Missing

by R. L. Stine

  “I already told Farraday,” I said.

  We pulled into the drive. “Call Farraday again,” Mark said, sounding a little desperate. “See if he’s done anything.”

  I ran into the house to call Farraday. I saw Mark heading out to the backyard. I knew what he was going to do—shoot arrows into the target until his arm was tired.

  I threw down my books and crept to the front stairs. I went halfway up, listening for any sounds that might reveal that Roger was home. Finally, I decided to take a more direct approach. “Roger—are you up there?” I shouted.

  No reply. Feeling relieved, I went to the kitchen phone to call Captain Farraday.

  I slammed the phone down in disgust when I realized that it was dead again. “Mark, the stupid phone is out again!” I shouted through the kitchen window.

  He didn’t hear me. Or at least he pretended not to hear me. He fired off another arrow, then another, staring intently, never taking his eyes from the target.

  A few minutes later, I went out back. Mark was just firing off the last arrow in the quiver. “Feel better?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied, frowning.

  We drove to the mall and shared a pizza for dinner. Neither of us felt much like talking. Afterward, we glumly stepped out into the cold, blustery night. The air was heavy and wet. It felt as if it might snow.

  We were halfway home when I remembered something that changed everything.

  “Wally,” I said.

  Mark, driving with one hand, kept his eyes on the road. “Huh? What did you say?”

  “Wally.”

  He looked annoyed. “That’s what I thought you said. Is there more to that sentence?”

  “I don’t know his last name,” I said, my mind desperately searching for it. I was excited. I knew I had just remembered something very important. Now, if I could just calm down enough to think clearly and remember…

  “Wally who? You mean on Leave It to Beaver?” Mark turned onto Fear Street, and it suddenly became much darker. The streetlights were still out.

  “No. I mean Mom and Dad’s friend. Wally Wilburn!”

  Even in the pitch black I could see Mark’s mouth drop open. “From work! That guy who called a lot and invited them to go bowling. You’re right, Cara! Wally Wilburn. That’s his name.”

  He roared up the drive and stopped with a loud squeal. “We’ll get their phone book. I’ll bet they wrote his phone number in their phone book.”

  We both slammed car doors and went running into the house. “This guy Wally—he can prove they worked at Cranford Industries,” I said. “And once we’ve proven that, we can…” I stopped. I didn’t know what the next step would be.

  “Let’s just talk to Wally,” Mark said.

  We ran into the kitchen, and Mark grabbed the little phone book. “Let’s see.…” Mark squinted up his face. His finger moved down the ruled pages of the little phone book. “Here it is. Wally Wilburn.”

  “Where does he live?”

  Mark’s face fell. “Just a phone number. No address.”

  I picked up the phone. Still dead. “No problem,” I said. “Let’s find the area phone book. His address is bound to be in there.”

  “Unless he has an unlisted number,” Mark said dejectedly.

  “Mr. Pessimist. You sure give up easily,” I said, pulling the big phone directory off the shelf and turning to the back. It only took me a few seconds to find the listing for W. Wilburn. “He lives at Two Thirty-one Plum Ridge.”

  “Where’s that? Never heard of it.”

  I had to laugh. “Mark, you’d make a lousy detective.”

  “I never said I wanted to be a detective,” he grumbled.

  I found the area map in the front of the book. Plum Ridge Road was in the next town, about halfway between our house and Cranford Industries. “Come on. Let’s go.” I pulled him to the back door. “I know how to find it.”

  “Wally Wilburn,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Maybe Wally will help clear up this whole mystery.”

  It was about a twenty-minute drive to Waynesbridge, the next town. When we reached the outskirts, endless, depressing housing developments of identical, boxlike houses stretching over low hills, I turned off the car radio and began to read street signs.

  “What are we going to say to this guy?” Mark asked, suddenly sounding worried.

  “Well, I don’t think we should come right out and tell him our parents have been missing for three days,” I said. “We should let him tell us what he knows first. If we come on too strong, we might scare him or something.”

  “Yeah. That’s smart,” Mark agreed.

  “Let me do the talking,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Plum Ridge,” I said, reading the sign. “That was easy. Turn right.”

  “Can you read the numbers?” Mark asked, slowing down nearly to a stop.

  “Yeah. They’re above the front doors. Keep going. It should be in the next block.”

  Sure enough, the Wilburn house was on the next corner. There was a Ford Mustang in the drive, so we parked on the street and walked up the narrow concrete walk. The air smelled of fresh dirt and fertilizer.

  I could hear voices and music from a TV as we stepped onto the front stoop. I knocked loudly, then found the doorbell and rang it. The TV voices stopped abruptly and I heard footsteps, and then the front door was pulled open by a middle-aged man.

  “What are you selling?” he asked. He had a pleasant voice and a very friendly smile beneath a bushy black mustache. He was nearly bald, I saw, except for a thick fringe of black hair around his ears.

  “Mr. Wilburn?” I asked, suddenly wondering just what I was going to say.

  “You’ve come to the right place. That just happens to be me. But most folks call me Wally. And who might you be? I haven’t seen you around the neighborhood.”

  “No. We live in Shadyside,” Mark said, sounding nervous.

  I thought we’d agreed that I would do the talking. I hoped Mark wasn’t going to blow it now.

  “Well, you’ve come pretty far to sell raffle tickets.” Wally chuckled. He seemed to find himself very amusing.

  “No. We’re not selling anything. I’m Cara Burroughs, and this is my brother, Mark.”

  “Burroughs?” He recognized the name immediately. He pushed open the storm door. “Are you Greg and Lucy’s kids?”

  Mark and I both nodded.

  “Well, how are your parents? Where are they? I haven’t seen them at work this week.”

  “You haven’t?” Mark blurted out.

  “No. They needed me in the C division, so I’ve been down in the subbasement all week. Haven’t picked my head up once. Do your parents miss me?”

  Mark and I didn’t know how to answer. So I plunged ahead and changed the subject. “We were visiting a friend near here,” I said, trying to make it sound believable, “and we stopped here to use your phone, if we could. We forgot to call Mom and Dad. I think they’re still at work.”

  “At this hour?” Wally looked at his watch. “Fanatics.” He chuckled. “Good people. But fanatics.”

  A very thin woman with wavy blond hair walked into the room, surprised to see visitors. She wore faded jeans and a black-and-red Grateful Dead T-shirt. “Hi, hon. These are Greg and Lucy’s kids,” Wally said. “This is my better half, Margie.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Mark and I said in unison. We both looked at each other uneasily.

  “Well, hi,” Margie said, giving us a warm smile. “Did you bring your parents?”

  “No. They just stopped by to call them,” Wally told her.

  “Do you have their direct line?” I asked him. “Mark and I haven’t memorized it yet.”

  “No problem.” Wally bounced over to a side table and pawed quickly through a stack of magazines and papers. “I work at home sometimes, so I brought a company directory home. Here you go.”

  He pulled out a stapled directory with a bright yellow cover. I looked quickly at the fro
nt. It read: CRANFORD INDUSTRIES PHONE DIRECTORY.

  I hoped the Wilburns didn’t notice how my hands were trembling as I found the Bs and then searched for my parents’ names. There they were, followed by their phone extension.

  So. The guy at Cranford, Mr. Marcus, had lied to us. Our parents did work at Cranford, just as they had told us. The proof was in our hands. Now we could go to Captain Farraday and tell him to get the truth out of the Marcus character.

  I held the book up and showed the listing to Mark, who was standing beside me with his mouth hanging open. I debated whether or not to ask Wally to let us borrow the directory. But I decided that might arouse his suspicions. Besides, we had seen it. And the book was always here if Farraday needed to see it, too.

  “Well, thank you very much,” I said, handing the directory back and then heading to the door.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Mark repeated. We were both eager to get out of there.

  “Uh… aren’t you forgetting something?” Wally asked, looking very amused. We both looked at him blankly. “The phone call. You were going to make a phone call.”

  “Oh. Right!” How embarrassing.

  We went through the motions. I dialed my parents’ direct line and let it ring several times. “No answer. They must be on their way home,” I told Wally.

  It took us a few more minutes of thank-yous and nice-to-meet-yous to get out the door. “He must think we’re pretty weird,” Mark said, sliding behind the steering wheel.

  “I don’t care,” I said. “We just proved that our parents didn’t lie to us. They did work at Cranford.”

  “Did that receptionist at Cranford lie to us?”

  “No,” I said. “Mom and Dad’s names definitely weren’t on her computer screen. It only takes a second to delete a name from a computer file. But that big shot Marcus did lie.”

  “Why would he do that?” Mark asked, pulling away from the curb.

  “I don’t know. But the police will help us find out,” I said, feeling very excited about our detective work. “Let’s go find Captain Farraday. We’ve got a lot to tell him!”

  The twenty-minute drive back to Shadyside seemed to take forever. Back on the Mill Road, Mark suddenly turned down Fear Street. “Let’s go home just for a second,” he said. “Maybe Farraday left a message on the answering machine or something.”

  “Sure. Good idea,” I agreed.

  “Oh, no. Cara, look—”

  I followed Mark’s eyes. The gray van was parked a block from our house.

  “It’s back,” Mark said, speeding past it. I couldn’t see if Murdoch was inside it or not.

  We pulled up the drive. “That’s strange,” I said. “Some of the upstairs lights are on. I didn’t turn those on.”

  “Neither did I,” Mark said warily. “Let’s see what’s going on. Maybe it’s Roger.”

  We crept in through the back door. I closed it quietly behind us. Then we walked to the front steps. “Hey, Roger? You home?” I called.

  We climbed the stairs. The lights up to the attic had been turned on. “Hey, Roger! You up there?”

  Silence.

  “Did he turn on all the lights and then leave?” Mark asked.

  “He’s never done that before,” I said. “Let’s go upstairs and check out his room.”

  I led the way. The stairs groaned and squeaked loudly beneath us. “Roger? Roger?”

  The light was on in his room. The door was half-open. It was about twenty degrees warmer up here. I pushed the door open wider and walked in. Since I was the first one in the room, I was the first one to see Roger.

  I wanted to scream, but no sound came out of my mouth.

  I thought I was going to faint. Everything went white for a second or two. Then the colors returned.

  And there was Roger sitting at his desk, slumped forward, his head facedown, his arms hanging at his sides, hands down on the floor. An arrow was stuck in his back just below his neck. His shirt was soaked with dark red blood.

  I took a step to the side so that Mark could get into the small room. My sneakers squished on the carpet. I looked down to see why. Roger’s blood had soaked the rug. I was standing in it.

  “Oh, no! I don’t believe it!” Mark cried. He put an arm around my shoulder, more to hold himself up than to comfort me. My legs were trembling. My heart was pounding like crazy.

  There were arrows scattered across the blood-soaked rug.

  “He—he’s dead,” Mark cried. “But why?”

  Suddenly, the door to the room swung in, bumping Mark and me hard. Farraday stepped in front of us. He had been hiding behind the door the whole time.

  “Oh!” I cried out.

  Farraday was holding Mark’s bow. He blocked the doorway and glared at Mark accusingly. “This your weapon, son?” he growled. “Why’d you kill him?”

  CHAPTER 21

  I stared at Cara and my mind just went blank. At first I thought maybe Farraday was kidding.

  But when he didn’t take his eyes off my face, just stared at me, holding up my bow like that, I realized he was serious. He was accusing me of killing Roger!

  “Now, wait a minute—” I started. My knees felt weak. The tiny room was tilting, first one way then the other. I looked down. My sneakers were soaked with Roger’s blood.

  Farraday put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t say anything, son. First I have to read you your rights.”

  I saw his lips moving, but I couldn’t hear a word he said. I guess I was in some kind of shock.

  “Mark didn’t kill Roger!” Cara’s angry voice burst into my thoughts. “That’s crazy!”

  “She’s right!” I cried, finally finding my voice. “I didn’t kill him. No way! Why would I kill him?”

  Farraday kept his hand on my shoulder. He tossed down the bow. “Easy now. Take it easy,” he said softly. He started to guide me out of the room. “Let’s all just stay calm. A murder has been committed here.” He stared at Cara as if trying to read some answers in her eyes. “A murder has been committed with Mark’s weapon, and—”

  “It’s not a weapon!” I cried. I didn’t recognize my own voice. It sounded so frightened, so strained.

  “Let’s go downstairs. We’ll sit down and discuss this calmly,” Farraday said. He kept his hand on my shoulder as if guiding me, and followed us down the stairs.

  I can’t describe what I was thinking as I entered the living room. My thoughts were just a wild jumble. Nothing made any sense. Was Roger really dead? Was he killed by my bow and arrow? Who would have done it? Were they trying to make it look as if I did it?

  Cara and I were about to sit down on the couch when we saw the living-room door swing open. Murdoch burst in, a pistol in his hand.

  He stared in surprise at Farraday. “Who the hell are you?” he cried. “Everybody against the wall! Move!” He was waving his pistol.

  “That’s him!” Cara screamed. “That’s the one who was meeting with Roger!”

  Farraday drew a pistol and fired three shots. All three of them hit Murdoch in the chest. His eyes rolled up, he uttered a voiceless cry, and his knees buckled. He fell face forward onto the hallway tiles.

  “Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Cara covered her face with her hands.

  Farraday moved forward quickly and put a comforting arm around her shoulder. “It’s okay now,” he said softly. “It’s okay now.”

  I was feeling pretty weird. The floor seemed to tilt and roll. Two dead men. Two. Right in our house. Two people killed. The blood… so much blood…

  Before I realized it, Farraday had an arm around me, too. He was leading Cara and me back to the living-room couch. “It’s okay now,” he kept repeating softly.

  Cara and I sat on opposite ends of the couch. Cara still covered her face. I looked up at Farraday. The room was still tilting crazily. I kept hearing the gunshots again and again, kept seeing Murdoch let out that silent cry and tumble down to the floor.

  “You two sit still and get yourselves together,” Farraday said so
ftly. He scratched the side of his face, then replaced the pistol in his holster.

  He walked back over to Murdoch, rolled him over onto his back, squatted down low beside the body, and stared into his face. “So you saw this guy with Roger?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Cara said, looking down at the floor. “I saw them together.”

  “Now maybe we can start to piece this all together and find out what they did to your parents,” Farraday said. He groaned loudly as he climbed to his feet.

  He picked up the phone on the desk. “I’m just going to call for backups,” he said. “My guys’ll be here before you know it. They’ll clean everything up. Don’t move. Just take deep breaths and try to get calm. I didn’t figure you for a killer, son.”

  He walked over to the phone on the desk and dialed the police station. “Yeah, Schmidt. It’s me. I’m on Fear Street. Right. Burroughs. Need some help here. I’ve got two down. Too late for the ambulance. Yeah. Yeah. Bring ’em. And tell ’em to step on it, okay? Right.”

  He replaced the receiver and walked back over to us. He looked eight feet tall standing right above us. Cara was sitting with her hands tightly knotted in her lap. I was just trying to keep the room steady.

  “You kids have been through a bad time,” Farraday said, looking down at us. “But the worst is over. I think we’re going to get to the bottom of things now. How are you feeling?”

  “Pretty bad,” Cara said. “I’ve never seen anyone… dead before.”

  I got up unsteadily, holding on to the side of the couch.

  “Where are you going, Mark?” Farraday asked, helping me up.

  “Just into the kitchen. My mouth is so dry. I just want to get a drink of water.”

  “Yeah. Bring me one, too,” Cara said.

  “Okay, go ahead,” Farraday said. “But get back here. I still have a lot of questions to ask you two.”

  As I headed to the kitchen, I saw Farraday go over to the front window and look out. “What’s keeping my guys?” I heard him ask.

  I walked into the kitchen and was crossing to the sink when I noticed something that sent an icy chill down my back. I stopped. I stared at it. I blinked, trying to change it. But it wouldn’t change.