Ginny reached into her carpetbag. Whipped out the stainless steel signal mirror.
Before she could use it, she heard a gun explode.
The pistol ball smacked Ginny hard.
The silvery mirror fell from her hand with a clatter.
Ginny felt a searing pain in her chest as the world began to spin.
“Oh, my,” she squeaked.
And then she toppled to the floor.
As the old crone fell to her knees, Jack the Lantern threw back his head and cackled his lunatic laugh. Satan reared up on his hind legs and roared triumphantly.
“Away!” the masked highwayman cried. “Away!”
He tugged up on the reins hard. The horse wheeled right.
“Back to the crypt! Fly!”
He gave a swift kick, and with a jangle of stirrups, the horse broke into a full gallop.
Jack the Lantern would kidnap all the children crammed into the yellow carriage when it passed Haddam Hill.
He would demand a king’s ransom for their safe return.
And once he had the money?
He would slay them all so none could bear witness against him.
But he would slay Zachary Jennings first!
Zack was kneeling on the porch, holding Aunt Ginny’s hand.
“Don’t worry, dear,” she mumbled, a pained smile on her face. “It’s only a flesh wound.”
“The ambulance is on its way!” shouted Judy, who had called 911.
“Put this poultice on it,” said Hannah, pressing a moist mass of cloth and herbs on the bloody bullet hole.
Aunt Ginny winced. “Ouch. Not so much pressure, dear.”
“Hush,” said Aunt Sophie. “Save your strength.”
“Malik,” mumbled Zack.
“What?” said Judy.
Zack motioned for his mom to join him where the aunts couldn’t hear what they were talking about.
“What if, somehow, Jack the Lantern knows about the gold and the reward? What if Norman, somehow, told him? Malik will definitely be one of the kids he grabs first!”
“Run inside. You call Malik. I’ll call your dad. Hurry!”
“Hello?”
“Malik?”
“Hi, Zack. Everything okay?”
“Don’t go to school today.”
“Why not?”
“Norman Ickes may be coming to get you.”
“What?”
“Well, he’s not really Norman right now.”
“But …”
“Look, I gotta run. The ambulance is here.”
“Ambulance?”
“Yeah. Norman just shot Aunt Ginny. I’ll call you again when we’re at the hospital. Bye.”
Zack clicked off.
Malik stared at the phone.
Norman Ickes, his puzzle pal, had shot Zack’s elderly aunt?
Malik turned on the early-morning TV news.
“This just in,” said the reporter, “Norman Ickes strikes again. Moments ago, the local hardware-store clerk, wanted for yesterday’s robberies at Stansbury Stables and the Hi-Way 31 Eat and Run, appeared on horseback and shot an elderly woman who …”
Malik snapped off the TV.
Zack was right.
He needed to stay home from school today.
At Aunt Ginny’s request, Zack and Judy rode in the back of the ambulance with her and the paramedic who had bandaged her shoulder wound.
A police car carrying Aunts Hannah and Sophie was right behind them.
“Do I look like a scuba diver, Zack?” asked Aunt Ginny, her voice weak. She had an oxygen tube stuck up her nostrils.
Zack smiled. “Sort of.”
“Good. I always wanted to go scuba diving.”
“Ma’am?” said the paramedic, who was holding her wrist, checking her pulse. “You need to take it easy, okay?”
“Yes, dear. Of course.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Judy?”
“Yes?”
“Take my purse.” She gestured toward the bulging carpetbag.
“I’ll keep an eye on it for you.”
“No. You need to take my place.”
“But …”
“The circle must number three, Judy. You, Sophie, and Hannah.”
Judy nodded. She understood.
“Everything you need is in that bag.”
Aunt Ginny was wheezing now.
“Zack?” He had to lean down to hear her.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“This is why I tricked you and your friends into opening the black heart stone: I knew that I, and my sisters, would one day die, that our confinement spell would then be broken. The Icklebys would escape.… I ’m sorry … I …”
“Okay,” said Judy, touching Zack on his back. “Let Ginny rest, hon.”
Aunt Ginny closed her eyes.
Motion in the front of the ambulance caught Zack’s attention.
Grandpa Jim! Sitting in the passenger seat.
“Shhh,” he said. “Don’t let on you can see and hear me. Ginny and Judy can’t, because I don’t want them to.”
Zack budged his eyebrows up half a millimeter to ask Grandpa Jim what he was doing there.
“You’ve got to find that black heart stone, champ. You need to finish what Ginny started. Listen to what your mother told you.”
Zack still had no idea what Grandpa Jim was talking about.
“Remember everything she said. Everything!”
“Zack?” It was Judy.
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just worried about Aunt Ginny.”
“She’s very lucky,” said the paramedic. “The bullet went clean through her shoulder.”
Zack looked back to the front seat to check out Grandpa Jim’s reaction to the good news.
Only he was gone.
Leaving Zack to wonder: What had his mother said that could help him find the stone?
Azalea Torres was on the school bus, cramming for a science test.
That meant opening the textbook for the first time, checking out the chapter.
“Got it,” she muttered to herself. Yes, a photographic memory was a girl’s best friend. Right now, she knew more about solar and geothermal energy than even Malik Sherman!
The bus made its standard fart noises, swung out its squeaky red stop sign, and came to a halt at the corner where Malik boarded.
Only he wasn’t at the bus stop.
Three kids climbed aboard, but no Malik.
Maybe the big meeting of the Pettimore Trust down in New York City hadn’t gone so well.
Losing his big reward, which was supposed to cover all his mom’s medical bills, would be a total bummer. If that was what had happened, Azalea might need to go home sick today, too.
She’d ask Zack if he’d heard anything.
His stop was only two away.
Right after Haddam Hill and the totally creepy but totally cool cemetery.
Zack, Judy, Aunt Hannah, and Aunt Sophie sat in the emergency room waiting area.
It was nearly eight a.m.
A television suspended on a bracket was blaring the local news but nobody was paying much attention to it.
Judy was on her cell phone, talking with Zack’s dad. He would be on the next train home to North Chester.
“Come straight to the hospital,” Judy suggested. “Aunt Ginny will be here a while.… We will.… Love you, too.”
Judy closed her cell and glanced up at the TV.
“What’s that?”
She and Zack got up and walked closer to the monitor.
“That’s Ickes and Son,” said Zack. “The hardware store on Main Street.”
The TV showed a short man, his face sad and gray, standing next to a big guy with a shaved head and a tiny chin beard. The big guy was chewing gum, grinning, and waving at the camera.