Deprivation House (15 page)

More footsteps. Joe gave me a jab. Mitch had to be getting close to the mirror. It was almost time to roll.

Joe tapped me on the side. One. Two. Three. The next one was it—

And go.

I rolled as hard as I could. I didn't worry about smashing Joe. All I wanted was for the Joe-Frank combo to hit Mitch as hard as it could.

Over and over and
crunch
.

Mitch and the mirror collided. I don't know how hard the impact was, but it had happened. A shard of the glass had fallen near enough that my fingers
could just reach it. I used it to start sawing on whatever Mitch had used to tie us. I could feel warm blood dripping down my hand. Didn't matter.

The ties loosened a little. I thought Joe managed to wriggle an arm free. Must have, because I heard Mitch give a grunt of pain.

Now that Joe's arm was out, the ties were even looser. I got an arm free. Getting the next one loose was easy. Joe and I both attacked the ties now. I shot a glance at Mitch. In the broken mirror, I could see that blood was running down his forehead. And he was crouched low. Like maybe Joe had managed to get a shot in behind his knee.

He definitely wasn't down for the count. He turned to face us as we made it to our feet.

I caught a glimpse of motion out the window. A figure bouncing up and down on a trampoline in the distance. The others had started running the obstacle course.

Mitch saw where I was looking. “Too late,” he said.

“Not hardly.” Joe arched back and slammed his fist into Mitch's jaw. KO. “You go,” he told me. “I'll clean up the mess in here.” He reached for the restraints.

That's all I needed to hear. I took off, pain ricocheting through my numb legs. I ignored it.

I had one thing to focus on right now—getting to the garden tractor before anyone turned the ignition key and set off the bomb.

JOE

I finished tying Mitch up, my brain clicking away. I couldn't figure out a motive for Mitch killing Leo and trying to kill the contestants.

He murdered Leo to get his job—okay. Seemed like a weak motive, but okay. But why keep killing after he got the job?

What possible motive could he have for wanting us contestants dead? It's not like if he killed everybody off, he'd get the million dollars. So it wasn't about money.

Or wait. Was it? I flashed on the money in Veronica's ceiling beam. Had Mitch hidden it upstairs—before everyone from the show moved in, maybe? Then he couldn't get it back, because Veronica wouldn't let anyone onto her floor and there were cameras all over.

It kind of made sense. Mitch killed Leo to get the job. But having the job wasn't enough. It didn't get him the access he needed.

What he needed was everybody out of the house. The threats and dangerous stuff—that had been Mitch trying to get the show shut down. He'd
planned to step it up to murder of a show participant today. He probably figured that would put the end to everything.

I stared down at Mitch. His eyelids began to flutter. He was coming to.

“You said to make myself at home before. So I'm going to ransack the place looking for evidence,” I told him.

Mitch glared up at me. He was really hating me right now.

I was fine with that.

I headed for the computer first. You can get a lot of evidence off a computer. It took me about three seconds to find out that my buddy Mitch had been researching poisonous plants—including jimsonweed.

He'd also been reading articles about a bank robbery that had taken place about a year ago. About twenty-five thousand dollars had been stolen.

That got me wondering what Mitch's record might be like. I spotted a felt-tip pen near the mouse pad. I grabbed it and hurried back over to Mitch.

I inked up his fingers, then transferred his prints onto a piece of white paper.

“Those aren't going to tell you anything,” he said. “I'm too smart to leave prints.”

I used Mitch's computer to scan the prints and
send them to Vijay. I got his response in less than a minute. “You weren't too smart to go to prison for assault.”

Mitch laughed. “That was nothing.”

I thought again of the money hidden in the hollowed-out beam in Veronica's quarters. “Yeah, it didn't earn you twenty-five thou like your bank job, did it?” I asked.

Mitch's eyes widened.

“Not that you got to spend much of it. Since you got locked up for that little nothing assault thing,” I added.

FRANK

I hauled myself up an enormous spiderweb of rope strung between two trees. I hadn't been taking the obstacles. I wasn't a contestant. But I had to scale the web. It was the shortest way to get past it.

The web jerked and I saw James coming up behind me. Fast. “What are you doing here, snot-rag?” he shouted.

I wasn't going to try to explain. It would waste time. James was not in a listening kind of mood.

I had to get to the garden tractor first. That was my only goal. I started down the other side of the web.

“Answer me!” James yelled. He flung his weight against the ropes and I almost lost my grip. I looked
down. I was way too high up to think about jumping. Then I remembered the zip line.

“Later!” I grabbed the metal handle and rode the wire all the way to the ground. As soon as my toes hit the grass of the field, I started running again. I figured no one could have taken the course faster than James. But I was wrong.

Brynn was ahead of me. Tearing toward the best mower—the tractor with the bomb in it.

I focused my eyes on her back and put on speed. Lungs, legs, heart. All on fire. But I was gaining on her. I could almost grab her by the hood of her shirt.
Faster!

She was veering to the side. She'd already reached the row of mowers. All I'd been seeing was her.

“Brynn, no!” I shouted as she climbed onto the seat of the tractor. “Stop!”

She didn't hesitate. She reached out and turned the ignition key.

I aimed myself at her and hurled myself into the air. The breath slammed out my body as I—as we—landed.

Brynn shoved at my shoulders. “What is wrong with you?”

I braced my body to take as much of the blast as possible.

A second later, it felt like the sun exploded.

“I
feel like I've been called to the principal's,” Frank said. We'd made a bathroom stop on our way to meet with Veronica in the library.

“You mean that time you got the perfect attendance award?” I joked.

“I know it doesn't matter if we get booted. We solved the case. But I feel like I actually did get caught cheating,” Frank admitted.

“Yeah. I don't like Brynn thinking I would do that,” I said. “Just part of being ATAC sometimes . . . People think you're slime.”

“Let's go get this over with,” Frank told me.

“I've been thinking and thinking what to do with you boys,” Veronica told us when we walked into
the library. “I think I could make a case against you in court. You basically committed fraud by looking at the obstacle course in advance.”

Oh, man. She was being even more hardcore than I thought.

“We had reason to believe that Mitch had sabotaged the mower—,” I stopped myself, but it was too late.

“You shouldn't have known there were mowers, period,” Veronica said. “You wouldn't have if you hadn't already begun cheating.”

Oh, man. How would we get out of this without exposing ATAC to Veronica, a civilian?

“However, you did save Brynn's life,” Veronica told Frank. “And for that reason, I'm willing to give you both a second chance.”

We exchanged looks. So that meant we weren't off the show—we'd have to find a way to accomplish that part still, without raising too much suspicion. I guess we'd stick around a few days longer, then make our exit strategy. I had to admit, I didn't mind a little more time with Brynn.

Veronica held up one finger. “I will be watching you both extremely carefully, though. The slightest misstep will not be tolerated.”

“You two are total heroes!” Olivia exclaimed at dinner that night.

“I can't believe what you found out about Mitch. He seemed so nice,” said Mary.

James rolled his eyes and took the last ham sandwich from the plate in the middle of the dining room table. “Mitch was an idiot. He did what he did for twenty thousand—including robbing the bank?”

“Twenty grand is a lot of money,” Olivia protested.

“It was twenty-five, actually,” Joe corrected. “He spent five before he had to stash the rest.”

“To go to jail,” added Mikey.

“It would take a lot more to get me to kill,” James insisted. “He should have, like, made some threats. Then told us he could take care of the problem for, let's say, twenty thou—collectable from the winner at the end of the show. Then he'd stop making the threats and get the cash.”

“But Mitch had to kill somebody to get the job,” I reminded James.

“Not a problem. See these guns?” He flexed his arms. “Veronica would have seen them and given me a job.”

“I'm about to swoon myself,” Brynn muttered. She absentmindedly ran her fingers over the bandage on the side of her neck. She'd taken a shard of flying metal from the tractor there, but it hadn't gone deep.

And Frank, he'd gotten some minor burns on his back and a few cuts and scrapes. It was pretty amazing, really.

“How long do you think Mitch will go to jail for?” Mikey asked.

“So long,” said Frank. “With everything he did here, plus the bank robbery.”

“I can't believe the cops had him in jail—and it wasn't even for the robbery.” Bobby T shook his head. “I might have to blog about it.”

“Putting him in jail for six months on the assault charge is basically what got him caught for the robbery and everything else,” Frank said. “He hid the money here so it would be safe while he was in jail. That started the whole thing.”

Veronica stepping into the room. “I have a surprise for you all.” She sounded happy. That wasn't good.

“Recently I heard a story that touched my heart,” she continued.

“Like the one about the little girl whose mommy was possessed by a demon?” said Mikey softly. I muffled a laugh with my napkin.

“It was a story about a young girl—a teenager like all of you,” she continued. “But unlike any of you, this girl has experienced true poverty. She's gone to school hungry. She's gone to bed wearing a coat
because her family couldn't afford enough heat. She knows the meaning of true deprivation.”

Veronica beckoned to someone outside the door.

Had the girl been standing right there listening to Veronica's whole speech? Yikes.

A tall girl with close-cropped sandy hair walked into the room. “This is Gail Digby. Isn't she sweet?” Veronica wrapped her arm around Gail. “Winning a million dollars could change this girl's life in almost unimaginable ways.”

She looked around like she wanted us to applaud or something. But that would be weird.