“No.”
“Me either.”
Chapter 67
I stopped two yards from Boo and his friend and put my backpack down. Ashley stood behind me.
“So, you gonna let us ride?” the little one said.
I stared at Boo.
“Answer us,” he said, sneering and stepping closer. “Or just hand over the keys.”
I wondered if Boo had ever really beat anyone up. He scared people and pulled a lot of threatening pranks, but the more I thought about it, maybe he was all show. I couldn’t remember when he had actually hit someone.
Who was I kidding? This guy had fists the size of cinder blocks.
“We’re not allowed to let anybody ride them,” I said, my voice shaky. But I hadn’t stuttered. That was a start. “If you have a problem with that, you’re talking to the wrong person.”
“Hiding behind your daddy?” Boo said. “Where’s he now? Huh?”
I held my ground and kept staring.
Ashley stepped forward. “We have your e-mail. Coach Baldwin knows what you did in the locker room. You want to be expelled, keep it up.”
“Ooh, I’m so scared,” Boo said. He made a fist. “I’ll ask you one more time. You gonna let us ride?”
I had always loved the story of David and Goliath, but right now I didn’t have a slingshot. “No,” I said, and the strength in my voice surprised me. “Leave us alone, Aaron.”
Boo slapped me hard.
Ashley gasped and stepped back.
I put a hand to my face, and it was hot. “You slapped me?” I said, squinting at him.
He looked flustered and glanced at his friend. Then at me. “Come on, put ’em up.”
“You’ve never actually been in a fight, have you?” I said. “You just intimidate everybody.”
I knew my face was red, but inside I was smiling.
A truck raced to the end of the school parking lot and Boo turned.
“I’m still gonna get you,” he said. “And we’ll have those four-wheelers.”
As Boo and his little friend hurried away, Ashley patted me on the shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my face. I knew the verse about turning the other cheek, and I was glad I hadn’t had to.
Chapter 68
As we got on the ATVs, Mrs. Watson called out from her door. Bryce took off toward the pasture, and I rode to her house.
“Your uncle was here asking for you,” she said. “I told him what time you got out of school, and he said he’d see you when you got home.”
Uncle? Our uncle Terry had died, and as far as we knew Sam didn’t have a brother. I thanked Mrs. Watson and tried to catch up with Bryce. He was waiting on the knoll near the school. I glanced at the truck in the parking lot and wondered if it had been some kind of coincidence or if Sam had sent someone to protect us. Our uncle?
We rode into the pasture. Halfway home, I noticed the truck going slowly on the road beside us. I couldn’t see the driver, but the license plate was green and white like the Colorado plates Sam and Mom have.
We were almost to the house when the pickup sped into our driveway, kicking up dust. It zoomed through our yard and came straight at us, stopping a few yards from us. That’s when I remembered where I had seen it before.
On Gold Camp Road.
Chapter 69
When a man in a ski mask jumped from the driver’s side, Ashley and I gunned our engines, went around the truck, and headed for our front door.
The man got back in the truck and followed, but we were off our bikes and on the front porch before he could get out.
We ran inside, the man catching up to us, and before we could close the door, he stuck his foot in it.
Mom appeared, her glasses pushed down on her nose, which meant she had been working on her book. Pippin and Frodo barked from the backyard.
“What in the world?” Mom said as we pushed with all our might to get the door closed. It burst open, pushing us all back, and Ski Mask was inside.
Mom grabbed us and thrust us behind her. “What do you want?”
“The computer,” he said, his voice muffled.
“What computer?” my mother yelled. “Get out of our house!”
The man pulled a gun from his belt, waved it toward the living-room couch, and motioned for us to sit.
My cell phone was in my pocket. If I could dial 911 quickly, the guy would never know it.
“The computer with the e-mail,” he said. “Now!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Mom said.
“They do,” the man said. “You sent an e-mail from the cabin before the power was cut. Now where is it?”
I looked at Mom. “Did you open an e-mail from me Friday night?”
“You know I don’t check e-mail while I’m writing. It probably downloaded but—”
“Tell me where it is right now, lady, or one of these kids gets hurt.”
“In my office.”
The man gestured with the gun for us to stand. “Show me.”
Chapter 70
I don’t know about Bryce, but all I could think was, This is not why I moved to Colorado!
I heard a beep as we entered Mom’s office.
The man stopped.
Another beep.
“What’s that?” he said.
A third beep.
He grabbed Bryce’s arm and out came his cell phone. The man snatched it out of his hand and punched the red button, stopping the call. He threw the phone to the floor and pointed at Bryce. “Try that again and you’re dead.”
Mom’s laptop lay on the desk with lots of papers and mail stacked nearby. The man grabbed the laptop, closed it, and unplugged it from its docking station.
“You can’t take that,” Mom said. “That has all my work on it!”
“Downstairs,” he said.
If only I could slip away and call Sam or the police. Something. Anything. But if one of us ran, the man would shoot. Maybe I could distract him.
“How did you find us?” I said.
“Just get downstairs. Sit on the couch.”
“You were pretty smart to track us here.”
As we sat, the man said, “I’ve got my ways.”
I looked at Bryce. “Now there’s no way they’ll be able to find out who Winkler’s accomplice was. He has the only file of our picture.”
“Shut up, missy,” the man said.
“And you’re the guy with his back to us at Gold Town, talking to Winkler, right? Which means you have the gold.”
“Please don’t take my computer,” Mom said. “All my work is on that hard drive. Do you know how long it took—?”
“Shut up!” the man said, and I thought I recognized his voice.
“Bet you’re glad that Winkler guy’s been put away,” I said. “Now you won’t have to share any of the loot.”
The man just stared at us. When a siren sounded in the distance, he ran to the window and searched the horizon.
“Guess my 911 call went through,” Bryce said. “You should have left the phone on and told them it was a mistake.”
“Shut up!”
“You can’t say that,” a tiny voice said from behind us. It was Dylan, rubbing his eyes. “You’re not supposed to say shut up.”
“Honey, come here,” Mom said, picking Dylan up.
The man’s gaze darted around the room, and he scratched the top of his head. He ordered us into the kitchen, herded us into the food pantry, and jammed something against the door to block us in.
We heard footsteps through the kitchen toward the front. The screen slammed. Then someone yelped, and there was a thump.
Seconds passed.
“Hello?” Leigh called. “Anybody home?”
We yelled for her to let us out.
“Who’s the guy with the gun?” she said, opening the door.
“Long story,” Bryce said. “Where is he?”
Chapter 71
I tore through the
living room ahead of Mom and Ashley, only to find the guy with the mask on the ground in our front yard holding his leg. The laptop lay on the concrete like a wounded animal. The monitor had broken off, and pieces of plastic were scattered all over. The Creep was holding the gun on the man.
“Randy!” I shouted. “What happened?”
“This guy was coming out while we were going in,” Randy said. “I must have surprised him, because he turned and tripped over that snow shovel. The gun flew out of his hand. What was he doing?”
“Trying to destroy the evidence,” Ashley said, gathering up Mom’s laptop.
There was no siren now, so the 911 call must not have gone through. Mom called the police.
A few minutes later an officer cuffed the man, then pulled his mask off. He had a patchy mustache and dark hair.
Ashley gasped. “The deputy! You came to our cabin!”
The man cursed us as he was led to the squad car.
We explained what had happened at the cabin.
The officer said he had read about it. “You saying this guy might be the one with the gold?”
“Could be why he came here,” Ashley said. “We have a picture of him talking with Winkler, but he had his back turned to the camera. We didn’t even know we had it.”
“Uh, actually we didn’t have it,” I said. I had hooked the laptop to a monitor and was looking over Mom’s e-mail files. “I guess it never came through.”
“He came here to destroy a file that didn’t exist?” the officer said. “Real sharp.”
Leigh was peering into the man’s truck. “There’s a suitcase behind the seat.” She tried to lift it, but it was too heavy. Randy pulled it out with a grunt and put it on the ground.
The guy in the squad car kicked the back of the seat and hollered.
Randy clicked the latch and opened it. “Holy gold mine!”
The nugget was still in its glass case, and when the sun hit it, the thing sparkled like a mountain stream.
The officer pushed his hat back on his head and chuckled.
Dylan ran and stuck his head inside the suitcase. “Can I hold the shiny rock?”
Chapter 72
Sam was as surprised as we were about the deputy. When Bryce told him the man had been in our house with a gun, Sam’s face fell. But then he said he was glad that Bryce hadn’t moved the snow shovel.
Mom was relieved her book was safe, and from then on she began e-mailing it to herself and printing each chapter after she finished. She called Hayley’s mom and explained what had happened between us and asked if we could try to be friends again. Hayley was allowed to come to our house, but only if Mom was home.
Bryce and I decided not to call Randy The Creep anymore. It was the least we could do. Bryce was wary of Boo for the rest of the week, but the bully left us alone. Coach Baldwin had him scrubbing bathrooms during gym class. I guess it helps to have friends in high places.
One afternoon the sheriff came and apologized for all that had happened. He explained that the deputy and Winkler had worked with the store owner to steal the gold. The boy at the store turned out to be the owner’s son, and he had told his father about giving the memory stick to Bryce.
“When the exhibit opens again, we’d like to have you up to see it,” the sheriff said. He handed Sam the miner’s hat and a soggy monkey and raccoon.
“We’d like that,” Sam said.
The sheriff mentioned the reward, but Sam took him outside to talk.
We kept watching for a newspaper story of the gold heist to tell who had cracked the case. Finally, The Gazette linked the deputy with Winkler and the shop owner and exposed their plan. The report never mentioned that a 13-year-old taking a picture threw a wrench in the heist.
Dylan kept asking Sam if he could go back and play on the “Ping-Pong machine.” Sam promised we’d return as soon as the cabin owner let us, which probably wouldn’t happen since the place was trashed.
Even with the case solved and the bad guys in jail, Sam seemed upset. I wondered if it was because we were almost killed in the SUV or if he blamed himself for not being home when the deputy forced his way into our house. Or was God working on him?
When we got home from church Sunday, Sam spoke with Mom alone in their room.
Mom was crying when she came out. “Get your brother and meet us in the living room.”
Chapter 73
Ashley seemed as curious as me. Leigh sat on the couch. She’d been taking a nap and had bad pillow hair and a crease across her face. They let Dylan play out back on the swing set—that’s how serious the meeting was.
Mom was still wiping away tears when Sam sat on the hearth in front of the empty fireplace, put his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands together.
I was getting nervous. “What’s going on?”
Sam and Mom looked at each other, and one of those moments passed between them—the kind that let you know they had talked about something. She dipped her head and her chin quivered. Sam looked at the floor.
I was afraid it had something to do with us. Were they going to split up? I couldn’t imagine that. Did they need to sell our ATVs? Had Ashley’s disease gotten worse?
Just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, Sam spoke. “Your mom has known this for some time, but I hadn’t told her everything. Until now. I don’t know how to say this really. . . .”
“Just say it, Dad,” Leigh said.
He nodded. “I’m sorry you haven’t been able to talk about this either, Leigh. But talking would endanger us all.”
“What do you mean?” Ashley said.
Sam looked at us through tears. “I’m so sorry. You have to believe me.”
Ashley started to cry. “What are you sorry for?”
“For killing your father.”
About the Authors
JERRY B. JENKINS (jerryjenkins.com) is the writer of the Left Behind series. He owns the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild, an organization dedicated to mentoring aspiring authors. Former vice president for publishing for the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, he also served many years as editor of Moody magazine and is now Moody’s writer-at-large.
His writing has appeared in publications as varied as Reader’s Digest, Parade, Guideposts, in-flight magazines, and dozens of other periodicals. Jenkins’s biographies include books with Billy Graham, Hank Aaron, Bill Gaither, Luis Palau, Walter Payton, Orel Hershiser, and Nolan Ryan, among many others. His books appear regularly on the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly best-seller lists.
Jerry is also the writer of the nationally syndicated sports story comic strip Gil Thorp, distributed to newspapers across the United States by Tribune Media Services.
Jerry and his wife, Dianna, live in Colorado and have three grown sons and three grandchildren.
CHRIS FABRY is a writer and broadcaster who lives in Colorado. He has written more than 40 books, including collaboration on the Left Behind: The Kids series.
You may have heard his voice on Focus on the Family, Moody Broadcasting, or Love Worth Finding. He has also written for Adventures in Odyssey and Radio Theatre.
Chris is a graduate of the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. He and his wife, Andrea, have been married 22 years and have nine children, two birds, two dogs, and one cat.
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