The Big Dip (7 page)

The rails flew past. Below I saw Skip laughing. My hand, clutching the bar, was stiff with pain.

The icy air whipping into our faces woke Ellie. Not knowing where she was, she screamed and tried to shove me away.

My hand slipped from the bar. My feet left the car floor. We slid over the front edge. The black wind, spinning up echoes of Skip's crazed, dark-soul laughter, sucked us forward.

Chapter Twelve

Then, with a jolt, the train hit the bottom of the big dip. As it climbed the next hill, we smashed back onto the floor of the car. The safety bar slammed against my skull.

Ellie screamed and punched me. She still didn't know who I was.

We kept climbing. Ahead of us, gold fireworks torched the sky. Their strands seemed to urge us to plunge toward them.

I was dizzy, and for an instant I thought I was in a race. I thought that I'd run my heart and lungs out and couldn't go any farther. I stared at the fireworks. They were saying,
Why struggle? You'll never make it
anyway. Give up. Relax…

But I couldn't give up, not till the finish line flashed below me. I was a runner, not a quitter.

I hoisted Ellie up as far as I could. I was able to bring the safety bar down under her chin. It was the best I could do. If Ellie didn't choke to death, she'd have great horror stories for her grandchildren.

We reached the peak and crashed down. I gripped the sides of the car and pressed my weight against the safety bar. I couldn't be sure I'd secured it.

“Joe!?” shrieked Ellie, scrunched up beside me. “Where are we? What are you
doing
?”

The train plunged to the next valley. She screamed.

“Think of it as tough love,” I yelled.

I'd been on this coaster a million times. I figured we had seven, eight, more dips ahead of us. The good thing was, none of them was like the big dip.

The bad thing was my head was ringing, and I was getting confused about what was up and what was down. My hands were ice blocks. The wind seared into my skin. I felt like I was going to pass out.

The fireworks were now white-hot and blinding. They filled the fairgrounds with light.

Skip was yelling. He hadn't given up. When the train slid up beside the platform, he would be waiting.

One last dip and the train slowed to a glide, smooth as a swan on a lake. In a second it would stop.

I was battered and sick. My mind wandered in and out of racetrack hallucinations. And now I'd have to take on Skip again.

I squeezed my eyelids shut to make the dizziness go away.

The train stopped. A hand closed over mine.

Fists clenched, I pulled away from it and forced myself to stand. “I'll kill you,” I told Skip.

I tried to swing a punch. Instead, I swayed.

Nothing happened. No one punched back.

I blinked hard against the blinding white lights. There was a face in front of mine, but it wasn't Skip's.

“I'd prefer not to be killed, if you don't mind,” said Baseball Cap.

Amy had been right. Bad guys popped up like Hydra heads.

I swung my fist back. I'd hammer Baseball Cap, all right. I'd hammer them all. Bring 'em on.

Baseball Cap raised a hand to ward me off. With his other hand he calmly tossed a coin up and down.

I couldn't hit him because now there were two Baseball Caps, two coins going up and down. I was hallucinating again.

I stared hard at Baseball Cap, willing him to come into focus. I thought of how he'd shadowed me to VanDusen. How he'd grabbed my wrist at the Horror House.

People talk about puzzle pieces falling into place. In this case, it was more like a piece being taken away. I'd assumed Baseball Cap was a thief and a kidnapper. I saw now that I'd been wrong.

I lowered my fist. Baseball Cap reached out, took hold of my elbow and steadied me.

“Thanks, officer,” I said.

Baseball Cap, known better as Vancouver Police Detective Mike Gagel, had already called a couple of ambulances. They waited, red lights flashing, behind the searchlights the police had targeted on the roller coaster.

I saw a smaller flashing red light in the distance. It was the police car that was taking Skip to the station.

Before switching on the searchlights, the cops had crept up on Skip and pounced. That's why Skip had been yelling, Detective Gagel explained.

As I thought, Amy had told the police everything. At least, everything she knew.

“Lucky for you, we got a warrant to search your house,” the detective told me. “That's how we found out about your meeting tonight. Skip's instructions were still on the answering machine.”

I remembered grabbing the phone just as the machine clicked on. Thank god for Ellie dumping her
Owl
magazines on top of the phone.

Thank god for Ellie being safe. I heaved a huge ragged sigh. As far as I was concerned, she could chant about alligator purses 24/7 if she wanted to.

I couldn't speak for a moment. Detective Gagel tossed a coin up and down, pretending not to notice that I was teary-eyed. He was lean but maybe not so mean, I decided.

“I don't
want
to go to the hospital,” my sister wailed. Pulling away from an ambulance attendant, she ran up and threw her arms around me. She was half scared, half excited. “What's going on, Joe? How come we were on the roller coaster? I wanted to go to Skip's party. Skip
said
I could.”

Then Ellie rocked her head in her hands and moaned. “I dunno why I have such a headache, Joe. And my stomach feels queasy. Maybe it was something I ate.”

“Maybe it was something you drank,” I said. I grinned at the ambulance attendant, who was looking warily at my sister. I guessed he didn't spend too much time around female eight-year-olds.
Yakkety-yakkety-
yak
.

“You need to go to the hospital,” I told Ellie. Remembering how mean I'd been earlier, I lifted her and gave her a hug that made her squeal. Then, gently, I unfastened her arms from around me. “We both need a trip to the hospital. I'll join you soon. First I gotta talk to the nice detective.”

Ellie wrinkled up her nose at Detective Gagel. “Mister, your breath would clobber an
army
.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The detective flipped his coin some more. “So I forget my Tic Tacs occasionally. We all have bad days.”

I would have grinned, but that would have made my skull ache even worse.

Chapter Thirteen

Ellie trotted off, still jabbering, to the ambulance. Detective Gagel spun the coin. “I understand you and your friend figured out that Jake was a police plant.”

Your friend.
Amy
. Was she here? I squinted past the searchlights.

It was more likely she'd followed Skip to the police station. It was Skip she'd be worried about.

Detective Gagel explained, “Jake Grissom was working undercover to catch Babs Beesley, who specialized in robbing galleries and museums. Jake convinced Babs he could fence the loot from the PNE gallery.

“He told Babs he'd get millions for the Margaret Rose. Babs handed it over—but then she had second thoughts. Maybe someone tipped her off. We'll never know.

“Jake and I were meeting here to return the Margaret Rose to the gallery. Jake arrived ahead of me. The roller coaster was his favorite ride. He must've decided he had time for a spin on it.

“He didn't realize that Babs was following him. “When I arrived on the platform, I saw her hunch down behind you and Skip.”

Detective Gagel stopped tossing the coin. He clenched it till his knuckles turned white. “I blame myself for not putting a tail on Jake. If only I'd protected him…”

“You did your best, sir.” Now I knew Detective Gagel hadn't been running with Babs. He'd been running after her.

He managed a smile. “And you did
your
best, son. In fact, you did better. You caught Babs Beesley for us. When VanDusen security phoned, I rushed over. But by the time I got there, you'd scrammed.”

I said ruefully, “I saw you talking on the phone. I thought you were Ellie's kidnapper. It took me a while to figure out what the Margaret Rose was.” I shook my head. “At first I thought it was a flower. Then I realized it couldn't be.

“So I thought back to after Jake was shot. He pretended to be holding onto my jacket—
but he was really dropping the
Margaret Rose into my pocket
.”

“Which is where we found it,” Detective Gagel said, “when we searched your house.”

He flipped the coin up one last time. Then he held it out to me.

And there she was, the late Princess Margaret Rose of Britain, captured in profile on a solid gold coin.

“Dated 1952,” said Detective Gagel, holding the coin so I could read the print.
Her Royal
Highness Margaret Rose, younger daughter
of King George VI.
“What makes the coin so valuable is that only a few were minted. The King died that year, so the coin was immediately out of date.”

“She sure was pretty,” I said, studying the young princess's profile. “Kind of sad-looking. Maybe she didn't like being a princess.”

“Not an easy job,” agreed Detective Gagel. “Why, I recall my mother telling me that Princess Margaret Rose couldn't even marry the guy she wanted to.”

I remembered VanDusen Gardens, and Hugo's wife gossiping about somebody's unhappy marriage. I thought she'd been talking about a friend.

Then I forgot about princesses. Amy walked up to us. She smiled shyly.

I wanted to smile back, but decided not to risk a worse skull ache.

“I hope you don't mind that I talked to the police,” she said.

For a long moment I just looked at her. “
I
hope I'm not hallucinating again,” I said at last. “That you're here, I mean. I thought you'd be…I mean, what with Skip…”

“I wanted to tell you about Skip,” she blurted. “About why I had to see him. I was afraid you'd be angry, though, being his best friend.”

The detective lifted his eyebrows. “Catch you later, Mojo.” He sauntered off.

“Huh?” I said to Amy. “I guess my brain is powering down faster than I thought. Do you mind explaining?”

She hesitated, then said in a rush, “Skip plagiarized an essay of mine. I thought he should admit it and redo his essay. We had a big argument about it.

“That's why I wanted to see him,” she finished. “I'd decided to report him if he didn't admit it himself. I wanted to give him one last chance.”

“And you thought I'd be upset at you?”

“Sure.” Amy gazed at me, her dark eyes worried.

I knew I'd be upset at
Skip
for a long time, maybe my whole life. I'd liked him. I'd trusted him. And he'd betrayed me.

But I wasn't upset at Amy. I'd tell her that.

First, however, I just grinned at her. Let the skull ache.

Melanie Jackson is the author of the popular Dinah Galloway Mystery series.
The Big Dip
is her first entry in the Orca Currents series. A creative-writing mentor for the Vancouver School Board, Melanie lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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