Before he turned my way, I scooted backward. Rose despite the trembling. I darted across the front yard toward Lucky. Rolled her backward into the street. Pushed her across the street in a sprint. Tripping to avoid running over my own feet.
I dropped Lucky’s kickstand next to the jacked-up truck backed into the drive. Snuck behind the truck to catch my breath. With my heart hammering in my throat and my lungs seizing, I peered around the truck toward Leslie’s house.
Young dude stood in the front yard. Still looking like he held a gun.
Holy hellsbah.
I jerked back and flattened against the garage. Had he seen me rolling Lucky out of the drive? Maybe he hadn’t seen me. Or not a good glimpse of me.
Okay, Maizie. What would Julia Pinkerton do?
Jump on Lucky, rev her up, tear across the street, and take out the dude with one booted kick. Then hop off the bike (with it still running) and onto his chest to demand answers.
However, I did not have the skill nor the stunt double to pull off such a trick.
What would Nash do?
Wait, watch, and take pictures. A much better plan. I sank to the cement, lay behind the truck, and peered out from beneath. A handy benefit of jacked-up tires that I’d not previously considered. Using my phone, I took photos. Likely, the pics of Leslie’s visitor would come out as grainy as a Bigfoot shot.
Young dude had moved from the front yard toward Leslie’s garage. Crossed the drive to glance inside Leslie’s car. Ignored Roger’s. (Understandably.) And moved around the drive to the other side of the house.
Clambering to a squat, I grabbed the tailgate to hoist myself to standing. Setting off flashing lights and a shrill wah-wah that had all the subtleness of a giant’s alarm clock combined with a blare horn.
I froze. Except for my heart which had leaped into my throat. And the flop sweat that had broken out on every inch of my body.
Who puts an alarm on their tailgate?
Behind me, something moved inside the garage. I deliberated between outing myself to the armed dude across the street or an irate truck owner.
Who might also be armed. This was Black Pine, after all.
The garage door’s motor rumbled. I bounded from behind the truck and onto Lucky. Jamming my helmet over my ponytail, I fired her up and accelerated. Sped out of the driveway and down the street. Not risking a backward glance. Mainly for fear of losing control and crashing.
Turning the corner, I stopped but left the engine chugging. Swiveled to look behind me. Movement told me that truck owner had left his house to check on his truck. No movement at Leslie’s house.
Should I leave Leslie Price to her fate?
Roger Price had kicked off the most hellacious week of my life. And now I had to save his mother?
Pulling off my backpack, I yanked out my phone. Left the backpack and Lucky near the corner. Trudged down the desolate street, my eyes on both houses. Feeling exposed and vulnerable. Like a gunslinger, moseying down the center of town to his shootout. No High Noon citizens watched me. Leslie’s neighbors didn’t pay any attention to the woman awkwardly trolling their street. Perhaps to her death.
Although I wasn’t going to think about that.
Next door to Leslie Price’s house, I cut across her neighbor’s drive to the side yard. Wondering how I could get to Leslie without young Jesse James seeing or hearing me. I had my phone at the ready. I heard but didn’t quite register the footsteps behind me. In one quick movement, I flipped the phone open and hovered my thumb above Ian Mowry’s speed dial number.
And was tackled from behind.
Twenty-Four
#TakeDownDowner #OfferingSpite
With my head shoved into the ground, it was hard to assess who was doing the shoving. Hard, really, to do anything other than inhale dirt.
“Keep your mouth shut,” growled my assailant.
The pressure eased. A hand gripped my arm, yanking me to my feet. Spun me around. And backed me into the neighbor’s garage wall.
I blinked, refocused. “You’re not the dude. You’re not a dude at all.”
The woman standing before me raised her eyebrows. “Why are you skulking around the Price house?”
“I’m Maizie—”
“I know who you are. Agent Langtry. ATF.” She pointed to a badge attached to her belt. “Again. What are you doing here?”
“I came earlier to collect payment for service rendered. Just because we didn’t catch her son doing drugs but instead caught him as he blew up a bank—”
Agent Langtry spun her finger in the “hurry it up” sign.
“Mrs. Price had written “help us” in the memo section of the check. I returned to ask why, because she won’t answer my calls. And this youngish thug was inside. He’s packing heat. I wanted to see if she needs help.”
“You’re trespassing.”
“Not really,” I said, hoping Agent Langtry didn’t sense my recent proclivity to break and enter. “I think the area between houses is a kind of a no man’s land. Technically, I haven’t broken any laws.”
“No. It’s private property. You’re trespassing.”
Shiztastic.
“I planned on throwing rocks at Leslie’s bedroom window. Like in Say Anything. Except, instead of playing a Peter Gabriel hit, I’d ask her if this dude is holding her hostage. Then I’d take that information to the police. Actually, I’m working with Detective Ian Mowry.”
Langtry’s eyebrow lowered a fraction.
“Not working-working, but he’s helping me. With another case. Sort of. We’ve gone on a few dates, but I’m not that interested. I mean, Ian’s a really nice guy. Good looking. We have similar interests, like crime and lunch. I like him. But my boss—”
Langtry whipped her head to the right, then shoved me to the ground.
“Am I arrested?” I said through a mouthful of dirt.
“Shh,” said Langtry, flopping next to me. She drew a camera from the pocket of her jacket.
In Leslie Price’s backyard, footsteps crunched on pine straw and what accounted for grass in Georgia. A figure moved in and out of the shadows, easing toward the house. Langtry’s camera whirred. The figure paused — I held my breath — and reentered through the sliding door.
We pushed off the ground and hurried from the side yard to the street. I took Agent Langtry’s cue of silence as we trudged toward Lucky. Rounding the corner, she stopped and placed her hands on her hips.
“Is Leslie Price being held hostage?” I said.
“This is an active investigation. I appreciate your concern. Go home.”
I blinked. “Do you want the pictures I took earlier? Or to see the check memo? I really need to cash the check, but after I do that, you can have it as evidence. Oh God, you haven’t put a hold on Leslie Price’s bank account have you? Because we really, really need to get paid. Like—”
“Go home.”
“Am I in trouble? You might have heard I’m on probation…”
Langtry had excellent facial expression skills. Some actresses never mastered that kind of control.
“I’ll just go home then.”
“Do that.” She waited while I climbed on Lucky and adjusted my helmet. “I met Detective Mowry. You could do a lot worse.”
I’d done worse. He was now the manager of an exclusive healing resort.
* * *
At the Dixie Kreme building, Fred, Mara, and Laci sat on the wooden stairs leading to the office. Donut crumbs, sprinkles, crumpled napkins, and Styrofoam cups littered the stairs. Backpacks and equipment bags had been dumped in the hall leading from the donut shop.
I sucked in a breath, then let it out slowly. “We don’t have a cleaning service, so could you—”
“You’re late,” said Mara. “We have to get to the site before it’s too dark.”
“Right,” I said. “I have to do one more thing. I should probably make a call to my probation before an ATF—”
“Your last text said you had one m
ore thing,” said Laci. “Is this the same last thing or another last thing?”
“Something came up on the next-to-the-last thing,” I said. “It’s important.”
“More important than a missing person?” said Mara.
“The thing is—”
“We have to go now,” said Fred. “It’s going to be dark soon. After our reenactment, I’ve got to study for a chemistry test.”
“OMG, you didn’t study yet?” said Laci. “Why did you wait until the last minute?”
“Why would you study early?” said Fred. “I’ve got other stuff going on. Do you have nothing better to do?”
“Okay.” A nerve hammered above my eyebrow. “I’ll do the last thing after this thing. Did you tell your parents where you’ll be? Did they sign my permission slips?”
They pulled crumpled papers from their backpacks and handed them to me. I smoothed the papers, read the signatures, then studied the kids.
“Fred, your mother signs her name, ‘Mrs. Hernandez?’”
Mara elbowed him.
“My mother is very traditional,” said Fred.
“We should really go.” Laci pointed to her watch. “It’s almost sunset.”
“I’m leaving these slips as evidence where Lamar can find them.” I climbed the stairs. “And when I come back, this place better be cleaned up or no s’mores. Do you hear me?”
* * *
We hopped off our bikes on the side of the mountain road leading to the Wellspring Center. I followed the three into the tree line, pulling Lucky with me. The trail through the woods wasn’t apparent from the road, but within the trees, the dirt path became obvious.
“An old logging road,” said Fred. “Actually, it’s perfect for your dirt bike.”
“Totally,” I said. “Except I have a fear of hitting a tree. Or a root and getting flipped off the bike. Or being decapitated by a low hanging branch.”
“Anyway,” said Mara. “You should leave your bike here. We don’t want the engine scaring off any Sasquatch.”
“Good idea.”
“We should check the offering site,” said Laci.
“Offering site?” That didn’t sound spooky. At all. I yanked on the straps of my Campomaggi backpack. “Is this part of the reenactment? Let's not get sidetracked by Bigfoot. We need to focus on you showing me exactly what happened. Because Fred has a chemistry test tomorrow.”
“We all have a chemistry test tomorrow,” said Laci. “Just follow us.”
We hiked the winding trail that was all uphill. My hiking boots grew heavy. My hair stuck to the back of my neck. And the backpack rubbed against my lower back, creating a sweltering furnace between my butt and shoulders.
A metal rebar flecked with a scant amount of paint marked the first quarter-mile.
“Almost there?”
The three laughed.
At around the third quarter mile, the teens veered from the path and into a thicket. Giant chunks of granite covered in moss and bushes jutted from the ground. We moved around an outcropping and the path disappeared.
“Aren’t there a lot of snakes?” I said. “And I’m not getting a signal. What if we get lost?”
“We know where we’re going,” said Fred. “And you’re making too much noise for snakes.”
“Snakes don’t have ears,” I said. “I think there’s poison ivy. And poison oak. What about spiders?”
“Spiders don’t have ears either,” said Laci.
“The offering site is just ahead.” Mara stopped to pull off her pack. “Are y’all ready?”
From her backpack, she carefully opened a case holding a video camera. Fred and Laci pulled small cameras from their packs and attached them by straps to their ball caps.
“Why are you getting out cameras?”
“We always take footage when we get to this point,” said Fred. “You never know what you might see. Laci and I wear GoPros and let them run continuously. Mara uses the Canon 70D, so she can capture what we’re doing. The continuous autofocus is amazing.”
“Although we do a lot of voice-over during the edits,” said Laci. “You want continual narration. And flashbacks.”
“You’re vlogging our reenactment?”
“Yeah, we need content for the channel,” said Fred. “With Chandler missing, especially. Our viewers expect it.”
“We could lose our advertisers otherwise,” said Mara. “It’ll help spread the word about Chandler.”
They spoke of live streaming versus upload. Then argued about viewer versus sponsor expectations.
I couldn’t escape the industry. Not even deep in the woods with the Scooby-Doo gang.
“Okay, I get it. The entertainment business is twenty-four-seven-three-sixty-five. Even if you’re a teenager. Been there, done that, and got that ugly T-shirt.” I hunched my shoulder under my pack and tromped from the group. Why couldn’t kids be kids anymore? They should be sneaking off to the woods to drink and make out, not creating professional videos about secret woodland creatures and worrying about viewer stats.
“You’re going the wrong way,” said Laci.
Straightening my shoulders, I turned and followed them.
We eventually stopped near a hollowed out tree. Mara held her camera steady, filming Laci and Fred as they bent before the tree and pulled out the bucket.
“My sandwich and baggie of pretzels are gone,” exclaimed Fred, dumping out the bucket. “He left a thank you. Some acorns and a wrapper.”
“We don’t know if the Sasquatch is a he,” argued Laci. “We can’t assume a sexual identity.”
“You also can’t assume Bigfoot ate your food,” I said. “It could have been hungry squirrels. Or a hiker.”
“Squirrels can’t carry a lighter.” Fred waved the lighter. Then stared at it. “Y’all, look at this. Does this look like Chandler’s lighter?”
Laci snatched the lighter from Fred’s hand while Mara moved in for a tight shot.
“Hang on,” I said. “That could be evidence.”
Laci turned to the camera, holding the lighter in the palm of her hand. “He made contact. He’s trying to tell us something about Chandler.”
“How can you be sure it’s Chandler’s lighter?” I’d already found one lighter. On Julia Pinkerton, we never used the same clue twice. “And why would Chandler have a lighter?”
“Adults use lighters,” said Laci.
“Many adults don’t carry a lighter. Unless they often do things that need a lighter.”
“Like light a fire?” said Fred. “In case you get stuck in the woods? Or if you’re—I don’t know—camping?”
He had a point. But still.
“How do you know it’s Chandler’s lighter?”
Laci tapped on the Bigfoot silhouette. Printed above the insignia, “Hide and Seek Winner.”
“But why would Bigfoot have Chandler’s lighter?” What was I saying? “I mean, who else knows about this offering place?”
“People who watch our channel,” said Mara. “Although it’d take some time to track down the offering site without help.”
“I need to think about this.” I held out a paper bag. “Please put the lighter in here and I’ll take it to the police. And the wrapper. Leave the acorns.” I pretended not to notice Fred shoving the acorns in his pocket. “Do you recognize the wrapper? It’s a protein bar.”
“Chandler eats those,” exclaimed Laci.
“We all eat those,” said Mara. “But Chandler probably carried them in his pack.”
“This could mean several different scenarios. Chandler could have lost them on a trail before or after he disappeared,” I said. “Or he left them here himself, so you wouldn’t worry about him. To prove he’s not really missing.”
“He could prove he’s not really missing by telling us that in person,” said Laci.
“True.” I shoved the paper bag in my backpack. “Maybe Chandler littered, and someone dumped them in the bucket, thinking it’s a trash can.”
; “Or someone kidnapped him and during the struggle, Chandler dropped the lighter and wrapper,” said Fred. “And a Sasquatch wanted to leave us a clue.”
IMHO, my trash can theory made more sense.
“Or someone could be messing with us,” said Mara.
“What do you mean?” I turned to face her, then ducked my head. She still had the camera running.
“We get hate mail all the time,” said Mara. “People leave ugly comments about the show. Everyone who watches our channel knows Chandler’s missing.”
“You should have told me. It’s important.”
“All shows have haters,” said Laci. “You have to have a thick skin and ignore that kind of stuff.”
“If Chandler is really missing, we have to look at all motives. Even non-Bigfoot or show-related motives.”
The kids looked at each other and shrugged. It was hard to tell if the shrug was an “I don’t know” or a “don’t talk about it” movement.
“Let's move on,” I said. “I’ll check the channel’s comments again when I get home.”
One more thing for my to-do list. Added to dropping off another lighter with Black Pine Police. Ian was going to love that. I had also forgotten to make the flyers. And to vet Jolene’s rejects. But I hadn’t forgotten Vicki’s wedding emergencies. I had deliberately skipped those.
“We should hurry,” I said. “I also have homework.”
Twenty-Five
#Unglamping #HiddenHugging
With the sun setting, the forest grew creepier. Mara removed her camera lens to mount a night scope, then reattached the lens. The other two took off their GoPros. We hiked in rising switchbacks on a barely discernible trail until we reached a clearing. An area half-hidden by a granite outcropping and a thicket of trees. A crude stone fire pit had been left in the center of the clearing.
“The sun is setting,” said Mara. “We still have a little light. Action.”
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