Edison's Gold (18 page)

Noodle shook his head, which sank both their spirits. “Unfortunately, Mr. E, not—”

Bzzzzzz
. The vibrating cell phone on the table gave them both a startle. Tom's dad squinted at the caller ID before answering.

“Hello?”

“Tom, Curt Keller.”

Noodle stared as the color drained from Tom's dad's face.

“Mr. Keller, hello.” Mr. Edison instinctively smoothed over his shirt. He'd never actually spoken to the CEO of Alset. In fact, before this phone call, he'd been fairly certain that Mr. Keller had no idea who he was.

“First things first,” said the silky voice on the other line. “Congratulations on finding the next riddle.”

“Next riddle? I'm sorry, sir, I don't know what you're … talking about.” Mr. Edison put a hand over the phone as he frantically searched the basement for any hidden camera or listening device.

Keller laughed. “Yes, the house has been tapped. Only a temporary invasion of your privacy, I assure you.”

“I don't understand. Why would you bug my house?”

“I want you to find me the next clue, of course. And hand it over peacefully,” Keller explained. “Tom Junior and the girl are fine. And as long as you uphold your end of the bargain, everything should be smooth sailing from here out.” Tom's father clenched his teeth, his face filled with a white-hot rage that Noodle had never
seen before—except for maybe the time Tom accidentally incinerated the family's backyard while testing his Weed-B-Gone blowtorch prototype.

“No deal.” Mr. Edison's voice was hard. “I just want Tom and Colby home safe.”

“I'm one of the richest men in New York,” continued Keller, unperturbed. “You'll get your son when I get my clue. Involving the police will only make things worse. We both know that. Call this number as soon as you have what I need. Good-bye, Tom.”

H
elp! Somebody! Quick!”

Tom's fist was throbbing, but he continued pounding on the door. He'd been at it for almost five minutes before he heard a clamoring down the stairs, and then a key was fumbled into the lock.

“Here he comes,” Tom mouthed silently to Colby, who crept closer to the door, coiled on her toes, with one long strip of torn mattress covering in her sweaty hands. The other end was looped into a wide circle on the floor.

After a few moments of key jingling, the bolt clicked, and the door creaked open. As soon as Nicky stepped his foot into their trap, Colby pulled the lasso tight around his ankle and gave it a hard yank, knocking him to the floor with a yelp.

“Aaagh!” His face turned beet red while he flopped on the floor like a beached fish. Tom could see his pained expression.

Once Colby had given the nod, Tom pulled a loose bolt from the iron cot frame, setting off a rapid-fire chain reaction—as the cot collapsed to the floor, so did the heavy armoire that the two of them had placed precariously on top of it. The weight of the falling armoire then pulled the mattress-cover lasso even tighter, dragging Nicky a few feet across the floor and squeezing his chubby leg in a taut bear trap.

“You little brats!” yelled Nicky. “Try gettin' out now!” And with his one free leg, he kicked the door shut.

“No!” Tom yelped, leaping over a sprawled Nicky to yank on the doorknob. But it was locked from the outside and wouldn't budge. He could hear the keys jingling in the lock on the other side of the door, just inches away, though they might as well have been on the other side of the house for all the good that did him. Tom yanked again.

Nicky began to laugh behind him.

“Wanna know what happens to kids who think they're
smarter than me?” He had curled his way up to a seated position, and his sausage fingers were slowly working to untie the mattress-lasso knot. “They get dumped into the East River.”

Colby meanwhile was crouched at the other side of the room, working one of the cot's iron legs apart.

In ten seconds, Nicky would be free. They had ten seconds to keep this treasure hunt alive.

Thinking fast, Tom ripped off his shirt, laid it flat on the ground, and slid it underneath the door.

Bam!
He knocked against the wood with his shoulder until—
clink!
He heard the key fall from the lock, then tugged his T-shirt back with Nicky's keys now resting on top of it.

“Nice try.” On his feet now, Nicky lunged for Tom, but Colby—who'd grabbed one of the iron posts—whacked him across the knee.

Howling, the thug dropped to the floor.

Tom tried the first key, but it didn't fit.

“What's wrong?” asked a breathless Colby, now at his side. “Get us out of here.”

“I'm trying.” The second key didn't fit either. Tom's
hands were wet with perspiration, and Nicky was on his feet again, limping toward them.

“So close!” The fat man was smiling wide. “And yet—” Nicky flailed a meaty paw just as Tom unlocked the door, and in one swift motion pushed Colby into the hallway and locked the bolt behind them.

“I don't think my heart arrhythmia can take any more of this,” she said as Tom grabbed her hand, and the two of them tore down the dark basement corridor.

The dull thud of Nicky's heavy body slamming against the door followed them up a flight of stairs that led back into the heart of the townhouse mansion, but this time they were on a different and unfamiliar floor.

“Who'd eat in this room? Yosemite Sam?” Tom paused for a split second as they raced through a lavish dining room. Its polished oak table was at least twenty feet long, and a mounted, shaggy buffalo head stared blankly from above a wooden fireplace.

“Where you two little mice hiding?” bellowed the voice, so loud it shook the entire frame of the house.

“Sounds like Nicky's loose!” said Colby, and within seconds, they were off to the races again, spiraling through an opulent living room; an enormous black-and-white
checker-tiled kitchen; a pantry with cabinets full of porcelain, china, and silver; another short hallway; then finally into a grand foyer.

Tom gave the front doorknob a desperate rattle. “It's stuck. Maybe they've got the place on lockdown.” He surveyed the corners of the high-ceilinged room. “Though I don't see any video-monitoring equipment.”

“Keller's probably lurking around here somewhere.”

“May I help you?” The woman's deep voice made Tom and Colby spin around to find a uniformed maid standing at the top of the steps. Her hair was pulled back in a simple gray bun, and her body was shaped like a broomstick.

For what felt like an eternity, Tom and Colby stood frozen, waiting for the maid to make the first move. The three of them didn't utter a single word as they stared deep into one another's eyes, as if all were held under the same spell.

And then …

“Intruuuudeeers!”
The maid's screech was as ear-splitting as an out-of-work opera singer.

“Run!” Tom and Colby doubled back, pushing past the maid, who grabbed Colby's sleeve for a second before she yanked it free.

Up ahead was a double-spiral staircase, which they took three steps at a time.

“You can keep running, but it's all a dead end!” warned a voice from beneath them, and Tom didn't need to glance down to know that Nicky was bounding up the stairs and gaining ground.

The mansion's third floor consisted of nothing more than a long, narrow, carpeted hallway with two endless rows of doors on either side.

“Next door, next door!” Colby shouted as they darted through the shadowy corridor and into one of the side rooms.

“Looks like a library,” gasped Tom as they entered the stuffy, Victorian study and bolted the door shut behind them. He stalked the room's perimeter, leaning against its high bookcases and tilting old Tiffany glass lamps. Outside, Nicky's lumbering footsteps approached like an earthquake.

“What are you doing?” Colby whisper-yelled.

“You know—the old revolving-bookcase trick.”

“This isn't a
Scooby-Doo
episode, Tom. Our best bet is just to be quiet and wait Nicky out.”

“Or try one of the windows.” But Tom quickly realized the second option was a bust since the windows were double-glazed, iron-barred, and opened onto nothing but the back view of a brick building.

Colby leaned an ear close to the door and was met with the sound of the doorknob jiggling on the other side.

“He's right outside,” she mouthed, slowly backing away.

Bam!
The two of them winced at the sound of Nicky's shoulder lowering against the door. It was followed by a long and terrifying silence.

“That's not gonna hold him very long,” said Colby, barely audible.

Bam!
The oil paintings trembled again from the force of Nicky's weight. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he sang from the hallway.

“We're dead.” Colby stepped behind Tom's body as they retreated toward the corner of the room.

Bam!
The door hinges splintered the frame.

“Wait! Maybe not.” Tom was squinting at something along the far wall.

“Talk to me. What is it?” asked Colby, but instead of answering her, he ran across the room and felt along a
needle-thin crack, which, on first glance, looked like it was part of the dark, velvety wallpaper. As he pressed lightly against it, however, a latch clicked and a section of the wall swung open. Behind the hidden door was a small closet filled with cracked leather books and suitcases.

“This whole house is like one giant time warp,” said Tom.

Bam!
The door's hinges were almost loose now.

“Tom!” Colby was pointing toward the closet's ceiling, where a suspended length of twine was fastened to a ceiling hatch. “Think it's safe?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. We don't have much of a choice, do we?” He pulled hard on the twine, and as the hatch opened, a collapsible ladder unfolded. Scrambling as quick as they could, the two of them scaled the ladder all the way up to an unlit, cobwebby attic.

Tom pulled up the hatch behind them, just as the study door fell to the floor with a thud.

Nicky had broken through.

T
his place just gets weirder and weirder,” murmured Colby as she stared at the eclectic scenery spread out in front of her.

“Seems Curt Keller's a bit of a pack rat.”

The room was enormous but crammed with steamer trunks, armoires, sheeted mirrors that resembled fat ghosts, and old stacked tables and bed frames.

“It kinda reminds me of the
Titanic
.” Colby tiptoed farther into the space, spinning a 360 of pure wonder. “So many places to hide.”

Tom pried open a trunk. “If we get into one of these, we're sitting ducks.”

Then came a loud creaking of the attic hatch as it was pulled down.

Like scared bats in sunlight, Tom and Colby scurried to the far end of the room and skidded onto the floor behind an enormous wooden table that had been turned on its side.

With their faces pressed against the ground, they peered around the side of the tabletop and saw Nicky's scuffed dress shoes stepping gingerly across the floorboards, stopping every so often as he peeked under a cloth-draped couch or inside a footlocker. At one point, they even saw him check a dresser drawer.

“We gotta hide somewhere,” Tom whispered after they'd been watching him for a moment. “He knows we're up here. He'll eventually make his way over.”

Colby nodded, then army-crawled quietly back toward an open armoire behind them. It was packed with formal clothes that looked as though they were from somewhere around the turn of the last century. There were old tuxedos and puffy, whalebone-hooped skirts crammed together on a wooden clothes rack.

“Inside the dresses,” she said. “He'd never look there.”

“Colb,” Tom hissed back. “There's no way I'm hiding in a lady's dress.”

“Yes, you are! One of us can signal when it's safe to
come out.” Nicky was getting closer now. “Now get in that dress!”