The Girl from Felony Bay (24 page)

“I hope he didn't,” I said after a few seconds.

We stood there and looked at each other. “You want to call the police?” I asked after a long silence.

“Like they're going to believe me when some sheriff says I'm a liar.” Bee gave a helpless shrug.

I glanced at my watch. I was feeling terrible guilt about what might have happened to Grandma Em, but I knew we needed to stay focused. “It's eight forty-five. Let's go find Mr. Barrett or Custis.”

I looked at Daddy one last time. I couldn't be sure, but it seemed like he was having a dream in which somebody was telling him something he didn't want to hear.

“Good-bye, Daddy,” I said. “Sorry to have to tell you so much bad news.”

Out in the hallway, I stopped to tell the nurses how Daddy looked different, and they promised they would have the doctor check on him as soon as he came up for his rounds.

“I think he may be waking up,” I insisted.

They nodded, but I could tell they didn't believe me.

“Would you at least call Mr. Barrett or Custis Pettigrew? Promise me you'll do that if he looks like he's waking up? They're his friends, and they'll come in and talk to him and help him. Will you do that?”

They promised they would check on him every few minutes, and if it looked like there was any change in his condition, they would call them. I thanked the nurses, and Bee and I said good-bye, then headed out the locked door that led to the elevators.

The hallway was deserted as I pushed the Down button. The elevator came a few seconds later, and the doors opened. It was empty, and Bee and I started to move inside, but then we came to a dead halt.

“Squib!” said a familiar voice from very close behind us. “I thought you might be here.”

I
spun around in terror
and looked back at where the men's room door was swinging closed. Uncle Charlie was just a foot away. There was no place to run and no one to call for help. I sucked down a deep breath, ready to scream my head off, but he grabbed me and slapped a hand over my mouth. I flailed with my elbows and tried to kick him, but he was way too strong. Bee made a move toward him, but he held up a hand and pointed at her.

“We've got Grandma Em,” he said in a harsh whisper. “If either of you makes a peep, something terrible's gonna happen to her.”

I was hoping Bee would run away screaming, but she was utterly frozen. Uncle Charlie's threat had done its trick. Bee wasn't going to risk anything happening to Grandma Em.

The elevator doors started to close, but Uncle Charlie muscled us into the empty car before they did. He hit the button for the first floor, then shoved me into the back wall of the elevator.

“I'm not jokin', Squib. One word, one single word outta either one of you, and the old lady is gonna get hurt.” He glanced at Bee, whose terror was written across her face. “Understand?”

Bee nodded right away, and Uncle Charlie looked at me. His eyes were red from staying up all night, but there was enough meanness in them so I was afraid that for once he wasn't just being a big bag of wind. I was as scared and angry as I had ever been.

Time seemed to stand still for the next few seconds, and everything seemed totally unreal. I didn't scream or try to slug Uncle Charlie or hit the emergency Stop button, even though I wanted to do all three of them at once. Instead I looked at Bee. The fear in her face was terrible to see, and I realized that having lost her mother and brother, there was no way she could survive losing Grandma Em. So I just stood there and let Uncle Charlie think he had won. Which wasn't hard, seeing as I had no idea how we were going to get out of this one.

The elevator finally came to a stop, and the doors opened. Uncle Charlie took a tight grip on each of our arms and started to steer us out, but someone in a wheelchair was blocking our way. It took me a second or two to realize that I'd stepped right in front of Miss Lydia Jenkins. I couldn't believe I was seeing her again, in the same place, twice in one week. Behind Miss Jenkins, five or six other people were also waiting to get into the elevator, including Esther Simmons.

“Remember what I told you,” Uncle Charlie whispered.

In that moment before everyone started to move to let us off the elevator, Miss Jenkins and I locked eyes. Right away she started doing the same thing she had done the last time I'd seen her, moving her head back and forth, struggling, and keeping me pinned in place with her eyes.

Esther Simmons turned Miss Jenkins's wheelchair slightly, and I felt Uncle Charlie start to steer me out of the elevator. Before I could step clear, Miss Jenkins's hand shot out, just like the last time, and she grabbed my wrist.

Uncle Charlie tried to force me to take a step, but Miss Jenkins's grip was strong for such an old lady. The harder Uncle Charlie tried to pull me, the harder Miss Jenkins squeezed. Just like the last time, Miss Jenkins's eyes were intense and jumpy, but there was something different in them, too. I realized that her eyes were trying to tell me something that she couldn't express any other way.

As Charlie jerked me harder, her lips started to tremble. “Ddddddd,” she said, then shook her head the way somebody would in a charades game when another player makes a bad guess. “Dddddon't ddddddon't gggggo wwwwww—”

Esther was trying to push the wheelchair past us, either not noticing that Miss Jenkins had a death grip on my wrist or not caring. Uncle Charlie had Bee all the way out of the elevator now, and he was pulling me to follow. The arm Miss Jenkins was holding was straight out from my side, but she kept her ferocious grip.

Finally Uncle Charlie jerked even harder, and Miss Jenkins let go. Even as I was pulled away, she was still struggling to say something. A second later the elevator doors closed, pinching off her words, but just before she disappeared from sight I heard what sounded like “Wwwwwwithhim.”

“Nosy old bag,” Uncle Charlie muttered.

Uncle Charlie steered us out of the exit and through the parking lot to where he had parked his truck. He opened the passenger-side door, looked around to make sure nobody was nearby, then pulled our hands behind our backs and used a roll of duct tape to wrap them and then our feet.

“You keep your mouths shut, or I'll tape them, too,” he said, forcing us both to lie on the floor.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, he picked up his cell phone and punched in a number. “I got 'em . . . yeah, at the hospital. I told you, didn't I? Be there in twenty minutes.”

I was still just as angry and scared to death as I had been when he snuck up on us in front of the elevator, but I actually fell asleep for part of the drive. After all, Bee and I had been up all night, and I was totally exhausted. I was sure Bee was as tired as I was. If we were going to have a chance of escaping, we needed to get all the rest we could, even if it was only for a few minutes.

I woke when Uncle Charlie hung a turn onto the township road and the wheels slammed into a pothole in the dirt. My head banged hard on the floor, and I struggled to push myself up onto the seat.

“Did I tell you to get up there, Squib?”

I didn't answer him, but I stayed where I was.

He reached over without slowing down and tried to shove me back down, but I moved over next to the door, too far away for him to grab me without stopping or swerving all over the place.

Out the side window was Mrs. Middleton's trailer, and she was in her yard. She was leaning on her walker and looking out at the road. My eyes locked with Mrs. Middleton's in the half second that it took for us to hurtle past, and then we were gone, the pickup's tires slamming hard into the ruts and kicking up a huge rooster tail of dust.

We were going fast, but at least the road was dirt underneath us. If I was ever going to jump out, it had to be right now. I could shout to Mrs. Middleton that we were being kidnapped, tell her to call the police. It might be our only chance.

I tried not to think how much it was going to hurt to break an arm or leg or scrape half the skin off my face. I jerked the handle as hard as I could and shoved against the door.

Nothing happened.

I pulled the handle again, and again nothing. There was no click of a lock unlatching.

“Child-proof locks, Squib,” Uncle Charlie said. “We want to make sure we protect the little ones.” He laughed at his own joke.

Reward's gates came up fast, and we roared into the drive and then hung another turn into the dirt track that led to Uncle Charlie's. I hadn't said a word since we'd gotten into the truck, partly out of fear and partly because my brain was racing with so many thoughts. Now, as we pulled to a skidding stop behind the house, I got my voice back.

“It was you! You found a way to steal Miss Jenkins's gold and then you blamed Daddy!” I blurted out. “He trusted you! You're his brother!”

“Your dad and I never got along too good. He always thought he was the smart one.”

Bee was still on the floor, but now she rose up on her elbows. “Where's my grandma?” she demanded. “I want to see her!”

“Your grandma's probably at her house,” Uncle Charlie said. “I lied. We didn't do anything but cut her phone line. She's probably worried sick about you by now. But she's not going to find you. Not anytime soon.” He gave his horn a loud honk and waited. After a second the back screen door opened, and Ruth and Deputy Simmons came out. Ruth hung back on the porch steps while Bubba approached the truck.

“Well, well, what've we got here?” he said, smirking.

Uncle Charlie killed the engine and hit a button that popped the door locks. Then he came around to my side and jerked open my door. I turned and fired off a kick, getting in one good one. He grunted in pain, but he quickly recovered, grabbed my arm, and slapped me hard across the face. It stunned me enough for him to jerk me out and throw me down on the ground. A second later Bee landed beside me.

My face burned from where he had hit me, but I was too angry to even think about crying. I just wanted to find a way to get free and then slug him as hard as I could. Jimmy Simmons's swollen nose would look like nothing compared to what I would do to Uncle Charlie's. Bee craned her neck in my direction, and when our eyes met, I could tell that she was just as angry and scared as I was.

“You're even stupider than Daddy always said,” I sneered, looking up at Uncle Charlie. He looked down at me, and then he pulled back one foot. For a second, I thought he was going to start kicking. I didn't care. “You may think you got him to take the blame for stealing Miss Jenkins's gold, but you'll never get away with this,” I said.

Apparently deciding not to kick me, Uncle Charlie smiled. “Hate to break it to ya, Squib, but yes we will.”

He said it with so much cocksure conviction that it brought me up short. “How?” I demanded.

“I'm a student of history,” he said, sounding so pleased with himself. “And a student of history knows the important details other people overlook. Did you know that during the Civil War all those fine Southern ladies melted down their jewelry and tea sets into ingots and gave them to the Cause? Did you know that, Squib?

I just glared at him.

“There've been rumors about treasure in Felony Bay for years, so when we find a big bunch of buried gold, is anybody going to think it isn't from the
Lovely Clarisse
? What's your guess, Squib?”

My heart suddenly sank as everything became clear. Uncle Charlie and Bubba Simmons hadn't been cooking anything in the blackened pot in the fireplace.

“You melted down the jewelry,” I said.

“Y'all ain't as dumb as you look, Squib,” he said. “Made gold ingots just like the old ones. I even got the CSA stamped right into the metal, same size as the originals. CSA stands for Confederate States of America, Squib. We even got the jewels sewn up just like the real thing in bags cut from an old silk ball gown. I bought a crate and a lock that date back to that time at a flea market in Mississippi. I thought of everything. And now we're about to make history finding that lost treasure.”

I closed my eyes for a second, remembering the moldy-smelling yellow gown Ruth had brought into the kitchen a few days earlier. It really did seem like Uncle Charlie had thought of everything.

“Enough talking—we're wasting time,” Bubba Simmons said. He looked down at us. “We gotta finish this.”

Bubba's tone sent chills down my back. I knew he was talking about Bee and me.

Uncle Charlie wiped his lips on the back of his wrist, looking uncomfortable all of a sudden. He walked over to Bubba and lowered his voice. “Why don't y'all handle it?” he suggested.

“Me?” Bubba scoffed.

“Yeah, I mean, I wasn't . . . we didn't plan on . . . you know.”

Bubba's face wrinkled in anger. “We also never planned on your niece and her friend snooping. How else you gonna guarantee she don't go running off at the mouth and telling everybody what we did?”