Secret at Mystic Lake

by Carolyn Keene

  “That’s the one,” I said. “Dagger, why do you have a weapon?”

  Dagger laughed, looking fondly at his knife. “This isn’t a weapon!” he said. “I always bring my knife on hikes or camping trips. It’s extremely helpful for cutting through brush, or chopping food, or in a pinch, dealing with hostile wildlife.”

  Henry raised his eyebrows. “Like me?” he asked.

  Dagger looked at him, clearly not following.

  “You pulled that knife on me,” Henry said. “Don’t tell me there was an angry bear behind me. You used that knife to threaten me into giving you the map.”

  Dagger shrugged, putting the knife back in his pack again. “Perhaps I did,” he admitted. “You were frustrating me, being unreasonable. You’re coleading a bike tour, yet you don’t know how to read a map. I lost my patience.” He paused, looking at our unsure faces. “Oh, come on. I promise you I’m not a threat to any of you. Does someone else want to take the knife?”

  “Yeah,” said Henry, reaching out his hands. “I’ll take it.”

  Before I could even think through what a potentially bad idea that was—Henry being one of my two main suspects for sabotaging the trip and being behind Caitlin’s disappearance—Zoe spoke up.

  “I’ll take it,” she said, stepping forward and carefully taking the knife from Dagger. “Now, if you boys are finished swiping at each other like a couple of cranky bears, can we get back on the road? Some of us are still worried about Caitlin.”

  We all quickly obeyed, jumping back on our bikes and falling into formation behind Dagger now. I groaned inwardly at the thought of retracing our steps, but I held out hope that this would bring us to the ranger station—and help for all of us.

  As we rounded a curve back in the direction we’d come, I found myself next to Zoe.

  “Good thinking,” I whispered to her, “getting the knife away from the boys. I don’t quite trust either of them.”

  Zoe nodded grimly. “They both had the opportunity to hurt Caitlin, I know. But it’s worse than you think,” she whispered back. “I was talking to Dagger yesterday at lunch when no one was around. He was telling me he used to be homeless; he says he had some major issues and did all sorts of things he’s not proud of. Like spending some time in jail.”

  I frowned. “But if it’s in his past, like he says, then he isn’t necessarily a threat. Did he mention anything specific?”

  Zoe shook her head, then pursed her lips. “No, he didn’t mention anything. It’s more of just a feeling I get . . . like he’s always sneaking up behind me, or something.”

  I shrugged, not wanting to let on that Dagger had spooked me on more than one occasion too.

  I pedaled even harder. We couldn’t get to the ranger station fast enough.

  Four hours later the midday sun beat down unmercifully, making our group even more miserable than we already felt—which was saying something.

  We were hopelessly lost. Dagger’s “course correction” didn’t lead to the river, and since then, each one of us had taken a turn trying to read the map and lead us in the right direction. But we had no idea where we were anymore; nothing we saw seemed to match up to any place on the map. I was beginning to worry that we’d wandered so far that we weren’t even on the map anymore.

  Which meant we were even farther from civilization. And even farther from the ranger station.

  “We need to stop!” Zoe shouted from the back of the pack, and everyone groaned, but we still dutifully pulled over.

  “This route isn’t right either,” she went on, although she really didn’t have to say it out loud; we were all thinking it. If George had been correct in reading where we were, we would have passed a picnic area along this path. But we’d been riding for an hour and passed nothing. Now we were in a heavily forested area. Deep woods flanked the path on either side.

  “Guys, I’m going to say it,” Bess spoke up. She looked miserable; sweaty-faced and sunburned, deep lines of concern etched on her face. The Bess I was facing now was a far cry from the cheery, dimpled Bess I was accustomed to in “real” life. But the adventures of the day hadn’t treated any of us well. “We’re lost.”

  George fished out the map from her pocket.

  “Don’t even bother,” said Henry, wiping the sweat off his face with the bottom of his shirt. “We’re so turned around, that thing is useless.”

  Dagger turned to him. “And whose fault is it that we’re so turned around?”

  Henry sat up in his seat, turning on Dagger. “Whose fault? I tried my best here, okay? You took a turn reading the map wrong too, if I recall.”

  “The difference is, I’m not one of the leaders of this trip.”

  Henry turned pink and shoved a finger toward Dagger as though he were going to shout something back, but Zoe cut him off.

  “You guys both got us lost, okay? You were both trying to be king of the mountain or whatever, and neither one of you handed off the map until we were good and lost already. I can’t believe this!”

  “Like you were so helpful!” Henry spat, turning on Zoe. “All you’ve done since we left the inn is complain! Why are you even on this tour?”

  “Guys!” Bess cried, holding up her hands in a big truce sign. “Who cares whose fault it is? Have you forgotten that Caitlin is still missing? Every hour we sit here yelling at each other about it is another hour that she doesn’t get help!”

  Bess’s pronouncement was greeted by a shamed silence. After a minute or so, Zoe cocked her head.

  “Do you guys hear that?”

  I tried to focus, but I couldn’t hear anything. Maybe I was too zonked by the ride.

  “It’s, like, burbling,” George said, looking into the trees on the right side of the road.

  “I think it’s a stream,” Zoe said.

  Henry let out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s something,” he said, dismounting from his bike and grabbing his water bottle off the underside of his seat. “We can at least take a break and refill. I do have water purification tablets in my pack. Maybe we can even take a dip, if it’s deep enough.”

  “Yes,” Dagger agreed, climbing off his bike too. “Let’s take a break and regroup. Then we can talk about what to do.”

  We left our bikes on the roadside and followed Zoe through the trees into the woods. It took a few minutes, but soon we found ourselves on the bank of a clear, bubbling stream, just deep enough for wading. We all eagerly refilled our water bottles. Henry pulled off his sneakers and waded in. After I’d wandered into the woods to answer the call of nature, I came back out and took off my shoes too. When I dunked my toes in, I gasped—the water was cold enough to take your breath away. But it felt kind of good after the hot sun. I waded in a little deeper, then splashed some water on my face.

  Bess, George, Dagger, and Zoe had all dispersed, either using the bathroom or resting in the woods or filling their bottles a distance away, so I found myself alone with Henry.

  “I just can’t stop thinking about my sister,” he said in a quiet voice, before I could say anything.

  “I’m sure we’ll find her,” I said, trying to look optimistic, though it was getting harder and harder as the day went on.

  Henry nodded. “I hope so. I keep thinking—what if she just wandered off to, like, see a different part of the lake or something, but then she came back and we weren’t there?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Henry, are you sure you two didn’t fight before she disappeared?”

  Henry sighed and shook his head. “For the last time, we didn’t. But, you know—Caitlin gets mad at me a lot. She always says she feels like she has to work so hard for everything, and I just kind of bob along in her current, you know? We fought a lot before we left for the tour, honestly, because she felt like I wasn’t pulling my weight.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “It sounds like you guys are really different.”

  Henry nodded. “We are.”

  “But if you guys didn’t fight, why would she jus
t run off like that? Dagger said—”

  “Dagger’s an idiot!” Henry suddenly burst out, poking his finger in my face. “Seriously! You believe that guy?”

  I stared at Henry, trying to remain calm. “I have no reason not to,” I said quietly. “Do you think he has a reason to lie about you and Caitlin fighting?”

  Henry shook his head, running his hands over his face. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I just so want this all to be over.”

  I nodded. “Me too.”

  “Auuuuuughhh! No!”

  A scream suddenly cut through the afternoon stillness, exploding from the direction of the road. It was female—Zoe? Henry and I looked at each other briefly and then splashed out of the stream and up onto the bank. We didn’t bother to put our shoes back on as we thundered through the trees, trailing Bess, with George close behind.

  “What happened?” Bess cried as she left the trees.

  Zoe didn’t answer in words; she just gestured to the side of the road, where our bikes lay, awaiting our return.

  Every single tire on every bike had been slashed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Another Long Night

  AS WE ALL STOOD STARING at the bikes, openmouthed, Dagger stepped out of the trees.

  “You!” Henry screamed, rushing toward him. “You did this! You have a knife!”

  Dagger looked confused. “I did what? I—” Then he spotted the bikes. “Oh dear.”

  “Oh dear?” Henry mocked, getting up in Dagger’s face. “Oh dear? What kind of reaction is that? Either you did this, or you’re some kind of sociopath!”

  Dagger shook his head. “I’m not a sociopath,” he said. “I’m just in a constantly balanced state because of my meditation. I am as upset about this as you are, I assure you. But I don’t see the benefit of yelling and screaming about it.”

  Henry stuck a finger in Dagger’s face. “Give me one good reason to believe you didn’t do this,” he said.

  Dagger smirked. “Because I don’t have the knife anymore?”

  Oh, right. I had actually forgotten that too. All eyes turned to Zoe, who was crouching over her bike like it was her injured child.

  She glanced up and seemed after a moment to follow what we were all thinking. “You think I did this?” she asked. “Are you kidding? Of the six of us, who do you think is most eager to get back to electricity and running water?”

  She had a point there. But George didn’t seem totally convinced. “Where is the knife, Zoe?”

  Zoe frowned. “It’s still in my pack. Look.” She went over and grabbed her backpack, then unzipped the main compartment. She had to pull out a lot of clothes and toiletries to show it to us. “It’s right where I put it when I got it. If I’d used it to slash those tires, it would be on top, no?”

  “Unless you knew we were going to ask,” I pointed out, “and buried it back under all your clothes to look less guilty.”

  Zoe narrowed her eyes at me. “I did not do this,” she said. “Fingerprint me if you want. But listen . . . we can’t deny it anymore: Someone in this group is working against us.”

  “That’s right,” I said shakily. It was hard to say out loud—because the thought terrified me—but there was no way a stranger had done this to our bikes. “I didn’t want to believe this, but it has to be true: Someone here is the culprit behind the tires and the tents and the missing food—and probably knows what happened to Caitlin.”

  Everyone looked at one another uncomfortably, but no one refuted what Zoe or I had said.

  After a second Dagger spoke, his voice a low rumble. “Only one person in this group had any motivation to hurt Caitlin,” he pointed out. “And that would be Henry. We all witnessed them arguing briefly at dinner, and they had a much more serious argument right before she disappeared.”

  Henry groaned. “Yeah, look, Caitlin and I argued sometimes. But I’m not the one with the knife and the fake name. How about we start with that?”

  “Fine. My real name is Robert,” Dagger said mildly. “Way back when, I was a very different person than I am today. I did some things I’m not exactly . . . proud of. Found myself behind bars at one point.” He took a breath and continued. “A few years ago, I was coming out of a very difficult time and decided to start my life over. So I chose the name I always wanted. Dagger—it sounds very powerful, no?” He stepped closer to Henry. “Can I ask you a question? Why do you insist that you didn’t fight with Caitlin before she disappeared?”

  Henry glared at him. “Because I did not fight—”

  “What were you involved in,” Dagger went on, “that disturbed her so much? What was the text message—”

  Henry suddenly leaped at Dagger, grabbing his shirt. “Caitlin doesn’t approve of anything I do,” he said in a gravelly voice. “Okay? I don’t know what you’re talking about. But she would snipe at me constantly.”

  Dagger stared at him warily but didn’t say more. After a few seconds Henry let him go. We were all silent for a few minutes, not knowing what to say. The afternoon sun pounded down on us, and I remembered my shoes and gear were still by the stream. Not that it mattered. We weren’t going anywhere, at least not via bike.

  “Look, we can’t turn on each other now,” George said. “In a few hours it will be dark. We’re lost in the woods without food, and Henry’s sister is still missing. What will we do?”

  Everyone was quiet. From the expressions we wore, I think we were all running through possibilities in our heads, but nobody wanted to voice our options, because they were all terrible. Stay here with no supplies? Just start walking and hope we found civilization before we all starved?

  Finally Henry spoke up. “I’d like to suggest a plan,” he said.

  “Go ahead,” said Zoe.

  Henry took a deep breath, as though he were bracing himself for our reactions. “Me and Dagger take the map and try to hike to the ranger station. Failing that, maybe we would at least find an area with cell service.”

  George shook her head. “I thought this entire area had no cell service,” she said. “I mean, I haven’t gotten a single message since we’ve been here.”

  Henry nodded. “Yeah, I know, it’s very sketchy out here, but there are a few places where you can get a bar or two of service,” he said. “I got a couple of messages yesterday. So if we can just find one of those places, maybe we can make a call.”

  Suddenly Zoe squealed. “Wait a minute. If you and Dagger leave, that means you’re leaving us girls here alone? In the woods? With no food, and when it’s probably one of you guys who’s been harassing us this whole time?”

  Henry looked at Dagger, and Dagger looked back warily.

  Suddenly George spoke up. “That’s what makes it the perfect plan,” she said. “Don’t you see? Dagger and Henry go together; they’ll keep each other honest. If one of them tries anything, the other will squelch it right away.”

  “Yeah, or the bad guy kills the good one and then circles back to kill us,” Zoe pointed out, shooting George a skeptical look.

  Henry sighed. “Do you have a better plan?” he asked. “Maybe we should all stay here and sleep with one eye open until we starve or whoever’s doing this stuff shows himself? I don’t think so. My sister is still missing! We have to do something.”

  Zoe sighed. George, Bess, and I all shared a sympathetic glance.

  “All right,” said Bess. “All in favor of Henry’s plan?”

  Dagger raised his hand right away. Then George and me, then Bess, and then finally Zoe.

  “You guys better walk fast,” she said, still not looking at all happy about this.

  It wasn’t raining—in fact, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky—but Zoe insisted she still wanted “some kind of shelter,” so we used her tent as a tarp, stringing it between trees as Caitlin and Henry had done the night before. That at least gave us enough space to set up our sleeping bags beneath, and sleep without someone’s knees in our back.

  The woods felt eerily silent once the boys
had gone. We did our best to fill the silence with idle chatter; Bess and Zoe spent an hour breaking down each designer’s chances on Project Runway, and for once George actually sat and listened, and even put in a few comments here and there. After dinner—kind of a depressing meal of protein bar chunks, wild blackberries, chestnuts, and dandelion greens—Zoe insisted that we have a karaoke competition. At first I felt kind of ridiculous, belting out a Katy Perry song to the silent pine trees, but after we got going, I had to admit that it was really fun and helped us use up the manic energy we were all feeling. George sang a One Direction tune that Bess was shocked she even knew, and that led to a bubbly conversation about pop music and some pretty funny jokes about boy bands from Zoe. We kept talking and laughing until the moon was high in the sky, and then finally our constant yawning made it hard to ignore the obvious.

  “I guess we should really go to sleep,” Zoe said, looking nervously out into the dark. “Can’t put it off forever.”

  We all agreed—we were too tired to argue. We set up our sleeping bags in a cross shape, with our heads at the center. Nobody said anything, but I think we were all thinking that it would be impossible to disturb one of us without the rest of us waking up too. Safety in numbers. It was all we had.

  For a few minutes we all just lay there. Zoe had a flashlight, and she said she knew she should turn it off to conserve the batteries, but she didn’t want to just yet.

  “Hey, cuz?” Bess said sleepily.

  “Yeah,” said George. She sounded tense, and I wondered if, like me, she was thinking about whether she’d actually get to sleep.

  “I’m really sorry about how I acted at the beginning of this trip,” Bess said. “I thought I was just teasing, but you’re right—this was your big thing. I’m sorry if I made you feel bad about it.”

  “It’s cool, cuz,” George replied. “And for the record? For like a minute? While we were decorating the cupcakes with edible glitter? I kind of had fun at your makeover party.”

  “I hate it when we fight,” Bess added. “George, you’ll always be my BCF. Best Cousin Forever.”