Lu and Theo each took the card to examine it, but there was nothing more to see except the simple message.
“ ‘See you soon,’ ” I read again, as if it might make more sense the second time.
“So what’s in there?” Lu asked.
I knelt down and reached into the box to pull away the brown paper that was covering the contents. I can honestly say that I had no idea what I would find, not even with the definite ocean smell that drifted out. I didn’t think for a second that it would be something that was going to turn my world inside out. Again. The thought never entered my mind.
But it should have.
I pulled the brown paper away.
Theo gasped.
Lu let out a squeal of surprise.
I could only stare, trying to get my brain to unlock and come up with some kind of logical explanation for what I was seeing.
Theo fell to his knees and said, “It’s impossible.”
“No…no way,” Lu said, backing off as if being repelled by an invisible force field.
I didn’t pull it out of the box. I didn’t have to. There was no mistaking what it was. The scratches on its surface were proof. The smell too. I knew exactly what it was. What I didn’t know was how it got there.
We were staring at a World War II–era ammunition box. Green. Standard issue. The marks on its surface were from the chains we had fastened around it and locked tight before dumping it into the deep waters of the Long Island Sound. It was never supposed to be found, its contents never seen again.
Or so we had hoped.
But the box was here.
It was open.
And it was empty.
The Boggin had escaped.
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Oracle of Doom Page 20
