by Karen Cossey
A truck was speeding from the back of the complex towards the racetrack gate. The London guys were going to get away! Logan rushed into the office and pushed the buttons to activate the tyre spikes and the barrier arm. As the truck slowed down to go through the entranceway, it ran over the spikes, bursting its tyres.
Sirens! There were sirens approaching! Men jumped out of the truck, but they were too late. Three police cars swerved into the entrance and police officers swarmed out of the cars to apprehend the men. More police cars were driving into the racetrack from the back entrance, and they soon had everyone rounded up.
“What’s going on?” Cole yelled. “Man, I am so sick of being tied up!”
Logan laughed and set to undoing him and Mr MacAdden.
*****
Logan watched as another couple of police cars drove up not long later with the parents, Andrew, Nate, Poet and Meeka inside. They ran over to Logan and Cole, and swamped them with questions, hugs and slaps on the back.
All the parents were wiping their eyes and shaking their heads. They look like a set of those mechanical clowns at the fair—the ones that move their heads from side to side as customers throw balls in their mouths to try to win a prize.
Logan whispered that to Meeka and she snorted. “That would be a fantabulous image for Mum’s next concert poster.”
“Logan?” a sturdy looking man with grey hair approached him. “I’m Inspector Wright. I want to congratulate you on a job well done. If you hadn’t got that man out of the office we could easily have had a hostage situation on our hands.”
Logan felt his face heat up. “Thanks, it was nothing.”
“You’ve got smarts and courage. Keep up the good work.” Inspector Wright shook his hand then walked away.
Andrew and Cole both stared at Logan, their eyebrows raised and arms crossed. Cole turned to Andrew. “Do you think we should mention that the only reason that man had anyone to capture was because I was looking for a stupid kid who thought it was a clever idea to chase after the bad guy on a motorbike?”
Andrew shook his head. “Nah, I think we can forget that for now.”
Logan’s eyebrows gathered in and his faced flushed hotter. What could he say? Nothing. He looked at his feet. Andrew and Cole both laughed at him.
Cole punched him in his shoulder. “Come on, hero. We should go home.”
“That’s a good idea. You should all get out of here before any reporters arrive or you’ll be hounded for weeks. I’ll stay and talk to the police and make sure your names aren’t given out to the press,” Andrew said.
Steve and Abby came up to Logan and Cole and hugged them again.
“Let’s get out of here,” Steve said, his arm around Logan’s shoulders.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Monday Late Evening
Everyone was relieved to be home, to have the ordeal over. Abby and Steve found some food and drink for them because they were starving. Then the questions came and Steve made them tell their part of the story one at a time, taking turns until they’d pieced it all together.
Jason paced the room, getting more and more distressed as he listened. Abby and Lia’s faces were set on horror mode as they sat next to each other, clutching each other’s arms for support. Steve crouched, leaning against a wall. He looked ready to pounce on anyone coming through the door that might remotely resemble a baddie.
When Logan got to the part about the fire, Jason stopped pacing and stared at Logan, dismay written all over his face. Lia reached over and took his hand, her face stricken.
Now Logan started pacing the room, trying to keep the agitation out of his voice as he remembered the feelings of terror he’d had when he realised there was no way out of the room, and the fire could get to them any moment.
“So, I thought, maybe there would be something under the tarpaulin I could use to ram the door down, and I lifted it up and, whoa, there’s my dirt bike.” He stopped pacing and turned to Jason. “Do you know why that was there?”
“I bought it off Mr MacAdden for you, for a late birthday present. I didn’t want to leave it in the garage because you might have seen it there. Janet suggested the basement because it was off limits. Makes sense now why Alex seemed so distressed—he insisted on putting it there by himself. Must have wanted to make sure Janet didn’t see the buckets of coins,” Jason said, shaking his head.
Logan looked at him, stunned. Jason had bought his bike for him. Was that all right? He turned to Steve and Abby. They smiled at him, letting him know with a look that it was okay with them.
Logan stared for a few moments more, and then shook himself. “Thank you Jason. That was one of your best ideas ever.”
He continued his story, telling how they’d managed to use the bike to get out of the fire.
When he had finished, Lia hugged Meeka, and Jason held onto Logan long and hard. Then Steve and Abby had to have a turn. It was one big emotional scene, and nobody made a joke, not even Nate.
*****
Logan looked out the window. A car was pulling up.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing. Meeka came over to take a look.
“It’s the Bug. It’ll be Andrew,” she said.
“You mean Bugatti Veyron! That is so cool!” Nate said, his eyes wide open.
A Bugatti Veyron. What had the guy at the track said they were worth—nearly two million pounds? Meeka’s minder was driving a Bugatti Veyron! You’ve got to be kidding! What did their cook drive?
Logan looked at Cole, and read his face. It said, “When I told you that they were from another planet, I meant, in another galaxy!”
After all that had happened, this was too much! Logan had to talk to Meeka.
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her through the lounge and into the hallway.
“What’s wrong, Logan?” Meeka’s face was bunched up like a fist.
“I need to know whether Cole’s right or not. When you get back to London, are you going to forget me and my family because we’re so … so ordinary, and boring, and compared to you, we’re flat broke?” He dropped his arm which he had been waving about as he had ranted, and stood there, shaking his head.
“Don’t be stupid, Logan!” Meeka thrust her hands out, both palms open wide. “You just saved my life! Even if none of this stuff at the lodge happened tonight, I’d still think of you as my best friend.”
She pulled out her mobile, then speaking a little quieter, handed it to Logan. “Look,” she said. “Poet swiped your phone today while you and Nate were fooling around with the microwave pies and set me up as your Snapchat friend. I told her I wanted to Snapchat you in the middle of the movie to annoy you, but really I just wanted to make sure I could keep in touch with you, because …”
She looked up at the ceiling and went a little red.
“What?”
“Because I thought when I left, you might not want to bother being my friend seeing as I have oodles of money and no common sense. Lots of people give up on me because they think it’s too hard to be friends with someone they can’t keep up with. You know, with money and stuff.” She stared down at her shoes.
“What?” Logan’s mouth hung open.
Meeka looked up at him. “You look like one of those fairground clowns now.”
He snapped his mouth shut. “This is crazy, Meeka. I think you’re brilliant. Of course I want to be your friend. Here’s the deal. You never wrote me off when you found out I had a loser for a father, so I won’t write you off, either, especially not because you’re rich!”
He glanced through the lounge at everyone sitting in the kitchen. Andrew had come in. “But we’ve got to have a code word to help me deal with your oodles of money. Some word I can say so you know when I’m sinking underneath all your gold. Then maybe you can help me not to drown.”
He thought for a moment. “How about lollapalooza? I liked that.”
Meeka smiled. “Okay, lollapalooza it’ll be.”
“Done. Well then, Meek
a—lollapalooza!”
Meeka folded one arm across her stomach and put her other hand up to her face, index finger extended, head tilted to one side.
“What do you mean? What’s bothering you?” she said, a slight frown on her face.
Logan sighed and shook his head. “It’s like this. A few days ago, the most exciting person that ever sat at my kitchen table was Santa Claus. But that turned out to be Dad’s workmate dressed up for the mid-year Christmas party. Now look!”
He pointed through the door towards the kitchen.
Meeka took a glance.
“Sitting at my table, right now, drinking cups of tea, are a famous mega-star and a famous stunt director. Normally, that would only partly faze me. But after being tied up, escaping a fire on my dirt bike and capturing a crook, I have to admit I’m finding it all a bit difficult to deal with. Especially since Captain America just drove up in a Bugatti Veyron!”
Meeka sighed and put her hands on Logan’s shoulders.
“Calm down,” she said. “Now, repeat after me, nice and slowly: famous people are just normal people who everyone watches.”
He repeated it a couple of times while she nodded her approval.
“Now, about the Bugatti Veyron. Mum bought it for Dad for his birthday, but mostly Andrew drives it. He’s been Dad’s best friend for years, and since Dad’s away so much, he gets to play with it. So don’t stress about it. I don’t even like it. Mum’s is much better. It’s pink with yellow flowers painted all over it.”
“What!” Logan almost shouted.
Meeka laughed and thumped his chest. “You should see your face! Of course we don’t have two Bugatti Veyrons. Only the splendi-ciously rich people have two. So you see, we’re actually quite poor. You should be able to get along with us just fine.”
Logan stared at the ceiling, then at her smiling face. “I’ll remember that next time I run out of change at the school canteen.”
“Yuk, who needs canteen food when you’ve got microwave pies in your freezer? You sure are one lucky kid!”
Abby popped her head round the corner. “You two coming back? Andrew’s waiting for you before he’ll tell us what he was doing here tonight.”
“You right now, Cliffhanger?” Meeka asked. “Did I tie a knot in your rope in time to stop you slipping off?”
Logan laughed and put his arm round her shoulder. “Just in time, Captain Happy, just in time.”
*****
Andrew had grabbed a hot drink and was sitting down, cradling it in his hands.
“I rang you this morning, remember?” He turned to Lia. “Everything was fine, no problems, but I couldn’t shake this bad feeling I’d had for a couple of days. So I decided I’d take the Bug for a spin and check up on you. I figured we’d have a laugh about my bad feeling, maybe go out to dinner and then I’d drive home again. But as I got close to the lodge, I saw this big guy standing at the gate, searching for someone. He looked like he was hiding a weapon under his jacket, so I drove on by and turned off the road around the corner. I grabbed my gun and sneaked back to see what was going on.”
Andrew carried on, telling how he had seen Cole make a dash for it, then Nate and Poet get caught. He was obviously impressed with Cole’s fighting skills, but hadn’t wanted to make a move until he knew how many people he was dealing with, and where Meeka and her parents were. When Alex pointed his gun at Nate he had no choice. He shot the gun out of Alex’s hand and jumped into the room. The rest of the story they all knew.
After that, Andrew wanted to hear their stories for himself so they started over again. This time when Logan finished telling about the fire, Meeka came over and gave him a hug.
“Thanks for saving my life,” she said. Everyone else clapped and Logan went bright red in the face.
“The part I like best about it,” said Nate, “is your hair. Your head looks like a munched-up chessboard!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tuesday Morning
It was late when they finished talking. Cole moved into Poet’s room for the night, surrendering his room to Jason and Lia. Meeka shared their room—she couldn’t stop thinking about the fire.
In the middle of the night, Logan went searching for Nate and found him sitting in bed with Steve and Abby, talking about his ‘getting shot’ nightmare. Steve asked him if he was worrying about fires and he nodded sheepishly and crawled into their bed, too. First time he had ever done that. If it wasn’t so squashed it would have been better, but he was so tired he soon fell asleep.
When Poet turned up in their room at seven in the morning, Steve was dozing on the floor. Logan heard him suggest to Poet they make pancakes, and then they left.
He wanted to roll over and stretch out, but his mum was lying next to him. Wicked. He had a mum! She’d looked pretty distressed about the fire—he’d thought she’d never stop hugging him. His heart sang at the memory, so he shut his eyes and let it lull him to sleep.
Thirty minutes later Poet was back, pulling off the blankets and interrupting his dream about driving a Ferrari made of pancakes.
“Come on guys, if you don’t get down there soon, Jason and Andrew will gobble up all the breakfast,” she said.
*****
There was a lot of hanging around, waiting for the police to take everyone’s statements. Janet was there as well, listening to everything. She kept shaking her head and muttering, “How could Alex do this? I just can’t believe it.”
The police had found out from Jake and Alex that someone had discovered a wreck and enlisted the help and financial resources of a mafia-like gang in London to pay for its salvage, in exchange for a share of any treasure discovered. They’d never had any intention of informing the Receiver of Wrecks. Instead they were planning on using their European money-laundering connections to convert the gold bullion into cash.
The police had informed the Royal Navy about the salvage ship’s activities, and its captain and crew had been arrested.
The police told them Alex would be spending a number of years in prison, as would Logan’s father. Tying up children didn’t go down to well in a court of law, and neither did pointing a gun at kids.
That was too much for Janet. She stood up, tears streaming down her face and went outside. Abby followed to try and calm her down. Logan watched through the window as Janet hopped in her car and left, still distraught.
Logan walked outside to get some air. How was he supposed to feel about his father going to prison? It didn’t rock him like Alex’s arrest had rocked Janet. Mostly he was glad that he had a real home now—and a real family. He was sad about his father, but he couldn’t feel the black cloud trying to suffocate him anymore.
He saw Poet sitting in the Bugatti Veyron by herself and went to join her.
She was staring into space. “You could have died, Logan Seagate.”
“Maybe. I’m okay. Are you okay?”
She looked at him with tears brimming in her eyes. “I don’t want you to die.”
He stared at her for a few moments. “Are you crying for me?”
“Of course. What do you think I’m doing?”
“It’s just … I was wondering, if it were me, not Cole that got caught, would you have been so pig-headed about rescuing me?”
Poet took a deep breath. “Nate said something when we were in the tunnel. He told me he was my brother, too, and it was like I suddenly saw that he, and you, were as important to me as Cole. I don’t have one brother and two foster brothers; I have three real-deal brothers. So I think, yes, if it was you caught by those guys, I’d have been just as … determined.”
Logan leaned back to soak in what she said, along with the feeling of luxury exuding from the Bug.
She smiled at him, put her feet on the seat and hugged her legs. “But do you even want a sister? I’m nothing special, after all. I can’t even sleep through the night—it’s like I’m stuck on baby mode. Maybe you’d rather have Meeka as a long distance sister than me as an at-home one.”
“Poet, I’ve always wanted a sister, but I figured you were more Nate’s sister than mine. You two have been friends so long. But if you can put up with me being a pain, I can put up with you being annoying. You’d be a great sister for me—I can so get you in trouble. Meeka would leave anytime the heat came down. Much better to have someone always available to take the blame.”
Poet ricocheted his grin, before he added, “By the way, the seats in here are definitely a ‘No Foot’ zone. Just thought I should warn you before Andrew comes out.”
“I wonder what would happen if I put my dirty toes on the windscreen,” she said, lifting her feet.
“Whoa, I’m out of here. You live way too dangerously for me.”
Inside, the police were talking about who the ringleader could be, as none of the men taken into custody would say who it was. It had to be someone with access to old sea charts and maps.
“I know,” said Meeka. “It’s Mr Gomander.”
Cole rubbed his brow. “What? Why do you think that?”
“When I went to the bathroom at his house I played ‘Notice’ in one of his rooms. There was a white bucket like the ones in the van. It was against the wall, half hidden by this ugly rubbish bin in the shape of an elephant’s head. He had some interesting stuff in that room, including maps and old-looking papers.”
“Yeah, and he seemed to recognize the coins Cole showed him the other day,” Logan said.
“Plus Oscar and Zach almost stopped at his house instead of walking past,” Nate said. So he’d noticed that too. If only they’d talked about it.
“Maybe that’s why I was so tired.” Cole said. “I was the only one who drunk that juice remember? And then I couldn’t keep awake afterwards. Maybe Mr Gomander put something in my drink.”
Logan jumped up and paced the room. “He must have been trying to keep us away from the lodge, but then Nate told him we were going to be busy for the rest of the day, so he let us all go instead,” Logan said. “Lucky none of the rest of us drunk that stuff or who knows what he’d have done to us.”
