Chapter 9

After a brief powwow, we decided Megan’s house was our best bet. We didn’t have a lot of other places to look. It wasn’t likely she’d be carrying the otters around in her car.

The next morning, before anyone else was awake, Olivia and I snuck into the office and looked up Megan’s address in her volunteer file. Then, after breakfast, we casually biked away from the sanctuary. Mom, Dad, and Abby thought we were heading into nearby Mt. Pleasant.

Anson met us at the head of Megan’s street, about two miles from the sanctuary. Behind him, the white spires of Charleston’s Ravenel Bridge were visible above the flat water of the Cooper River.

“There it is,” Anson called softly. “On the left.”

We stopped our bikes and stared at the house. It couldn’t have looked more ordinary—gray clapboard, white trim, neatly cut front lawn, pineapple-shaped mailbox.

“It doesn’t really look like the house of an otter thief,” Olivia said.

“Whatever that would look like,” I replied. “Maybe the black-market exotic animal trade doesn’t pay that well. Come on.”

We ditched our bikes behind a clump of bushes and skirted the edge of the yard. There were no cars in the driveway, and I prayed there were none in the garage either.

“Get down!” Anson hissed at us, and we ran low along the side of the house in approved sleuth fashion.

“Ouch!” Olivia tripped over the coils of a garden hose.

“Get up!” I hissed at her. “Are you a sleuth or not?”

“Shh!” Anson motioned us ahead. He’d climbed up on a large wooden chest beside the hose. “Guys, check this out!”

He hopped down, and I climbed up and peeked over the edge of the windowsill. I almost fell off the chest. Inside was a room, which was about the size of a large bathroom, with cages and crates of various sizes lined up across the floor. Feeding bowls and water dishes were scattered around.

I climbed down from the crate, and Olivia climbed up next. “Maybe she really likes… pets,” she said after a moment.

I gave her a get real look. “The question is, where are the otters?”

Just then a thump came within the house. We all gasped and huddled together against the outside wall. After a moment, I gathered the courage to climb back on the chest and peek ever so carefully over the windowsill.

“Oh my gosh!” I almost fell off the chest. Megan was coming in the room, carrying the same big plastic tub she always had brownies in at the sanctuary. It was clearly heavy, since she was struggling a little.

She set it down in the middle of the floor. “There!” I could hear her say faintly.

My breath was coming in little gasps. I pressed my chin to the windowsill. Megan opened the lid of the container. A brown muzzle poked out, first one, and then the other.

“It’s them!” I whisper-screamed to the others. “They’re alive!”

They crowded up against me. “Are they OK?” Olivia asked at the same time Anson said, “Is Megan there?”

“Yes to both,” I whispered. “Shh!”

“Now stay there,” Megan said. “We’re almost ready.” She bustled around the room, gathering up bags of food and papers, then dragged the tub with the otters back out of the room.

“She’s taking them somewhere,” I hissed down to the others. I hopped silently down from the chest. “Hurry, what are we going to do?”

Just then we heard the unmistakable rumble of a garage door, followed by the purr of a car engine. We all looked at each other, eyes wide.

“She’s leaving!” Olivia gasped. “With the otters!”

“Hurry up!” Anson raced to the front of the house with us following him. “We have to follow her!”

Megan was just pulling onto the street as we rounded the corner of the house. We grabbed our bikes from the bushes and pedaled after her as fast as we could. We lost her almost immediately but caught up to her at the first stoplight.

“Come on!” Anson shouted over his shoulder, rocketing into the intersection and narrowly avoiding a garbage truck.

“Be careful!” I shouted at his back. I just hoped Megan didn’t check her rearview mirror. With any luck she’d be so focused on getting the otters to wherever they were going that she wouldn’t look behind her.

We pedaled furiously down the side of the road, barely keeping Megan’s car in sight. Finally her turn signal blinked. We followed her onto a smaller asphalt road, then another, this one lined with empty lots and crumbling gas stations. In a weedy parking lot by a diner, she finally stopped.

Anson braked so fast that I had to swerve to avoid crashing into him. Moving fast, we wheeled our bikes behind an old shipping container sitting in a corner of the parking lot.

“What’s she doing here?” Olivia whispered.

“I’m guessing it has something to do with that,” Anson replied. He pointed at a large white van, the kind a repairman might drive, that had just pulled into the parking lot.

The van came to a stop next to Megan’s car. A man in a collared shirt and sunglasses got out. Megan emerged from her car as well.

“Oh my gosh, what’s going on?” Olivia dug her fingernails into my shoulder.

The two adults held a low conversation, which we couldn’t hear, and then the man stepped around to the back of the van. He swung open the doors. The inside was lined with cages.

“No!” Anson said, too loud for comfort. He started forward.

“Wait!” I grabbed him. “The otters are in Megan’s car. If you run over there she could just leap in and drive off. Wait until she takes them out.”

“And then?” Olivia asked.

“Then… ,” I trailed off. Then we’d do something brilliant—I just hadn’t thought of it yet.