The Girl from Felony Bay (27 page)

I was pulling scabs of pluff mud from my legs and brushing off the burrs when I heard someone rasp out my name: “Force!”

My blood froze in my veins, and I turned. Jimmy Simmons was standing a few feet behind me. He had just come around the back of the cabin, and he had a cigarette he must have stolen from somebody in one hand and a pack of matches in the other.

“You're dead,” he hissed, tossing the cigarette and matches onto the ground and stepping forward.

My mind was racing as I struggled to think. I had no time for Jimmy Simmons right now, but I also knew he wasn't going to let me walk away without a fight. The only good thing was that he wasn't shouting out our names. It meant he probably didn't know his father and Uncle Charlie had been looking for us. Which probably also meant that Jimmy didn't know about the stolen gold. I had to hope that was the case.

Jimmy had already closed the distance between us. I glanced at Bee and saw the panicked look on her face. “We have to run,” she hissed.

I gave my head a little shake.

“Jimmy,” I whispered, turning to face him, “I know you think this is a chance to get back at me, but we don't have time right now. There's something a lot more important going on.”

He cocked his head and looked at me with his mouth open. His big hands hung at his sides, the fingers tensed as if eager to grab my throat. “What're you talkin' about?” he asked with a sneer.

“Your father, for one. He's in big trouble.”

“No, he's not.”

Jimmy's voice carried no conviction, and for a second I could swear I saw something in his eyes that was far more than the stupidity I'd always thought was there. I actually thought it was the glimmer of understanding, maybe even intelligence, and it dawned on me that in the back of his mind Jimmy might have known for a long time that his dad was a crook. In that same instant I realized that I felt sorry for him, and I decided that telling him the truth was my only way out.

“Yes. Your dad and Uncle Charlie are in a whole lot of trouble,” I said. “That gold they said they found, well, they didn't. They stole it from Miss Jenkins.”

Jimmy's eyes squinted, and his face bunched up. For a second I thought I'd totally done the wrong thing and that he was about to go crazy and attack me. In the next moment, I watched his shoulders slump and the tension go out of his hands, and I knew the expression on his face was sadness more than anger.

“What're you talkin' about?” he said again, but this time there was no energy behind his words. What I heard was almost a pleading tone.

“I'm sorry,” I said. I glanced at Bee. I wanted to turn and run, but I knew Jimmy would never let me go. Time was passing, and our window was closing fast. I had to do something.

“What about my mom?” Jimmy said, pulling my attention back. “She's not in trouble, is she? She works for Miss Jenkins.”

I tried to think of the right answer, but my brain was a puddle. “I don't think she knows,” I said, hoping desperately that I was right.

Jimmy lowered his head. He spoke in a dull voice that was so soft, I could barely hear the words. “She always told me that he's a loser but that he's also my dad. She makes me spend time with him.”

“Abbey!” Bee whispered.

I glanced at her and shook my head again. Jimmy was still too dangerous to risk turning my back on.

“You and your mom don't live with him?” I asked.

“Not since school got out. Ever since that thing with the teachers.”

“What thing with the teachers?”

He gave a self-conscious shrug. “You know how everybody thinks I'm stupid? And don't say you don't, 'cause I know you do. Well, one of my teachers said I was this thing called
dyslexic
. It means I read backward, sort of. The teacher wanted me to go to special classes for dyslexic kids. My mom wanted me to. She said I could do good in school if learned to read right, but Dad said no way. He said that being dyslexic is being stupid, and no son of his was going to ride the blue bus for the retards. They had another one of their big fights, and Dad hit her pretty good. Afterward my mom packed us up, and we went to live with my aunt.”

I looked at him, conscious of the seconds ticking past but also that this kid who I had always thought was nothing but a dumb bully might actually be something different.

Jimmy's eyes flashed up, and he seemed to have recovered a little bit of spirit. “You better not be lying about this, Force,” he said. “If you are, I'm gonna double kill you.”

“If I'm lying, I'll let you double kill me,” I said. “I promise.”

“You guys!” Bee hissed. “Come on!”

I glanced at Bee, then back at Jimmy. “If your father and Uncle Charlie stop us, we may need you to call the police. I'm not joking. Would you do that?”

After a second or two, Jimmy shrugged, seeming to say that maybe he'd help and maybe he wouldn't. “What're you gonna do?”

“Forget your cigarette and go on around the other side. You can watch.”

A
s Bee and I stepped
through the cabin's back door, I tried to shut out any thoughts of snakes and spiders. I know Bee did the same as we moved quickly through the ruined kitchen and into the main room. Once there, we crept up to the front door, taking care to stay out of sight.

My heart was in my mouth as I searched the crowd in front of the platform for Uncle Charlie. What if we had taken too much time and he was back at the microphone? What I saw gave me a surge of hope. Uncle Charlie was still down in the hole showing off some of the gold pieces. The press and television newspeople were standing near him, holding microphones out to catch his words as their camera people continued to shoot pictures.

“Ready?” I whispered to Bee.

“Yes.”

No one seemed to notice when Bee and I bolted out of the cabin's doorway and jumped onto the platform. I stood on my toes at the podium, grabbed the microphone, and tipped it down so it would pick up my voice. A loud squealing sound came over the loudspeakers, so I knew the microphone was still on.

The screech also got everybody's attention, and the crowd of reporters turned their heads in our direction. Their expressions showed annoyance and surprise, but at least they were listening.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” I said. “My uncle and Deputy Simmons are lying to you. My name is Abbey Force, and I need to report a very serious crime.”

I glanced down. Uncle Charlie's eyes were wide with shock and alarm, his lips tight with anger. As I watched, he dumped his gold ingots back into the crate and began to scramble out of the hole. He had to cover only a few feet, which meant I had to talk very fast.

“Last night, my friend and I saw Uncle Charlie; his wife, Ruth; and Deputy Bubba Simmons dig this hole and bury this crate. It's not really treasure from an old ship. It's gold and jewels they stole from Miss Lydia Jenkins.” I pointed, my words racing out. “Over there in that cabin is where they melted down everything they stole from Miss Jenkins and made it into gold bars.”

Uncle Charlie was already on the platform. He grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the microphone. I tried to twist out of his grasp, but he was too strong.

“Uncle Charlie and Bubba Simmons caught us and tried to kill us by shoving us into an alligator pond,” I shouted, even as he clamped a hand over my mouth and handed me off the stage to Bubba Simmons.

Bee hadn't said a word, but as Uncle Charlie dragged me away, she rushed to the microphone. “My name is Bee Force, and my father bought Reward Plantation from Abbey's father. Abbey's telling the truth. These people tried to kill us.”

She couldn't say any more, because at that point Uncle Charlie pulled her away, too, and handed her down to Bubba Simmons.

Bubba was strong as an ox, and he had huge hands. He held each of us by the arm, and even though we both tried to shout, he dragged us back among the satellite trucks, where the roar of the generators drowned out everything else. I had a desperate hope that at least a couple of the press people had understood what Bee and I had tried to say and maybe believed us. If they had, I was sure somebody would call the police or demand that we be released.

I knew we'd been beaten when no one came after us, and then I heard Uncle Charlie's voice boom out loud enough to be heard over the generators.

“I've got to apologize for that interruption, but there's an explanation that'll help y'all understand what's going on. That first young lady, Abbey Force, is my niece. Her daddy, Rutledge Force, is my brother, and right now he's in a coma in University Hospital. He's accused of robbing Miss Lydia Jenkins, that same lady Abbey just mentioned, who was his client. Reward Plantation had to be sold because of that theft, and I am sorry to say . . . well, this isn't the first instance of my niece acting out or lying. I am afraid her sense of reality has been badly damaged.”

Uncle Charlie turned and looked back in our direction like he actually cared. He could still see us, but we were way behind the satellite trucks now and far out of sight of the reporters. Even though we were both twisting and fighting, we couldn't get out of Bubba's iron grip. I caught sight of Ruth. She was standing a few feet behind the platform staring in our direction, and for a second I wondered if she would come over and try to help Bubba. However, she just remained where she was, with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, looking even more sick than she had before.

“Bee Force is another girl who's suffered a family tragedy,” Uncle Charlie went on. “Her mother and brother were killed in a car accident last winter. Bee was the only survivor. She has been in psychological care ever since.”

“Don't listen to him!” Bee and I shouted. “He's lying!” It did no good. No one could hear us.

“Now, they haven't broken any laws, even though they probably hoped they could,” Uncle Charlie continued with a chuckle. “Maybe if Deputy Simmons takes them over next door where they live and tells them not to come back, we can put this behind us.”

He kept talking, but I couldn't hear him after Bubba slammed Bee and me together, which knocked the wind out of both of us. Then he picked each of us up with a different arm and slapped his hands over our mouths. “I shoulda waited there and made sure that gator did her job,” he said in a low growl. “I ain't gonna make that mistake a second time.”

We were far enough away now that I could no longer hear Uncle Charlie's lies. But I knew it didn't matter what he was saying. In spite of everything we had tried, he had beaten us.

A second later we reached Bubba's sheriff's department car. He took his hand off my mouth, opened the rear door, and tossed me across the seat. He tossed Bee in behind me and pulled two sets of handcuffs from the pouch on his belt, clicking one set onto Bee's wrists and then another onto mine.

As I tried to sit up and put my feet on the floor, I hit something, and when I looked down, whatever hope I had died completely. Skoogie Middleton was already in the car, lying on the cruiser's floor with his hands cuffed behind his back and tape over his mouth to keep him from crying out.

Bubba climbed behind the wheel, looked back over his shoulder, and nodded. “Caught that one tryin' to sneak back to his grandma,” he said.

“Why have you got him handcuffed?” I asked. “You need to let him go. He didn't do anything.”

“Nice try, little lady, but he knows about the canoe.”

We had worked so hard and come so close, but we were prisoners again. It was even worse than it had been the first time, because now Skoogie was a prisoner as well, and I knew we weren't going to escape Green Alice a second time.

A tear broke loose and trickled down my cheek, but I didn't care. I closed my eyes and silently told Daddy that I was sorry I had let him down. I was sorry I had let everyone down.