The Disappearance

by Franklin W. Dixon

  We all sat down and dug in gratefully. The sandwiches were egg salad, and I was so starving and tired, they tasted amazing.

  “Thank you so much for this,” Jones said with a smile. “It was really kind of you to have us over.”

  Patty didn’t smile back. “Well,” she said, “you wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone.”

  True. Jones and I exchanged awkward glances.

  “Ms. Haverill . . . ,” I began.

  “Patty,” she corrected me.

  “Patty,” I said. “Well, Jones got to know Harper online, and then we all met her at Comic-Con right before she disappeared.”

  Patty gave a tense nod.

  “We’ve been trying to figure out where she might have gone,” Jones added.

  Patty narrowed her eyes at Jones. “Are you working with the police? Because I’ve already talked to them.”

  “No, we’re just friends of Harper’s,” Joe explained. “Concerned friends. We wondered if you could tell us anything about her life, anything that might help us figure out where she is?”

  Patty let out an unimpressed-sounding grunt. “If you all are her friends,” she said, “then you probably know more than me. Even when she lived here, half the time Harper treated me like a landlord.”

  Jones took a sip of iced tea and swallowed. “How did you come to be Harper’s guardian?”

  Patty sighed. “Well. Sure. Let’s get into it.” She pushed a wisp of hair behind her ear. “I took Harper in when my sister, Harper’s mother, died.”

  “That’s sad,” said Jones. “I mean, for you and for Harper. How old was she?”

  “She was eight,” Patty said. “Really sad. But I love Harper like my own daughter. Always have.”

  Jones nodded slowly. “And Harper’s father?”

  Patty scowled. “Her father was never in the picture. A rolling stone, that one. That’s where Harper gets it.”

  Jones glanced at me, then Joe. “Sorry? Where Harper gets what?”

  Patty shook her head, staring into her lap, then looked up at us. She looked into my eyes, then Joe’s, then Jones’s. “Look,” she said, “it’s nice of you kids to worry so much about my niece. And it’s terrible that Harper has gone missing, but that girl has always been . . . restless.”

  Restless. I thought of the online messages, the money. Did Harper just want to get out of this town?

  “What do you mean, restless?” Joe asked.

  Patty fixed an unimpressed gaze on him. “I mean restless by restless. You know what it means. She ran with the wrong crowd, got into trouble, dropped out of school. She was always talking about going to the city and going to art school, but that girl couldn’t keep a job long enough to save up any money. She’d get fired, and it was always someone else’s fault. They gave her the wrong schedule. Or her boss didn’t like her. Or someone sabotaged the fryer machine.” She shook her head again. “Ridiculous stuff. I love her, but she’s work.”

  I looked at Joe. “Matt told us that they were saving up for a down payment on a house,” I said to Patty.

  Patty frowned at me. “Well, I don’t know anything about that. I can see Matt wanting that, but Harper? She’s still too . . .”

  “Too?” Jones prompted, and took a bite of her sandwich.

  Patty looked at her. “Wild,” she said, jutting out her chin a little. We were all silent for a few seconds—silent enough that we could hear a car drive past. So someone else does live around here, I thought.

  Then she scowled. “Listen, like I said, you all are very nice to worry about my niece. But honestly? Whatever the police might believe, I don’t think anyone ‘took’ Harper anywhere.”

  Joe raised an eyebrow. “What do you think happened to her, then?”

  Patty shrugged. “You know what? Harper tried to run away five different times before she was sixteen. I half think she got messed up with some of those same kids she hung with when she was a teenager, and took off with them.”

  I put down my sandwich. As good as it was, I’d been too engrossed in this conversation to take a bite for the last few minutes, anyway.

  “Um,” said Jones, looking a little flustered by this new theory. “Why? I mean, who were these kids?”

  Patty snorted. “Bad kids,” she said, “that’s all you have to know. Always up to something they shouldn’t be.”

  “Like what?” Joe asked frankly.

  “Stealing, running away, all of it.” Patty stared at the table for a minute, then looked up at us. “See, I’ve been getting threatening messages. Messages from people trying to find Harper. I think she got messed up with these kids again, and then panicked. Did something. Maybe took something. And now they want it back.”

  Joe wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood up. “You’ve been getting threatening messages?” he asked. “Did you save any? Could we hear them?”

  Patty looked from Joe, to me, to Jones, her expression never changing from “unimpressed.” Still, she shrugged and stood. “I suppose.”

  She walked over to the counter, which I now saw held a denim purse. She rooted around in it for a few seconds and then pulled out a smartphone clad in a quilt-patterned case. After tapping on the phone for a few seconds, she walked back to the table and held it out so we could hear.

  “Hey.” The voice on the first message was low, raspy, and breathy. “I know you know where Harper is. Tell her I’m not forgetting. And if she won’t make it right, I’m coming after you.”

  I looked at Jones and Joe. Is it someone she lied to online?

  “Patty Haverill,” the next message began. This guy was growling—clearly trying to disguise his voice. “Harper owes me. She knows it. If I can’t find her . . .” The growl rose into a freaky cackle, the kind of thing you’d expect to hear in a haunted house. Then the message abruptly ended.

  “Th-that’s, um, that’s really,” Jones stammered. “That’s really . . . concerning.”

  “Hello,” the next message began. This was a woman, surprisingly, with a slight British accent. “Patty Haverill, I’m calling for your niece, Harper, from Juniper Credit Solutions. As I’ve said on my previous messages, we’re collecting for American Express, with whom Harper opened a credit account with a five-thousand-dollar limit and took a twenty-five-hundred-dollar cash loan on it, which she never paid back. Ms. Haverill, while Harper is no longer a minor, so you’re not legally responsible for Harper’s debts, we are legally authorized to continue calling until—”

  Patty tapped the button to hang up. “You get the idea,” she said.

  Jones, Joe, and I all looked at one another, nodding. “The thing is,” Joe said, “we also recently learned that Harper owed money to several people. Like, even more people than have left you messages.”

  Patty suddenly turned tense. She glared at Joe. “I have nothing to do with that girl’s debts,” she said. “You heard the lady on the phone: I’m not responsible. You can’t threaten me!”

  “Wait, wait,” I said, patting the air in a calm down gesture. “Joe didn’t mean . . . Harper never stole money from us.”

  “We were just trying to figure out what it was for,” Jones added, “especially if people were trying to get it back. . . . It might give us a clue as to where she is!”

  But Patty wasn’t listening. She’d already moved away from us and was backed against the counter, looking panicked. I watched as her hand fumbled behind her toward a large block of knives. “You get out of my house,” she said. “Now I know what kind of people you are. . . .”

  “We’re totally normal people!” Joe shouted, clearly getting frustrated. “Look, we’re all on the same side, aren’t we? Don’t we all want to find Harper?”

  Patty’s hand found a small paring knife, which she jabbed in front of her. “I just want peace and quiet!” she yelled. “Time to work on my quilts!”

  Joe groaned. I could tell he was getting worked up, which was not good. “Isn’t your niece more impor—”

  But Joe never got to finish his
sentence. Because at that moment, the front door banged open, and a vaguely familiar voice yelled from the living room. “Patty?!”

  “In here!” she screamed, pointing the knife at us with every muscle in her body.

  We heard a large person come stomping down the short hallway.

  And then Matt was standing in the kitchen door—pointing a hunting rifle at the three of us.

  “OMIGOD!” yelled Jones, shaking.

  But Matt didn’t even seem to notice Jones. He came barging toward me and Joe, leading with the rifle.

  “Wait!” I cried. “Matt, we—”

  But Matt did not want to talk. This soon became incredibly clear, as he got closer and his finger reached for the trigger.

  “OUT OF THE HOUSE!” he screamed. “NOW!!!!!”

  We didn’t hesitate. I looked behind me and noticed a back door in the kitchen, leading into the wooded backyard. I ran to it, opened it up, and ran out.

  Joe followed me down the few steps to the woods, then Jones.

  “We’ll go now,” I said, turning back to the house. “We’ll get in our car and—”

  But once again, Matt didn’t seem interested in listening.

  Because he was running out the back door after us—with us still in the rifle’s sights.

  “If you want to live,” he growled, “I’d start running!”

  I stared into the dark, gnarled woods. I looked at Joe and Jones.

  We ran.

  9

  SURVIVAL

  JOE

  WHEN A CRAZY GUNMAN IS chasing you, your brother, and your brother’s girlfriend who you’ve recently decided isn’t that bad through the woods in Pennsylvania, you have to think quickly. I decided to try to anger said gunman to get him to split off and follow me, giving Frank and Jones a chance to escape.

  I know, I know. I’m very brave. Not to brag or anything.

  So I screamed at Matt. “Hey, man! We know you did it! We know your crazy butt kidnapped Harper because that’s how crazy you are!”

  It worked. The rifle turned in my direction, and I cut to the right, past a dangerously leaning shed and into a copse of scraggly pine trees.

  Matt followed.

  Again, I don’t mean to brag, but I run cross-country. I’m kind of made for it, with the long legs and agility and whatnot. Plus, this is my life, you know? If anyone thinks this was the first time I’d tried to outrun a guy with a rifle who was trying to kill me, well, I’ve got some stories to share.

  So I just concentrated on running, and I ran. Through trees and over piles of leaves, I ran. Around thick brush and smack-dab into a pile of what might have been deer poop, I ran.

  I could hear Matt panting behind me. He was crazy and he had a rifle, but he had not run cross-country. I could tell.

  After about ten minutes I came to a clearing with a huge, squarish boulder in the middle of it. I ran to the boulder and crouched down on the other side. When I heard Matt lumbering toward me, I scooted around to the other side of the boulder, trying to keep him exactly opposite me.

  When he got to the side where I should have been, I could hear Matt curse.

  “Dude,” I yelled from the other side of the boulder. “You don’t have to kill us, you know. We’ll leave quietly. Don’t we all want the same thing?”

  He ran around the boulder, his heavy footsteps crunching in the dried grass. I scooted back to the original side.

  “Come on, dude,” he groaned, panting, when he realized I wasn’t there, either. He stopped for a minute, seeming to try to catch his breath, and then spoke again. “What do you mean, we want the same thing?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but then stopped.

  Something interesting had appeared on the edge of my vision, where the clearing turned back into woods. Something bright red.

  Jones’s lipstick.

  I turned to look. Jones and Frank were there! Jones held up something, but I couldn’t tell what it was—it was mostly hidden by her fist. I shook my head, just a tiny movement. I’m cool. Stay where you are.

  “We want Harper brought home safe,” I said to Matt. “Don’t we?”

  I heard Matt pant a few more times. Apparently, he hadn’t caught his breath yet. “You know, honestly, I almost don’t care what happens to her at this point,” he said. “I want her to be okay, but . . . she left me. And she left a hell of a mess behind her.”

  “You know about the money,” I said. “What she owed.”

  “I do now. The police kindly filled me in.” Matt gave what sounded like a bitter laugh.

  “Was that for the two of you?” I asked. “For the house?”

  “No,” Matt replied sharply. “It’s not anything I knew about. She just left me to deal with the fallout.”

  “You and Patty,” I said, after a moment.

  “Yeah,” Matt said. “That’s why Patty called me here. She thought maybe you were some of the people Harper owed money to, coming to try to shake her down, or whatever. But she wasn’t sure, and she wanted to hear what you had to say. So she asked me to come be her bodyguard, but I was late.” He sighed. “Work.”

  Now that Matt seemed calmer, I decided to take a chance. To plead my case. “Man, please believe me when I—”

  But I was interrupted by some kind of war cry.

  “AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jones come flying from the woods, a small cylinder clutched in front of her, aiming straight for Matt’s side of the boulder. I heard Matt shift, and then heard Jones’s scream increase in volume . . . and then I heard a loud “SHHHHHH!!!” sound.

  Then Matt screamed. “WHAT THE . . . ?!”

  And there was a clatter as something—and maybe someone—fell to the ground.

  I jumped up from my crouch and ran around the boulder. Frank was running from the woods too. I realized he must have run after Jones, but my attention had been too focused on her to notice.

  Matt was lying on the ground on the other side of the boulder, his face bright red, eyes closed and swelling quickly. Jones was holding out a small spray can.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Jones looked up at me, as casual as if I’d asked what the weather was going to be. “Pepper spray,” she said. “I couldn’t let him kill you, Joe.”

  10

  THE LETTER

  FRANK

  I KNEW JONES WAS A KEEPER, but even I was impressed that she’d risked her life to pepper-spray Matt and save Joe.

  I mean, of course she would have done it for me. But Joe.

  An hour or so after the heroic rescue, we were all sitting comfortably Patty’s living room again. Matt (who, in a surprising twist, had vouched for us with Patty) was holding a washcloth soaked with milk to his eyes. Milk was the antidote for pepper spray—Jones googled it. And it seemed to be working, sort of.

  “I never want to be pepper-sprayed again,” Matt moaned.

  “Maybe you should never chase someone with a hunting rifle again,” said Jones unapologetically. “Just some advice.”

  “So you really just came here for answers about Harper,” Patty said, looking somewhat disbelievingly at the collection of people in her living room.

  “That’s right,” I said. “We’re trying to find her. We really want to make sure she’s okay.”

  “Why?” Patty asked, frowning. “You barely know her.”

  “It’s what we do,” Joe said, shrugging. “We kind of . . . figure things out.”

  Matt sighed, pulling the washcloth away from his face, which was still pretty red. “I’m sorry I chased you,” he said. “I guess I was just kind of amped up after getting this.”

  He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. I stood up and walked over to him, and he handed it to me.

  I sat back down between Joe and Jones on the coach and unfolded it. Joe and Jones drew closer to read it with me. It was a letter, printed out from a computer.

  You know what happened. We know everythin
g. The debt will be repaid, one way or another. Pay me now, immediately, or deal with the consequences.

  “This doesn’t mean they have Harper, but it could mean they know things are pretty bad. . . . I mean, they know where she lives.”

  “Yeah, it sounds like a threat,” Jones filled in.

  I turned to Matt. “How did you get this?”

  He reached into his other pocket and pulled out an envelope. “It was in my mailbox this morning, in this,” he said, handing the envelope to me. It was blank, with no postmark.

  “Hand-delivered,” Joe said.

  “Apparently,” Matt agreed.

  I looked at Joe and Jones, frowning. “Did you take this to the police?” I asked Matt.

  “Uh, no,” he scoffed. “Those guys and me aren’t exactly friends.”

  I remembered what Gomez had said after we’d first been interviewed and we’d passed Matt in the other interrogation room: Mr. Driscoll isn’t going home any time soon. It had sure sounded as if they liked him as the main suspect—until he turned out to have an airtight alibi. He probably didn’t want to call attention to himself.

  “This letter writer sounds like one of the online victims,” Joe muttered, “but which one could it be?”

  Jones shrugged. “Don’t forget,” she said, “we just found out Harper owed money to a credit card company too. Who knows who else she might owe money to? Maybe it’s someone we don’t even know about yet.”

  I looked at Matt, who looked miserable, probably for a lot of reasons. “You really don’t know what she wanted the money for?” I asked. “You’re sure it wasn’t a down payment?”

  Matt groaned and shook his head. “For the last time,” he said, “I don’t know why she took that money. I didn’t even know about it until after she disappeared. She was so—I don’t know—” He fluttered his hand like a bird desperate to get out of a cage.