Haunted Waters (11 page)

Chapter 36

The Land Cruiser was locked.
The sun was still high, but the pine trees cast long shadows. I ran back inside, and as soon as I opened the door, Sam tossed me his keys before I could even ask for them. They say great minds think alike.

Once in the SUV I crawled over the front seat, opened the flap behind it, and found the memory stick. When I locked the door and closed it, I heard something behind me. A car? Someone in the woods?

“H-hello?” I called.

Something fluttered overhead, and my heart jumped into my throat. I had the same feeling the summer before on a 3-2 count with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh. And the time Ashley and I set up the bike jump in our front yard in Illinois—I had the same feeling just as I was about to go airborne.

I dashed to the house and didn’t turn around until I was inside.

Chapter 37

Bryce was out of breath
and looked like he had seen a herd of ghosts. He hurried over with the memory stick and put it on the table. “I heard someone out there,” he said.

Sam peered outside. “A car?”

Bryce shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Sam opened the door. “Hey!” His voice echoed off the hillside. Snow fell from a pine tree nearby and whooshed as it slapped branches on the way down. Sam stood watching and finally closed the door. “Go get your camera, Ashley.”

I looked all over the cabin. When I told Sam I couldn’t find it anywhere, he gritted his teeth. “Must’ve been what they were after.”

He plugged the memory stick into his computer and brought up the shots on the screen. The first showed Bryce mugging, as usual, tugging his ears and sticking out his tongue. The second was me pulling my hair out to both sides, doing the helicopter. I thought we should go to the thumbnails so we could see all of them, but Sam said he wanted to see them in order.

When he reached the last picture, we hovered over the computer, studying the shot. The gold nugget was out of focus at the front.

“Looks like the real thing to me,” Bryce said.

Sam went back to a shot I had taken outside the trailer before we went inside. “What’s this?” He enlarged it, and I noticed two men at the right of the picture. One had his back turned to the camera. He was talking with another man wearing a hat.

“Is there a way to zoom in on that guy’s face?” Bryce said.

Sam clicked the mouse and moved the cursor around. I didn’t know being a pilot made you good at computers, but he really had skill.

The man’s face filled the screen. Blondish red hair stuck out of a red hat with a
C
on it.

“Cincinnati,” Bryce said.

“How do you know?” I said. “Could be Chicago or Cleveland, couldn’t it?”

He shook his head. “Wrong color. Wrong shape
C
. It’s Cincinnati all right.”

“Could they have been looking for this picture?” I said.

“How would they even know it existed?” Sam said. “Seems strange, unless . . .”

“Unless what?” Bryce said.

Something banged downstairs.

Chapter 38

My heart raced as I followed Sam downstairs,
Ashley right behind me. The pinball machine was going wild. Dylan was flipping flippers and smiling from ear to ear. I was sure relieved. We watched him awhile, then left him to have his fun.

Back upstairs Sam studied the picture again. “We’d better take this to the police.”

“They’re probably too busy,” Ashley said.

I felt really important. To think that we might help solve a gold heist with a picture . . .

“Know how to copy the pictures to my computer?” Sam said.

“No problem,” I said.

Sam went downstairs to pry Dylan from the pinball machine, and Ashley went to her room. I copied the pictures, then logged on to our family Web site. I typed in Mom’s e-mail address and attached the pictures so she could see the cabin.

Ashley came back just as the power went out and the house went dark. The only thing that gave any light was Sam’s laptop computer, which was running on the battery.

Dylan cried out, but I couldn’t tell if he was scared or just mad that the pinball machine didn’t work anymore. I heard Sam shush him. “I’m here, big guy,” he said.

The front door flew open, and a thin man hurried in. From the light outside I could see that he wore camouflage pants and a tan jacket. He had a
C
on his hat. Ashley screamed, and the man cursed at her.

Before I could do anything, he rushed me and I slid off the chair without thinking. Ashley ran to the stairs, calling for Sam. But the man wasn’t after us. He seized the computer and made for the door.

I scrambled to my feet. From the top of the stairs something shot like a cannon and hit the man, sending him sprawling. He dropped the computer.

Sam had sprung through the air like a cat and overpowered the man. He scooped up the computer and memory stick, grabbed Ashley who was holding Dylan, and shouted, “Get to the SUV, quick!”

We raced outside, expecting the man to come flying out any second.

“Give me the keys!” Sam said, gripping a door handle.

I patted my pockets. “I don’t have them!”

“You brought them out to get the memory stick!”

I looked inside the Land Cruiser and my stomach fell. There were the keys, on the backseat.

Chapter 39

Dylan was pale and shaking
in my arms as he buried his head in my neck. I held him tight, keeping an eye on the cabin, ready to run into the woods if the intruder came out.

“Got to break the window,” Sam said.

“Call the police!” Bryce said.

Sam looked at the cabin. “My cell phone’s inside.”

“You can’t go back in,” I said.

Sam put the computer on the hood of the Land Cruiser and jammed the memory stick in his pocket. “Listen, if that guy gets past me, let him have the computer. Run that way. Promise?”

“Promise,” Bryce said. “Hurry!”

I wanted to go with him, to tell him to be careful, to tell him I loved him. But he was through the door and gone. I held Dylan tighter, closed my eyes, and prayed.

Chapter 40

I wondered if we were losing our second dad
. I couldn’t believe I’d left the keys in the SUV.

Ashley said, “We’re going to be okay.”

“That guy could kill him.”

Seconds ticked by. Something moved to the right of the cabin.

Ashley whispered, “Look at that!”

A deer walked slowly at the edge of the trees. It glanced at us, dipped its head, picked at something on the ground, and kept moving. Suddenly, it jerked its head and leaped into the woods.

Sam burst through the door, and I was never so glad to see him in my life. I’d never noticed how athletic he was. He moved like the deer, loping over the yard and reaching the driver’s-side door. He grabbed a rock and smashed the window.

“What about the guy?” I said.

“Still on the floor.” Sam reached through the shattered glass to unlock the SUV.

Dylan squirmed. “Nuh-uh,” he said, pointing over my shoulder. “He’s right there.”