“No, Bunny. It’s not playtime,” they heard McCarthy say. Randi took a peek and saw that the dog had dropped a chew toy at McCarthy’s feet. “Okay. Maybe I’ll throw it once for you.”
He tossed the toy within a few feet of the spot where Randi and D.C. were hiding. Instead of fetching it, Bunny trotted over to greet her new friend, Randi.
“Bring it back, Bunny,” McCarthy called, but Bunny didn’t budge. She just kept sniffing at Randi and D.C.
“Go away, doggie,” D.C. whispered.
“Sssh,” Randi hissed.
McCarthy limped over to Bunny. “What’ve you found there, girl? D’you corner a squirrel? Find rabbit? Well, go get it, girl!” McCarthy chuckled like a proud father.
As he drew closer, Randi and D.C. crouched as low as they could to avoid being seen. Luckily, McCarthy stopped short.
“Come on, girl,” he said, and Bunny bounded back toward him. “You’ve had your fun, now it’s time for you to go in. Daddy’s got a lot of work to do.” McCarthy led Bunny inside the house.
“That was close,” D.C. wheezed, just as McCarthy returned and made his way across the yard to an old tobacco barn that sat at the edge of the property. As he walked the short distance, he kept checking over his shoulder to see if he was being followed. When he finally reached the barn, he gave one last look and went in.
“He’s definitely up to something. Did you see how he kept looking over his shoulder?” said Randi.
“That barn must be where he’s hiding the capsule!” D.C. whispered excitedly. “I can’t believe we didn’t check it out the first time we were here!”
The two crept to the barn’s entrance. Randi put her ear to the door to warn them of any sudden movement from inside. “What’s he doing?” D.C. whispered impatiently.
“I can’t hear anything.”
D.C. moved closer to Randi and put his ear to the door. “I can’t hear anything either,” he said almost sarcastically.
Randi pulled the latch to open the door a crack. The old hinges creaked loudly as Randi peeked inside. All she could see in the dim moonlight was a dirt floor and piles of junk. She opened the door wider, and both she and D.C. poked their heads in. There was no sign of McCarthy. They tiptoed inside.
“He’s not here!” Randi couldn’t believe it.
“But he has to be!” D.C. argued. “We never took our eyes off the door.”
The barn floor was littered with chicken coops, carrying crates, withered fishnets, and old canning jars. There was nothing large enough to hide a fully grown man. McCarthy had just disappeared!
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
* * *
THE SHADOW
Randi and D.C. wove around the junk piled on the floor of McCarthy’s barn.
“I still don’t understand how he got past us,” D.C. said.
“I’m stumped, too,” Randi admitted. “And there’s no sign of the time capsule in here, either.”
“Should we go check out his house?” D.C. asked.
“I suppose so,” Randi muttered, trying to figure out how Angus McCarthy had pulled off his vanishing act. It was the second time in less than a week that Randi had witnessed someone disappear. The first had been at the Rock Hollow cabin the day D.C. had kicked the “ghost.” She’d watched to see who came out, but according to Sheriff Ogle, the cabin had been empty.
Randi and D.C. were halfway across McCarthy’s yard when she stopped dead in her tracks. “That’s how he does it!” she exclaimed.
“Does what?” D.C. said.
Randi was glowing with excitement. “That’s how he disappears! There must be an underground passage between Angus’s barn and Toot’s cabin in Rock Hollow! They’re not all that far from each other—the Hollow’s just over the hill from here.”
“Which means . . .” D.C. was starting to put the pieces together, but Randi couldn’t wait.
“It means McCarthy just went to the cabin. Maybe that’s where he hid the capsule!”
~ ~ ~ ~
With the full moon now covered by clouds, the night turned murky. Randi and D.C. rode fast and hard down the dark road toward Rock Hollow without a word passing between them. A flash of lightning and a rumbling clap of thunder sent an already-shaky D.C. into a thicket of brambles. He hopped back on the bike and caught up to Randi. Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, screeched an owl, as if warning them both of the night’s dangers.
“What should we do when we find McCarthy?” D.C. asked.
“Make him give us the capsule,” Randi said. The wind picked up, and the trees showered them with leaves. “Looks like Mei-Ling was right. It’s going to storm.”
Randi stopped a few yards short of the cabin.
“Maybe we should hide our bikes under some brush,” she said. “We don’t want McCarthy to look out a window and see them.”
D.C. glanced nervously at the woods. The cabin spooked him, but the surrounding forest seemed to scare him silly. Suddenly he took a step backward and gasped. “There’s something out there!” he whispered.
“Out where?”
“In the woods! I swear I just saw a shadow peek out from behind a bush!”
“You’re imagining things,” Randi said, and her words seemed to summon a spirit. A tall, thin figure appeared between two trees.
“Hey!” the shadow shouted just as lightning illuminated the night sky. D.C. yelped and nearly jumped out of his sneakers. A thunderous boom drowned out his cry.
Randi assumed a combat stance. “Give us the capsule, McCarthy!” she ordered.
“Who?” the shadow asked. As it moved toward them, its features began to take shape.
“Pudge?” Randi asked. “What are you doing out here? It’s after midnight, and there’s about to be a thunderstorm.”
“My dad owns this land. What are you doing here—other than trespassing on my property?”
Randi and D.C. exchanged a glance. Pudge had saved her when she was trapped in Angus McCarthy’s house, so Randi reluctantly decided to trust him. “We’re looking for the missing time capsule.”
The kid checked an imaginary watch. “Little late for that, isn’t it? Wasn’t the deadline midnight? Why do you think it’s out here, anyway?”
“Because Angus McCarthy stole it,” D.C. said. “And he’s got a secret underground passage that goes from his house to the cabin. We saw him disappear into it, so that must mean he’s here—and the capsule might be with him.”
“A man came out of the cabin about five minutes ago and headed off into the woods,” Pudge said. “It was too dark to see his face. I guess it could have been old man McCarthy. I thought about following him until I caught a glimpse of his shotgun.”
“Angus McCarthy just went into the woods with a shotgun?” D.C. repeated. “That’s really weird.”
“Believe it or not, it seems pretty normal compared to the other stuff I’ve seen tonight,” Pudge informed them.
“What have you seen?”
Pudge hesitated, but he couldn’t seem to resist sharing his story. “My dad and I have been staying at that old River View Hotel. . . .”
“The one owned by the Dunkin family?” Randi asked, recalling her conversation with Kate Dunkin the day she and D.C. had rescued Pumpkin.
“Uh-huh. Right now the only guests besides us are those so-called Secret Service agents who’ve been hanging out in town.”
“So-called?”
Pudge nodded. “My dad used to be a colonel in the army, and it made him a stickler about his appearance. He still wakes up early every day to polish his shoes. The Secret Service is supposed to have a pretty tight dress code, but I saw a couple of the agents walking around with mud-covered hiking boots. That’s when I started to think there might be something strange about the guys. So I started watching them, and boy was I right.”
“What did you see?” Randi asked, feeling a little jealous. She should have been the one to pick up on the agents’ muddy boots.
“The first thing I noticed was that
they never seemed to be around in the afternoon or evening. You remember ever seeing them between about two and ten p.m.?”
“No,” Randi admitted.
“Yeah, that’s because they were sleeping.”
“Sleeping?” D.C. asked.
“I’m pretty sure that’s what they were doing, ’cause around eleven every night, they’d all cram into those SUVs. About ten minutes later, the cars would come back empty. Then at five or so in the morning, the SUVs would go get the agents and bring them back to the hotel.”
“Wow, you must have spent a lot of time on stakeout,” Randi said.
“What else is there to do in this town? Fish?”
“Good point,” Randi said.
“So where do you think the agents were going every night?” D.C. asked.
“Here,” Pudge replied.
“Here?” D.C. and Randi asked in unison.
“Yeah. I figured I’d tail them tonight. So I snuck out of my room after my dad went to sleep. I got on my bike and followed the SUVs here and saw them drop off the agents at the end of the drive. I had to wait a few minutes before I could go after them, and by the time I got down to the cabin, they were already gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Into the woods, I guess. Same place McCarthy must have been heading.”
A fat drop of rain hit Randi on the arm. She looked up at the sky and another landed in the center of her forehead.
“We should . . . ,” she’d started to say, when the clouds opened up above them. “Run!”
She and D.C. dumped their bikes in the woods, and the three kids sprinted to the shelter of Toot McCarthy’s old cabin.
They were sopping wet by the time they’d made it inside. Randi stood by one of the windows and watched the storm tear through the mountains. A million thoughts were bouncing around in her head.
“I don’t understand,” she said after a few minutes. “How could the Secret Service guys be impostors? How did they manage to fool everybody?”
“Even the mayor!” D.C. added.
“Is that who brought them to Deer Creek?” Pudge asked. “The mayor?”
“He’s the one who convinced the president to visit,” D.C. said. “The Secret Service guys were sent down to make sure everything was safe.”
“Unless . . . ,” Pudge started to say.
“Unless the mayor never really invited the president,” Randi filled in.
“I don’t get it,” D.C. said.
Randi’s face broke into a wide grin. “Hand me a flashlight, please.”
She squatted down and examined the floorboards where she and D.C. had found the dusty prints by the window. She ran a finger over the wood and dipped it in her mouth. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head.
“I should have known,” she said. “Remember the day I saw the ‘ghost’ standing here? There were little tiny ants all over the footprints. You know why they were there? Because the boots that left the prints were tracking honey.”
“Mayor Landers got covered in honey the day he got chased by Angus McCarthy’s skunk!” D.C. exclaimed.
“Which means the mayor was the person I saw standing in the window. He was the one who scared Pumpkin the cat.”
“So Mayor Landers lied about inviting the president to Deer Creek. He brought a bunch of fake Secret Service agents to town. They’ve been up to something way back in the woods. And the mayor’s been chasing a mica-covered cat. You want to tell me how all of that makes any sense?” D.C. asked.
Just then, a beam of light shot through one of the cabin’s windows.
“Turn off the flashlight!” Pudge shouted. “There’s a car coming down the drive.”
Once Randi’s flashlight was off, the three kids huddled together in the darkness of the cabin.
“Who do you think it is?” D.C. asked. “Do you think they saw our light?”
The car stopped just outside the cabin. Two men hopped out in the rain and sprinted right up to the cabin’s front door.
“Yep,” Randi said. “And they’re coming after us.”
The only place the kids could go was the kitchen. But once they were there, it seemed as though they’d reached a dead end. There was no back door—and no place to hide. Then D.C. tripped over an upturned floorboard.
“What was that?” he whispered as he regained his balance.
Randi bent down for a look. Then, with one quick movement, she seemed to lift up a whole patch of the floor.
“You found the entrance to McCarthy’s secret passage!” she whispered.
Pudge and D.C. hurried down a ladder that led into the darkness. Randi was the last one inside, and she closed the trapdoor seconds before they heard footsteps enter the room.
“I could have sworn someone was in here just now!” one of the voices said.
“Must have been the ghost,” the kids heard the other agent respond. “I’ve seen some strange things through the windows of this cabin, but every time I check it out, there’s nobody here.”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” the first voice sneered. “If you saw something in here, it was probably that fat cat or those troublemaking kids. Next time, you should drag the little brats out and take them back to the caves. There are places down there where no one would ever find them.”
Randi heard D.C. gasp.
“My pleasure,” the other agent responded with a laugh. “I wouldn’t even charge extra.”
“Now let’s go finish the project. The boss says if we hang out here much longer, people in town are going to start getting suspicious.”
They heard the two men’s footsteps head back through the kitchen. Along the way, one of them stepped directly on top of the trapdoor. Randi held her breath, hoping they wouldn’t discover the secret passage, and exhaled when the men kept right on walking. The kids below heard a faint click. As soon as the cabin was empty once more, Randi tried to lift up the trapdoor. A lock had caught, and they didn’t have the key that would open it. They were trapped.
* * *
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* * *
A DEADLY ATTACK
“We’ll just have to follow the passage and get out on the other end,” Randi said, climbing back down the ladder. “D.C., you got your flashlight?”
There was no answer.
“D.C.?” She dropped down to the bottom and switched on her own light. D.C. was standing against the wall, frantically searching through his pockets. “Did you drop it?” she asked before she realized he wasn’t looking for his flashlight. He was trying to find his inhaler.
“He can’t breathe,” Pudge said, sounding alarmed.
“He’s asthmatic! The stress has caused an attack!” Randi rushed into action, patting D.C. down. There was no sign of his inhaler.
“I . . . left . . . it . . . ,” D.C. said as he wheezed. His face was already turning blue. Randi grabbed her cell phone out of her backpack, but there was no reception in the passageway.
“Sit down,” Pudge ordered the other boy. D.C. slid down the wall, and Pudge crouched in front of him. “Now listen to me, okay?” he said calmly. “I want you to slow down. Breathe in very, very slowly. Good try. Now exhale just as slowly.”
D.C. was still struggling. Randi sat down on the ground next to Pudge. “Make your mind like water,” she said. “Be formless and shapeless like water. Now you put water into a cup. It becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle. It becomes the bottle.”
D.C. closed his eyes.
“Slowly, that’s right. Slowly inhale. Slowly exhale,” Pudge chanted. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. I have asthma, too.”
D.C.’s eyes popped back open. “You?” he said, wheezing again.
“Yeah, me,” Pudge said.
“Don’t stop concentrating,” Randi said. “Remember to keep your mind as still and shapeless as water.”
D.C. closed his eyes again. His breathing became slower and more regular, and the color gradually returned to his face. After a few mi
nutes, his head slumped forward.
“D.C.?” Randi asked. She reached out her hand to shake him, but Pudge caught her arm.
“He’s just sleeping,” he told her. “Let him get some rest. There’s nothing more exhausting than an asthma attack.”
Randi placed her backpack on the dirt floor and gently helped D.C. lie down with his head on top of it. Then she and Pudge sat with their backs to the wall, watching over the sleeping boy.
“You were great,” Randi whispered.
“You, too,” Pudge told her. “Where’d you get all of that stuff about making your mind water?”
“Bruce Lee.”
“Cool,” Pudge said. He picked up a flashlight and shined it around. “If I’d known this place had a secret passage, I wouldn’t have been so upset when my dad bought it.”
“You said he used to be a colonel in the army? When did he become a real estate developer?”
“What?” Pudge asked as if the question hadn’t made any sense. “My dad’s not a developer. He’s retired.”
“But what about the brochure you showed us? Isn’t he planning to turn Deer Creek into some kind of a resort?”
“My dad doesn’t have anything to do with the resort. An anonymous rich guy is building it, and Mr. Sutton is helping him buy up as much of the town as possible. He wants to turn Rock Hollow and the mountains behind it into an outdoor sports complex. So Mr. Sutton keeps trying to convince Angus McCarthy and my dad to sell their land.”
“I don’t get it,” Randi said. “You told us that the resort would be the best thing that could possibly happen to you.”
“Yeah, because if my dad decides to sell, it means I won’t have to live here! Now that my dad’s retired, he wants his kids to grow up in a small town like the one he was raised in. But I’ve been bored to death since I got here. I’ve even been wishing my little sisters had come along on the trip! At least then I’d have someone to argue with. There’s nothing to do in this town except spy on a bunch of fake Secret Service agents!”
Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit Page 11
