Haunted Waters (19 page)

Chapter 71

I tore through the living room
ahead of Mom and Ashley, only to find the guy with the mask on the ground in our front yard holding his leg. The laptop lay on the concrete like a wounded animal. The monitor had broken off, and pieces of plastic were scattered all over. The Creep was holding the gun on the man.

“Randy!” I shouted. “What happened?”

“This guy was coming out while we were going in,” Randy said. “I must have surprised him, because he turned and tripped over that snow shovel. The gun flew out of his hand. What was he doing?”

“Trying to destroy the evidence,” Ashley said, gathering up Mom’s laptop.

There was no siren now, so the 911 call must not have gone through. Mom called the police.

A few minutes later an officer cuffed the man, then pulled his mask off. He had a patchy mustache and dark hair.

Ashley gasped. “The deputy! You came to our cabin!”

The man cursed us as he was led to the squad car.

We explained what had happened at the cabin.

The officer said he had read about it. “You saying this guy might be the one with the gold?”

“Could be why he came here,” Ashley said. “We have a picture of him talking with Winkler, but he had his back turned to the camera. We didn’t even know we had it.”

“Uh, actually we didn’t have it,” I said. I had hooked the laptop to a monitor and was looking over Mom’s e-mail files. “I guess it never came through.”

“He came here to destroy a file that didn’t exist?” the officer said. “Real sharp.”

Leigh was peering into the man’s truck. “There’s a suitcase behind the seat.” She tried to lift it, but it was too heavy. Randy pulled it out with a grunt and put it on the ground.

The guy in the squad car kicked the back of the seat and hollered.

Randy clicked the latch and opened it. “Holy gold mine!”

The nugget was still in its glass case, and when the sun hit it, the thing sparkled like a mountain stream.

The officer pushed his hat back on his head and chuckled.

Dylan ran and stuck his head inside the suitcase. “Can I hold the shiny rock?”

Chapter 72

Sam was as surprised
as we were about the deputy. When Bryce told him the man had been in our house with a gun, Sam’s face fell. But then he said he was glad that Bryce hadn’t moved the snow shovel.

Mom was relieved her book was safe, and from then on she began e-mailing it to herself and printing each chapter after she finished. She called Hayley’s mom and explained what had happened between us and asked if we could try to be friends again. Hayley was allowed to come to our house, but only if Mom was home.

Bryce and I decided not to call Randy The Creep anymore. It was the least we could do. Bryce was wary of Boo for the rest of the week, but the bully left us alone. Coach Baldwin had him scrubbing bathrooms during gym class. I guess it helps to have friends in high places.

One afternoon the sheriff came and apologized for all that had happened. He explained that the deputy and Winkler had worked with the store owner to steal the gold. The boy at the store turned out to be the owner’s son, and he had told his father about giving the memory stick to Bryce.

“When the exhibit opens again, we’d like to have you up to see it,” the sheriff said. He handed Sam the miner’s hat and a soggy monkey and raccoon.

“We’d like that,” Sam said.

The sheriff mentioned the reward, but Sam took him outside to talk.

We kept watching for a newspaper story of the gold heist to tell who had cracked the case. Finally,
The Gazette
linked the deputy with Winkler and the shop owner and exposed their plan. The report never mentioned that a 13-year-old taking a picture threw a wrench in the heist.

Dylan kept asking Sam if he could go back and play on the “Ping-Pong machine.” Sam promised we’d return as soon as the cabin owner let us, which probably wouldn’t happen since the place was trashed.

Even with the case solved and the bad guys in jail, Sam seemed upset. I wondered if it was because we were almost killed in the SUV or if he blamed himself for not being home when the deputy forced his way into our house. Or was God working on him?

When we got home from church Sunday, Sam spoke with Mom alone in their room.

Mom was crying when she came out. “Get your brother and meet us in the living room.”

Chapter 73

Ashley seemed as curious as me.
Leigh sat on the couch. She’d been taking a nap and had bad pillow hair and a crease across her face. They let Dylan play out back on the swing set—that’s how serious the meeting was.

Mom was still wiping away tears when Sam sat on the hearth in front of the empty fireplace, put his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands together.

I was getting nervous. “What’s going on?”

Sam and Mom looked at each other, and one of those moments passed between them—the kind that let you know they had talked about something. She dipped her head and her chin quivered. Sam looked at the floor.

I was afraid it had something to do with us. Were they going to split up? I couldn’t imagine that. Did they need to sell our ATVs? Had Ashley’s disease gotten worse?

Just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, Sam spoke. “Your mom has known this for some time, but I hadn’t told her everything. Until now. I don’t know how to say this really. . . .”

“Just say it, Dad,” Leigh said.

He nodded. “I’m sorry you haven’t been able to talk about this either, Leigh. But talking would endanger us all.”

“What do you mean?” Ashley said.

Sam looked at us through tears. “I’m so sorry. You have to believe me.”

Ashley started to cry. “What are you sorry for?”

“For killing your father.”

About the Authors

JERRY B. JENKINS
(
jerryjenkins.com
) is the writer of the Left Behind series. He owns the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild, an organization dedicated to mentoring aspiring authors. Former vice president for publishing for the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, he also served many years as editor of
Moody
magazine and is now Moody’s writer-at-large.

His writing has appeared in publications as varied as
Reader’s
Digest
,
Parade
,
Guideposts
, in-flight magazines, and dozens of other periodicals. Jenkins’s biographies include books with Billy Graham, Hank Aaron, Bill Gaither, Luis Palau, Walter Payton, Orel Hershiser, and Nolan Ryan, among many others. His books appear regularly on the
New York Times
,
USA Today
,
Wall Street Journal
, and
Publishers Weekly
best-seller lists.

Jerry is also the writer of the nationally syndicated sports story comic strip
Gil Thorp
, distributed to newspapers across the United States by Tribune Media Services.

Jerry and his wife, Dianna, live in Colorado and have three grown sons and three grandchildren.

CHRIS FABRY
is a writer and broadcaster who lives in Colorado. He has written more than 40 books, including collaboration on the Left Behind: The Kids series.

You may have heard his voice on Focus on the Family, Moody Broadcasting, or Love Worth Finding. He has also written for Adventures in Odyssey and Radio Theatre.

Chris is a graduate of the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. He and his wife, Andrea, have been married 22 years and have nine children, two birds, two dogs, and one cat.