The next morning Gem opened her eyes then slammed them shut again. She didn't want to be awake. She hated mornings at the best of times, but today her body fought wakefulness with everything it had. She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow.
Misty. She bolted upright and groaned. Everything ached. Grabbing her housecoat, she headed down to the kitchen. Mark, Reid and Doris were all there. "Any news on Misty?"
Doris offered a tired but valiant smile. "She's reacted to the drugs in a bad way. She's going to be okay, but it's a good thing you found her when you did. And I doubt that she's going to be released today or tomorrow."
"Oh, wow. That's scary." And it was. Then again, as much as she hated the thought of Misty still suffering, she might be safer in the hospital than here. And was it safe for any of them here if people were searching their rooms and taking belongings?
"Why the frown? Everything's good." Mark seemed to love to tease her. Then again, he teased everyone. She never knew how to take his remarks. Neither did she know how he regarded her. It occurred to her that the sheriff should have asked her about the possibility that Mark kidnapped Misty. Mark was big enough. She knew he'd had nothing to do with it, but they hadn't even put two and two together and gone there.
Mark didn't have that kind of behavior in him. In another life, where juvie didn't play a part in creating their character, he'd have made a great teddy bear. Gem rolled her stiff neck. What a crappy night.
"Get some coffee. It might make you feel a little more human this morning," Mark suggested.
"Might?" She poured coffee and sat down. The house was quiet for this time of day. She glanced at the clock. It was only seven am. After noting the sleepy looks on the faces around her, she stood up and excused herself to return to her room.
She dressed while her laptop booted up then checked her photos again to make sure they were still there. She brought them up on the screen, one at a time, using her generic imaging program. She enlarged and cropped, then enlarged again. She split each picture into eight pictures and enlarged each to the point they showed details she wouldn't see otherwise. As she made each one full screen, she used the magnifying tool and went over them inch by inch.
The only interesting picture was of Dumpty holding a tube or small kit of some kind. Chemicals? Water treatment stuff? Who knew? But the pictures were so blurry she didn't see anything new.
Were the men allowed to be there with that stuff? And why would they care if they'd been seen? Or had they kidnapped Misty for an entirely different reason? Maybe they were just tying up loose ends – as a precaution, so to speak.
A knock sounded on her door. Gem turned around. "Come in."
The door opened and Mark walked in. "Hey. How are you today?"
"Now that I know Misty's safe…" She shrugged. "Fine, I guess. You?"
"Tired, but otherwise okay." He leaned against the window sill. "My room was searched. Was yours?"
"Yes," she said, so angry it came out in a hiss. "My flash drive is missing. The one with all the photos I took out there last night."
"What?" He straightened. "Are you sure? Did you check everywhere? What about the USB port in the laptop? The camera case? Maybe it's loose somewhere in your room?"
"I've checked everywhere. Not only did they take that but they deleted all the photos in my desktop folder."
He stared at her, his shock clear on his face. "Are you serious? It's one thing to lift a card or flash drive but another thing altogether to turn on someone's laptop, check it over and delete stuff."
"I know. The folder isn't even there," she explained.
"How many pictures did you lose?"
"None that were important." She gave him an evil grin. "I always do a new folder when I download the card. Then sort them and only keep the ones I want. Then I send a backup by emailing them to myself. The creeps didn't find those."
"Shit. Let me see them."
"That's what I'm working on. Here." She showed him the line of thumbnail images open at the bottom of her screen. "I've just gone through them all. This one is the most interesting."
Standing at the bedroom window, she studied the terrain outside. Last night's fiasco had started over the right side of the property, back by an old tree. She should check it out in daylight. She glanced at Mark.
"Well, go get yourself a pop or something and let me look." Already consumed with the project, he sat down in her chair and bent closer to the monitor.
“I could use some fresh air,” she said. "Why don't we go take a look in a bit? It's morning. You never know what we might find in the light of day."
Only their walk never happened.
John was also keeping everyone close to home, and so far, had stymied both Mark's and Gem's attempts to get outside. They didn't want to push it with John, nor did they want to cross any other lines right now. Too much was at stake.
By afternoon a maudlin gloominess had overtaken the home. They'd had news that Misty was continuing to experience severe nausea from drugs she'd been given, so she wasn't going to be released any time soon. Hadn't even been able to talk to the police although she had managed to say she didn't remember anything of what happened to her.
That pissed Gem off. She wanted Misty back to normal and back here where she could ask her what the hell happened. If Misty didn't remember anything, Gem wanted to hear it straight from her.
Reid was researching but hadn't been able to find out anything on the three men – yet. No surprise there. However, he had found and downloaded an older trial version of a better imaging program, allowing Gem to manipulate the photos for more clarity. With it, she could see the canister better, but it still wasn't clear enough to make out any lettering or symbols. They could tell the Ford pickup was dark green. That was the extent of the useful details.
Mark had given Reid the information he'd pulled off the car. But so far, Reid hadn't any luck getting more information.
So she had nothing concrete. The one profile picture she had looked like Dumpty – but she couldn't be sure.
Would they have left anything behind? She was itching to find out. Considering there'd been a new lock on the pump house, they might have even stashed stuff in there then removed it when they dumped Misty. She glared at the open window. She wanted to get out. It was so dark last night she might have missed tons of stuff.
Gemma pondered the problem as she finished wiping the counters. Then she vacuumed the floors. Right now would be a perfect time to go look. She'd finish the housework first then maybe they'd be allowed a couple of hours of free time. Mark was cleaning windows and Reid was scrubbing the kitchen floor. She hadn't seen Stephen but he was probably helping with the laundry. Everyone was on their best behavior.
They had to make sure that what happened to Misty didn't happen again. And they needed to know who did it and why…
Opening the closet, she stored the vacuum away for another week and headed back into the kitchen. Doris sat cradling an empty coffee cup at the table, John at her side. Giving them a closer look, Gem realized how tired and worn-out they both appeared, obviously from more than just a bad night. Maybe they'd taken some serious flack over Misty's kidnapping.
Misgivings fluttered through her belly. Surely, not? Misty had been found, safe…but even she knew it had been a close call – too close.
Then, who knew what the sheriff had said to John and Doris?
"Hi, the vacuuming is done." She walked over to the sink and filled a clean glass with cold water. She smiled at the two of them. "Mark is almost done the windows too."
"Thank you, Gem." Doris smiled, her face brightening. "You've been a big help today. We both appreciate it."
"Last night was enough trouble for a long time. You two don't need more right now."
They nodded. "The police said they might come back this afternoon for further questions. I need you to be ready to talk to them," John said, slumping back into his chair.
"No problem." She stared out the window, hating the clenching in her gut at the thought of more cops. "Considering that, any problems with us going out for a walk? The sun is out and it would be nice to have a chance to enjoy it before the weather changes."
"Sure. Please, stay close and take your phones with you."
Smiling, Gem headed to find the others. Stephen elected to stay behind.
"What?" Mark said a few minutes later as they walked through the house. "They actually said we could all go?"
"More or less. I think they’re afraid I might get kidnapped, like Misty, if I go alone."
Reid grinned. "You're too big and too heavy. They'd need two men to take you down and you'd cause a hell of a raucous before going gently into the night."
There was no point arguing or being affronted by that comment. He was right. This wasn't the time to wish she could be a tiny doll. Being as big as she was might be what saved her last night.
Outside, she couldn't help lifting her face toward the sun to enjoy the warmth on her face. At the edge of the front yard, they automatically turned in the direction of the pump house.
Once out of sight of the house, Gem asked the question that had been bothering her since last night, "All joking aside, why did they grab Misty and not me?"
"I wondered about that. Your bedroom is on the side of the house and higher off the ground. It would’ve been harder for them to access your room. Maybe they didn't think they'd be able to get to you. Maybe they saw you climb in Misty's window… With the house built into a hill, from the back Misty's bedroom is ground level."
"Which brings up another question, why bother coming to the house after snatching Misty? It's not like they could grab me at the same time." Gem studied a car coming down the road. She relaxed when she recognized a neighbor from the end of their road. She really didn't want to see any authorities right now.
"True. But consider this – they now know what rooms we all sleep in," Reid said. "And they know how many of us are there."
Yuck. That was a consideration Gem didn't want to dwell on. "I'm afraid John and Doris are going be in trouble over this."
Reid nodded. "Creepers might try to use it as an excuse to close this project down once he hears about this. Especially if it reflects badly on him. You know him."
Gem shook her head. "That's not fair. It's not John's fault."
"Which won't matter to Creepers."
"Ah, that's your cynicism showing. Besides, he started this project. Why would he get rid of it? I know he wants to retire – you'd think he'd be happy to walk away." Although Gem privately agreed, she held off allowing that same bitterness to apply to everyone. There was no comparison between her disrupted and lonely past and Mark's. His circumstances had been brutal.
He'd been abused both physically and mentally for years, then was in a series of difficult foster homes, followed by gang affiliations that led to his first stint in juvie when he was only fifteen.
At least he was alive. If he hadn't been arrested, and he'd stayed with the gang, chances were he'd be a forgotten memory by now.
"The bottom line is we can't have anything else negatively impact on John and Doris,” Gem said. “Otherwise we're liable to get shipped back and the home closed. Personally, I'd like to stay here." Love to stay actually.
"Anyone get a feel for local law enforcement?"
Gem grinned at Reid's question. How typical of the kids she knew.
"Honestly, I couldn't get a handle on the sheriff. There's a whole lot of small town cop to him, but his eyes were damn sharp," she said.
"I hear you. The young deputy seemed all right, you know. I heard the big deputy call him Barry. Only Barry wasn't much older than we are."
"And in some ways, he seemed much younger than any of us,” Mark added. “He's either new or a summer hire."
Reid nodded. "That too."
The three slowed to a stop as they surveyed the area off to their left. "What do you think?" Gem asked. "Here, or down a bit?"
"I think the old pump house is down past that huge oak, another hundred yards or so, but if we go in here we might be able to find the truck tracks," Mark said. "See if we can find any sign of what the guys had with them or why they were here."
"Damn. I should have printed those pictures off."
Reid grinned. "Not a problem." He pulled out several folded pieces of paper from his back pocket. "Mark told me about them so I did it."
Gem rolled her eyes at Mark. "So that's what you did after you left my room. I couldn't figure out where you went."
"I wanted to get them printed off just in case." He tossed her a half serious and half joking grin.
The three of them knew all too well how hard it was to keep possessions. Mark had been moved from foster home to foster home so often, he'd ended up refusing to pack the last few times. That meant most of his stuff had either ended up spread across the countryside or passed on to the next kid. Gemma had gone the opposite direction. She had so little, she kept a close watch on what she did have.
"That's not funny."
"Neither is your flash drive. Have you got enough money to buy a new one?"
She shook her head, a frown forming. "I don't think so. I bought that one in a huge clearance sale as it was."
"And I loaned you five bucks so you could get it then."
They all worked around the home to earn pocket change, but that's all it amounted to. The regulations said they had to live there for six months, trouble free, before they'd be allowed to find jobs in the community. They'd wondered whether the community had been the ones to install that rule. It would give the local business a chance to see how much of a nuisance they would be, before hiring them.
"Next month I'm going to try at the Safeway." Mark grinned. "Maybe I can stock shelves."
"You'll be a bag boy most likely. I thought to try the fast food joints. Maybe, I can get free meals." Reid, at close to six feet was hollow down to his big toe.
"Doris would appreciate that," teased Gem. "I don't know where I want to apply. Too bad I can't work at the Sheriff's Office."
"What good would that do you?"
"I don't know. Solving crimes might be fun."
Mark poked her. "Uh uh. No way are they going to let you work there. The only thing you'd be able to do is pick up coffee."
"Don't forget the donuts."
They all laughed at the cliché.
"Although, none of the sheriff's group are overweight – not like the cops on TV." Gem said, thoughtfully.
"That's because those aren't real cops," Mark said. "Besides, the ones we saw were younger. They haven't had enough time to pack it on their butts yet."
Reid snickered. "The older deputy looked like a boozer. Did you see his red nose? Then they probably all are. Not too much else to do in a small town."
Their lighthearted banter came to an abrupt halt as they came upon crime scene ribbons spanning the trees and bushes around the old pump house.
The place was deserted.
"Now what?"
Reid, the more serious of them, stepped forward, frowning. "Shouldn't there be someone guarding the spot?"
"Why bother?" Gem said. "So much damage was done last night, I'm surprised they even bothered to put up the tape."
Mark wandered around the large marked circle. "Do we go in?"
Gem hesitated. "I don't want to do anything that will tarnish Doris or John's reputation. We'd go inside, in a heartbeat, if we only had to consider us. Not that we'd do any damage…"
"I hear you." Mark turned back toward the bush. "Let's look for the location that's shown in the pictures."
Gem followed behind, but let Reid take the rear position along the narrow path.
"Everything was pretty crazy last night," Gem said. "I don't know about you, but I covered a lot of ground. It all looked so different then."
They walked in silence. Gem pointed out the broken branches and churned pathways that revealed the various wild dashes made through the night. They stopped at the clearing that was close to the creek. Reid pulled out the photos again.
"It looks different in the pictures."
After walking another few feet, she pointed. "There's the one tree from the picture." With a male on either side of her, Gem moved forward until they stood in the clearing in the photo.
"It looks bigger in the picture." Mark stuffed his hands in his pockets and wandered throughout the open space.
"That's because it was bigger." She frowned. "At least I thought it was too."
"That's what happens in the weird half light when the sun goes down and darkness falls," Reid said.
"Let me see the photo." Taking it from Reid she positioned herself so she could see the exact alignment of space and vegetation shown on paper. "Okay, so I'm standing in the right place – right where the vehicle was."
"Which is obviously not here now." Mark fisted his hands on his hips and stared at the spot where she pointed. He walked forward several feet while the other two watched. He crouched down, motioning to the flattened grass. "It sat here. And you can see from the damage to the grass how big it was. Look at the tire tracks. There's no road back here but someone still drove in. The question is why?"
Reid walked further around the circle and turned to his friend. "Picking up stuff? Or unloading stuff most likely?"
"Yeah, but what? The creek is no longer a major water source for anything. It used to be but with the town expanding toward the river on the other side, this one isn't used any more. This is just plain weird."
"Weird, yes, but they went to a lot of trouble to keep it quiet. They were carrying that kit for some reason. So whatever it was, it could be important."
Reid walked in an ever-widening circle. "I doubt they've left anything behind, but if they did, we should be able to find it.
With that, the three of them walked, slightly apart, in a logical approximation of how the men would have traveled to the creek.
"Damn it." Gem kicked a rock out of her way. "There're so many tracks. How can we find the important ones in this mess?" She kicked a bigger rock even further, then stared glumly at the overgrowth of grass and bushes. "They could have done all sorts of things out here and no one would ever know."
Crack.
Instinct had the three dropping to the ground and they stayed that way for what seemed a long time. Silent, the kids remained frozen, staring at each other.
Gem hated the dryness in her throat… Swallowing was damn near impossible. Closing her eyes, she focused on breathing…slow and steady. She didn't know if someone else was out there, but neither did she want to find out the hard way.
Mark whispered through the brush, "Did anyone see anything?"
"No," said Reid off somewhere on Gem's left.
Gem inched closer to Mark. He'd hunkered down in bushes off to the left. Most of the area had been trampled already so she kept to the flattened ground rather than give away their position by moving the tall grass. Mark watched her approach.
"I didn't see anything. What the hell do we do now?" she asked.
"We get out of here." He searched the area as Reid snuck closer to them.
"If we head down to the creek we should be able to run north and circle back home," Reid said.
Gem considered that. It might work. "Let's do it, but we have to stay close to each other. Don't fall behind."
Both males shot her a disgusted look and crawled ahead of her. Right. So she was now the one that shouldn't fall behind. Whatever.
Ten uncomfortable minutes later, they reached the top of the bank leading down to the creek. The water, although shallow, looked awfully inviting. Gem swallowed heavily, wishing she'd thought to bring a bottle of water. The crawling had bruised her knees and filled her nostrils with dust.
She coughed softly, then coughed again, harder.
"Shh."
Shaking her head while trying to stifle a third cough didn't work. She waved them on. Just in case she was heard. She tried to cough into her shoulder and that just brought on a major coughing fit. It took several minutes for her chest to clear, until she could breathe normally again. She must have inhaled a mess of dust.
The sunlight speckled its way through the branches overhead, giving her a break from the afternoon heat. This would be a great spot to spend an afternoon someday, when they weren't trying to get away from someone. Speaking of which…she looked ahead but couldn't see her friends. Gauging the direction by their tracks, she figured they'd turned north to follow the creek.
They couldn't be too far ahead. They'd find a spot and wait for her. What she wanted was to stand up and walk though. She was tired of crawling. She listened closely. Not a sound. She stood then clambered down the bank to move along the creek. The breeze blowing off the water was refreshingly cool. Wandering down to the edge, she saw tracks leading upstream. Two sets of tracks. Mark and Reid? Yes. Now she was onto something. She picked up the pace and followed the tracks a good fifty yards.
The cool air wafted over her, easing the film of sweat she'd earned crawling on the ground. She sneezed again. How far would they have gone ahead without her?
She was used to being alone outside, but after Misty's abduction, her normal nerves of steel had taken a beating. She glanced behind her, hating how the afternoon heat added a heavy atmosphere to the stillness. Creepy.
Her steps sped up of their own volition, and she was almost running by the time she headed up the bank to get a different perspective on her surroundings. If she didn't find the guys soon, she'd turn around and go back down. The creek crossed under the road below the old pump house. It's not like she could get lost out here. Not as long as she kept the creek in sight...and her mind clear.
She carried on for another five minutes. Five minutes where her stomach chewed up her insides and her feet raced more than walked. For the first time, it occurred to her that maybe she was following someone else's footprints.
She pulled out her cell phone and sent Mark a text. "Where are you?"
The answer came right back. "Following the creek. We're waiting. Hurry up."
A sound whispered down the water just in front of her. She bent down behind an old gnarled tree trunk and roots. There. It came again. She poked her head above the cover she'd found, hoping to see what made the sound. There was nothing to see. Collapsing onto a rock, Gem couldn't help but wonder if she were letting a bad case of nerves get in her way. She'd hate for the guys to think she'd turned girlie.
This was ridiculous. She stood up but a loud sharp noise cut through the air close to her. She flattened. What the hell was that? She spun around, hoping she could head back the way she'd come, then grimaced. Her nerves were seriously jangled right now. She hunkered down and listened and tried to find an explanation for that noise.
Shouts sounded. She popped up, took a quick look around and sunk back down. Nothing.
Was she in trouble? What if Mark and Reid were in trouble? Shit. Paralyzed by indecision, she figured she'd trust that the guys hadn't ditched her. But with those shotlike sounds, what was the chance they were in a bad spot up ahead?
And if they were, she had to help them.
Should she leave to call in the cavalry and find out later it had all been for nothing…and possibly get ribbed by the guys forever? Hell no. Better to check it out herself first. She poked her head over the tree limb. Still nothing. Stealthily, she crept up above the bend in the creek and listened for sounds of people.
Nothing. She walked forward.
Pain exploded as something smashed into the right side of her skull and she collapsed to the ground.