Private Killer

by Franklin W. Dixon

  Killer was able to keep him in sight. I, however, was having a harder time. I never would have guessed that I’d be out so late without any light to guide my way, and the trails were still unfamiliar to me. I was lucky to have Killer guiding my way. While he could have no doubt tracked Spencer all across campus, moving quietly through the underbrush was not easy for a two-legged guy without a flashlight. More than once, Spencer paused and looked over his shoulders. Each time, when he started again he walked a little bit faster. Soon he was jogging through the woods.

  And that’s when I stepped on a dead branch. There were dried leaved and sticks all throughout the underbrush, thanks to the changing of the seasons, but this one was just the right size. Or should I say just the wrong size: small enough for me to break it by stepping on it, big enough to make a sound like a gunshot.

  Spencer didn’t even bother looking behind him this time. He just took off at a run. Which is when I remembered something else I’d heard about Spencer: Everyone at the Willis Firth Academy was required to take at least one sport. Spencer’s was track. And he wasn’t just any runner. He was a state champion sprinter who did marathons in his spare time.

  He was suddenly moving so fast I thought he was flying. Killer and I took off after him. At first, it seemed like the woods were going to slow Spencer down. We kept pace with him, falling a tiny bit behind but not that much. I leaped over tree stumps, dodged low-hanging branches, and nearly broke my ankle on a forgotten bit of stone wall. All the while, I managed to keep Killer’s leash from getting tangled up on anything.

  But every second, Spencer seemed to go a bit faster. He must have been getting used to running in the forest. Soon he was forty feet ahead of us, then fifty, then I could just barely make him out in the distance. If we could just keep him in sight until we were out of the woods, Killer would be able to track him to wherever he was going.

  SMACK!

  I ran straight into a tree. Luckily, my shoulder took most of the impact, but I could tell I’d be black-and-blue tomorrow. Immediately, I tried to locate the slippery shadow of Spencer in the distance, but he was gone.

  I turned back to Killer, who was sitting on his haunches with a look that said nice going.

  “I know,” I said. “You don’t have to rub it in.”

  Killer leaned down and ducked his head.

  There was nothing I could do about Spencer now; he was already long gone. I turned back in what I hoped was the direction of Killer’s kennel. It was going to be a long walk home.

  FRANK

  6

  Under the Radar

  Multidimensional Kinetics

  A baseball (m = 0.15 kg) is thrown with a speed of 30 meters per second at angle of 32 degrees above the horizontal. Neglect air resistance.

  a. What is its momentum at the maximum height?

  b. What is its momentum just before it strikes the ground?

  I read the problem for a third time. This time I almost made it to the end before Zeke broke in on me again.

  “I mean . . . just, like wow, right? That thing on the soccer field. That was wicked sick.”

  I nodded. Not that Zeke actually seemed to care if I responded. He’d been going on like this all night.

  “The way the wig got all melty. That was just gross. I mean grody.” He laughed. He didn’t seem all that upset about it actually. But then, Zeke didn’t seem to get upset about much, except when they’d canceled the dorm-wide pizza party the other night. Pizza was serious business. The murder and harassment of his classmates? That was a laughing matter.

  I looked back at my homework. Combined with the craziness of the last few days, my classes appeared to be much more challenging than I’d been prepared for. Firth was no joke and this was seriously not good. Not only would my cover be blown if I didn’t keep up appearances of a Firth-worthy scholar, but I’d be seriously behind in my actual classes when I got home.

  Finally, it seemed like Zeke had gotten the hint. I actually completed two problems. Zeke was silent for a continuous fifteen minutes—I think it might have been a record.

  That’s when the music started. Blaring, wailing guitars. It was so loud, I couldn’t even tell what it was. Some kind of classic rock I was sure. That was all Zeke ever seemed to listen to. I turned around to find him lying on his bed with his eyes closed. Could he really sleep through all that?

  “Zeke? ZEKE? ZEKE!” I shouted his name until he opened his eyes and sat up.

  “Sorry man! Couldn’t hear you!” He smiled apologetically and pointed toward his stereo. But he didn’t make any move to turn it off.

  “Can you turn that down? I’m trying to study.”

  “Oh! Right. Sure.” He reached over and turned the knob the tiniest bit. I was no longer bleeding from the ears, but it was still far from ideal. I was about to say something, but Zeke had already collapsed back down on his bed.

  I shut my books.

  “I’m going for a walk!” I yelled. I couldn’t tell if Zeke was nodding because he heard me, or just bouncing his head along to the music.

  As soon as I shut the door to our room behind us, I felt better. Like I could hear myself think again. There wasn’t really anywhere to go for a walk. After nine o’clock at night, no student was allowed outside of the dorms without express permission of the dean. But now could be a good time to check up on some of the other students.

  Joe had filled me in on what he’d seen go down out in the woods, so I decided to start with Spencer.

  As a senior and president of GTT, Spencer lived in his very own single in the frat house. I was beginning to understand just how much of a privilege that was. His room was on the top floor of the building in one of the corners. I knocked on the door. He’d already taken physics, so I figured I could use asking him for help as an excuse.

  Except he didn’t answer. I knocked again. Nothing. There was no light coming from beneath the door, and when I put my ear to the wood, I couldn’t hear anything. Maybe he’d gone to bed early? He did get quite the workout this afternoon, I thought.

  I’d have to check in on him some other time. Luckily, there were a few other people on my list of students to talk to. Lee was up next. Although Destiny was the main target, whoever was pulling these tricks seemed to have some anger left over for Lee, too. Maybe Lee had some enemies he hadn’t mentioned before. Being the star of the soccer team, a straight-A student, and GTT’s most sought after new pledge, people had to be jealous of him.

  I headed over to Lee’s dorm. I could tell from down the hall that his door was half open and the lights were on. There was quiet music drifting out into the hallway. I knocked on the door.

  “Come in!” yelled an unfamiliar voice.

  A guy with long, straight black hair was sitting with his legs up on his desk, reading a book. Had I gotten the wrong room?

  “Hi,” I said. “Is Lee here?”

  “Oh, no man. He’s uh . . . at some study group,” he said. He turned back to his book, as though he wasn’t eager to talk about it.

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “Nope. Sorry.” This time, he didn’t even bother to look up from his book. But I could see a blush spread across his face. The guy was definitely lying. But why?

  I stood there for a few seconds, hoping that he would say something else, but he was focusing so intently on the book I could have sworn there was steam coming out of his ears. This wasn’t going anywhere. I stepped back out into the hallway.

  I noticed there were a number of doors that were shut, or rooms with only one person in them. There was definitely a pattern: The guys of GTT—and some of their pledges—were all missing. Looks like they were up to something.

  I was on my way back to my room when I noticed something unexpected. Patton was back in the dorm. What’s more, he was alone in his room. He was a GTT pledge as well, but clearly not one of the most popular ones. He had to know what was going on. And if he’d been left out, maybe he’d spill the beans. Plus, he was still on
our list of suspects.

  “Hey Patton.”

  Patton looked up with a hopeful expression on his face. Then he saw it was just me. “Oh. Hey.”

  “How’s it going?”

  Patton shrugged his shoulders and went pack to doodling on a sheet of paper in front of him.

  “Are you feeling better?” His face still looked pretty red, but it wasn’t the mass of blisters it had been when I’d last seen him.

  “I guess. I was in the hospital all weekend, which sucked.” In the hospital all weekend, eh? If that turned out to be true, it seemed like Patton was off the hook for the fire at least.

  “So . . . where is everybody tonight? This place seems empty.”

  Patton jerked his head up as if he’d been slapped.

  “They’re all out doing some stupid GTT initiation thing. I mean, I get my face destroyed for them, and they still pick Lee over me. Just because they’re so desperate to have him and they’re afraid he’ll quit. It’s ridiculous!”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to hide my excitement. Previous GTT initiation pranks had included stealing the toilet seat from Dr. Darity’s office. Maybe they were behind the pranks on Destiny? And Patton was definitely jealous of Lee, and could easily have destroyed the locker room before he ended up in the infirmary. “So what is this initiation thing?”

  Patton looked at me suspiciously. He narrowed his eyes. Perhaps he’d realized he’d said too much already.

  “It’s . . . nothing. Just nothing.” He stood up from his chair. “I’m going to bed,” he said, and then stretched his arms and gave the fakest yawn I’d ever seen. “Nice talking to you.”

  Patton nearly pushed me out of his room. Looks like I wasn’t getting any more information here. But now that I knew that the members of GTT were out for the night, I had a good idea where I could get some.

  Quickly, I made my way back to Spencer’s room at the GTT house. After a quick look around to make sure the hallway was empty, I pulled out my bump key—a state of the art spy toy that ATAC had provided to both Joe and I. With old fashioned lock picks, you had to navigate each tumbler in the lock separately, which meant sitting in front of the lock for a long time, with the equivalent of a big neon sign saying BREAKING AND ENTERING over your head. With a bump key, you simply slipped it into the lock and tapped it a bunch, until all the tumblers aligned at the same time. Within seconds, easy locks popped right open.

  Which is how I found myself in Spencer’s room. I slipped the door closed behind me. Thankfully, it was a bright, clear night out. By the light of the moon, I navigated my way across his room to his desk and flipped on the small light.

  Spencer’s room was so neat it made mine look sloppy. His bed had hospital corners. His books were organized by color and height. Nothing was out of place. I was going to have to be very careful—he was the kind of guy who would notice if anything was out of place.

  I whipped out my phone and took a photo of his desk so I’d have something to compare it to when I was done searching and needed to put everything back in its place. Then I started with the drawers. Nothing unusual in any of them—pens, pencils, papers, paper clips. Even his school supplies were laid out in perfect rows. It was so organized it was creepy. I found a gym lock, with the combination written out on a label on its back. Carefully, I put everything back in its place.

  His laptop was also on his desk. It powered up as soon as I touched the track pad. Unfortunately, it opened to a password screen. I didn’t know much about Spencer, so my chances of figuring out his password were pretty slim. I tried a few things—Spencer, Firth, track. Nothing worked. Then an idea came to me.

  I put the laptop to sleep, flipped it over, and searched. No sign of a label. I looked along the back of the screen. Nothing. Finally I pulled out the battery. Bingo! Beneath the battery pack was a small, carefully written label—EREBUS.

  There was that word again! Who were the Brothers of Erebus? And what were they up to? They were definitely connected to Gamma Theta Theta, but aside from that, no one seemed willing—or able—to tell me anything about them.

  I was about to type in the password when I heard noises in the hallway. Footsteps were approaching Spencer’s door. Quickly, I flipped off the light and powered down the computer. In the dark, I waited.

  I’m sure it’s just someone going to the bathroom, I thought. What were the chances that Spencer would come home right now?

  Then I heard a hand on the doorknob.

  Just my luck. There was no other way out of the room. Right as I heard the lock click, I dove beneath Spencer’s bed.

  A pair of feet clad only in socks walked across the floor. Judging from the dirt clinging to the hem of his pants, I’d guess that Spencer took off his shoes outside his room to keep from tracking mud in. He flipped on the same desk light I had turned off just a few seconds earlier, and I held my breath hoping that I’d repositioned everything correctly.

  Spencer must not have noticed anything, because he came over and sat down on the bed. The old metal springs creaked and dipped dangerously low, until they were barely half an inch from the tip of my nose. I held my breath, praying it wouldn’t dip any lower.

  Spencer dropped his backpack on the floor right in front of me. Carefully, I turned my head to look at it. A long piece of wood was sticking out of the end of bag. It was about the thickness of a baseball bat, but rough. One end looked charred, as though it had been set on fire. It was a torch! Destiny had said the brothers of GTT had been playing pranks on her—perhaps today they’d decided to up the ante?

  Spencer leaned down to pull some books out of the bag, and I scooted as far back against the wall as I could. He lay down on top of me. I could hear him slowly flipping the pages of his textbook above me.

  The floor was cold and dusty and hard. It was going to be a very long night. . . .

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Suspect: Spencer Thane

  Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia

  Physical Description: 5’11”, 160 pounds, dark skin, super preppy

  Occupation: Senior at Firth; head of GTT

  Suspected Of: Harassing Destiny Darity, setting fire to a dummy version of her, and running a secret society within GTT known only as the Brother of Erebus.

  Possible Motives: Revenge on Dr. Darity for trying to close the frats; revenge on Destiny for being stuck-up and full of drama; or just an old-school desire to keep girls out of Firth Academy.

  JOE

  7

  Devoured by Bears

  Don’t you ever get bored with this?” I looked down at Killer, who sat at attention, waiting for me to put on his leash. I sighed and clipped him in.

  “I mean, it’s the same walk every day. Same trees, same buildings. Is it really that fascinating?”

  He scratched at the door of the house, eager to get outside.

  “Fine,” I said. “Don’t take my word for it. But I swear, that bush that you love? It’s still there. Still a bush.”

  Killer surged out the door, pulling me after him. Frank was outside waiting.

  “So did you find anything out last night?” He was supposed to call me if he got any information, but I hadn’t heard anything from him since I told him about our chase with Spencer.

  “Long story,” he said. “But yes.” He told me about his nocturnal adventures with Spencer, and I laughed.

  “The whole night? Under his bed?”

  Frank rolled his eyes. “Give me a little credit. I managed to slip out once he finally fell asleep. But he sure did study for a while before getting there. Man, my neck hurts.”

  “Well, he’s probably in class now. Should we try his room again?”

  “Maybe,” Frank replied. “But I checked his computer before I left, and there didn’t seem to be anything on it. His password was interesting though. Erebus.”

  “That name certainly has popped up in a lot of places lately,” I said, pulling out my phone.

  “I already called ATAC,” Frank said, halting me. “T
hey’re looking into the Brothers of Erebus. They’ll get back with any information they find, as soon as they find it.”

  “Good call,” I said. “In the meantime, I say we go check out the cabin first, see what we can find out about that. Besides, Killer likes the woods. Don’t you boy?”

  Frank got down on his knees and Killer leaped up on him, licking his face. Killer loved Frank. He acted like a puppy whenever Frank was around.

  When we got to the cabin in the woods, Mr. Marks’s bodyguard was still there. Did the man ever sleep? Did he have a twin? It was creepy.

  We’d decided to just walk right up and see what he did. Maybe Mr. Marks had left special instructions to let certain people in—though that still didn’t explain why he’d let Spencer in.

  I walked as close as I could to the door, thinking that eventually he would have to say something or move out of my way. Finally, when my nose was “about an inch from the guy’s chest, I stopped. He hadn’t even acknowledged our presence. Behind his mirrored sunglasses, I couldn’t even tell if his eyes were open.

  After a minute I opened my mouth to say something. The guard spoke first. “Off-limits. Beat it.”

  “But we—” That was as far as I got.

  “Don’t care. Leave.”

  Frank pulled me back from the guy. “Let’s talk to Dr. Darity, see if he can get this guy to back off.”

  “Fine,” I muttered, trying not to sound pouty. What good was being a special agent if a glorified traffic cop could push us around?

  We headed across campus to Dr. Darity’s office.

  “Hi boys,” he said. “Please tell me you’re not here about some new disaster?”

  “No,” I smiled. “Just the same old disasters.”

  “We were trying to check out that hut in the woods, but Mr. Marks’s bodyguard wouldn’t let us in,” Frank explained.