Maverick Mania (8 page)

“Maybe speed up?” I offered.

Steve gave the minivan a little more gas as we went up the hill.

As we crested the hill, Steve slammed on the brakes.

We didn't have to worry about losing Riggins. The Blazer was just ahead, parked on the shoulder, with the emergency flashers on.

“Now what?” Steve said. “We can't stop. But if we keep going, we might lose him.”

We had less than twenty seconds to decide.

“Slow down,” I said, “just like you would if you were passing any other car. When we get past him, we'll pull over and hide somewhere off the highway and wait for him to pass us again.”

Ten seconds.

“You don't think he knows we're following him?”

“Impossible,” I answered. “We're just another set of headlights.”

Five seconds. Charlie Riggins suddenly stepped onto the highway with a flashlight, waving his arms to stop us.

Steve slammed on the brakes. “Now what?”

I didn't answer. I was too busy diving into the backseat. Unlike Steve, I was wearing our soccer team sweats. Mr. Riggins might not recognize me, but he'd know the team uniform.

“Now what?” Steve repeated.

“Stop,” I said, getting down on the floor and pulling a smelly blanket over me. “Like you would for any guy waving you down. Tell him you're on your way to Parker, and you'll get help for him there. What's he going to do, pull a gun?”

Steve stopped. He rolled down the window.

“Car problems,” Charlie Riggins said. From a crack under the blanket, I watched Mr. Riggins shine the flashlight into Steve's face. “Thanks for stopping.”

“I'm going to Parker,” Steve said. “I'll send a tow truck back to help.”

I tried not to sneeze from the dog hairs on the smelly blanket. Toys on the floor of the van pushed uncomfortably into my stomach and legs.

“No, you won't,” Riggins told Steve with a sudden snarl. “I've seen you before. You're going to tell me why you followed me from my house.”

“But—”

“Don't but me, punk. Your left headlight is burned out. I first noticed you when you pulled out of my street. I want you to tell me why you're following me.”

That made me wrong about us being just another set of headlights.

“But—”

“Are you the jerk who messed with my dogs last night?” As Charlie Riggins spoke, he played his flashlight beam over the inside of the van. I didn't know it until later, but he stopped the beam on the newspaper article that I had left on the console in plain sight. The picture of the dead family must have leaped out at him.

“Get this van on the shoulder now,” Mr. Riggins nearly yelled. He pulled a pistol from his jacket. “Or I'll shoot you where you sit.”

The gun, of course, made me wrong yet again.

Charlie Riggins stayed beside the driver's window as Steve slowly drove to the shoulder of the highway. He didn't give Steve a chance to hit the gas and escape. He didn't give me a chance to talk to Steve.

Steve put the minivan in park and turned on the flashers so no one would hit the van.

“Out,” Mr. Riggins barked.

“Wh...wh...where are we going?” Steve asked.

“You'll find out soon enough. Just like soon enough you're going to tell me where you got that newspaper article.”

Steve opened the door slowly. The interior light of the minivan flashed on. I held my breath and stayed under the blanket, shivering with fear. Why hadn't I listened to Captain Briscoe and stayed out of this?

Charlie Riggins didn't notice me on the floor in the back.

“You made a big mistake, kid,” I heard him say as Steve stepped out. “If people here know about that car accident, I have nothing to lose. Which means you better not try anything stupid.”

Because the driver's window was still open, I heard them both walk to the truck. Once they were inside, I heard the Blazer drive away.

I pushed up quickly, throwing the blanket off and gulping for breath.

What could I do? If I followed, the burned-out headlight would give me away. If I turned around and went for the police,
we might never find them. And even if we did, it might be too late for Steve, or Caleb.

I grabbed Steve's cell phone. As I checked for the signal strength, the battery went dead. I banged it against my head in frustration. Any other time, it would have been funny that Steve always ran his battery down.

I watched those tall and skinny tail-lights get smaller in the darkness. Suddenly, they brightened as Charlie Riggins hit the brakes.

Was he stopping to turn around? I got ready to dive under the smelly blanket again.

No! He was turning off the highway, toward the lake.

That helped my decision. But not much. Going back to Lake Havasu City for help—or even going the shorter distance ahead to the stores and restaurants near Parker Dam and calling back to Lake Havasu City—might take too long. Risky as it sounded, it seemed like all I could do was follow the truck on foot.

I began to open the door. Then I remembered the interior light and froze. If Charlie Riggins saw it flash on, he might turn back.

I waited for the truck's taillights to disappear as the Blazer drove alongside a gully that led to the lakeshore.

I finally opened the door and hopped out.

I took two steps. Then I thought of something.

I turned back to the minivan. First I ran to the rear and dug around to find a tire iron. It was all I could think of for protection. Then I rummaged in the glove compartment and found a pen and paper. It took less than a minute for me to do what I needed to do.

When I was ready, I jumped out of the van.

Tire iron in hand, I hit the ground running.

It was easy to follow the sandy road that led to the lake. Moonlight gave me a clear
view of the desert brush on each side. Where the road dropped into the gully, I dipped in and out of dark shadows as I ran.

It only took ten minutes to near the lake's edge. I saw the Blazer parked at the end of the road. I expected the pontoon boat to be anchored nearby.

I was wrong again.

The ten minutes it had taken for me to get there had been enough time. Charlie Riggins had tied a sweatshirt around Steve's face so he would be too blind to try to escape. Steve sat in the front of a small rubber dinghy, the one from the pontoon boat. And they were already motoring away from shore.

The ripples looked like silver snakes on the calm dark water. I hid behind the Blazer and watched as they moved farther away. The pontoon boat, then, was somewhere on the other side.

There is something about sound on water. People who fish will tell you that in their own boat, they can barely hear each
other above the noise of their outboard motor. So they talk louder. But for some reason, their conversation carries away from the boat above the sound of the outboard, so people a couple hundred yards away can easily hear what they're saying.

I heard.

“Just so you know, punk, you're going to spend some time with Caleb. About as long as it takes to sink a pontoon boat.”

You're going to spend some time with Caleb. About as long as it takes to sink a pontoon boat
.

Did that mean what I thought it meant? Was Charlie Riggins going to drown Steve and Caleb?

Panic squeezed me. What could I do? What could I do? What could—

I put my right thumb in my mouth and bit as hard as I could. The pain was like a
slap across the face. I took a deep breath and I told myself I needed to imagine this was a soccer play. I'm the last man back with the ball. Just my goalie is behind me. Twenty guys are spread out on the field in front of me—nine on my team, eleven on the other. I see two guys coming at me to take the ball.

Look at the situation. Make the best choice possible in the time remaining. And act on your decision.

All right, I thought. I would give myself however long it took to come up with the best solution. Fortunately, I had more than the one or two seconds I normally have on the soccer field.

Looking at it that way relaxed me.

The situation was simple. Once Charlie Riggins reached the pontoon boat, he was going to find a way to sink it. I needed to be there. Without getting caught.

Did I have a boat of my own?

No.

What did I have?

A tire iron. And the Blazer parked beside me.

Could I use the Blazer?

No, it wouldn't float.

What else did I have?

I knew how to swim.

I gave myself another half minute to try to find another solution. I couldn't.

It wasn't even a mile across the lake here. I had never swum from shore to shore, but I knew I could do it. I was in good shape from soccer, and I'd had plenty of swimming lessons. The water wasn't so cold that it would kill me. I didn't have to worry about sharks.

And there definitely wasn't time to go for help. Swimming was my only choice.

I just had to get in the water.

I dropped the tire iron and leaned against the Blazer as I kicked off my shoes and peeled off my sweat suit and T-shirt. It left me barefoot in my shorts.

Briefly, I wondered about the tire iron. I told myself it was too heavy to carry as I swam.

Then I noticed the locked fuel flap on the side of the truck. It gave me an idea. I could at least use the tire iron to pry it open, couldn't I?

And once it was open, I could...

I grinned in the darkness. Whatever happened in the next half hour, I would be happy knowing I had done something to make trouble for Charlie Riggins.

Once I was finished with the gas tank, I hid my clothes. If Charlie Riggins got back without seeing me in the lake, I didn't want him to know I'd been here.

Then I stepped into the lake. I walked until the water was waist deep. The water sent shock waves running up my body. I didn't stop to think about how cold it was. I dove forward into the dark water.

The putt-putt of the small outboard motor on the rubber dinghy got farther and farther away. Riggins was cutting at an angle across the lake. By the time I started swimming, it was at least the length of four soccer fields away from shore. As I swam, that distance grew and grew.

I wasn't worried about Riggins seeing or hearing me in the water behind him.

While the moonlight showed the jagged edges of the low mountains on the other side
of the lake and the pale gleam of my arms as I lifted them out of the water, most of my body was hidden in the depths of the dark water. Even if he happened to look back, he would probably see nothing but lake.

I tried to swim steadily. I tried to block all thoughts from my mind. I tried not to remember that Lake Havasu was really a dammed-up section of the Colorado River, and that somewhere far below me was the old riverbed. And that the water was cold and dark and deep and...

Soccer. Soccer. Soccer. I put my mind on soccer.

The Mavericks had won three games, tied one and lost one. We shared second place with two other teams. If we ended in a tie with any team, the higher ranking would go to the team with the most goals scored. That meant we really, really needed Caleb. Tomorrow morning, if we all got to the...

I gritted my teeth and kept swimming.

Tomorrow morning, when we all got to the soccer field, we would keep feeding
the ball to Caleb and let him pour in the goals. That would leave us with one last game in the afternoon. If we won that, we would move on to the sudden-death playoff on Thursday.

I pictured players on the field—Johnnie Rivers cutting across for a long pass, Stew Schmid diving with his arms stretched to stop a goal, me breaking up the field and beating defenders.

The soccer thoughts calmed me.

I got into a rhythm as I swam. My breathing grew harder, but I had plenty of energy. My eyes got used to the water. And no big fish came up to drag me down.

Before I realized it, I was halfway across the lake.

I stopped and treaded water. The stars put on an incredible show above me. The lights of Lake Havasu City glowed fifteen miles down the valley.

I looked ahead to the far shore for signs of the pontoon boat. I saw nothing. I listened hard and heard the putt-putt of the outboard motor straight ahead.

I started to swim again. Two-thirds of the way across the lake, I began counting my strokes.

Two hundred and one. Two hundred and two. Two hundred and three.

Two hundred and four. Two hundred and five. Two hundred and—

The putt-putt sound of the motor suddenly sounded louder.

I stopped and treaded water again. I pushed my wet hair back and strained to look ahead.

I realized this putt-putt sounded deeper than the outboard motor on the rubber dinghy.

Then I saw it. Like a shadow pulling loose from the dark outline of the far shore. It was the Rigginses' pontoon boat. Heading toward me. About the length of five soccer fields away.

Where were they going?

I watched a moment, and the answer came to me.

It would be much smarter to sink the pontoon boat in the center of the lake.
In the bottom of the old river canyon now filled by this lake, it would never be found.

As I waited, the pontoon boat grew more clear in the moonlight. It would reach me in a couple of minutes. It would reach the center of the lake in a couple more minutes.

Would Charlie Riggins see my head sticking out of the water as the pontoon boat passed by?

I couldn't take the chance. I swam out of its path. Then I did the dead man's float, hoping I wouldn't become a dead man.

As the pontoon boat neared, I glanced up and saw that Charlie Riggins was at the wheel. He had tied the rubber dinghy behind with a rope. I guessed that when the pontoon boat began to sink, he would make his getaway in the dinghy.

What, I wondered, would stop Caleb and Steve from jumping off the pontoon boat and swimming away as it sank?

I tried to put myself in Charlie Riggins's place. What would I do? I didn't like the
answer. I would tie Caleb and Steve to the pontoon boat.