Horus and the Curse of Everlasting Regret (12 page)

As Horus lay in his sarcophagus, tears ran from his eyes. He heard Tunie's muffled scream and that unpleasantly familiar nasal voice. The thin man had peered into Horus's sarcophagus when he arrived, presumably looking for Tunie, before hiding in the kitchen. Horus had tried to call out to warn Tunie, but the rising sun had rendered him mostly immobile. If only Tunie had come a few minutes earlier, when Horus could have stood by her and masked her presence with his curse!

Horus could still move his limbs a little within his sarcophagus. He managed to tear a blank page from the back of a library book beneath him, and uncovered the pen he'd hidden, too. Horus sketched a perfect likeness of the thin, mustached man. His hand was stiffening even as he drew. Horus managed to write:

THIS MAN KIDNAPPED DOROTHY JAMES AND TUNIE WEBSTER

But every second, the lettering became more difficult, until finally his hands froze and the paper and pen fell down into the shadowy sarcophagus, where his message would never be seen. Horus was trapped, unable to move until the sun set. He could not stand the thought of sweet Tunie in the clutches of that wicked man. Horus's papery chest filled with despair, and the last tear he was able to cry slid down his bandages and dripped away.

This was easily the worst day of his unnaturally long life.

Peter had been sitting in the shrubbery for more than an hour, dripping sweat tickling his lower back. To pass the time, he daydreamed about living with his mother—alive and healthy!—and father in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Peter knew in real life his mother would never come back. He was stuck with the twins for the rest of his life. This was his daydream, he thought stubbornly. He could envision what he wanted.

Suddenly there was a loud crackling from WindUp, and Peter lowered the volume, turning the dial and holding his ear to the speaker on WindUp's back. Finally!

“Thanks, Doris,” came Detective Shade's voice. “Oh, and, Doris—I'm expecting a visit this morning from a gentleman named Mr. Curtis Reid. You can show him in when he arrives.”

The woman, Doris, murmured a reply.

For a long while, Peter waited impatiently. He heard paper rustling, Detective Shade blowing his nose, and drawers banging. At last, a door creaked and Peter heard a recognizably nasal voice.

“Heya, Peg Leg,” the nasal voice said in greeting. Peter flattened his back as hard as he could against the wall, to keep out of sight. He knew that voice! It was the thin, mustached man—the one they'd followed from the shipping company!

“Reid. Close the door behind you,” Detective Shade said tersely.

Did this mean Peter and Tunie were right, and Curtis Reid was Dorothy James's kidnapper? There were the sounds of the door closing and of a chair being dragged across the floor.

Peter waited for Detective Shade to accuse Reid, to handcuff and arrest him. To his surprise, the men began to speak in low whispers instead. Peter turned up the volume on WindUp as loud as he dared, and listened. He heard a slurping sound and then a cough.

“This is the worst coffee I've ever tasted,” Reid said loudly. “I should have asked for dog soup!” Then, more quietly, “I've got the girl. Nabbed her this morning in the museum, just as you suggested. Cleaning up after her useless dad,” Reid snickered. “It'll be a while before anyone knows she's missing, I think.”

Peter realized with horror they weren't talking about Dorothy James. They were talking about Tunie!

“Where is she?” Detective Shade asked.

“With the other, tied up in the shipping building.”

“And the boy?”

“We're watching his house. He hasn't left it yet. I scraped the girl's initials from the crime scene, so there's no proof there anymore, even if he blabs. If he doesn't leave, I figure I'll break into their place tonight and grab him.”

Peter clutched WindUp with damp palms. Detective Shade was involved. They knew where Peter lived. They were coming after him!

“I don't like this. It's gotten way out of hand,” Detective Shade snapped. “Now we've got to figure out what to do with
three
kids, instead of just the one. And these last two ain't worth squat!”

Reid laughed nastily. “Don't blow your wig. That only makes them easier to deal with. We sneak 'em out on a boat, and over they go. No bodies, no proof.”

In the bushes, Peter swallowed. Reid had called Detective Shade “Peg Leg.” The tapping sound Horus had heard…Peter realized that must have been Detective Shade walking. Shade had been the other person in the tent at the fair. He'd helped kidnap Dorothy James!

Peter heard fingers drumming on a desk. Shade said, “Nobody's drowning anybody, but the sooner we scram, the better. We need to move up our timeline. Get in touch with James. Tell him if he doesn't sign over the paperwork for those ships today, his daughter, Dorothy, gets the kiss-off.”

Reid cleared his throat. “Let's say I do. What's to keep him from grabbing us and taking back those ships the minute he has his daughter?”

Shade laughed. “Oh, we'll be halfway to our smuggling friends in the Caribbean by that time. We'll sell 'em those ships and spend the rest of our lives counting our cabbage in a tropical paradise. They can't catch us if we never come back!”

Reid snickered along. “I've got some packing to do, then.”

Another slurping sound came through WindUp's speaker.

“How can you drink this garbage water?” Reid complained.

“Hey, don't pour that on my plant, you egg!” Shade said.

Then Peter heard Reid say suspiciously, “What's this?”

There was a rattling sound, and Peter realized Reid had discovered the intercom device in Shade's office. Reid was pulling it from the plant!

Reid's nasal voice was harsh. “Is this yours? Are you snoopin'?” He raised his voice in accusation. “Are you some kind of GI man, recordin' me?”

“Hush!” Shade said sharply. “It ain't mine, genius. Let me see it.”

In Peter's hands, WindUp began to emit a high-pitched shriek. It was feedback—they must have moved closer to the window, and the intercom and WindUp were interfering with each other! The sound was noticeably loud. It would draw their attention for sure! Peter started to scoot out from under the bush, but his shirt snagged on a branch. He heard the window behind him open, and two large, bony hands yanked him up off the ground. As quickly as he could, Peter threw WindUp over the bush.

“Help!” Peter shouted, but Reid pulled him roughly through the window. Peter struggled, knocking his head on the sash. Reid clamped a cloth dampened with some kind of chemical over Peter's mouth. Peter drew in a deep breath and blacked out instantly.

Tunie blinked. The sideways world looked blurry, like smeared paint, and the overwhelming smell of hickory was nauseating. She swallowed, and her tongue felt strange, thick and dry like a stuffed sock.

“Here,” came a girl's voice. “Drink some water. It helps.”

Tunie blinked again and struggled up to a sitting position. She was on a plank floor in a stifling, dim room with a steeply angled roof. Her ankles and wrists were bound with rope. Beside her was a girl in a tattered blue dress, similarly bound, holding a metal cup of water in her hands. Tunie recognized her from the pictures on the
MISSING
posters around town, and from the descriptions she and Peter had read a hundred times. She was Dorothy James.

Tunie accepted the cup. She tried to say, “Thanks,” but it came out a whisper. She drank the tin-flavored water gratefully. She kept blinking, and the edges of the shapes around her began to sharpen. A low groan drew her attention to a huddled mass on the floor near the door.

“He's alive, at least,” Dorothy James whispered, “but the back of his head is hurt. I tried to wash it off a moment ago, and it woke him up a little.”

“Peter?” Tunie managed, coughing. “Peter! Is that you?”

Tunie scooted along the rough wooden floor toward her friend, dragging herself forward with her heels. It was definitely Peter, pale but breathing. He was lying in a puddle of rose-tinted water. Tunie looked around for WindUp or Peter's knapsack, but he was empty-handed.

“Peter! Are you okay? Can you hear me?” Tunie was trying her best not to cry.

Peter's eyes fluttered open.

“Ow, my head,” he said weakly.

Tunie let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. “Can you sit up? Do you want some water?”

Peter nodded and winced.

Dorothy scooted over to help. Between the two of them, they were able to get Peter to sit up against the wall and sip some water. He stared at Dorothy, taking in her brown hair, her eyes.

“You're here,” he said to Dorothy croakily. “We've been searching.”

Dorothy looked dismayed. “Thanks, but I think finding me meant finding trouble.”

“Where are we?” Peter asked over the rim of the tin cup.

Tunie took a calming breath and glanced around.

“From the hickory smell, I'm guessing we're in or near that shipping building, the one where we first saw the mustached man,” Tunie said.

“His name is Curtis Reid,” Peter told her. “He's the one who caught me.”

Tunie wasn't surprised.

“He grabbed me from the museum, too. I was looking for Horus, and he knocked me out with a rag soaked in some kind of smelly stuff.”

Dorothy nodded. “I think it was chloroform. One of them said he had to knock you both out again to make sure you were quiet on the way here. They brought you both up after lunchtime, and you've been out for hours. That's what he did to me at the fair. He had help, another man.”

Peter said, “A police officer with a wooden leg?”

Dorothy's voice rose with surprise. “Yes! How did you know?”

“Wait,” Tunie said, slowly taking in Peter's comment. “What do you mean, the other man was a police officer?”

Peter said, “I hid outside Detective Shade's office today and overheard Shade and Reid making a plan. Remember the tapping sound Horus heard? That was Shade's peg leg rapping when he walked. He had it covered up with a shoe yesterday, so we didn't see it. Detective Shade has been working with Reid all along, trying to get Dorothy's father to sign over some ships.”

Dorothy spoke up. “My father already signed over one ship, but then Shade and Reid said if it was that easy, they wanted more. It won't be simple for my father to arrange. It's a partnership—those ships aren't his alone.”

Peter told them about how Shade planned to pressure Dorothy's father to sign over the ships today.

“We've made them anxious, so now they're in a hurry,” Peter said. He looked a little less pale. “They plan to sail them down to the Caribbean and sell them to smugglers. They figure they'll get rich and never come back.”

It took a moment for all of this to sink in. Detective Shade was the only police officer they'd talked to in detail about Dorothy. Tunie hadn't told her father anything. She'd left a note saying she was going to the museum.

“Did you tell your dad about the headband or the message on the roof or anything?” Tunie asked Peter.

He shook his head, angrily tugging at the rope binding his hands.

“This is a catastrophe. We took our information to the one person we shouldn't have! Nobody would have missed me for a while, either. My family thought I was in the cellar doing inventory all day,” Peter said miserably.

Tunie realized that Shade and Reid would not be able to hold either of them ransom for anything valuable.

“What will they do to us?” She felt sick. “We know too much.”

Peter gave up on the rope. “I don't know.”

“We need to get out of here.” Tunie spotted an undersized square window on the far wall. Whitish light was filtering into the room through its dirty pane. The window was much too small for any of them to crawl out, and anyway, she suspected they were fairly high up off the ground; they seemed to be in an attic, judging from the triangular roof around them. Tunie slid over to the wall and lurched awkwardly to her feet. Standing on her tiptoes, she could just see over the edge of the sill.

Far below, she saw the docks, and people moving around. They looked like ants, unloading cargo from a huge metal ship and carrying crates to carts. It was growing late—already the sun was low on the horizon. The building Tunie and the others were in stood only three stories tall, but it was set into the side of a fairly steep hill; even if she shouted at the top of her lungs, nobody down there would hear her. She managed to crack the window open a tiny bit, and a swirl of cooler air touched her perspiring forehead.

Tunie stopped craning to see out the window and started surveying the room instead.

Dorothy said, “There's nothing here. Believe me, I've searched every nook and cranny of this place. I thought if I could find a loose nail, I could use it to get these ropes off my arms. They chafe.”

Indeed, Dorothy's bindings had scraped against the skin around them, leaving her forearms red and irritated. Tunie felt sorry for Dorothy, and terribly guilty that she'd begun the search for Dorothy in earnest only because of the reward. She would have bet anything that Peter felt the same way.

Tunie took in Dorothy's tangled hair and filthy clothes. The pale blue dress matched the headband Perch had found.

“Have they kept you up here the whole time?” Tunie asked Dorothy.

Dorothy nodded. “I'd give anything to get out of here,” she said in a choked voice, then laughed, “and into a bath!”

Tunie felt genuine admiration, watching Dorothy try to make light of their situation. She was tough.

“Let's see if there's any way out,” Peter said. “Maybe new eyes will turn something up.”

Dorothy, Peter, and Tunie spread out and went over every inch of the space, but it seemed their captors had left nothing to chance. The room was enclosed, and solid. Even the glass in the window was extremely thick, and they had nothing they could use to smash it.

They stopped for a water break. Tunie's stomach was growling audibly. She tried to ignore it. Suddenly a dark shape flew into the room and circled over their heads, flapping. Dorothy shrieked, but Tunie gave a cry of joy.

“Perch! You found us!”

The bat swooped down and landed on Tunie's arm. She smiled tearfully at her furry friend.

“I'm so glad to see you!” Tunie said. Perch tilted his head and piped comfortingly.

“That's Tunie's pet bat, Perch,” Peter explained to Dorothy, perking up. “He's quite intelligent.”

Perch preened and gave a businesslike shrill.

“Let's see,” Tunie said. “If you can find something to cut these ropes, that would be a great help! A paper and pen would be good, too, so we can send a message to our parents, or Officer Hill.”

Perch squeaked and took off through the small open window.

“Be quick, Perch!” Tunie called after him. The kidnappers could return at any moment. Who knew how much time was left?

As if in answer to Tunie's fears, she heard the loud, low wail of a boat horn approaching.