Snatched

by Pete Hautman

  “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.

  But at the moment, Arnold Thorn did not look much like a dangerous kidnapper. He was holding a wet towel to his head while Mrs. Thorn tried to get him to drink some water. They both seemed to have forgotten about Roni. Maybe she should sneak inside the house and do a search right now, while the Thorns were distracted. She started toward the back door and was almost inside when she heard Mrs. Thorn emit another screech.

  Roni turned and saw the Thorns staring across the pool at two figures coming in through the back gate. One of them was Brian Bain. The other one was a dirty, bedraggled, tired-looking girl. Roni thought she recognized the girl, but she couldn’t quite believe it.

  Arnold Thorn climbed unsteadily to his feet. He held out his arms, one hand still holding the bloody towel, and started toward the girl. “Alicia?”

  Alicia stepped to the side, avoiding his embrace. Mr. Thorn dropped his arms. Alicia walked around him.

  Mrs. Thorn ran up to Alicia and stared at her. “Oh my God! What’s happened to you?”

  Alicia looked back at her mother, her eyes hard, her lips squeezed into a short, tight line.

  “Alicia?” Mrs. Thorn took her daughter’s shoulders in her hands. “Are you okay?”

  Alicia shook her head. Her mouth quivered and loosened, and her eyes filled up, and she leaned into her mother’s shoulder and began to cry.

  “Who did this to you?” Mrs. Thorn asked.

  “It was awful,” Alicia sobbed.

  “Who, baby? Who?”

  “It was that man, that hairy man that spies on us from the woods. Driftwood Doug! He locked me on the boat and he wouldn’t let me out!” Alicia’s voice rose to a hysterical wail. Sobbing and pounding on her mother’s shoulders with her fists, she cried, “I couldn’t get out!”

  39

  three pounds

  MISSING STUDENT FOUND

  Alicia Camden made it back home Tuesday afternoon. She was discovered in the woods near her home by a fellow student.

  “She was only a few hundred yards from her home,” said Bloodwater High student Brian Bain.

  The victim reported being abducted and held captive on a small boat that was swept away from its mooring during Monday night’s storm. She broke out of the boat cabin and swam for shore in the midst of one of the season’s worst storms.

  “She’s lucky to be alive,” said Police Chief Grant Hoff. ”We are seeking one individual for questioning in the case.” He declined to name the individual, who has not been formally charged.

  The 17-year-old’s parents had always been confident that Alicia would be found.

  “Alicia is doing well. She’s glad to be back with her family,” said her mother, Alice Thorn. Arnold and Alice Thorn live at Bloodwater House, a well-known local landmark, with their two children.

  In an unrelated incident, Arnold Thorn sustained an accidental head injury late yesterday afternoon at his home on Riverview Terrace. He is being treated at Bloodwater Hospital.

  Roni let the newspaper fall to her lap and sighed. Why did Brian get all the credit? If it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t even have been there. Plus, he didn’t really find Alicia. He more like stumbled over her.

  Roni thought back on the events at Bloodwater House. It had surprised her when Alicia had accused Driftwood Doug of kidnapping her. Doug had seemed like a nice guy. Weird, but not evil. Then again, he had run away from the police, so he must be guilty of something.

  She had hoped to ask Alicia a few questions, but just then, the police had shown up, including Brian’s mother, who was not at all happy to see him back at Bloodwater House. To make matters worse, a few minutes later Mayor Berglund, who never let a photo op pass him by, had shown up with Nick in tow. That was the worst part of it all. Seeing the hurt and angry look on her mother’s face. What a lousy way to end an otherwise interesting day.

  At least she wasn’t in jail. But she might as well be. Nick was working from home, and had been watching her like a cat.

  “You can leave your room to go to the bathroom, and for meals,” Nick had decreed. “The rest of the time you stay in lockdown. At least until I can look at you without wanting to tear my hair out.”

  “But . . . there’s nothing to do! My computer is dead!”

  “And whose fault is that?” The look on Nick’s face told Roni not to argue.

  She tried to pass the time by rereading some Sherlock Holmes stories, but they weren’t as good the second time around. Several times she left her room to attempt to renegotiate the terms of her punishment. Each time her mother ordered her back to her room, refusing to discuss it. Nick was normally pretty easygoing, but this time Roni had pushed her too far. She had not only broken the terms of her grounding, but had spent part of the day hanging out with an accused kidnapper, and
then got involved in an unfortunate accident at Bloodwater House.

  That was what they were calling it. An unfortunate accident. Lucky for her. Lucky for Brian.

  Roni felt awful about letting her mom down. And there were other things she felt awful about—Alicia was back home, living under that same roof with that horrible man. Driftwood Doug, the accused kidnapper, was on the lam. And poor Brian. He had saved her from Mr. Thorn, and found Alicia, and got his name in the paper, and now he was just as grounded as she was.

  Worst of all, with everything that had happened over the past couple of days, she had somehow managed to gain three pounds.

  The sun coming through the window shone right through Alicia’s closed eyes. It was too much work to get up and lower the shade, so she lay there staring at the bloodred insides of her eyelids.

  She was tired through to her bones. She might never get up again. If she pretended to be unconscious maybe everyone would leave her alone for the rest of her life. No homework, no arguments, no problems.

  She had to stop thinking. She had given them what they wanted. A name. It would keep them busy for a while. Maybe forever. Maybe it would all just go away and she could stay in bed.

  She heard footsteps in the hallway. She heard her door creak open. Alicia kept her eyes closed. She felt a cool hand on her forehead, blocking the sun. The hand stroked her hair and she wanted it to never stop.

  Her mother leaned down and whispered to her. “I’ll never let anyone steal you away from me again. You’re safe. Sleep well, my baby.”

  40

  boat puzzle

  Brian read the newspaper article over and over again. His name had never been in the paper before. At first, it was exciting, but by the seventh or eighth time he read it the excitement faded. He was still stuck at home, grounded for all of eternity. His mother would never trust him again. Even the fact that he had found Alicia Camden had not deflected his mother’s anger.

  It was all Roni Delicata’s fault. She was the one person who was capable of getting him in worse trouble than he could get himself into.

  He wondered how she was doing. He wondered if she was mad at him, since he was getting the credit for finding Alicia. He hoped she wasn’t mad. She was scary when she was mad, and not much fun.

  He also wondered what had happened to Alicia. Had she really been abducted by Driftwood Doug? If so, why? And if not, then why had Alicia accused him? If it wasn’t Doug, then why would she hide the identity of the real kidnapper? Was she protecting someone, or was she just scared?

  He had tried to ask his mom about it, but last night she had been in no mood to talk to him, and this morning she had left before he got out of bed. Stuck at home with nothing to do, Brian’s brain bounced thoughts from one side of his skull to the other, like a game of mental ping-pong:

  Roni Delicata was a bad influence.

  Alicia said she was abducted by Driftwood Doug.

  It wasn’t fair that he was grounded.

  He might have saved Roni’s life.

  It was Roni’s fault he was in this mess.

  No, it was his own fault.

  His mom was completely unreasonable.

  Roni was fun.

  French donuts and coffee.

  Was Driftwood Doug being framed?

  A perfect throw!

  Mr. Thorn could have been killed.

  Where was the boat?

  “The boat!” he said aloud, sitting up in bed. He thought hard for several minutes, then swung his feet to the floor and ran downstairs to his father’s office.

  “Dad, I have a question.”

  Bruce Bain’s head slowly emerged, blinking owlishly, from behind a teetering tower of books.

  “You are grounded, young man,” he said. Mrs. Bain had coached her husband well.

  “I know I’m grounded. That’s not the question.”

  “Oh, I see. What is it, son?”

  “Do you still have those Mississippi River charts from when you were working on the clam book?”

  “Ah yes, Bivalves of the Upper Mississippi. One of my most successful research papers. You want the maps?” Bruce Bain stroked his long chin. “I believe they are near my flatworm photographs.” He went directly to a stack of mismatched files piled six feet high, grabbed a manila file folder from the middle of the stack, and pulled it out. The stack teetered, but somehow did not fall.

  “There you are, son. What are you working on?”

  “School project,” said Brian, giving his standard answer.

  “Good, good! Well, keep up the good work, son!”

  Brian went back to his room and sorted through the maps until he found the one showing the section of river just south of Bloodwater. The map had been designed for barge operators and boaters. It showed all the islands, sandbars, channels, and backwaters.

  The boat was the key. The police might look for it, sure, but not very hard. Brian knew how cops’ brains worked. When his mom decided he was guilty of something, that was it. Excuses, explanations, evidence, reasonable doubt . . . none of that meant a thing.

  Of course, she was almost always right.

  Maybe the cops were right about Driftwood Doug. They had Alicia’s word that he had kidnapped her. And Doug had fled, which was very suspicious.

  Brian spread the map out on the floor. Alicia said she had been held prisoner on a boat, and that the boat had been swept away in the storm. So where was the boat?

  He put his finger on Wolf Spider Island, where Alicia said the boat had been tied up. He imagined a boat cast loose in a storm. He would have to calculate the wind direction and wind speed. And the water level during the storm. It was a puzzle. A boat puzzle.

  Brian bent over the map.

  He liked puzzles.

  41

  closet cleaning

  Sitting at her desk, doodling on the back of her notebook, Roni wondered if maybe this time she had actually learned her lesson. She shouldn’t meddle in things. Maybe it was time for her to focus on getting better grades in her classes so she could go to a good college and get a job at the Washington Post and win a Pulitzer Prize.

  She blinked and her so-called wonderful life disappeared. She looked at what she had been doodling. A boat. The boat. Alicia had told Brian she’d been held prisoner on a boat. A boat that had been tied up at Wolf Spider Island.

  What boat?

  Driftwood Doug’s boat? How many boats did Driftwood Doug have?

  Roni thought back to Bloodwater House. She had looked into Arnold Thorn’s eyes. She was sure he was hiding something. Could Alicia be lying to protect him? Arnold Thorn had once owned a boat, but according to Ted it had been vandalized and sold. Sold to who? Or had Arnold Thorn hidden it away someplace—like maybe Wolf Spider Island. She imagined Alicia locked inside, made a prisoner by her own stepfather.

  Roni started digging through her old files. The phone number she needed had to be in there someplace.

  After a few minutes she found a file labeled “Wolf Spider Island.”

  Now she needed a phone. Roni pushed open her bedroom door and listened. Nick was in the kitchen talking on the house phone, working out last-minute details for the Bloodwater Apple Festival. Roni sneaked down the stairs, keeping her feet toward the edge of the steps to avoid squeaking. Nick’s purse hung from the coat rack in the front hall. Roni reached the purse without being detected, grabbed her mom’s cell phone, and tiptoed back upstairs to her room.

  Nick was still talking. Grabbing her pillow off the bed, Roni backed into her closet and pulled the door closed behind her. She jammed the pillow into the crack under the door and punched in the phone number.

  Sitting in the dark with the phone right next to her face, she felt as if she were in a thriller movie. The escaped convict psychopathic chain saw killer was in the next room. This phone call was her only hope.

  On the fourth ring, a man’s deep voice answered, saying, “No, I don’t want to buy no aluminum siding.”

  “Hoot?” she whis
pered.

  “Who is this? What are you selling?”

  “It’s me. Roni.”

  “I don’t want any!”

  “Roni Delicata!” she whispered more loudly.

  “Oh. The burglar. You the one sent the gestapo after poor old Doug?”

  “No! That’s what I’m calling about. Hoot, how many boats does Doug have?”

  “Boats? Well, he’s got his houseboat. And he’s got that canoe, if you call that a boat.”

  “Is that all?”

  “How many boats does a guy need?”

  “I don’t know. Have there been any new boats docked around the island the last month or so?”

  “Well . . . Candle Andy got himself a kayak. And there was an old cabin cruiser tied up at the north end last few weeks. Don’t know whose that was. It’s gone now. Mighta got blowed off in the storm.”

  Roni felt her heart speed up. “Hoot, remember a couple of years ago when that big wind came through and tore a bunch of boats loose from their docks?”

  “Do I remember? I lost my dinghy that night!”

  “You ever find it?”

  “Sure did. Ended up way down in Alma, a good thirty miles. ’Course, the water was really high that year. Not like now.”

  “If a boat was lost in the storm we had last night, where do you suppose it would wash up?”

  “Hmm,” Hoot said. Roni pictured him rubbing his chin. “My guess is she’d hang up at Nun’s Island.”