"I hope you know what you're doing," Ruth muttered unhappily as she followed me. "You know, they're probably overreacting with this whole Clay Larsson thing, but what if he really is, you know, out there, looking for you?"
I gave her a disgusted look over my shoulder before I dropped out the window. "Ruth," I said. "It's me you're talking to. You think I can't handle one little old wife-beater?"
"Well," Ruth said. "If you're going to put it that way …"
We slithered out the window as quietly as we could. Outside, except for a mysterious bright orange glow from the parking lot, it was dark. It wasn't as hot as it had been, thanks to the rain.
But everything, everything was wet. My sneakers, and the cuffs of my jeans, which had only just started to dry off, were soon soaked again. Drops of water fell down from the treetops every time a breeze stirred the leaves overhead. It was quite unpleasant … as Ruth did not hesitate to point out, at her first opportunity.
"My ankles itch," she whispered.
"No one said you had to come," I whispered back.
"Oh, sure," Ruth hissed. "Leave me behind to deal with the cops. Thanks a lot."
"If you're going to come with me, you have to quit complaining."
"Okay. Except that all of this rain is making my allergies act up."
I swear to you, sometimes I think it would be easier if I just didn't have a best friend.
We'd only gone about a dozen yards when we heard it—footsteps swiftly approaching us. I hissed at Ruth to put out her flashlight, but it turned out our caution had been for nothing, since it was only Scott and Dave, hurrying to join us.
"Hey," I said to them as they came trotting up. "Good job, you guys. They totally fell for it."
Scott ducked his head modestly. "You were right, Jess," he said. "Tampons do make good fuses."
I glanced at Ruth. "And you said detention was a waste of my time."
Ruth only shook her head. "The American public education system," she said, "was clearly not designed with ingrates like you in mind."
Dave glanced over his shoulder at the thick black smoke pouring from the parking lot into the night sky.
"Oh, I don't know," he said. He was panting, smudged with dirt, and covered in dead leaves and clearly exhilarated. I knew what he was thinking: Never, in his seventeen years of trumpet-playing, Dungeons-&-Dragon-dice-throwing geekdom, had he ever done anything so dangerous … and fun. "I was going to see if I could get extra credit for this from my chemistry teacher next semester. Lighting a van on fire with a Molotov cocktail has to be good for at least ten bonus points."
"You guys," Ruth said, "are insane."
Scott looked wounded. "Hey," he said. "We used appropriate caution. No children or animals were harmed in the execution of this prank."
"No law enforcement officials, either," Dave added.
"I am surrounded," Ruth murmured, "by lunatics."
"Enough already," I whispered. "Let's go."
We ended up not actually needing our flashlights to see our way around the lake. The storm had passed, leaving behind a sky that was mostly clear. A shiny new moon shone down on us—just a sliver, but it shed enough of a glow for us to see by, at least while there were no trees overhead to block its light—along with a light dusting of stars.
If I hadn't realized it before, from the allergy remark, I knew by the time we were halfway around the lake that bringing Ruth along had been a big mistake. She simply would not shut up … and not because she wanted the whole world to know about her itching, watery eyes, but because she wanted Scott to know how big and brave she thought he was, taking on the FBI all by himself … well, okay, with Dave's help, but still. I sincerely hoped I didn't sound like that when I talked to Rob—you know, all sugary sweet and babyish. I think if I did, Rob would have told me to knock it off already. I hoped so, anyway.
I don't know what Dave was thinking as we made our way along the shore. He was pretty quiet. It had been, I reflected, a big day for both him and Scott. I mean, they had gotten to meet a real live psychic, thwart some FBI agents, and blow up a van, all in one day. No wonder he wasn't very talkative. It was a lot to process.
I was having trouble processing some stuff of my own. The Rob thing, if you want the truth, bothered me a lot more than the whole thing where I managed to find a kid without catching forty winks first—especially considering the fact that I am a vital, independent woman who has no need of a man to make her feel whole. I mean, I said I'd call him, and he'd said don't? What kind of baloney was that? Is it my fault I have this very important career, and that sometimes I am forced to think first not of my own personal safety, but about the children? Couldn't he see that this wasn't about him, or even me, but a missing twelve-year-old, who, it's true, couldn't stop making fart jokes, but nevertheless didn't deserve to perish in the wilds of northern Indiana?
Of course, there was also the small matter of my having dragged poor Rob into all of this in the first place. I mean, he'd come all the way up here, and driven me all around Chicago, and helped me deal with Keely, just because I'd asked him to. And he hadn't expected anything at all in return. Not even a single lousy kiss.
And all he'd gotten for it was a pistol brandished at him by a member of the FBI.
I guess, when you took into account all of these facts, it wasn't any wonder he didn't want me to call him anymore.
But while this was perhaps the most personally troubling of the problems that were on my mind as we trudged toward Wolf Cave, it was by no means the only one. There was also, of course, the puzzling little matter of just how Dr. Alistair had found out about me. I didn't believe Pamela had told him. It was strange that he had known where I was that afternoon, when Pamela hadn't even known. I mean, I'm sure she suspected, but I hadn't discussed my plans concerning Keely Herzberg with her. I figured the less people who knew about it, the better.
So how had Dr. Alistair known?
Then the moonlight vanished as we moved from the lake's shore to the deeply wooded embankment where Wolf Cave was located. If I had thought the wet grass was bad, this was about ten times worse. The incline was really steep, and since it was mostly unused, there was no path to follow … just slick, wet ground cover, mostly mud and dead leaves. The others had no choice but to turn on their flashlights now, if we didn't want to break our necks tripping over some root, or something.
In spite of our efforts to approach the cave quietly, we must have made a considerable amount of noise—especially considering the fact that Ruth would not shut up about her stupid ankles. It was pretty quiet, that deep in the woods. There were crickets chirping, but for the first time since I'd arrived at the camp, no cicadas screamed. Maybe the rain had drowned them all.
So it couldn't have been all that hard for Shane to hear our approach.
Which might have explained why, when we finally reached the mouth of Wolf Cave—just a dark spot under an outcropping of boulders, jutting from the side of the steep hill we'd just climbed—there was no sign of Shane. . . .
Well, unless you count the candy wrappers and empty boxes of Fiddle Faddle that lined the narrow entrance.
I borrowed Ruth's flashlight and shined it into the cave—really, the mouth was surprisingly small … only three feet high and maybe two feet wide. I did not relish squeezing through it, let me tell you.
"Shane," I called. "Shane, come out of there. It's me, Jess. Shane, I know you're in there. You left all this Fiddle Faddle out here."
There was a sound from within the cave. It was the sound of someone crawling.
Only the sound was going away from us, not coming closer.
"Let's just leave him in there," Ruth suggested. "The little jerk completely deserves it."
Scott seemed sort of shocked by her callousness. "We can't do that," he said. "What if he gets lost in there?"