Ruby Redfort Take Your Last Breath (28 page)

She exhaled a deep breath. Basically, it all added up. Made perfect sense, all neat and tidy. Well, almost — there were a few unanswered questions, a few loose ends. Problem was, Ruby didn’t like loose ends.

Ruby picked up her satchel and dug out the three tapes Hitch had given her of the strange static that had been heard on Chime Melody. Maybe she had overlooked something. She slotted two of them into the stereo’s double cassette player, the third she clicked into the portable cassette machine on the floor. Then she played each one in turn. She listened, concentrating hard, using all her powers.

Nothing. No underlying voices, no secret message, no code whatsoever.
OK,
she thought.
The static is just static.

She couldn’t concentrate properly, that darned lullaby was going around and around on a loop, occupying her brain:

Ruby gave in to it, letting the lullaby wash through her; it was calming somehow. She even began to sing it out loud. She had never thought too much about the words. You don’t when you’re a newborn baby; they are just sounds sung to soothe, and as you get older, like nursery rhymes, you don’t question them. It’s all about the rhythm and not the meaning.

Finally, she came out of her trance: she needed to talk things through with someone, someone who would listen.

She plucked the receiver from the squirrel in the tux and dialed Clancy’s number.

“Hey,” he said. “You’re there.”

“How’d ya know it was me?” said Ruby.

“Rube, it’s kinda late. Who else is it likely to be?” said Clancy.

“You wanna get over here?” It was a demand rather than a question.

“When?”

“Like now, bozo.” She returned the receiver to the rodent and pressed the call button on the rescue watch. It should reach Hitch immediately — but it didn’t. She pressed again, this time contacting Buzz.

“I need to speak to Hitch,” she said.

“He’s not contactable,” came the reply.

“Blacker then.”

“Not contactable.”

“LB?”

Buzz inhaled, but Ruby got there first.

“Don’t tell me — not contactable?”

“Correct,” said Buzz. “Can I assist you with anything else?”

“No,” said Ruby. “You’ve been super, just super.”

She lay back on the beanbag. Spectrum seemed satisfied with how things had turned out, so why wasn’t she?
Couldn’t this whole case simply be about a few gems and some gold coins?
Was she overcomplicating things by insisting that there was more to it?

Unable to let it go, she turned the tape machine back on, switching from one to the other, around and around, but it was still all static, just static . . . until she heard another sound, a loud tapping, coming from the window.

Ruby looked up. It was Clancy. She got up and released the catch on the sill, and the huge glass pane swung open. He pushed himself through — arms first — and ended up sprawled on the floor. Not very dignified.

“That’s no way to come in through a window,” said Ruby.

“Sorta lost my balance,” said Clancy, rubbing his knee. “So what’s on your mind?”

“A few things actually,” said Ruby. “There’s this first thing that doesn’t make sense.”

“Hit me with it,” said Clancy, flopping down on the beanbag.

“Why would someone go to all the trouble of devising a supersmart code, which even when translated is super cryptic, and then just when they’re almost home free, they blow it by being unnecessarily obvious? Why would they do that?”

“Human nature,” said Clancy. “Criminals’ remorse, they want to get caught. It’s like in
Crazy Cops,
Detective Despo always says that criminals want to confess. They can’t help themselves.”

“I don’t think that’s it, Clance. We’re not talking about some accidental murder here, or some heat-of-the-moment crime. This plan was thought through in triplicate; this plan is about locating something and stealing it. This gang wants to get away with it. Why wouldn’t they? But maybe someone else doesn’t want them to; perhaps the mastermind of this plan wants them to get caught.”

“What do you mean by that?” said Clancy, trying to wrestle himself out of the beanbag, but his arms were restricted so he resembled a beetle flailing on its back. “You saying the mastermind criminal mighta set up the rest of the gang?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s exactly what I’m thinking. But then I’m thinking, why?”

“Revenge?” suggested Clancy.

“Then why not take the treasure too? Getting the pirates caught means losing the booty — makes no sense. There has to be something bigger, far more valuable, that this top guy wants. He must know we’re onto him, watching the waters, so he’s using the little guys as a distraction; if you like, they’re the bait, the sprats, and this guy is fishing for sharks.”

Inevitably though, Clancy only registered the word
shark
and immediately looked panicked.

Ruby rolled her eyes. “It’s an expression, dummy. What I mean is, this guy is most likely looking for the
real
treasure.”

“Meaning what?” Clancy was scrunching his brow.

“Meaning the Fairbank rubies,” said Ruby.

“But I thought that was just some legend,” said Clancy. “No one really believes they actually exist.”

“I do,” said Ruby. “Martha Fairbank said they were left in that cave, and I believe her.”

“Why?” said Clancy.

“Because,” said Ruby, “she couldn’t tell a lie.”

“Why not? Little kids often come up with crazy ideas. Take my sister Amy — she thinks a pixie lives up the chimney.”

“You’re missing the point, Clance. Martha couldn’t tell a lie because she had ingested a truth serum.”

“Now
you’re
talking crazy, Rube. Martha was born in the eighteenth century, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think she would have just happened to swallow a truth serum.”

“Well, that’s where you are wrong, my friend; that’s exactly what happened, just like it happened to Pookie, the Gruemeisters’ dog, and possibly to Francesco Fornetti, the famous marine biologist.”

Clancy was staring at her in disbelief.

“Quit with the face, would you, Clance?”

“I’ll quit with the face if you explain what the Sam Hill you’re going on about.”

“OK,” said Ruby. “You’ve heard of the Sea Whisperer?”

“Of course,” said Clancy.

“So what I’m saying is this creature actually exists, not a devil but a giant octopus.”

“What?” said Clancy. “A giant what did you say?”

“Octopus,” said Ruby. “The sea devil, the creature Martha Lily Fairbank heard those pirates shrieking about, not the same actual octopus obviously, but the same one Red heard, the same one I heard, and all those other kids and possibly the same one that Francesco Fornetti
saw
ten years ago.”

“Octopuses only live for a maximum of four to five years,” said Clancy. He was sure on this point.

“Yeah, but this octopus isn’t like others. It’s bigger for a start. Most giant octopuses have a thirty-foot span, but this one, according to Fornetti, is more like fifty feet wide.”

“Geez,” said Clancy. “You saying a giant octopus has been terrorizing the sharks?”

“And strangling unfortunate fishermen,” said Ruby. “Remember the guy found strangled in his boat?”

Clancy nodded.

“The octopus did it,” said Ruby.

“Huh?” said Clancy.

“There’s this seafarers’ legend about the Sea Whisperer,” said Ruby. “
‘They say it can lure a child to a watery grave, that it can strangle the breath from the strongest man. . . .’
”

Clancy chimed in.

“
‘Some say it can persuade a stranger to tell his darkest secret.’”

“You know it?” asked Ruby,

“Yeah, I know it,” said Clancy. “It’s mentioned in one of the myths of the ocean books I got.”

“Of course, why am I surprised? I am speaking to the boy who knows everything about the ocean, but never dips a toe in it. Anyway,” said Ruby, “the Sea Whisperer must have pulled the fisherman out of his boat, dragged him underwater, strangled him, and then dumped him back.”

“Why didn’t it eat him?” said Clancy.

“I don’t know, Clance. I’m not sure what makes a giant octopus tick, but it killed that diver by dragging him under until he ran out of air.
‘It can strangle the breath from the strongest man.’
The strange marks on his ankle were from where the tentacle — or rather octopus arm — grabbed him. Also, the legend says,
‘They say it can lure a child to a watery grave.’
Well, that’s true too, in part anyway. It makes this sound, you see, like a siren calling out for help. Only the young can hear it, and if they follow the sound, they end up drowned or in its clutches.”

Clancy wasn’t feeling so good. This was meant to be fiction, just a legend.

But Ruby hadn’t finished. “
‘Some say it can persuade a stranger to tell his darkest secret.’
There’s a truth serum in its ink; if you swallow it, even a little, it will make you talk and talk, and for a while every word will be the truth. Francesco Fornetti experienced it for himself.”

“OK, so let’s say you’ve convinced me, and I’m not saying you have, but just say for argument’s sake that the sea monster is real, the rubies exist, the arch villain wants the rubies, the rubies are in a cave. And this villain has sent Spectrum off chasing the pirates to get everyone out of the way.”

“Uh-huh,” said Ruby.

“So how did he know Spectrum had broken the Chime Melody code?” asked Clancy.

Ruby frowned. She thought about the question for a couple of minutes and then replied. “Because he saw us that day when we were diving the
Seahorse
wreck.”

“How do you know?” said Clancy.

“Because I
saw
him, at least I saw a flash of light, his binoculars catching the sun maybe. He was watching us that day. He saw me and Hitch and Kekoa turn up. He must have known we’d cracked the Chime code, otherwise why would we be there in that exact spot? He must have been standing there on the island; he must have found a way into the caves.”

“OK,” said Clancy. “If all that’s true, then where’s the cave?”

“That’s a question, and a good one.” Ruby sighed. “That part I haven’t figured out. Somewhere in the smaller of the two Sibling Islands. But if Martha was right, it was most likely covered by a landslide — that’s why no one ever found it.”

“So you don’t have any way of proving your theory?”

“Not yet,” said Ruby, exhaling heavily.

Neither of them said a thing, not for several minutes. The silence or near silence was broken by Clancy suddenly becoming aware of the static tape playing in the background. “What are you listening to, by the way? It sounds like white noise. It’s pretty boring, and it’s giving me toothache.”