The Final Step

by Ridley Pearson

  CHAPTER 10

  DOWN THROUGH THE DARK FOREST JAMES AND Lexie moved, surrounded now by the whining of insect wings, the high-pitched croaking of tree frogs, the unexplained creaking of tree limbs. Like doors on rusted hinges.

  James carried the lone shoe with him as he and Lexie followed the snorting dog.

  Diego kept the leash tight and the pace faster than James would have wanted. The dog was strong and determined.

  Long minutes passed, feeling longer. Muscles strained and grew sore. Lexie did not complain, did not speak. But eventually she ran her hand down James’s outstretched hand, running shivers up his spine as she took the leash from him, slipping her hand through the loop with his. James withdrew his hand without complaint—his shoulder feeling as if it were out of joint. He wished he could have kept it in the leash with hers just a few seconds more. He fell behind, placing his hand on her left shoulder to keep them together in lockstep. Her shoulder was warm to the touch.

  Diego picked up a strong scent. Nose to the ground. The hair on his back raised like a porcupine. He was a heat-seeking missile now. He was locked in as he turned them back up the hill slightly and then traversed. Lexie held the leash with both hands. Lacking the proper commands, they had no way of stopping him even if they wanted to.

  “He’s heading back to where I found Lowry,” James said over her shoulder. “We need to turn him around. We need to know where Lowry got shot.”

  Together they shortened the leash and, with all their strength, reversed the dog, aiming him.

  Maneuvering past boulders and trees, James and Lexie nearly screamed when a squirrel leaped in the branches overhead.

  They came to a stream. Diego hesitated, then returned to random patterns. He snorted and sniffed. James led him downstream.

  “Did you hear that?” Lexie whispered.

  “No. I’m pretty focused on Diego. What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Lots of noises in the woods at night.”

  “If you’re trying to reassure me, it isn’t working,” Lexie said. “Footsteps, I think. A voice, that is, a grunt, like someone bumping into something.”

  Diego pulled. They jumped over the stream. James realized how the noise of the dog barreling along let only the louder unexpected sounds through. What if Lexie had heard someone? he wondered. He walked close to her, speaking more softly than the sounds from the dog.

  “I think Lowry may have tried to use the stream to cover his tracks,” James said.

  “You sound like your roommate,” Lexie said quietly.

  “Former roommate. Not anymore. Good riddance. Him being expelled from school was the best thing that ever happened to this place.”

  “To the school, or to you?”

  “Have you been talking to Moria or something?”

  “Or something,” Lexie said.

  “Meaning?” he asked.

  “You and Sherlock were a good influence on each other.”

  “Since you knew him so well,” James said sarcastically.

  “You’re different now that he’s gone.”

  “Different good, or different bad?”

  “Just different.”

  “More . . . what?”

  “He’s a smart boy. It never hurts to be around smart people. They tend to make you smarter.”

  “But you’re a loner.”

  “Exactly. I hang around with a smart girl.”

  “Yourself? Haha! Wait, are you saying I’m not as smart with Sherlost gone?”

  “You said it. I didn’t.”

  “Ouch!” James said. “That really hurts, Lexie.”

  “Good. It should. No pain, no gain, right? You hang around with losers, James. Troublemakers. Centigrade IQs. You should be on the Fahrenheit scale. The Holmes kid . . . I had him in a couple classes. The proctors were afraid of him. He has that kind of smarts, that effect on people. That effect on you.”

  James said nothing for several minutes. Diego led them to the valley floor and then started up the opposing hill.

  “You’re mad at me,” Lexie said.

  “No. I love being called stupid.”

  “If that’s what you got out of that, then yes, you are.” She left James a few yards behind her.

  “OK. I know what you’re saying about guys like Thorndyke. I get it. But there’s stuff going on. More than I can . . . I can’t really talk about it. But there’s more.”

  “And there you are, sounding so brilliant.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “You’re better than that, James. You’re better than thugs and secrets and thinking you live in a world the rest of us don’t. It’s snobbish. It’s rude. It isn’t you.”

  “What if it is?” James asked.

  “Then . . . then you’re the one on your own, not me.”

  “You’re breaking up with me?”

  “Breaking up? We’re not dating! Eww! What are you talking about?”

  “I mean, breaking off our friendship.”

  “Friendships don’t get broken, they get abandoned. And no, I’m not abandoning you. But it doesn’t mean I won’t.”

  James stewed. The hill proved a difficult climb, and Lexie was in far better shape than him. As she and the dog pulled away from James, he too thought he heard someone out there. The woods played tricks with sound. It deflected off tree trunks and ricocheted off rocks. It rose into the canopy of branches overhead and came back down like a drizzle. There was no placing it.

  But there was no denying it either.

  Lexie was right: they weren’t alone.

  CHAPTER 11

  IT APPEARED FROM THE DARK WOODS AS A CRUMBLING stone fort or castle. Given the lack of light, it looked two-dimensional, like a painted backdrop to a stage play. Braided vines and ivy clung to the structure’s remains: graffiti-covered rock walls, missing windows in some places.

  “Looks like Narnia or something,” Lexie gushed, holding Diego back from the set of rising steps.

  “That part, up the stairs. That’s an observatory. The school’s, I suppose. I knew we had one. Never knew where it actually was.”

  “Like with a telescope?” Lexie asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “It’s huge.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Lowry was in there before he was in the woods.” Lexie didn’t make it a question.

  “Diego certainly seems convinced.” The dog pulled so hard he rose to just his hind legs and then coughed and came back down to all fours.

  “Stargazing got him killed? That seems unlikely.”

  “Highly unlikely,” agreed James. “Though I can see a meeting taking place out here. A place like this. A secret meeting.”

  “Why would your family lawyer, from Boston, take a secret meeting in the school observatory?”

  Shaped like a silo, the structure had a domed roof with a retractable metal section. It was just weird enough to look dangerous.

  Lexie lowered her voice. “What if he was shot in there? What are we doing here, James? So now we know he was in there. We should get out of here. We have to get Diego back soon anyway. You should call that detective.”

  “We should see if it’s open,” James said.

  “Are you nuts?”

  “We have Diego. Maybe he can help inside.”

  “How? We’re here. That’s nuts.”

  “I want to go in there,” James said.

  “No way.”

  “Think about it. We’re right here. Lowry was inside the observatory.”

  “I am thinking about it. I’m thinking about how fast I can run. How fast I can get back to school and into bed. Go inside? Are you kidding me?” Lexie passed James the leash. “Have fun.”

  Lexie took a couple steps downhill. The sound of sticks breaking in the woods stopped her short. “James . . .” she hissed.

  “I know,” James said equally softly. “I heard it too. Please, don’t go. Not on your own.”

  “Says the big, tough boy.”


  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “You’re coming with me. And you’re coming right now.” She looked up at the curving dome of the observatory. “I don’t like it here.”

  “Hold on to this.” James tried to pass her the leash. She wouldn’t take it. He tried again, prying her crossed arms apart, and wrapped the leash around her wrist. “Stay.”

  “Oh, very funny.”

  James raced up the steps.

  “No!” she said harshly. “Do not—”

  James leaned on the lever door handle. His shoulders slumped. “Locked.”

  “There is a God,” Lexie said.

  He tried it again. Funny, it was still locked. He bounded down the stairs and vaulted the handrail.

  “Show-off,” she said.

  “We’ll get the key. We’ll return the dog. Get back to the dorm before we’re caught. We can come here again in the daylight.”

  “Maybe you can. I’ve seen enough.”

  “Don’t you want to know what happened?” he asked.

  “Not if it means the same thing happens to me.”

  “You really think the killer stuck around? Why would anyone do that?” he said.

  Another crack of twigs, this time coming closer. Lexie stood up taller than she was. Her jaw trembled. “I hope we’re not about to find out.”

  CHAPTER 12

  BEING THE BRIGHTER OF THE TWO MORIARTY children, and the only girl, I went about trying to figure out the note that had been forced upon me.

  Ha Clues He

  First I broke it down. “Ha” had to mean something funny. “Clues,” I knew exactly what a clue was. “He,” I thought it probably meant James.

  funny clues James

  It didn’t make sense. How could a clue be funny? And why would I care about a funny clue even if I could figure out what a funny clue was?

  James clues funny

  James funny clues

  A clue to make James laugh? A clue about James that would make me laugh? It seemed unimportant. Why all the drama to deliver me a stupid note?

  The answer to all my questions was simple: What would Sherlock do?

  The weird, skinny little creature was an expert when it came to figuring things out. I could no longer text him because he’d been sent home to England. But he did answer emails. So, I wrote him. Despite the time difference, he replied almost immediately.

  My dear M:

  It looks like a word scramble to me. Have you tried an anagram generator?

  Yours,

  SH

  Leave it to Lock. I did as he said. The online anagram generator rearranged the letters of the three words into a list of every possible combination.

  Of the many results, only a few came back with actual words instead of gibberish. These were:

  Leaches Uh

  A Such Heel

  Ha Such Eel

  Ah Clue She

  Ash Clue He

  I took them one by one.

  Leaches Uh

  Could I accept a misspelling? A homonym? In olden days leeches had been used to cure bruising. Was I being warned that someone else, maybe even me, was going to be beat up?

  A Such Heel

  A “heel” was a pest. “Such a Heel” could mean “what a pest.” Was I annoying someone? Maybe that was a good thing?

  Ha Such Eel

  This one intrigued me because Sherlock, Ralph, and I had once infiltrated a fishery in Boston—an adventure that had nearly gotten us hurt. Since then, Ralph had been killed in a car accident, an event that James had yet to recover from. Was this a clue to return to the fishery?

  Ah Clue She

  A clue for me? Something that would make me think “Aha!”? What could it be? What was I missing?

  Ash Clue He

  Now we were getting somewhere! Father had hidden a secret key to his desk in the ashes of his office fireplace. That key had opened a secret room with treasures galore. Also, a notebook and other items that were of serious interest to James and me. Note to self: I had never checked the rest of the ashes to see if anything else was hidden. How stupid of me! Maybe I could let Lois in on the secret and ask her to search for me and report back.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE QUESTION JAMES HAD TO ASK HIMSELF WAS this: What did Sherlock Holmes do with his (illegal) copy of the master key to the school? James’s annoying roommate had been expelled from Baskerville Academy at the end of the school year, forced to return to England. Sherlock Holmes was too logical to take such a prized possession with him. He wouldn’t have hidden it, James thought. He wouldn’t have tossed it. He would have . . .

  . . . given it to his best friend.

  That was me, of course. Being my brother, James also knew that he was the last person on earth with whom I would share it—or anything, for that matter. I’d have rather turned it over to Headmaster Crudgeon.

  So, James began to plot, a skill he’d developed over the past twelve months. Perfected, might be closer to the truth. James sneaked into my room on a Tuesday night when he knew I was in the photo lab and my roommate, Natalie, was off watching a movie with a friend. A boy in the girls’ dorm was strictly against the rules and cause for suspension or expulsion. This accounted for two of his goons standing watch, prepared to whistle a warning if they saw a proctor anywhere nearby.

  My brother searching my room was nothing new. It had been a regular event in our shared childhood. I’d often stolen his diary or “borrowed” a particular toy.

  He knew my hiding places as well as I knew his. He didn’t bother with my closet shelves—too obvious. Instead, he searched the pockets of my hanging clothes. I’d been hiding stuff there for years now. Whoever pats down a dress or jacket in a closet? The toes of my shoes—I would stuff the ends with tissue so nothing fell out; you had to go looking for the hidden prize. My pillowcase was another spot. My duvet unzipped at the bottom: a good place to hide papers. Hiding his journal or my own diary took more effort. For that I used an old textbook. They worked the best because the books were bigger, and fatter, than normal books. I cut and removed the insides of pages with a razor blade, creating a framed hole in which I could hide another, smaller book. The nice thing about this: no one bothered to look inside a fourth-grade math book. Even if/when James searched my library—which I’m pretty sure he’d done before—he would have gone right past any textbook, and thereby missed what he was searching for.

  Ten minutes spent nervously ransacking my side of the dorm room, and James had nothing to show for his efforts. No master key. He checked my costume jewelry box, and it was during this process a thought occurred.

  “I found this photo of us at Christmas,” James told Lexie. The two of them walking together after lunch, back toward Main House, drew a number of eyeballs and spawned some instant rumors. Schools thrived on such rumor, and summer school wasn’t any different except there were fewer of us, and therefore fewer stories to exaggerate into rumor. Though the students still gave it their best effort.

  “You and Moria,” Lexie said. She noticed people staring much more than did James. In my opinion, boys are pretty much oblivious creatures.

  “Right. We went down to the Cape house with Ralph and Lois. It was pretty awkward with Dad not being there. Lois cried a lot. Moria walked the beach, looking out as if maybe Dad was going to show up in a boat or something. Pitiful.”

  “It’s sweet. Don’t say that!”

  “But there’s a photo Ralph took.” James’s voice trailed off. Maybe he didn’t even realize he stopped speaking. He and Ralph had grown super close. Ralph’s dying so soon after Father had knocked James sideways. Looking back on it now, I can understand what happened to James. I suppose it makes sense in some way. If there’s nothing good left to hold on to, at least hold on to something. James had reached out and taken hold of the Scowerers. Or maybe they’d taken hold of him. He’d have been better off just giving things time—that’s what I had to do. Maybe I reached out for Sherlock. But the school took him away from m
e, and I didn’t go all Darth Vader the way James eventually did. My and my brother’s choices were totally different. He turned left where I went right. If we were both Alice in Wonderland, I was trying to climb out of the hole back to sunlight; James was only digging deeper.

  “The photo,” Lexie said, filling the silence James had left. “Tell me about the photo.”

  “Right! So, in the photo, Moria isn’t wearing a necklace.”

  “And that’s important because . . . ?”

  “She wears one now.”

  “James, we’re girls. We accessorize.”

  “It’s one of those rawhide strings, like a leather shoelace for a boot. Your idea of accessorizing?”

  “It’s not my neck. Not my decision.”

  “You know what I think? I think she started wearing that about the time Sherlost got thrown out. I think she’s wearing the key around her neck, not so much as a key but because it belonged to Sherlost. And don’t say that’s sweet.”

  “But it is!”

  “Please! It’s so Message in a Bottle! Ewww.”

  “And you’re telling me this because . . . ?” In a very short time, Lexie had learned to read James in ways James didn’t want to be read. “You want me to do what, exactly? Reach down her top and pull out the necklace? Not happening, FYI.”

  “What if she takes it off when she’s showering?”

  “What are you saying, James?”

  “It’s leather. Leather stuff gets ruined by water. I’ll bet she takes it off.”

  “And I sneak into her dorm bathroom and steal it?”

  “Well . . .”

  “I’m not Thorndyke or Eisenower! I’m not stealing for you!”

  “It’s not like I can get inside a girls’ bathroom.”

  “I should hope not! By the way, you wouldn’t like it. Girls are slobs. Worse than boys, I promise you.”

  “So?”

  “This is your problem, not mine. Don’t try to put this on me.”

  “We need the key to get inside the observatory.”

  “Which is stupid. You heard that person in the woods.”

  “A deer. Raccoon.”