As water thundered down through the tube, I jogged up the slope, breathing in the scent of the Douglas firs.
At some point I would come parallel with Judd as he worked his way down. About halfway up, I slowed. I walked carefully, squinting deep into the trees as I looked for him.
Then—
Through the firs, I saw Judd. Head tipped back, he was examining the tube.
His cell phone rang, startling both of us.
Pulling the phone out of a back pocket, Judd barked, “Yeah?”
This was a chance to edge past Judd, up the slope, but his next words arrested me.
“Huh?…Aggie?…You’re at the top again? But that wasn’t the plan. I thought you were going to…Yeah, okay. I get it, Aggie. Or should that be, Naggie? Nag, nag, nag.”
Aggie was at the top of the ride.
Judd said, “Sure, everything’s under control. I’ll see you once I finish checking the Boa. My last check, I’m happy to say. No more Boa for this boy. A Lynx triumph!” He snickered.
Yeah, everything’s under control—if you’re a thief, I thought. But I’m going to reach Aggie before you do. Whatever Aggie’s done, I’ll convince her to come clean with Mr. Costello.
Judd snickered some more into the phone, calling her Naggie again. I tiptoed past Judd and ran the rest of the way.
I glanced around the launch platform. The water rushing into the pool gleamed diamond-bright in the slanting sun. Soon this part of the mountain would be shady.
I stepped behind the bamboo screen. Just the usual stuff there—cleanser, locker, towels, hamper, freezer, Red Cross kit.
No sign of Aggie.
I felt Aggie’s presence though. I could see her face, pale and pleading. Please, Clay…I could feel her need for help. Maybe that’s why she’d been so clingy earlier. She’d been guilty and frightened about her part in the robbery.
Maybe Aggie had spotted me approaching. She might be hiding. “I’m on your side,” I called.
I surveyed the forest, but no answer came back. The sun was disappearing. The firs were inking together, turning the mountain black.
I had the peculiar sensation of not being alone, and yet being very, very alone.
And in danger. I had a strong urge to scramble back down the hill.
But I had to find the mask.
And maybe, while I was looking, Aggie would muster the nerve to come forward.
I opened the locker. Judd’s knapsack lay inside. I had a qualm about going into someone else’s belongings. It was the same as trespassing.
But Judd hadn’t felt any qualms about ripping off Mr. Costello.
I reached for the knapsack.
Then I saw I didn’t need to trespass, after all. Behind the knapsack, jammed in a locker, was the lynx mask.
I grabbed it by the tip. I’d watched enough cop shows to know about preserving fingerprints.
Water stopped gushing out of the pipes. It had been twenty minutes. Brad had kept his word and shut it off.
In the sudden quiet, I heard a breeze whistle through the firs. Or was that a whisper floating through them?
“Clay…Clay…”
I squinted into the shadows. “Aggie? Don’t be scared. We’ll sort this out.”
Behind me, the floorboard creaked.
“Aggie?” I began to turn.
Something rammed my skull. Staggering, I reached for the wall. But it spun away from me like a Ferris wheel on steroids.
Smash. I got hit again. I glimpsed two golden specks of evening sun, then— Blackout.
Chapter Six
“Clay, where are you?”
It was Bradley Costello’s voice, faint and scared.
I struggled to open my eyelids. They were heavier than planet Earth. Just trying to open them sent pain shooting through my head.
I was slumped beside the locker. How did I get here? Trying to remember hurt.
Oh, yeah. Someone had slammed me.
I forced myself up. An object clanged from my hand to the ground. I squinted at it. A wrench. It multiplied into a dozen wrenches, doing a ring-around-the-rosy.
I heard footsteps, frantic, pounding. To the right of the tube, racing down the Boa stairs, was Judd.
It was Judd who’d bashed me on the head.
“Clay!” Panting, Brad scrambled up through the trees. He tried to hoist himself onto the platform, then fell back. I didn’t care about Brad’s dorkiness—I’d never been so glad to see anyone.
The second time, he managed it. He glanced around, glasses slipping off his nose. Then, spotting me, he ran over to help me up. “Say something, Clay.”
Through leaden lips, I muttered, “Something, Clay.”
“Don’t joke,” Brad gulped. “This is serious. Head injuries, left untreated, can result in death within twenty-four hours.” Brad wiped his handkerchief over his face. “What happened? Where’s Aggie?”
“Aggie?” I repeated stupidly.
Brad’s face, blurring in and out of my vision, nodded. “I saw her on the launch platform. I knew Dad and Detective Mulligan wanted to talk to Aggie. I called the office, then hurried up here. I didn’t think she could get away if you and I stopped her.”
I leaned heavily on Brad’s arm and we stood up. Blackness gathered in front of my eyes again. I fought the urge to pass out.
“I didn’t see Aggie,” I told Brad. “Just Judd.”
Brad blinked owlishly at me. “I didn’t see Judd. Just Aggie.”
I groaned. This was turning into a brain-twister, and right now I didn’t have a brain. Judd had knocked it out of my skull.
More footsteps pounded on the Boa stairs. Mr. Costello rushed up with a pudgy man in a shiny gray suit.
“Dad! Detective Mulligan!” Brad shouted. “My friend is badly injured!”
My friend. I didn’t deserve that, after all the times I’d shrugged Brad off.
Mr. Costello jabbed 9-1-1 into his cell phone. “We’ll get you help, Clay.”
Detective Mulligan shoved his angry face into mine. “Where’s Agatha Wentworth, mister? What did you do with her?”
I stretched one arm over Brad’s shoulders, one over his dad’s. The Costellos bore me down the stairs toward the platform—and the ambulance waiting beside it.
Detective Mulligan puffed alongside us. “C’mon, Clay. You’re Aggie’s boyfriend. People saw you together all the time. Where is Aggie? Where’s the missing dough?”
I could hardly hear him. Then I realized why. Inside the tube, water was surging again.
But that didn’t make sense. Brad had switched it off.
Mulligan was still badgering me. “Tell me what you did with the forty grand.”
Bile rose in my throat. I spat it out, not too far from Mulligan’s face. “You need to talk to Judd, not me.”
“We are talking to Judd,” the detective assured me. “He’s at the base of the Boa, answering questions. Like you should be.”
At the base of the Boa. Then it was Judd who’d turned the water back on.
Why?
“Leave Clay alone,” Mr. Costello barked at Mulligan. “Can’t you see what condition he’s in? Try being human, Detective.”
We reached the base of the Boa. Red with the effort of jogging, Detective Mulligan loosened his already crooked tie. Pulling a lollipop out of his pocket, he twisted the wrapper off. He dropped the wrapper carelessly on the ground. Chomping on the lollipop, he leered at Mr. Costello.
“Cops aren’t paid to be human.”
I stared at the landing pool. It was empty.
Blinking sweat out of my eyes, I looked up at the Boa’s mouth. The door was shut. But that wasn’t right, with the water running. If the water built up against a closed door, the tube would blow.
I tried to warn Mr. Costello, but I couldn’t form the words.
Medics rushed up to us with a stretcher. I wanted to collapse on it. One of the medics asked my name. He was checking just how badly my skull had been bashed.
“Cl
ay Gibson.”
“Good boy.”
Yeah, right. I’m a real mental champion.
The medics eased me onto the stretcher. I resisted. Trying to speak, I coughed out more bile.
“It’s okay, Clay,” Brad said.
He and Mr. Costello hadn’t noticed the closed tube door. They were too busy worrying about me.
I couldn’t talk, but I could move. Just.
Pushing the medics away, I staggered up the pool steps—and collapsed.
The Costellos’ gazes followed me. They saw the closed door. Brad raced past me, grabbing the tube door’s heavy metal latch. Mr. Costello joined him.
More people rushed up to help Brad and Costello. The pressure from the other side was sucking the door in, resisting them.
Then—a grotesque gurgling burst from the Boa.
The door crashed open. Brad and Mr. Costello leaped back. Water exploded out.
In a mighty wave, the Boa spewed Aggie Wentworth’s body into the landing pool.
Chapter Seven
Aggie was pleading with me. Her eyes bulged out even more than usual from her pale face. “Why won’t you listen? I try to talk to you about Lynx, and you just lose your temper.”
The image rearranged itself. It wasn’t Aggie’s face I saw, but Brad’s.
I was in a hospital bed with a bandage around my head and an intravenous tube in my arm. Brad was sitting in a chair beside me.
A nurse strode up. “You look upset,” she said. To Brad she snapped, “What did you say to him?”
“I—I didn’t say anything. Clay was sleeping, and…” Brad’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously.
“He didn’t do anything,” I assured the nurse. Poor Brad. It was almost funny the way people always thought the worst of him. “I had a nightmare. How did I get here?”
“You’re in Lions Gate Hospital. You passed out,” Brad said. “Once Aggie’s body appeared…” Unable to go on, Brad fiddled with the hem of his jacket.
The nurse told me briskly, “We’ll switch your sleeping pills. Can’t have nightmares, can we?”
I glared back. I didn’t like being talked to like I was two.
“I don’t want any drugs,” I retorted. I didn’t believe in drugs. If I had a headache, I went for a swim. Water cleared everything away, leaving just freedom of movement.
The nurse’s smile faded. “I see. A macho type.”
“No,” I said. More than ever, I wished I was swimming. I hated being confined. My coach once told me that a lot of athletes have claustrophobia.
The nurse was writing something on a chart. I had a feeling it wasn’t a Mr. Congeniality nomination. Glancing at me with a smug, you’re-in-my-power gleam, she marched off, the rubber soles of her shoes squeaking on the linoleum.
Brad looked half-embarrassed, half-admiring. “The way you stand up to people, Clay. I wish I could do that.”
I thought of my infamous temper. “I doubt I’m an ideal role model.”
Brad nodded toward a vase of sunflowers. “Your mom brought you those. She and your dad will be pleased to know you’re awake. I’m glad too. I was worried.”
I managed a grin. The guy was all right.
Water came into my thoughts again, but now Aggie’s pale face was superimposed on it. For Aggie, water hadn’t meant freedom. It had been a death trap.
I struggled to a sitting position. “Tell me about Aggie. How’d she get caught in the Boa?”
Brad grew uncomfortable. I guessed he’d been told not to talk to me about Aggie. That’s what the nurse had meant: What did you say to upset him?
“Tell me,” I said.
Brad glanced around. Pulling the chair closer, he whispered, “I overheard the police talking to Dad. They said Aggie had a head injury, like yours. The cops figure someone knocked her unconscious, then stuffed her into the Boa.”
He hesitated, fumbling with his tie.
“Tell me.”
“They think the someone was you.”
The room spun away from me.
“Clay.” Brad was beside me, gripping my shoulders.
Slowly the room settled into place. I heaved deep breaths. “Judd killed Aggie,” I choked out.
I remembered Judd getting the phone call from Aggie. He’d hurried back up the mountain to meet her. Spying me, he’d slammed my skull. The wrench I’d been clutching when I came to—I bet he’d used that.
I didn’t remember how I’d got hold of the wrench. Maybe I’d forced it away from him in a struggle.
I mumbled out my theory to Brad. “And then Judd found Aggie—she was hiding in the forest, I’m sure of it. Judd bashed Aggie on the head and dragged her inside the Boa. After that…”
After that, Judd had hurried down to the control room and yanked the water wheel to full blast.
I would have told Brad this too, except the blackness was filling my brain again.
“Not feeling well?”
Detective Mulligan was leaning against the door frame, watching me with expressionless eyes.
I gripped the sheets to stop myself from snarling a reply. Was I not feeling well? What an idiot. But I needed to rein in my temper.
“Judd Wickstrom killed Aggie,” I informed him. “You should arrest him.” Instead of hanging around here for no reason.
Mulligan shuffled toward the end of the bed. “Know what I think?”
Before I could stop myself, I shot back, “Enough to fit inside a golf ball?”
Mistake. The detective’s expression stayed neutral, but he was white-knuckling the bed frame. Maybe he had a temper too. He said, “I think you killed Aggie because she was feeling guilty. She was threatening to blab.
“You went at her with a wrench. The two of you struggled for it. Aggie got in a blow before you clubbed her unconscious. Then you forced her into the waterslide, knowing she would drown as she was swept down the tube.”
For a surreal moment, I could only gape. Mulligan’s theory of the murder matched mine exactly—except it starred the wrong guy. I wanted to punch that sneer off his face. “I never struggled with Aggie. I didn’t even see her. Judd had knocked me out with the wrench.” I shrugged wearily.
Brad thought I was having another dizziness attack. “Put your head down,” he said. “Shut your eyes and take deep breaths. It’s the number-one way to fight off nausea.”
Brad and his factoids, I thought. Even in my fury at Detective Mulligan, I felt the urge to laugh.
That saved me from reaching over, grabbing the lollipop Mulligan had started crunching on and shoving it down his throat.
Mulligan reminded me, “You, not Judd, were the one hanging out with Aggie. Everyone could see that you were her boyfriend. Everyone knew about your temper. They saw you, not Judd, knock her to the ground.”
“No,” I said. “No.”
My head was clearing. A realization was coming to light—not a pleasant one.
Aggie had glommed on to me from day one at Safari Splash. She was all over me at every opportunity, making sure everyone saw. She’d deliberately created a spectacle by falling down on the landing platform. I knew I hadn’t pushed her hard.
I’d been bothered by Aggie’s attention, because I hadn’t encouraged her. I’d thought she was a nutter.
But she wasn’t. She was following a plan.
“I was set up,” I told Detective Mulligan. “It was very clever, if you think about it. Aggie was performing the whole time. Putting on an act. By glomming on to me, she was distracting attention from her real accomplice. Judd.”
Chapter Eight
Mulligan straightened up and gaped at me. I thought I might have got past those hostile narrowed eyes, to his brain.
Then he laughed without humor. “Yeah, and how did that help Aggie? She’s dead.” He unwrapped another lollipop.
I shook my head. I was pretty sure Aggie’s death wasn’t part of Judd’s plan. It had been a panicked decision. But I couldn’t prove it. Not while I was stuck here.
Mulligan�
��s eyes bored into me like bullets. “You’re lying.”
“Clay doesn’t lie,” Brad objected. “Tell him about the Lynx, Clay.”
I nodded. “Aggie was afraid of Judd. She called him ‘the Lynx.’ That’s how he saw himself: preying on people and controlling them. Judd was also bullying Brad. He’d jump out of nowhere and scare Brad with this ghoulish lynx mask.”
Detective Mulligan jammed the lollipop in his mouth and smiled unpleasantly. “Yeah, and who else is involved in this? Batman?”
“Don’t make fun of Clay.” Brad’s voice shook. The detective was yet another bully he had to contend with. But Brad was standing up to him. “Clay and I both saw Judd wearing the mask.”
The nurse bustled back in. This time I was glad to see her. “Stop upsetting my patient,” she scolded Mulligan.
Mulligan started to retort but thought better of it. He wagged the lollipop at me. “Get some sleep for now, Gibson. I’ll be back. ”
The nurse gave me two pills and a small plastic cup of water. “Take these. They’ll help you sleep. What was with that detective—what’s his name? Bulligan?”
I grinned wanly. “Mulligan. But you’re not far off.” I regretted my rudeness with her earlier. She was just doing her job.
Brad was hovering nearby, twisting the hem of his jacket. The nurse raised her eyebrows at him. “Maybe you need a sedative too, young man.”
Brad goggled at her. “But sedatives are already overprescribed in our society, ma’am. According to a recent study—”
“Don’t stay long,” the nurse interrupted. “Rest, lots of it, is the best cure for Clay.” She held up a hand to stop Brad quoting any more research as she left the room.
Once the squeak of her shoes faded down the hallway, I took the pills out from under my tongue. I dropped them into the vase of sunflowers by my bed.
Brad’s eyes widened behind his glasses. “Hey, what are you doing? She said—”
“I know what she said.” Pulling the tape off the intravenous tube, I eased the needle out of my arm. “I gotta get out of here. I need to find Judd and clear my name.”
“But you’re injured. If someone sees you…”
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