What had SamOwen said their parents’ secret names were? Fitzroy and Camillia? How many Fitzroys could there be? She typed in “Fitzroy” and got 700,000 hits. Too many. She tried “Fitzroy Bloodwater.” Zippo. Likewise for “Camillia Bloodwater.”
Roni sat back and scowled at her computer. For a few minutes there she had hoped that the Bloodwater twins’ silly secret names might be more than a game. But Fitzroy and Camillia Bloodwater were just as absent from cyberspace as Fred Bloodwater was.
Frustrated, Roni began Googling everything she could think of—“Bloodwater Development,” “Ridgewood Residences,” “Bloodwater+Fitzroy” and “Fitzroy+Development.” She either got nothing, or too much, or just a bunch of articles from the Clarion that she had already seen.
Then she did a search for “Fitzroy+Camillia.”
Thirty hits. The first one was a baby-name site. The second site was devoted to British genealogy. The third listing took her to a nine-month-old article in the archives of a California newspaper called the Redwood Valley Sun-Times. She opened the article: “Valley Couple Sought in Riverwood Estates Case.” She stared at the accompanying photograph for a full thirty seconds before reading the article. When she had finished reading, she looked at the photo again, and a grim smile spread slowly across her face.
VALLEY COUPLE SOUGHT IN LAND FRAUD
Police raided the home of a Redwood Valley couple Thursday night searching for evidence in the Riverwood Estates land fraud case. The couple, identified by police as Fitzroy and Camillia Oraczko, were not at home. They are believed to have left the Redwood Valley area.
“The Oraczkos have robbed us, pure and simple,” said Mayor Winston Barnes. “The Riverwood Estates development has cost our city millions.”
Using the names Jordan and Vivian Sutter, the Oraczkos and their three children arrived in Redwood Valley last September, claiming to be descendants of John Sutter, the owner of Sutter’s Mill, where gold was first discovered in California. The Oraczkos persuaded the Redwood Valley City Council to support their plans for an extensive housing development in the west valley.
Construction was begun two weeks ago when sections of the west valley, including thirty acres of young redwoods, were leveled by bulldozers. Work was halted when it was discovered that the “Sutters” had disappeared, along with the $2.3 million they had borrowed from the city.
The photo with the article was a very nice shot of a smiling man and a woman standing in front of a bulldozer.
They looked exactly like Mr. and Mrs. Bloodwater.
The thing about cell phones was that sometimes when you really needed to make a call, you couldn’t. Brian had to climb back up out of the coulee to the top of the bluff to get a signal. He punched in Roni’s number again. She picked up on the first ring.
“The game’s afoot,” said Brian.
“Watson? Is that you?”
“Yes. The game’s afoot.”
“The what’s a what?”
“That’s a quote from Sherlock Holmes,” Brian said.
“Oh. Hey, you won’t believe what I just found!”
“You won’t believe what I just found.”
“Mine’s better.”
“Not a chance, Sherlock. Listen, I need you to hop on Hillary and come out here to the bluff right now.”
“Now? It’s, like, almost ten o’clock.”
“Bring rope—lots of it—a flashlight, a big ball of string, a camera and—”
“Wait—you got into the cave?”
“I found the back door.”
32
spelunking
The ball of string and the flashlight were easy, and she could buy a disposable camera at the Quik Mart, but where would she find rope? She didn’t want to ask Nick, who was still in the den watching PBS. Asking Nick would lead to too many questions.
Maybe in the basement. Just as she was heading down the stairs, the phone rang. Roni ran back up the steps and picked up the kitchen extension.
“Roni?” It was Eric Bloodwater. Or whatever his name was, really.
“Hi,” she said.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for rope.”
“Oh. I just wanted to say, I’m really sorry about the secret passage thing. And it was fun hanging with you today.”
“Uh, yeah, me, too. Listen, I have to be someplace. I can’t talk much.”
“Are you going to a rodeo or a hanging?”
“Huh?”
“You know. You said you were looking for rope.”
“I’m going spelunking.” Roni figured there was no way Eric—or rather, Fenton—would know that spelunking meant “to explore a cave.” She was right.
He said, “If you don’t want to tell me . . .”
Roni instantly regretted having said anything at all. “Look, I gotta go. Let’s talk tomorrow, okay?”
After hanging up, Roni made a quick search of the basement. No rope. She tried the garage and found a small piece of rope hanging from the wall, but not nearly enough. Closing the garage door, she noticed that the lights were on in Mr. Billig’s garage, and the door was open.
Perfect. Mr. Billig was the handiest guy in the neighborhood. He had tools like dogs have hair. If anybody had rope, it would be him.
Mr. Billig’s legs were sticking out from under his cherry-red 1965 Corvette. A radio balanced on the hood was blasting moldy oldies. Mr. Billig sang along as he worked on his car.
“Mr. Billig?” Roni said.
“. . . fun fun fun . . . ,” Mr. Billig sang.
Roni raised her voice. “Hello?”
“. . . till her daddy took her T-Bird awayeyay!”
Roni turned off the radio.
“Hey!” Mr. Billig shouted. He wriggled out from beneath his car. “Oh, it’s you, Roni.”
“Hi, Mr. Billig.”
“Hi yourself.” Mr. Billig climbed creakily to his feet. He was a small, thin man with a wrinkled, suntanned face and ears that stood straight out. According to Nick, Mr. Billig had gotten stuck being who he was back in the 1960s and just couldn’t get out. He seemed happy enough.
“I was wondering if I could borrow some rope.”
“Rope? What kind of rope?”
“Like the kind of rope you could climb.”
Mr. Billig scratched his head. “Rope. Rope. Lesseee . . .” He closed his eyes and scrunched up his already scrunchy face and thought for a moment. Then his eyes popped open and he looked straight up. “Aha!”
Roni tipped her head back and saw, hanging from the rafters, a coil of thick rope.
“Tow rope,” Mr. Billig said. “About a hundred feet. That do ya?”
“I hope so,” Roni said.
Ten minutes later, with the heavy coil of rope looped over her shoulder, Roni pulled up to the Quik Mart. She parked her Vespa and walked into the store, still wearing the coil of rope.
“Gonna tie something up, or is that the latest teen fashion?” asked the old man behind the counter.
“Neither,” Roni said. “Do you have any disposable cameras? With a flash?”
“I got all kinds,” said the man. He pointed at the wall behind the counter, where several types of cameras were displayed. “Take your pick.”
Roni heard the door buzzer go off.
“Do any of them have an extra-strong flash?” she asked. “I’ll be taking pictures inside a really dark place.”
“Don’t know.” The clerk set one of each variety on the counter. Roni sensed someone standing behind her, waiting.
“I’ll take this one.” Roni handed the clerk a twenty.
Thump, thump, thump. What was that noise? Was the person behind her bouncing a ball or something?
The clerk rang up her purchase. “So what’s the rope for?” he asked.
“I’m going caving,” Roni said.
“At night?” said the clerk.
“What’s the difference?” Roni said. “Either way, it’s dark in there.”
Thump, thump.
<
br /> Roni grabbed her change and the camera. She turned and almost ran smack into Professor Bloom.
“Good evening, Miss Delicata,” he said, thumping the rubber tip of his cane on the floor.
“Hi, Professor,” Roni said.
Professor Bloom stared at her for the longest five seconds Roni had ever endured.
“We will be touring the county courthouse tomorrow,” he finally said, setting a carton of milk and a box of bran flakes on the counter. “I will see you there, I trust.”
Roni made her escape and a minute later was back on Hillary, heading up Highway 61 toward Indian Bluff.
33
banshee
Brian squatted near the hole, shining his flashlight at the opening. He didn’t want to get too close. Bats were still coming out every now and then. He hoped they would stop before Roni arrived.
He was counting the amount of time between bats. It had been nearly five minutes since he had seen one. Maybe they had all gone out for the evening.
He leaned over the hole and shone his flashlight down into it. Not much to see. He thought he could make out the bottom, but he wasn’t sure. As he moved the flashlight, he could see shadows arranging themselves. There was an earth floor about thirty feet below him.
Suddenly he felt hands on his shoulders. He let out a yell and almost fell forward into the hole. The hands pulled him back just in time. He heard Roni’s laugh.
Brian twisted free and stood up. “Not funny!” he said. First Jillian, and now Roni had scared him the same way. It was getting old. Although, if it had been him sneaking up on Roni, it would have been hilarious.
“Funny.” Roni turned her flashlight on and shined it into his face. “I totally got you. You screamed like a banshee.”
“What is a banshee, anyway?”
“I have no idea.” Roni aimed the beam of her flashlight into the hole. “Are you really going down there?”
“Me? I thought we were both going!”
“Shouldn’t somebody wait up here? Just in case?”
“Just in case what?”
“You know—bears, cave trolls, vampire bats, troglodytes . . .”
“Okay, okay. I’ll go down first and check things out. If there are no cave trolls or troglodytes, you can come down, too.”
“We’ll see,” said Roni.
Brian took the rope from her and dropped it down until he could see the end touch the cave floor. He wrapped the other end twice around a nearby tree and tied it with a sailor’s knot.
“Very impressive,” said Roni. “I didn’t know you were a Boy Scout.”
“My dad taught me that one,” Brian said. He pocketed his flashlight, grabbed the rope and sat down with his feet hanging into the cave entrance. “Want to give me some light?”
Roni shined her flashlight past him. “Give my regards to the cave troll.”
Brian hated that exercise in gym class when they had to try to climb up a thick rope about nine thousand feet to the ceiling. He tried to miss that day of school if he knew it was coming up. One time he had managed to get about twenty feet up before his fingers gave out. He had slid back down and burned his hands.
But lowering himself into the cave turned out to be relatively easy. The rocky, uneven walls of the shaft gave him plenty of places to brace himself. He stopped and rested halfway down.
“You okay?” Roni asked.
“Piece of cake,” Brian said. “You could almost do this without a rope.”
“See any scary man-eating creatures yet?”
“Just a few. Nothing I can’t handle.” Brian continued to climb down, gripping the rope with his hands and bracing his feet against the walls.
A few feet farther down, the shaft suddenly widened, and he found himself swinging free, supporting his entire weight with his hands on the rope. He lowered himself quickly, his hands slipping painfully on the rope, until his feet hit the floor.
Roni’s voice echoed down through the shaft. “Brian?”
“I’m good,” he yelled, turning on his flashlight.
He was in a dome-shaped chamber about thirty feet across, its ceiling studded with fat, limey stalagtites. Large flat chunks of limestone littered the floor. The opening of the shaft was a good ten feet above him. It would be tough to climb back up the rope, but he thought he could do it.
Not that he had any choice.
But could Roni climb a rope like that? He wasn’t so sure.
“You better stay up there!” he yelled.
“Okay!” She sounded relieved.
Brian ran the beam of his flashlight around the chamber and found two openings, both large enough for him to fit through.
The shaft he had entered was directly north of the cave entrance that had been dynamited. He took out his compass and took a reading. One of the two openings was roughly to the south. Brian shined his light into it just as a bat came flying out. Brian ducked. The bat careened through the chamber and shot up the shaft. Brian heard a startled yelp come from Roni. He laughed, then followed the beam of his flashlight into the passageway.
“Brian?” Roni shouted. Her voice was swallowed by the shaft.
No answer. Roni wasn’t too surprised. He’d been gone only six minutes. She wondered how long she should wait before calling 911. An hour? Two?
She slapped at something biting the back of her neck. An hour in the woods was a long time. She sat down a few feet from the opening with her back against a tree trunk.
Time.
Passed.
Slowly.
She played the beam of her flashlight across the trees and boulders. The shadows just made the woods look darker and scarier, so she turned it off.
She checked her watch. Three more minutes had passed. She shined the flashlight on her feet. Maybe she should figure out a better way to tie shoes. Why did the knot always have to go at the top? Why not put the knot down at the toe?
She heard a crunching noise and turned off the flashlight, her heart pounding.
The noise was coming from higher in the coulee.
Probably just a deer.
Or a bear.
She saw a flicker of light coming through the trees. That made it a human—but who? Somebody just decided to take a walk in the woods? In the middle of the night? On Indian Bluff?
It could be whoever attacked Dr. Dart, Roni thought. It could be whoever blew up the cave.
Whoever it was, they were coming straight toward her.
She looked around for a place to hide. If she moved far, they would hear her. Maybe she could hide in the cave entrance—just go down a few feet.
The person with the flashlight was only about fifty feet away. It looked like they might walk right past her, if she could get out of sight.
This is no time to think, Roni told herself. It’s time to act.
She put her flashlight in her pocket, grabbed the rope and carefully lowered herself into the jagged opening. Brian was right—it was easier than it looked. She climbed down about six feet, then braced her back against the rock and found toeholds for her feet in the opposite wall. She could sit there for quite a while before getting tired.
But then she started thinking about two things: one, the person with the flashlight could see her if he looked down the hole, and two, what about the bats? She did not like the idea of bats trying to squeeze past her in the narrow shaft. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to scream.
There was only one thing to do: continue on down the shaft.
Slowly, she let herself down the rope, supporting most of the weight by feeling for toeholds on the walls. This is so easy, she thought.
And then her feet were suddenly pedaling air. Frantically, she sought a toehold, but the shaft had widened and she was hanging by her hands. She tried to wrap her legs around the rope, but she couldn’t find it in the dark.
Her hands were slipping. Roni squeezed the rope as hard as she could, ignoring the pain in her hands. She knew she couldn’t hold on for long
, and then suddenly it didn’t matter anymore—
—because she was falling.
34
brain surgery
It would be easy to get lost, Brian thought as he entered yet another chamber that looked just like the one he’d been in five minutes before. The cave was like a bunch of big bubbles in the earth connected by numerous twisted, narrow, bewildering passageways.
In fact, he wasn’t 100 percent sure how to get back to the entrance. But that didn’t mean he was lost. He wasn’t actually lost until he tried to find his way back and couldn’t.
Brian played the flashlight beam over the walls and across the dusty floor.
Footprints!
He examined them carefully. They looked familiar. Brian lifted his right foot and looked at the tread pattern.
Yep. Same shoe. Either there had been someone else in the cave wearing identical sneakers, or he was going in circles.
Even with his compass he was confused. Was it possible that this cave didn’t hook up with the other cave? Maybe there were two completely separate caverns.
Brian didn’t believe it. The two cave entrances were only about a hundred yards apart. They had to be connected. He ran his flashlight beam slowly around the chamber. No other way out. He shook his head and went back the way he had come.
For about three long seconds, Roni lay in the dark thinking that she had broken every bone in her body. She thought her heart had stopped. A bunch of white lights were floating in front of her face. The lights began to whirl and she felt as if she were being sucked into a whirlpool, and for a moment she was certain she was about to die.
Then she remembered to breathe.
As air filled her lungs, the lights disappeared and her head stopped spinning. She sat up in the utter darkness and listened to the echoey silence.
She looked up. She had to be sitting directly beneath the shaft. There. The faintest imaginable light. A single star.
What had happened? She had been hanging on to the rope and suddenly her hands had just given up. Remembering the flashlight in her pocket, Roni took it out and switched it on.
The Bloodwater Mysteries: Skullduggery Page 10