Duck Boy (24 page)

“I know,” Steve said quietly. “But it’s the best chance we have. I have to
do this, or I won’t get from Halloween to Christmas.” Steve crossed the room
and hugged Aunt Shannon.

“You play it safe, Steve. If it gets dangerous, give them what they want and
we will find you eventually,” Larry suggested. “And you can get out of there,
right?”

“I’ll play it as safe as I can. May I have the ransom note, please?”

Larry pulled it carefully out of its plastic envelope and handed it to
Steve. Steve slipped it into his bag and held onto it just in case he might
drop it as he transported. With his other hand he touched the plaque in his backpack. The room began to flatten into a picture.

“Whoa,” Larry yelled as the transformation began. “I’m not used to that.”

“Spectacular,” yelled Aunt Shannon with a look of awe on her face. Steve
watched as their figures flattened into a photograph and drifted to the ground,
through the dark air of the new space. When the photo hit the floor, it
vaporized in a burp of light.

Chapter 19

A warehouse. It feels like a warehouse.

Steve felt dark, dusty space above him and around him. He stood motionless
and listened. He watched his breath cauliflower into dark clouds as the winter
wind sighed quietly. He noticed a set of industrial windows glowing with
daylight three or four stories above him. Beyond the moans and creaks of the
building, he heard nothing. Satisfied that no human was within a reasonable
distance, he pulled the phone out of the bag. The touch screen face glowed
back.

I guess the trip didn’t hurt the phone.

He pushed the first speed-dial number. The sounds of dialing echoed quietly
through the warehouse space. Steve covered the phone with his hand to muffle
the noise. After it had finished he put the phone up to his ear.

A flat, tinny, monotone voice echoed in his head. “The number you have
dialed is long distance. Please dial one and the area code before the number
you are dialing.” Steve pounded the off button with his finger.

Crap. I’m out of the area code.

He pushed the second speed-dial button with his forefinger. The number rang
once and someone picked up the phone quickly.

“Steve?” It was Larry’s voice.

“I’m here,” Steve whispered.

“You’re not on the tracking screen.”

“I know. I had to use the long distance number.”

“Uh oh. That means you’re out of the county.”

“I think so,” Steve whispered as he looked around the blackness. His eyes
began to adjust slowly to the dim light from the overhead windows. “I’m in some
kind of warehouse. I don’t recognize anything… it looks… um… empty.”

“Really?” Larry stopped talking as Aunt Shannon’s muffled voice spoke. “Your
aunt thinks they may not be there any more. They might have written the note
there and then moved elsewhere, she says.”

“Great,” Steve whispered in disgust. “We’ll need to start over again.”

“It’s still an important find, Steve. Don’t touch the stuff you find around
you. It’s a potential crime scene and possibly filled with clues. Try to get
outside the building—there may be a landmark of some sort you could identify
for us. Once we know where you are, you can come back here and we’ll send in
the crime unit. Do you see any equipment in the warehouse?”

“Not really. It has a bare dirt floor. There’s a few old things stored here
and stuff around, but that’s all.” Steve scanned the room for a door that
looked like it might lead outside. There was a door behind him. He walked
towards it. There was a heavy lock and a deadbolt to make sure the door never
opened.

“The door is locked.” Steve whispered hoarsely. “And I can’t see another
door. I can’t get out.”

“Don’t panic, Steve. If you’re locked in, you’re locked in. I want you to
find your way out and get to safety,” Larry said soothingly. Steve listened as
Aunt Shannon and Larry conferred for a couple of minutes before the detective
returned to the phone. “OK Steve, are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Your Aunt Shannon says to try turning the locks into clocks. I don’t know
what she means by that, but she says you’ll know.”

“I’ll try it,” Steve whispered. He set the phone down on the ground and put
one hand into the backpack where his
plaque sat. He put another hand on the dead bolt lock. “Lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock,”
he whispered. In a burst of light the deadbolt changed to an industrial-looking
clock. Steve dropped his hand to the handle on the door and repeated the
process. The locked door handle turned into a little clock with a steel face
and heavy-looking hands.

Steve waited to see if anyone came. Only the sounds of winter filled his
ears.

He picked up the phone again. “It worked,” he yelled in a whisper. “I’m
out.”

“Great, Steve,” Larry exclaimed.

Steve pushed opened the door slightly and looked outside. Big banks of snow
ridged the ground. “I’m outside now.”

“Good,” Larry said. “Watch the windows, Steve. Walk close to the building,
and be sure you walk under any windows you see. If someone is looking out, you
don’t want to be seen.”

“Gotcha.”

Steve slogged through the snow close to the side of the building, along the
wall of corrugated steel. Wind swept the snow across a large parking lot and
piled it into heaps as it passed through a chain link fence. The wind whistled
as it whipped passed the crags and cracks of the warehouse.

He stopped as he approached the corner of the warehouse, moving his head
slowly beyond its edge until one eye could scan the world around the corner of
the building. The parking lot took up most of this side of the warehouse. It
sprawled over the landscape. There was a main road at the far end of the
parking lot, but Steve hadn’t seen a single vehicle on it yet, nor could he
hear any. Up towards the road the warehouse flattened from a three- or
four-story corrugated steel structure into a low, one-story brick
administrative complex with offices and windows. Steve surveyed the front of
the warehouse for a few minutes, looking for signs of life.

“What do you see?” crackled Larry’s voice through the cell phone.

“The warehouse has some offices attached to the front of the building,” Steve
said. “I can’t see much else. The warehouse seems deserted.” He froze suddenly.
As soon as he had spoken, a figure strolled in front of one of the windows of
the office complex, close to the road.

The figure scanned the parking lot, and then retreated from the window back
inside. “There is someone in the front part of the building,” Steve whispered.

“Good. Maybe,” Larry corrected himself. “Where are you?” he repeated.

“I don’t know.”

“Can you see any signs at all, anywhere?”

“None. This warehouse seems to be out in the country somewhere.”

“Are there any hills or mountains around you?”

Steve scanned the horizon, the part of it that wasn’t blocked by buildings.
“There is a single mountain, a few miles off. It’s more of a big hill than a
mountain.”

“What direction is the hill from you? North, south, what?”

“I dunno,” Steve said defensively.

“Don’t worry, Steve,” Larry said again. “We’ll figure this out.”

“Can you see any cars anywhere?”

“Nope.”

“OK, this isn’t going to work, Steve,” Larry said. “Let’s go back inside the
warehouse.”

“I’m on my way.”

Steve retraced his steps back inside the warehouse. “This is long distance,”
Larry moaned. “Roaming charges. My phone bill will bankrupt me.”

Steve pulled open the warehouse door and stepped inside, vaguely hearing the
detective’s tinny complaints. “What do I do now?” he whispered into the cell
phone.

“Come home,” Larry said firmly. “It’s too dangerous for you now.”

“I’m not coming.”

“Yes you are.”

“I’m not, and you really can’t make me do anything. I want to know what I
should do next.”

“I don’t think it’s safe,” Larry insisted.

“I don’t think I have a life until this gets sorted out. So I’m not coming
home until we get somewhere.”

Steve heard a heavy sigh on the other end of the phone. “You guys don’t
listen to anything I say.” Steve smiled to himself, pleased to have held his
ground. “If you’re going to stay, look for some kind of clue in the warehouse
area—a piece of paper or something that has an address on it.”

Steve’s eyes surfed the inside of the warehouse, looking for likely spots
for paper. He spotted an office-like square in the side of the warehouse and
began to move cautiously towards it. He shuffled through the dusty wasteland of
the warehouse and arrived outside the office. A sign on the door read “Shipping
Office.”

“It’s a shipping office,” Steve muttered into the phone.

“Excellent, Steve. There’ll probably be something in there. That’s a good
place.”

He tried the door but it was locked. “The door is locked. I’m going to open
it Aunt Shannon’s way,” he reported. Steve gripped the door handle and instead
of speaking the words he thought them.

Lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock.

Bright light stabbed the dim warehouse air; the door handle turned into an
odd-shaped clock. Steve stepped into the dark office. His latest discovery
warmed his cold body—he was learning a little more about his stone’s power
every time he used it.

Inside the shipping office, old binders and reams of paper covered the
floor. He walked behind a service counter into a small office area where an old
desk sat, covered with magazines, with paper cuttings littering the floor.
Steve pawed through the papers on the floor and the scraps, looking for
something that might give him a hint as to his location.

“I’m looking for something with an address on it.” He scanned the room
looking for something, anything. There were old computer printouts of some kind
of inventory, there was information listed on paper, but there was nothing that
seemed to speak clearly as to where he was. He spied a trashcan, tipped over in
an opposite corner behind the counter. Steve crossed the sea of paper, righted
the can, and picked through the contents. Most of the paper was balled, so he
set about flattening each piece carefully and holding it to a small patch of
light coming through one of the dusty overhead windows in the roof of the
warehouse.

“This one has an address on it.” Steve adjusted his stance to give the crumpled
paper more light. “It says J.C. Steel Ltd., 118 Millarville Road, Turner
Valley.”

“What about the other papers?” Larry asked. “That could be a note from
another company.”

Steve unfolded several more. Most of the sheets of paper had the J.C. Steel logo
on them.

“Most of the paper says the same thing,” Steve said.

“Then that’s probably exactly where you are. Just a second, Steve.” He heard
the phone clunk heavily. Suddenly Larry’s out of breath voice returned. “You’re
at least a hundred miles away,” said the detective in an amazed tone of voice.
“Let me Google you again to be sure. Just a second.” The phone popped again as
Larry set it down. “Let me see.” Steve could hear the clack of the keys as
Larry typed. “You’re over here. Hmm.”

Steve heard a bumping sound from somewhere in the warehouse. He dropped
silently where he stood, scanning what he could see of the warehouse through
the bottom of the dusty windows.

“OK, J.C. Steel is out in the country. It has open fields across from it. It
looks abandoned. I think we’ve found you. The front of the building is brick,
right? The back is a steel warehouse.” Steve didn’t reply. “Steve, are you
still on the line?”

“I’m here,” Steve replied with a faint whisper. “That sounds like the
building. I just heard a noise and I’m checking it out.” Steve sat and waited
in silence for a few minutes.

“OK. I think the coast is clear,” Steve whispered.

“It’s time to come home. You can check out of there now. You’ve done a great
job.”

“I’m not coming,” Steve replied firmly. “What do you want me to do next?”

“Steve, if you saw what you saw, and if the gang is really still in the
building, you’re probably in grave danger.”

“You’re going to head out this way, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah. I’ve got to get the people here going and chat with the police
force where you are…but it’s going to take a few hours before we show up.”

“I’m going to stay here until you come and pick me up,” Steve insisted. “So
give me something else to do. Do you hear me?”

“Gotcha,” Larry said in a low voice. “You stubborn guy. I’ll give you
something else to do, but just realize that you’re doing it at your own risk. I
suggested you return, and you refused. You’re both my witnesses.”

“Agreed,” Steve muttered, scanning the warehouse carefully again.

“Now that we think we’ve found them, it’d be nice to confirm they’re there.
Plus, it’d be good to know whether Lindsay and your Uncle Edward are with
them.” There was a pause and Steve heard Aunt Shannon mutter some
unintelligible words. “Your Aunt Shannon just discovered that J.C. Steel has
been defunct for the past few years—the number is out of service and has been
for a long time. She also mentioned that it might not be the place where
Lindsay and Uncle Edward are being kept. The ransom note would take you to the
heart of the kidnappers’ world, she said. Edward and Lindsay might be confined
somewhere else.”