by Sanna Hines
“I, uh…” Mike faltered, looking embarrassed.
“Distracting Brent is enough. You don’t have to be a hero. Let’s go.”
“Go where?” Liv asked.
Startled, Holly realized the girl had re-entered the family room from the terrace. Teddy trotted up to nuzzle Holly, giving her time to concoct an answer, but Mike spoke first. “Out,” he said.
“Out where?” Liv sounded so much like a frustrated parent, Holly smiled.
“Just out. I have an errand to run. Holly’s coming with me. Need something from my room first. Won’t be long.” Mike started toward the stairs.
Liv pointed at the box on the table. “You’re taking the doll to the Tinsley house, aren’t you? That’s where you think your motorcycle is.” Shaking her head, she predicted, “You’re going to get into such trouble.”
Mike locked the ground floor door with his new key fob, pressing the button to arm the security system. “Seems like a lot of hassle.”
“At least we know everyone inside is safe.”
They climbed to street level where Mike paused. “Have everything—pen flashlight, Jen’s gardening gloves?”
“Uh huh. I’m a well-equipped cat burglar,” Holly assured him. She looked at the sky. “Too bad there’s a full moon.”
“Aw, Jeez.” Mike groaned. “I’m going to regret this. How about we just call the cops?”
“They won’t believe me. You know,” Holly reflected, “I could call Zarah. She’s been watching Brent, too.”
Mike snorted. “Great idea! Invite a witness, and you’ll make the prosecutor’s day.”
“It’s not going to come to that,” Holly said firmly. “You worry too much. All you have to do is talk with your brother-in-law. I’ll do the rest.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
“Nothing will go wrong. We have a plan.”
The plan they’d worked out in the family room after Liv went upstairs was simple. Mike would call Holly’s phone and leave his own in his shirt pocket so she could hear him talking to Brent. At the Tinsley house, he’d ring the front doorbell, wait for Brent to answer, and do his spiel about the packages. He reluctantly agreed to take the doll to give Holly extra time.
Brent would have to turn off his home’s “idiot-proof” security system, installed when Mrs. Tinsley was drinking heavily and still mobile. “She’d forget how to work the zone system they had. Too many false alarms. Karina’s dad, who lived there then, put in security that’s all on or all off by pushing one button,” Mike had told Holly.
Though the Tinsleys’ house faced Beacon, their property extended to the street behind, the alley-street with both home fronts and garages where Holly tried to walk Teddy. She’d meander along, pretending to text, until Mike cued her the system was off. Then she’d tap in the code on the garage keypad and raise the door just enough to slip under it without turning on the opener light. After a quick look, she’d duck out, lower the door, and dash away.
Simple.
Scary. Holly smiled to hide her dread. She couldn’t show doubt and have Mike back out at the last moment. “Come on.” She nodded in the direction of Beacon. She’d have pulled him along but her hands were filled with boxes too clumsy for one-armed Mike.
“You remember the keypad code?”
“1819, the year the house was built. How come you know it?”
“Drove Karina over there a couple of times,” Mike said. “Hope they haven’t changed the code since then. Once you’re in the garage, don’t expect to have more than a minute or two. Karina says Brent isn’t big on chatter.”
They walked in silence for the next two blocks, moving fast, Holly glad Mike could keep up with her normal walking speed. A thought troubled her. “Mike, I can’t believe you haven’t met your in-law family.”
“Well, I met her mother, of course, and her dad. He’s a nice guy. Moved back home to Portsmouth—or was it Maine?—after their divorce. Had property up that way. I knew Brent as a kid at Sidley, but after I married Karina, he made himself scarce whenever she dragged me over to the house. It’s a big house—around 10,000 square feet. Lots of places to hide out if that’s what you want to do.”
Holly stopped walking. “Lots of places to hide people?”
“You’re connecting dots that aren’t even on the chart. Let’s just stay on task. I’ll see if Brent changed his appearance. You look for the bike. We’ll have something solid for police—or not.”
Their ways diverged in front of Chase’s building. Mike would continue on Beacon while Holly went to the next street. Mike called her as they’d planned, and put his phone into his shirt pocket. “Can you hear me now?”
All of two feet away, Holly rolled her eyes, but took the question seriously. “Try folding in your pocket flap. The denim’s thick. I’ll hear better without fabric blocking your voice.”
She held out the square package for Karina. Mike tucked it under his arm. Holly laid the narrow box with the doll against the sling for Mike’s cast.
“Will you be all right? Carrying those boxes with one arm, you look kind of pathetic.”
“Good. Might make things easier. I’ll be fine. It’s only five or six houses away.” With a parting nod, Mike moved on.
Holly hadn’t realized the Tinsley place was so close. The brick facades of the mansions on Beacon were narrow. It was only when you looked up—way, way up—that you noticed how big they were.
She walked the length of Chase’s building, turned the corner, and found several home fronts to her left but mostly garden walls and garages to her right. Picking a spot by a wall with overhanging ivy and no obvious security devices, Holly pretended to text while she waited to hear Mike’s voice.
She didn’t wait long. “Ok, I’m here,” he said. “Ringing the bell. Hope he’s home.”
What if he isn’t? Holly hadn’t considered the possibility. If Brent didn’t answer the door, their plan was done.
Then she heard, “So, hey, Brent?” Pause. “You may not remember me, but I’m Mike Smallwood. I married your sister?” Mike’s voice rose on the last word. If he was seeking confirmation Brent knew him, he didn’t get it. “Anyway, we’re divorcing. Karina insists I return some of her stuff.”
“Not here.”
Holly’s head jerked back. She’d never heard Brent speak! His voice was deep but flat, emotionless. It didn’t signal interest or suspicion.
“That’s why I came now. Don’t really want to run into her, but she keeps ragging on about her college photos, old CDs, and a damned glass paperweight she thinks is worth a fortune. You know how she is.”
Mike must have gotten a visual response because his next words were smoother, more natural. “Just leave the box in the hall or whatever. She can pick it up.”
Pause. Holly held her breath. Would he turn off security to take the package?
“Wait.”
“Oh, right. Security. I forgot,” Mike lied.
There was the cue. Time to act. In an instant, Brent would reach for the box and shut the door. Holly wasn’t in position.
She rushed toward the Tinsley’s garden wall and garage. No light came on when she passed the gate. She pulled on Jen’s gloves to keep her fingerprints off the garage keypad.
“Brent? Hey, Brent?” Mike was telling her he wasn’t at the door.
Holly punched in the code. She heard a click, the cover flap lifted, and the door button appeared. She was slipping under the partially opened door when Mike’s voice said, “You’re back. Okay. I forgot to tell you the long box is for your mother. It’s a doll my mother borrowed from yours. I’m supposed to give it back to her.”
“Doll?”
“A little dude doll. One of a pair. Guess it’s special. It’s—What the—?”
Mike’s voice cut out. Holly shook her phone. No bars? Dead battery?
Trouble. She had to hurry.
The garage was double wide and double deep. To her left was a van. The right parking space was empty. Hol
ly couldn’t make out what the jumbled shapes ahead were with only filtered moonlight from a curtained, half-glass door at the end of the room. She moved toward a tarp about the right size to hide her father’s bike.
Something shifted near the left wall. Holly caught a glimpse of it from the corner of her eye, but when she stared the darkness down, nothing moved.
The air felt heavy. Her chest was tight; her throat, dry. She coughed, and felt her heart race when she lifted the tarp away from the handlebars, the front wheel, the worn seat of her father’s motorcycle.
She didn’t dare cry out her joy. Something in the darkness would hear her. Something…a presence, watched.
A red light near the walk-in door was a lidless eye, marking her position. The darkness congealed into black.
Holly retreated, each step freeing her from the grip of the room until she backed into something that slithered down her spine.
She yelped, whirled, stumbled, and caught her balance against the van. The side mirror dangled, swinging from cracked plastic.
Broken. Didn’t matter. Get out. Get out now.
Light stabbed her brain when the entrance door opened. Figure in doorway. Male. Not Brent. Shorter. Holly squinted, willing her eyes to focus, but the figure kept wavering. His head turned toward the red demon light, toward the exposed bike.
Familiar face. From where? Same profile on flyers!
“Kyle…Blake?” Holly choked out, the sounds garbled into Kahl Baak. She tried to point to the open car door so he could escape, but when she spun, so did the room.
“Not with the infrasound generator running,” he said. “How long have you been in here?”
Holly blinked.
“Better get down on the ground,” he said, “or you’ll hit your head when you fall.”
As her knees buckled, Holly wished she’d done what he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Day 14—Friday night
“Hey, you.”
“Cam!” Clutching her phone, Liv shot to a sitting position on her bed.
“You okay? Concert buzz was deep on the news.”
“All kinds of insane,” Liv admitted. She gazed sadly at her leather-clad legs. “Everything was so mixed up, no one saw my costume. Do you know about—”
“The bike being stolen? Yeah. Cops called my mom. She’s crazed, so I gotta talk to Holly. Can you get her to call me? She’s not picking up.”
“Holly went out with my uncle.”
“Out, like on a date?”
“No-oh!” Liv wrinkled her nose. “They are so not dating. They went snooping. Holly thinks she knows where the bike is.”
“For real?” Cam’s voice rose to a squeak. “‘Cause if she does, that’d be sick.”
“Anorexic chance.” Liv eyed her puppy, who was scratching the closet door. “Teddy, stop!”
She went to pull the dog off the woodwork, but he squirmed away and pawed the carpet. “Wait,” Liv told Cam while she bent to grab Teddy’s collar. Setting her phone on the dresser, she opened the closet. Teddy snuffled in the corner, emerging with Ari’s hat between his teeth.
Liv stared. She’d hidden the beret way in back, unwilling to give it to police or to Mrs. Kelly. Keeping it for Ari made her feel better, like having a magic charm to make her friend return unharmed.
She wrestled the hat from Teddy, who barked in protest until distracted with a toy. Liv picked up her phone. “He found Ari’s beret, the one she dyed different shades of purple. She dropped it on the street when she was kidnapped. Purple is Ari’s color, but she can’t wear it at Sidley.”
“Why not?
“Dress code. Purple isn’t an approved color. Ari dyed the hat to wear outside school. So pretty,” Liv mused. “The colors swirl around like clouds, or…” What was the word she wanted?
Smoke.
Purple smoke.
“Ohmygod!” Liv leaned against her dresser, closing her eyes, remembering purple smoke streaming out a window on Beacon. She’d seen if from Chase’s house. “Cam! After you did the first video and we were all talking on the roof, someone said Ari used purple smoke at school, remember? Remember?”
“There were lots of stories,” he said. “All I caught was one about a sound gizmo that knocked out everyone in a lab. Seemed pretty cool.”
“Kyle. Kyle did that. Oh!” The ideas were coming so fast now, Liv stopped talking. Ari was sending smoke signals! And Kyle… Had the kidnapper used his science geekery to pump the amps at the concert, panic the crowd, and get away with the ransom?
“Ari and Kyle are at the purple smoke house. They must be.” Liv thumbed in a map app. She studied an aerial of Chase’s house, counting roofs to the window where she saw the smoke.
“Liv?”
“I found it. Holly and my uncle went there, and they’ve been gone…” she checked the time, “more than an hour now.”
“Call the cops.”
“They’ll never believe me. If I tell them about purple smoke, they’ll laugh.”
“You have to try. Get back to me when you’re done.”
Liv pressed the hotline number she’d programmed into her phone. Her call wouldn’t work. She was a kid. They’d think she was pranking. By the time an operator answered, Liv had a plan.
“I’m Holly Glasscock, bodyguard to the girl who saw Ariel Kelly’s kidnapping,” Liv lied. “I’m twenty-two,” she added so they’d know she was grown up. Figuring they had caller ID, she gave her real address and explained, “I’m borrowing this phone. Mine’s broken.”
“You have something to report?” the operator asked.
“Yes. I know who stole the motorcycle during the concert.”
“This is an FBI kidnap hotline. Report thefts through the police non-emergency number.”
“No, you don’t understand. The guy who took the bike could be the kidnapper. He wears old-style Army boots. His name is Brandon, or maybe Brent, and he lives on Beacon. My friend, Myron Smallwood, also saw the boots, so I’m calling for him, too. Myron’s twenty-nine.” Liv had them now; surely, they’d believe Uncle Mike was an adult.
“Boots.” The operator paused. “Just boots?”
“There’s more. I saw purple smoke coming out of a window at that house. Ari Kelly knows how to make purple smoke.” Liv gave the Tinsley house address, asking next, “When will somebody go there?”
“Your report will be reviewed by an agent. Response will depend on the agent’s decision and manpower availability. We’ve had a large number of tips called in from all over the area. Law enforcement personnel are responding as quickly as possible. Thank you for your assistance.” The operator clicked off.
Liv called Cam. “They’re not going to do anything,” she fumed. “Or, if they do, it’ll take a long time. I can’t wait. I have to do something now.”
“Like what?”
“Go over there to peek in the window, find Ari, and get her out.”
“You’re talking about climbing to the roof of a big building on Beacon? Impossible.”
“My uncle did it when he was in high school.”
“Your uncle’s a guy—taller, stronger, longer reach.”
“You’re saying I can’t do what a boy can do?” Liv demanded.
“Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s too dangerous.”
“Hypocrite! I’ve seen you do scary Parkour stunts just for fun.”
“Way different,” Cam said. “You’re a girl—small, delicate. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
Liv wasn’t sure if she felt like kissing or kicking him, but when she spoke, her voice was soft. “You didn’t see her—Natalie. Her dead body.” Liv felt queasy at the memory, but it galvanized her. “I’m not going to let that happen to Ari.”
“Jeez, Liv, even if you could get to her, what’s to keep you from being kidnapped?”
“You are. We’ll stay connected. You’ll know where I am and what’s happening.”
“And if someone calls the cops on you?”
&
nbsp; “Fine. I want police to come. They’ll find Ari, and maybe Kyle, too.”
“At least wait until I can drive down there,” Cam argued. “I’ll do the climbing.”
“No way. You’re not from the Hill, and you’re older. If I’m caught, police will treat me like a dumb teenager. They’ll arrest you.”
And so it was settled—in Liv’s mind, at least, though Cam continued to grumble. She tuned out his warnings, focusing instead on how to leave the house without alerting her grandmother or Mrs. Barnes, who were in the room directly below her. The security system was on, and Liv didn’t know the code. She stared at the floor, wondering what to do.
Her stained carpet supplied the answer: the security system installer passed out before he finished wiring her window. She could sneak out using the fire ladder in the chest beneath it.
“Hang on,” she told Cam as she lifted the wide plank lid and looked inside. Grandmother’s prized quilts littered the floor while she studied the fire ladder underneath. There were two curved parts like racing bike handlebars. Mrs. Barnes said those hooked around the window sill. The rest was aluminum chain and slats. When Liv tested the weight, it wasn’t too heavy. She punched air.
Then it hit her: The ladder would clank going down, and when she used it, she’d have to pass Grandmother’s bedroom. Her room had thick drapes, but drapes didn’t block sound. On the first floor, the ladder’s end would hang in front of the dining room windows. She explained the problems to Cam.
“Drop the ladder real slow,” he advised. “Use a toilet plunger against the wall to steady yourself when you make your way down. The rest, uh…”
Liv knew the answer. The ladder would be obvious if Mrs. Barnes went to the kitchen. There was no way around it; she’d be found out and grounded forever. Liv smirked, imagining herself an old lady still confined to the house.
Too bad. She’d made up her mind.
She found a plunger under her sink, and then put Teddy’s dog bed and favorite chew toy in the bathroom. He yawned and curled up, so maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t bark while she was gone.