The Search Page 6

  “Hey,” Meg said, bristling, “he was just trying to be nice — something you’d know nothing about!”

  She and Mickey were both unprepared for the violence of Spidey’s response. The big man wheeled and struck Meg with an openhanded slap to the face. The force knocked the chair over, and Meg with it. It was so sudden, and so devastating, that she felt she’d been struck by lightning.

  Enraged, Mickey lunged at the older, much larger man, but Spidey warded him off with a contemptuous shove.

  “I have to keep her alive for the money,” he warned. “I’m not getting any money for you!”

  He yanked Meg’s chair back upright and retied her hands so tightly that her fingertips began to tingle. She uttered not one word of complaint. She had been manhandled before, but that was different from being deliberately hit.

  For the first time since her abduction, Meg Falconer wanted something just as much as her freedom:

  Revenge.

  Aiden was aware of a low warbling sound — not loud, but all-pervading. His insides vibrated along with it — it seemed to be everywhere, coming from a hundred separate, yet connected, sources.

  And then a rooster crowed so close to him that he sat bolt upright and banged his head on a wooden shelf directly above him. He came awake with a painful start, and looked around. Countless pairs of beady eyes were fixed on him. The warbling grew louder, like he was being discussed.

  “Chickens!” he exclaimed aloud, and nearly choked on a mouthful of feathers. He was in a henhouse!

  It all came back to him — the escape from the police station. He had blundered around in the pitch-dark, battered down by exhaustion, knowing he had to rest before he could go on. He had eventually crawled inside what he’d thought to be a small toolshed.

  It was a chicken coop. Filthy, smelly, probably flea-infested. The wave of nausea that rolled over him was so strong that he nearly deposited his hamburger from EAT HERE, GET GAS on the straw-covered floor.

  On all fours, he crawled to the door and peered outside. It was barely past dawn — the sun was still low in the sky. The chicken enclosure was deserted, but not far away, over a mesh fence, a farmer was pitching hay with a four-pronged fork.

  How would he respond to a stranger running out of his henhouse? Aiden didn’t want to find out.

  You’re okay as long as you stay put, he reminded himself.

  That thought had barely crossed his mind when the man set down the pitchfork and hefted a huge bucket brimming with grain.

  Grain … chicken feed!

  Sure enough, he was heading this way. Aiden’s heart sank when he saw the empty wire basket in his free hand. Aiden knew exactly what that was for. The grain would draw the chickens out into the yard, allowing the farmer to enter the henhouse to collect eggs. Only, the man was going to find a lot more than a few dozen omelets in training this morning. He was about to walk in on an escapee from the sheriff’s lockup, covered in dirt and feathers.

  The farmer dumped half of the grain into a bird feeder and began tossing handfuls of the rest around the pen. At the sound, the entire population of the coop began a scrambling, flapping, clucking stampede for the exit. Aiden pressed himself against the wall in an attempt to steer clear of pecking beaks, flailing wings, and scratching talons. It wasn’t pleasant, but he wished it would go on forever.

  The farmer approached the henhouse.

  Should I run?

  Meg would probably try to talk her way out of it. But what reasonable excuse could there be? Hi, there. I’m doing a school project on poultry …

  He could see denim-clad legs right outside the door. Another few seconds —

  “George!” called a woman’s voice from the distance. “Don’t forget to swing by the sheriff’s and pick up Matt!”

  The legs froze. “Kids these days,” harrumphed the farmer. “Stealing a mascot — my old man would have horsewhipped me.” He started in the opposite direction.

  Breathless, Aiden peered through the opening and watched him disappear behind the barn.

  Sometimes it’s more important to be lucky than smart.

  He fled from the henhouse, hurdled the fence, and dived down into the cover of tall grass. The farm was at the edge of some foothills, with houses sprinkled along the mountainside and sprawling agricultural land below. There was no town exactly, but he noticed a small strip of buildings along a road halfway up the slope.

  That has to be the hub of things around here.

  If Meg’s trail was still warm, he would find it there.

  * * *

  When Sheriff Atkin stepped into the locked staff lounge, he found more or less what he expected — dark circles under red eyes, a collection of youths who had slept little and worried much. Fear of trouble, he reflected with satisfaction, was often more effective than the real thing.

  He found one thing he did not expect, however — a group of nine boys, not ten.

  He scanned the faces. “Where’s Pembleton?”

  Blank stares greeted this question. Matt spoke up at last. “It’s just us in here, Sheriff. Nobody else.”

  “Yes, there is — there was! Richard Pembleton, the skinny kid from out of town!”

  “Uh — sir?” put in Jason. “No disrespect, but what would an outsider want with Abe Jr.? We were just trying to keep him away from the Lincoln game this weekend.”

  “Don’t play me!” the sheriff sputtered. “I have his jacket! His hat! His library card!”

  His complexion darkening from pink to red to purple, Atkin searched the staff kitchen. The bathroom was empty. The permanent windows were undamaged. The lock on the door showed no signs of tampering.

  The more frustrated he became, the louder he yelled at his nine young prisoners. “You think this is a game? The only law against stealing livestock in this county was passed in 1844 to prosecute cattle rustlers! How’d you like to be charged with that?”

  They would not break. For whatever reason, they had thrown their loyalty behind Richard Pembleton. How typical for a bunch of teenagers to choose a no-respect juvenile delinquent to idolize.

  He’d checked last night to make sure there was no runaway teen named Pembleton, but his investigation had gone no further. Who was this mystery kid, and how had he escaped from a locked room?

  “This isn’t over,” the sheriff promised the nine, and shut them back inside. “Janine!” he barked to his secretary. “Call in the deputies — pronto!”

  Janine was surprised. The officers of the Alberta County force were spread out over three shifts. The last time all six had been on duty together was when the entire town of Keyes had to be evacuated due to mudslides on the mountain. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “We’re going to find Richard Pembleton.”

  The image played itself over and over in Mickey’s head: Spidey’s open hand making contact with Meg’s cheek, the impact upending her chair.

  Mickey knew his outrage was silly. They had all committed far more serious crimes than a slap in the face — kidnapping, forced confinement, extortion.

  Yet those actions were for money. He had a reason for needing money. He was doing a bad thing for a good cause — to help his brother. He assumed the others had their reasons as well. But the slap — violence for the sake of violence, intended purely to hurt —

  Get real! he scolded himself. They’re kidnappers! What did you expect them to be like — librarians?

  Here he was, deeply embroiled in a major felony, and he was less than clueless about his two accomplices. Spidey had recruited him for this job, but there was barely a hair of a link between them — a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.

  “I hear you’re looking to make some fast money,” the burly man had said. He’d called himself Joe, quickly adding that it was not his real name. Nor was Tiger’s name actually Marcelle. No connection between her and Spidey. They were never to meet again after the ransom had been paid and the operation was over. No, never, nada. The entire partnership was built on fair
y dust.

  It had seemed sensible back then. One could not betray the others to the police. But suddenly — with the deed half done, and all of them on the hook for a lot of prison time if they were caught — it wasn’t enough anymore.

  Who are these people I’ve gotten mixed up with?

  His eyes fell on Spidey’s laptop computer on the kitchen table. They had started calling it “the paperweight,” because, in a cabin with no Internet or electricity, it was about as useful as one. They had to drive to a ski lodge thirty miles away to send messages through Tiger’s secure e-mailer.

  He was alone with Meg. Spidey and Tiger were out purchasing supplies to tide them over while they thought of a plan for the ransom drop-off. That meant more time freezing in this prehistoric cabin, where they didn’t even dare turn on the generator for fear of attracting attention.

  He pressed the button, and the machine booted up on battery power. He was looking for a personal journal or diary, but the only document in word processing was a half-finished letter disputing a parking ticket. Opening the browser brought up an error message — no Internet connection. So he clicked ON HISTORY and examined the Web pages most recently viewed.

  There were a few online maps and some information about this area, and — what was this?

  We’re talking about the traitors who sold out their country to terrorists! Everybody knows that the so-called evidence to prove their “innocence” was faked. I agree with the bleeding hearts that they shouldn’t be in prison; John and Louise Falconer should have been EXECUTED long ago …

  John and Louise Falconer? Why was Spidey reading online articles about Meg’s parents? Was this research to help with the ransom operation?

  He sifted through the other postings: A FAMILY OF TREASONOUS SCUM, TERROR’S HELPERS, LETHAL INJECTION FOR THE FALCONERS. It was all extreme stuff, violently anti-Falconer. This was a website for people who refused to believe that Meg’s parents were innocent.

  Spidey was a Falconer-hater!

  The whole kidnapping scheme — the goal wasn’t ransom! It was payback against the Falconer family.

  And I’m caught in the middle of it.

  The cold that gripped him had little to do with the unheated cabin. What would be the ultimate penalty for Doctors John and Louise Falconer to pay for their treason?

  The death of their daughter.

  Meg wasn’t going to be released, whether her parents paid the ransom or not.

  It hit Mickey like a cherry bomb going off between his temples. He wasn’t a kidnapper. The plot he’d signed on to amounted to murder.

  The sound of the front door shocked him out of his reverie. The others! He quickly powered down the computer. Oh, how he wished he could do the same for his racing mind.

  He was only trying to help his brother. He had nothing against Meg’s parents. He had less than nothing against Meg. In fact, he had genuinely come to like her in the past days, and admire her spirit.

  I’m no murderer.

  What was he going to do?

  Route 119 was so small and insignificant that Harris drove past it three times. At last, he found the weathered sign and made the turn down the rural highway that sliced Virginia in two as it meandered west to the mountains.

  About an hour later, he stood on the cracked pavement of a gas station, holding up a photograph of Aiden Falconer.

  “Sure, I’ve seen him,” the mechanic said immediately. “He was just here yesterday. We had some plumbing troubles, and he was asking for details.”

  “I heard about that,” the agent told him. “Blocked toilet, right?”

  The man rolled his eyes. “Why is the whole world obsessed with my bathroom? It was just some rotten kid’s idea of a joke.”

  Harris showed the man another picture, this one of Meg. “Is this the rotten kid in question?”

  “Could be. It’s hard to tell. She was wearing a hat and sunglasses. Are you some kind of cop?”

  Harris flashed his badge. “FBI.”

  “FBI?” The mechanic goggled. “It was only a clogged pipe! I fixed it myself, no big deal!”

  “The girl was kidnapped six days ago. The boy is her brother. He ran away to look for her on his own. How was he traveling? Did somebody give him a lift?”

  “Didn’t see him arrive,” the man said. “Come to think of it, I don’t recall him leaving, either. He was just here, and then he was gone. Sorry.”

  Harris had no trouble believing that Aiden had appeared from nowhere and disappeared just as quickly. It was exactly the kind of resourcefulness that had made the Falconer kids so hard to catch in their fugitive days. “One more thing — any idea where he was going?”

  “West,” the mechanic replied. “That’s the way his sister was heading, if that’s who it was. I told him to look for a green car — hope I was right about that.”

  “Thanks.” Back at his Chevy Trailblazer, Harris dialed his assistant in Washington. “I don’t suppose a kid named Aiden Falconer has been picked up along Route 119 in Virginia.”

  “I’m monitoring all the reports,” his assistant confirmed. “No luck so far.”

  “Do another search,” the agent instructed. “Anything involving teenagers in this part of the state.” He paused, listening to the hurried typing through the phone.

  “One hit — Keyes, Virginia. On my map, it looks about an hour west of you. A teenage boy escaped sheriff’s custody last night. They can’t even explain how he got out of the trailer.”

  Harris felt his pulse quicken. This disappearing act had Falconer written all over it.

  “Wait — ” His assistant sounded disappointed. “No, dead end. Local high school rivalry, stolen mascot, wrong kid.”

  “What’s the name?” Harris persisted.

  “Richard Pembleton.”

  Sometimes — even without Starbucks — it was worth getting up in the morning.

  Richie Pembleton, Aiden’s best friend.

  “Get that sheriff on the phone.”

  * * *

  Quit.

  There was no such word in Meg Falconer’s vocabulary. No such impulse in her brain. And yet —

  Tied stiffly — painfully — to the chair, staring bleakly at the plank walls, it was impossible not to reach one conclusion:

  This isn’t going well.

  All her escape attempts had failed miserably. Worse, her antics had only served to turn her captors into dedicated jailers. This — she struggled vainly against the bonds — was something she had brought on herself.

  She wasn’t a quitter. But she didn’t lie to herself, either.

  So if escape wasn’t a possibility, what was? Rescue? For all she knew, they were searching for her in Baltimore or DC, hundreds of miles away. No one would ever find her out here in the middle of nowhere. Ransom? Surely that would have happened days ago, if it was going to happen at all. Mom and Dad just didn’t have the money.

  I’m in big trouble.

  A vague thought fluttered around her mind — that Aiden might try to come after her. But heroics like that were part of their fugitive days. And they were not fugitives any longer.

  She tried to stay positive, but it was growing harder to do with each passing hour. The truth was she had been in some pretty tough spots, but this was the great-grandmother of all of them. It would take a miracle for her to get out of this alive.

  She peered up from her melancholy reverie to see Mickey framed in the doorway, watching her.

  “Don’t look so sad,” he told her.

  She glared at him scornfully. Her life was over. What did he expect her to do — dance with joy?

  But she couldn’t help noticing that he seemed odd, even for him. On edge, indecisive, close to tears.

  He stepped in front of her and held out a small silver object. She stared. A nail file? Was he here to give her a manicure? Like the kidnappers were afraid she might claw her way out with long fingernails?

  Then he moved behind her, and she felt the file being placed firmly in her
right hand.

  Shocked, she twisted her head to gawk at him.

  “Maybe you had it from the very beginning,” he mumbled awkwardly. “It was in your pocket, and we missed it when we searched you.”

  Meg was thunderstruck. Didn’t he know that she would use this file to cut through the ropes that bound her wrists and free herself?

  The expression on his face gave her the answer: He did know.

  He wanted her to escape.

  She almost said thank you, but held herself back for fear he might change his mind. Besides, if Spidey and Tiger had any inkling that he had helped her, he would be in danger.

  He paused at the door and turned back to her. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. And before she could answer, he was gone.

  By the time the door clicked shut behind him, she was already hard at work, sawing at the ropes.

  The farmhouse looked deserted, and no car stood in the driveway. By now, Aiden had lost track of how many properties he had crossed — six? Seven? He stayed clear of the road, keeping low in the tallest grass. The mountainside seemed no closer, yet he’d been on the move for more than an hour. That meant the hills were farther away than they looked.

  He had spotted one police car on a side lane, but the siren had not been on. It had disappeared and not returned.

  Maybe they sleep late at the sheriff’s office.

  Or maybe they just didn’t care that much about Richard Pembleton from Baltimore County, who got mixed up in a high school prank.

  As soon as he saw the bike leaning against the porch rail, he knew he was going to take it. On foot, he simply couldn’t get around fast enough. It might be all day before he reached the mountain. Who knew how much time Meg had left?

  The bike was a Trek — new and expensive-looking. He almost wished it was old and beat-up. The owner wasn’t going to be happy about losing it. With any luck, he could leave it in a place where it could be found and returned.

  He hopped on and headed for the main road, shifting into a comfortable gear. It was risky to show himself to any passing car. But the way these tires hummed along the asphalt made the risk worthwhile. At least now he was getting somewhere.