And now I was never going to get to.
So when Clay Larsson went, "Nightie-night, girlie," and raised his steel flashlight high in the air, I was more or less resigned to my death. Dying, I felt, would actually be a relief, as it would make the mind-numbing pain I felt in every inch of my body go away.
But then something happened that didn't make any sense at all. There was a thud, accompanied by a sickening, crunching noise—which I, as a veteran fistfighter, knew only too well was the sound of breaking bone—and then Clay Larsson's heavy body came slamming into mine again. . . .
Only this time, it appeared to be because the man was unconscious.
Suddenly recovering my mobility, I reached for his flashlight, which had fallen harmlessly to one side of my head, and shined it in the direction from which I'd heard the thudding sound. . . .
And there stood Shane, holding on to one end of the stalactite that had broken off from the cave ceiling, which he had clearly just swung, baseball-bat style, at Clay Larsson's head. . . .
And hit it out of the park.
Shane, looking down at Clay's limp, still form sprawled across my legs, dropped the stalactite, then glanced toward me.
I went, "Way to go, slugger."
Shane burst into tears.
C H A P T E R
17
"Well," I said. "What was I supposed to think? I mean, after that whole don't-call-me thing."
Rob, sounding—as usual—half-amused and half-disgusted with me, said, "I knew what you were after, Mastriani. You wanted to get rid of me so you could ditch the Feds and go after the little guy."
Shane—who was tucked into the bed beside mine in the Camp Wawasee infirmary, a thermometer in his mouth—made a noise that I suppose was meant to signal his objection to being called a little guy.
"Sorry," Rob said. "I meant little dude."
"Thank you," Shane said sarcastically.
"No talking," the nurse admonished him.
"And you were okay with that?" I asked Rob. "I mean, letting me ditch the Feds, and you, in order to go after Shane?"
I suppose it was kind of weird, the two of us working out our recent relationship difficulties while the camp nurse fussed over me and Shane. But what else were we supposed to talk about? My recent brush with death? The expressions Ruth, Scott, and Dave had worn when Shane and I, bruised and battered, crawled out of Wolf Cave and asked them to call the police? The look on Rob's face when he'd roared up a minute or so later and heard what had happened in his absence?
"Of course I wasn't okay with that." Rob paused while the nurse butted in to take my pulse. Seemingly pleased by the steadiness of its beat, she moved away to do the same to Shane.
"But what was I supposed to do, Mastriani?" Rob went on. "The guy pulled a gun on me. Not like I thought he'd shoot me, but it was clear nobody—most specifically you—wanted me around."
I said defensively, "That isn't true. I always want you around."
"Yeah, but only if I'll go along with whatever harebrained idea you've come up with. And let me tell you, going into a cave in the middle of the night with a killer on the loose? Not one I'd probably go for."
I said, "Well, it all turned out okay."
Rob snorted. "Oh, yeah. Shane?" He turned around and looked at the chubby-cheeked boy in the bed next door. "You agree with that? You think it all turned out okay?"
Shane nodded vigorously. Then, when the nurse reached down and took the thermometer from his mouth, he said, "I think it turned out great."
Rob snorted. "You didn't seem to think so when you first got out of that cave."
Well, that much was true, anyway. Shane had pretty much been in hysterics up until Special Agents Smith and Johnson arrived, along with the sheriff and his deputies, and put a still unconscious Clay Larsson under arrest. They had a hard time dragging him out of that cave, believe me, even using the wider side entrance he'd discovered.
"Yeah," Shane admitted. "But that was before the cops got there. I was afraid he was going to wake up and come after us again."
"After that whack you gave him?" Rob raised his eyebrows. "Never mind football, kid. You've got batting in your blood."
Shane flushed with pleasure at this praise. He had nothing but admiration for Rob, having recognized him as the guy from the story I'd told that first night, the one about the murdering car.
What's more, Rob had pretty much been the only one who'd kept his head in the wake of our crawling out of Wolf Cave. That week's worth of counselor training hadn't prepared Ruth, Scott, or Dave for dealing with a couple of victims of an attempted murder.
"You know, Mastriani," Rob went on, "you have more than just an anger-management problem. You are also the stubbornest damned person I've ever met. Once you get an idea into your head, nothing can make you change your mind. Not your friends. Not the FBI. And certainly not me." He added, "I used to have a dog a lot like you."
This seemed to me to be neither flattering nor very romantic, but Shane found it hilarious. He giggled.
"What happened?" Shane wanted to know. "To the dog that was like Jess?"
"Oh," Rob said. "He was convinced he could stop moving cars with his teeth, if he could just sink them into their tires. Eventually, he got run over."
"I am not," I declared, "a car-chasing dog. Okay? There is absolutely no parallel between me and a dog that's stupid enough to—"
I broke off, realizing with indignation that Rob was chuckling to himself. He was in a much better mood now than he'd been earlier, when he hadn't been sure I wasn't seriously injured. He'd had a lot to say, let me tell you, on the subject of my insisting on staying at Camp Wawasee in order to find Shane, and thus endangering not only my life, but, as it had ended up, a lot of other people's as well.
And, of course, he was right. I'd screwed up. I was willing to admit it.
But, hey, things had turned out all right in the end.
Well, for everybody but Clay Larsson.
"So," I couldn't help asking, "you're not mad at me?"
All he said in reply was, "I think I'll be able to get over it."
But for Rob, that was like admitting—I don't know. His undying love for me, or something. So while I lay there, waiting for the inevitable moment when the nurse was going to decide I was well enough for questioning, I perked up. Why, I thought to myself, I'm going into my junior year! Juniors at Ernie Pyle High are allowed to go to the prom. I could invite Rob, and then I'd get to see him in a tux after all … that is, if he'd go with me. It is kind of weird, I'll admit, to go to prom with a guy who's already graduated, and who knows, maybe if I ask him, he'll refuse. . . .
But by the time prom rolls around, I'll finally be seventeen, so how can he refuse? I mean, really? Resist me? I don't think so.
These happy thoughts were somewhat dampened by the fact that Shane was in the next bed making gagging noises over what he deemed our "mushiness"—though if you ask me, there'd been nothing mushy at all going on … at least, not by Cosmo standards. Or any other standards, really, that I could see.
It was at that moment that the nurse went, "Well, from the sound of it, you two are well enough to take on a few more visitors. And there are a lot of them out there. . . ."
And then the evening became a blur of relieved faces and pointed questions, which we answered according to the story we'd so carefully prepared, Rob and Ruth and Scott and Dave and me, while we'd been waiting for the cops to show up.
"So," Special Agent Johnson said, sinking into a seat close to the one Rob occupied. "Anything you'd like to add to your somewhat sketchy account of just what, exactly, happened out there tonight, Miss Mastriani?"
I pretended to think about it. "Well," I said. "Let me see. I remembered a ghost story I'd told about a cave, so I figured I'd check the one on the camp property for Shane, just in case, and while we were in there, that crazy Larsson guy tried to kill us, and Shane whacked him in the head with a stalactite. That's about it, I think."