Snatched (12 page)

Inside Bloodwater House, Brian and Ted encountered some difficulties of their own. Namely, the formidable Mrs. Thorn.

“You—”
She directed her laser gaze toward Brian. “You’re a friend of that awful fat girl!”

“She’s not fat,” Brian mumbled, averting his eyes.

“What did you say?”

Brian pretended Mrs. Thorn was a face in a video game. It helped.

“I said she’s not really fat. She just likes to wear loose clothes.”

“You have a smart mouth on you, young man. Well, you can just take that smart mouth and march it right out of this house this instant!” Boy, was she ever appropriately named. She was one of the prickliest people he’d ever met.

“Mom . . . ,” Ted began, but his voice trailed off.

Brian decided that retreat was in order. He backed away, saying, “I’ll see you
soon,
Ted.
Soon.
” He headed for the front door, hoping that Ted would get the message and meet him and Roni out back.

Brian walked quickly down the walk to the front gate, which clicked and swung open as he approached it. Mrs. Thorn must be watching from the house, he thought. He turned down Riverview Terrace and walked until he was out of sight behind a lilac hedge. He stopped and waited for a few seconds, then cut through the hedge and followed the iron fence to the back gate. Using his Swiss Army knife, Brian slipped the gate lock and entered the back garden.

 

There was a moment when Roni thought it had worked. Mr. Thorn was so surprised by her accusation that he took a step back. She clicked her pen and pretended to write something in her notebook.

“What are you writing?” Mr. Thorn said. The slick friendliness in his voice was gone, replaced by something that sounded more like a choking dog.

“I’m working on a story,” Roni replied.

“Let me see.” Mr. Thorn reached for the notebook.

Roni held the notebook out of his reach, but when she put her foot back to brace herself, there was nothing there. She had forgotten that she was standing at the edge of the pool. She flailed her arms, trying to regain her balance. Mr. Thorn grabbed her by the hand, the one holding the notebook. Instinctively, Roni kicked out. Her boot connected solidly with his shin. He let out a roar and let go, and Roni hit the water, still clutching her notebook. When she surfaced, sputtering and coughing, she saw Mr. Thorn hopping up and down on one leg, holding his shin.

Just then there was a sound, like a hammer hitting a coconut. Mr. Thorn’s expression went blank and something struck the patio with a dull clunk. Thorn’s mouth fell open and his fists relaxed and a bright splotch of blood appeared on his forehead. He teetered for an endless instant, then toppled.

 

 

Brian, standing on the other side of the pool, could not believe what he had done.

When he saw Mr. Thorn throw Roni into the pool, he had gone on automatic and grabbed the nearest thing he could find—an egg-size rock from the garden.

Maybe I’ll startle him, he had thought. Give Roni a chance to get away.

He had brought his arm back and thrown the stone as hard as he could, never dreaming that it would actually hit its target. But the rock had sailed straight and true across the pool to hit Mr. Thorn smack on the forehead. The best throw of his life. It had made a sound he would never forget.

And then Roni had screamed.

That was another sound he would never forget.

 

Roni hadn’t known she could scream like that. The sound had poured from her throat like a shriek from a horror movie. They must have heard her half a mile away.

And suddenly Brian was there, helping her out of the pool.

“Are you okay?” Brian asked.

“I’m okay, but somebody shot Mr. Thorn!” Roni cried.

“No, they didn’t.” Brian bent over Mr. Thorn. “I threw a rock at him.”

“You what?”

“I think he’s breathing.”

“You threw a what?”

“A rock. Listen, we gotta call an ambulance or something.”

Suddenly, Roni’s mind went from utterly bewildered to crystal clear. She knew what she had to do. She grabbed Brian by the arm.

“You have to get out of here, Brian. Right now!”

“But—”

“Shut up and don’t argue. I’ll take care of Mr. Thorn. You get out of here. Now!”

Brian wavered, his eyes going back to the man lying senseless on the patio.

“Now!” Roni shouted.

Brian turned and ran out through the back gate and into the woods.

About one second after Brian disappeared into the woods, Mrs. Thorn came charging out of the house. When she saw Mr. Thorn sprawled on the patio with Roni bending over him, she let out a shriek that made Roni’s hair stand on end.

“Get away from him!” Mrs. Thorn shouted, running toward her.

Roni stood up. “He’s hurt,” she said. “We should call 911.” Mrs. Thorn pushed Roni away and stared down at her unconscious husband.

“You killed him!” she said.

“He’s not dead,” Roni said. “We should call an ambulance.”

Mrs. Thorn seemed not to hear her.

“Mrs. Thorn?” Roni said.

Mrs. Thorn was just standing there like a zombie, not hearing her at all.

Roni ran to the house and let herself in. She ran through the echoey halls from room to room looking for a phone. Nearly all the rooms were empty—not a stick of furniture in them. She finally found a phone in an alcove near the front door, called 911, then ran back to the pool, where she found Mrs. Thorn on her knees holding her husband’s bleeding head in her lap.

“I called 911,” Roni said. “An ambulance should be here in a few minutes.”

Mrs. Thorn looked up at Roni and said, “You’re going to jail for this, you horrid, horrid girl.”

“I don’t think so,” Roni said. “I was only defending myself.”

“I’ll have you put away for the rest of your sorry life!”

“And I’ll have
him
arrested for assault,” Roni shouted, losing it. “He was the one who beat up Alicia—and he was about to beat me up, too!”

Mrs. Thorn’s pink face turned white. She let go of her husband and stood up. Mr. Thorn flopped back down, the back of his head bouncing on the patio.

“You . . . don’t . . . know . . .
anything,
” Mrs. Thorn said in a nasty, brittle voice. But Roni could see that she’d hit a nerve.

Just then, Mr. Thorn moaned and his eyes snapped open. He sat up, blood running down his face and onto his perfect suit, blinking and looking back and forth with a bewildered, cross-eyed look. Then his eyes fixed on Roni.

“My goodness,” he said. “You’re soaking wet!”

 

 

Brian didn’t know he could run so fast. Branches whipped his face, brambles tore at his skin, and he tripped over logs on the ground, but he kept going. After running for what felt like hours—but he knew in his logical, scientific mind was probably only about five minutes—he ran out of steam.

Gasping for breath, he sank down to the ground beneath a towering cottonwood and tried to figure out where he was. The strip of woodland between Riverview Terrace and the river was only about one square mile in size, but it was easy to get turned around in the maze of coulees and hummocks and moss-covered boulders. He thought he could make out the river through the trees, but the woods were so dense he couldn’t be sure.

After catching his breath, he stood up and tried to make a plan. He couldn’t go back the way he’d come. He wondered how Roni was making out with the Thorns. He hoped Mr. Thorn was okay. Could a little rock like that kill a man? Brian felt sick thinking about it. He hadn’t meant to hurt anybody.

He decided to head straight for the river. There was a path leading along the shore that ran all the way from Riverfront Park to Barn Bluff. He could follow the path to Barn Bluff, which was only a few blocks from his home.

He hoped there wouldn’t be a squad of police—led by his mother—waiting there to arrest him.

Brian made his way toward the river, carefully descending a steep, narrow gully that widened into a coulee. Had he actually been running through these woods? He was lucky he hadn’t killed himself.

This was all Roni’s fault. Once again, he was in trouble, worse trouble than he had ever been in before in his life, and it was because of Roni. She was the one who had wanted to go back to Bloodwater House. Brian was starting to think the Bloodwater Curse didn’t just apply to the owners, but to anyone who came in contact with the place.

A few minutes later the coulee widened. Brian found himself on a narrow path just a few yards from the edge of the river. He turned right. Barn Bluff couldn’t be more than a ten-minute walk—if this was the right path.

Brian had gone only a few yards when he heard a strange sound.

He froze. It sounded like an animal. Maybe an owl. Or a sick bobcat.

Or somebody crying.

Slowly, he moved along the path, placing each foot down gently so he didn’t make any noise. The path made a sharp turn around a boulder the size of minivan. He peeked around it and gulped. Sitting on a fallen log was a girl with long dirty hair, mud-smeared cheeks, black circles around her eyes, and clothing that looked like it had been dragged behind a plow. She turned her huge eyes toward him, opened her mouth, jumped to her feet, and shrieked.

Brian heard a yelp come out of his own mouth at the same time. They both backed away from each other, then stopped.

“Who are you?” the girl asked.

“Brian Bain.” She had asked him a question that he knew the answer to. Not that the answer would mean anything to her. “Are you hurt?”

The girl shook her head as if his question was impossibly complex.

“Do you know where we are?” she asked.

“Sort of,” said Brian. “Barn Bluff is up that way, I think. Where are you trying to get to?”

“Do you know how to get to Bloodwater House?”

“Sure! You just . . .” Brian’s eyes went wide. “Why do you want to go there?” Even as the question came out of his mouth, Brian realized who he was talking to, and he knew what her answer would be.

“Because I live there,” said Alicia.

“Everybody’s been looking for you,” the kid said. “Did someone kidnap you?”

With each step Alicia thought her legs were about to crumble. She had never been so tired in her entire life. All she could think about was how good it would feel to sink into her own soft, dry mattress.

“So what happened to you, anyway?” The kid just wouldn’t shut up. What was his name? He had told her, but she couldn’t remember. Bruce? Brent? Bryce?

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she mumbled, forcing her feet to keep moving, one step after another. How many hours had it been since she had awakened on the riverbank, soaking wet, bruised, and covered with insect bites? How many miles had she walked?

“The police are still looking for you. You and Driftwood Doug.”

Alicia stopped walking. “Driftwood Doug?” She imagined his dark, hairy face and shuddered.

“Yeah. They figured he abducted you because he’d been hanging around your house. But when the police tried to question him he took off in his canoe.”

Alicia started walking again. “How much farther?” she asked. She imagined Driftwood Doug hiding behind every tree and bush.

“Not far.”

“I suppose everybody is worried.”

“I’d say so. The police, your parents, everybody. What happened to you, anyway?”

Alicia stopped and closed her eyes. “I was on a boat. Locked in the cabin. I couldn’t leave.”

“Wow,” the kid said. “How’d you get away?”

Alicia heard the words come tumbling out of her mouth. “This storm came up. It was awful. The boat was tied up on Wolf Spider Island, but the wind tore it loose. I kicked the cabin door open. Then the boat hit a tree and I got thrown off and I swam to shore. I guess I must have passed out or something, because when I woke up I was lying in the mud getting bit by flies, and it wasn’t night anymore, it was the middle of the day. I started walking. I got to the road and hiked back toward town. But I didn’t want anybody to see me like this so I decided to cut through the woods and—” She opened her eyes. “I got lost.”

“Who locked you on the boat? Was it Driftwood Doug?”

Alicia looked around, imagining faces in the trees, like the devil face carved in the tree on Wolf Spider Island, and suddenly she felt afraid—even more afraid than she had been on the boat in the storm. She squeezed her eyes shut again and tried to imagine herself back in Mankato, back in their little house with her real dad. Back before her mom had met Arnold Thorn. But no matter how hard she tried to magic herself back to Mankato, she knew when she opened her eyes she would still be standing in the woods with this weird little kid Byron, or Bruno, or whatever his name was.

“Alicia?”

Alicia lifted her eyelids. The kid was staring right into her face.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”

 

 

Roni had just about gotten everything taken care of with the Thorns by the time they heard the howl of the ambulance in the distance. Mr. Thorn, who remembered nothing, believed Roni’s story that he had fallen and hit his head. Mrs. Thorn had calmed down enough to go along with the story as well. She seemed to understand that if she accused Roni of attacking her husband, Roni might accuse Mr. Thorn of attacking her, and things might get very ugly.

Roni was sure that the Thorns were covering up something, and she was pretty sure she knew what it was—Mr. Thorn was the one who had beaten Alicia. Maybe he had even kidnapped his own stepdaughter and stashed her someplace to keep her from talking.