. “Don’t ask,” I said.

  The moment Inge left, Amber got to work soaking and scrubbing us until just a slight trace of the orangey film remained. Since our clothes were beyond repair, Amber presented us with complimentary “Roland’s Renewal” T-shirts and shorts.

  “Let’s go to our rooms and change for the cruise,” I told Bess. “The last thing I want to wear is this scary logo.”

  We didn’t get far.

  Cinnamon was blocking the door, a tray in her hands.

  No doughnuts or soda here.

  Instead, smack in the middle of the tray were hypodermic needles!

  Two of them.

  HIGH-SEA SLEUTHS

  “Hello, girls,” Cinnamon said, grinning. “I have your high-energy vitamin serum.”

  “I thought you were a manicurist,” I said, my eyes still on the needles.

  “I do whatever Roland asks me to do,” Cinnamon replied.

  Bess and I traded a glance. The spa in the front was a setup for the retreat in the west wing.

  Cinnamon lifted the tray. “Who’s first?” she asked.

  I knew Bess was thinking exactly what I was. How do we avoid those shots?

  “Thanks, Cinnamon.” I smiled. “We already had our vitamins this morning.”

  “It didn’t say that on your charts,” Cinnamon said, taking another step forward.

  “Actually, we’re phobic,” I blurted. “Can we please see how long the needles are before we take the shots?”

  “I suppose.” Cinnamon shrugged.

  As I leaned over to study them, my arm “accidentally” knocked the tray out of her hands.

  “Oh, no!” Cinnamon cried after the needles had clattered onto the floor. “They were sterile until now.”