A/N: This might be the second-to-last chapter of the story, but I'm not making any promises. Hope you like it, though!

The Surprise Under the Porch

For the past 15 minutes, since Tawny had left the room, Louis, Twitty, Allison, Tom, and Ren still sat in their circle. They had searched the entire album and had only come up with one other picture that had an asterisk next to it: the one with Henry and Clarice smiling and pointing to their house.

"So what do you think it is?" Allison asked, staring at the photo.

Louis shrugged. "If Tawny were here, she probably would have figured it out already."

"Where is she anyway?" Twitty asked.

Louis looked out the open door. "I don't know, but I think we should close this door."

He stood up quickly shut it.

Ren looked around for a moment as the rest of the group continued to search the album. "Does it seem a little…quiet to you guys?"

Everyone lifted their heads and listened.

"Yeah. It does seem kind of quiet," Tom said.

He stood up and walked over to the door. As he opened it, everyone else stood up and followed him into the hall. It was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

"Come on," Ren whispered, beckoning to the others.

She led them toward the staircase, listening through each bedroom door on the way. Silence.

It was so quiet that they felt they needed to whisper. They walked down the stairs slowly, the steps creaking the whole way down. They couldn't hear the usual talking of students to one another. They made their way down the rest of the steps and around the banister, only to see that the parlor was deserted.

"Okay, this weird," Twitty said a little louder.

"Where is everybody?" Ren asked. "Miss Pateer?"

No one responded to her call.

>>>>

The second the bedroom door had been locked, Tawny had taken in a deep breath and stood up. She felt her way carefully around the crib and to the window. It was difficult. There were different objects scattered all over the floor; things she had never even noticed before.

Now Tawny was almost sure that she was at the curtain of the window. She couldn't figure out how to get it open, though. There was no cord to pull, and she couldn't find the middle if she was supposed to part them. Tawny closed her eyes so she could maybe see better. She felt all over the curtain, but all she felt was dust on the velvety material. She traced the top of the window with both hands until they met in the middle. Then she felt down and tried to find a crack that could be separated.

Finally, Tawny came to her senses. She gripped both sides of the heavy curtain with both hands and pulled them apart. The sun blinded her eyes as it shone through the window. She let go of the curtains and shielded herself, gradually sliding her hands away until her eyes adjusted.

"Whew," she said softly.

But now what was she going to do? She was stuck here and no one knew where she was. Whoever had locked her in must have known something about the house. Suddenly, it dawned on her. The vent!

She ran over to it, grasping its edges in her fingers. With a grunt, she pulled it out of the wall. She set it gently aside and reached into the vent to see where it went. But she felt something—something hard. A barrier.

"Great."

Then she remembered Francis saying that she must have been in here again. It was obviously Miss Pateer. Miss Pateer had sealed the passageway. It was also obvious that the screwdriver was for screwing the vent itself shut. Exasperated, Tawny pushed the vent cover back into the wall and leaned against it.

There was one other thing she could do.

She jumped up and ran to the door, pounding on it with her fists. "Help! Somebody, please help me!"

>>>>

"You guys, we should go find Tawny," Louis said.

Everyone agreed, and they made their way back to the bedroom. Instead of going in, Tom pointed down the hall. "She went this way, and we never saw her come back."

They knocked on all of the doors down the hallway, and after hearing no answers, they moved to the third floor. Then they realized it. Tawny was in Eleanor's room.

"Let's go," Ren said.

They found the staircase that led up to the baby's room, and as they came closer, Tawny's screaming and pounding on the door became clearer.

"Tawny!" Louis yelled. "We're coming."

"Help!" She yelled from inside. "I'm locked in!"

The group reached the top of the stairs, staring at the locked door.

"What do we do?" Louis asked, turning to his friends.

The stood in silence for a moment, thinking. Tawny fell silent too.

Suddenly, Allison's face brightened. "I've got it!"

She pulled a bobypin out of her hair and began picking the lock. "I've seen this in movies."

"Does it actually work?" Ren asked, slightly annoyed.

Suddenly, the door clicked and Allison smiled. "Yep."

She turned the knob and opened the door.

"Tawny!"

Tawny let out a huge sigh of relief and hugged her friends. "Thank you so much!"

They began talking for a bit, until Ren realized it. "Hey, we still have a problem!"

They filled Tawny in on everything that was going on. Tawny, in return, told them about her "murder."

"So you couldn't figure out who it was?" Ren asked as they walked down the narrow steps.

"No," Tawny said. "Obviously they had to disguise their voice, or the people that got murdered would figure them out."

They walked down the third floor hallway in silence. As they started down the steps to the second floor, Tawny piped up, "So everyone's missing?"

"That's what it looks like," Tom replied. "But where would they be?"

"No idea," Tawny said. "But we should get back to our room so we can look at that photo album. By the way, did you find any more asterisks?"

"Just one," Allison said.

When they got back to their bedroom, she showed Tawny the picture.

"Hmm," Tawny murmured. "They're pointing to the house, obviously. Maybe if we search around outside we might find something."

"Let's take our clues with us, then," Ren suggested, "so we don't lose them."

"Good idea," Tawny agreed.

They quickly walked out the room, carefully holding the three objects. They ran the rest of the way to the parlor and stopped at the front door. Surprisingly, it was unbolted, and slightly ajar. Shrugging at each other, they pulled open the door and ran out into the daylight.

This was actually the first time they had been outside since they first arrived. It felt nice to breath in some fresh air.

"Okay, we have no time to spare. Start looking," Tawny ordered everyone.

The group nodded and split up, searching around the house, the porch, and even the hedges. There was nothing to be seen. After about ten minutes, they met up in front of the porch, and Tawny opened the album to the picture.

"Let's see," she said quietly. "Maybe they're pointing at a specific location."

She touched the tip of Henry and Clarice's fingers and traced a straight line up to the porch. "They're pointing to the left side of the porch."

Without much hesitation, they made their way up the steps and over to the porch. They looked everywhere: on the railing, underneath the window, even through the cracks on the old wooden floor.

"This is hopeless!" Tawny said finally. "What did we actually expect to find? A buried treasure?"

During her sudden outburst, she lost her hold on the album and it fell to the floor, landing with a clunk on the porch. The clunk had sounded a bit different from their own footsteps on the floor. It sounded almost…hallow.

"Wait a minute," Tawny said, kneeling down to the album.

She knocked on the floor next to the album, and then picked it up and knocked on the spot it had fallen on. The sounds were certainly different.

"I think we found something!" She exclaimed.

She ran her fingers all over the floor, picking up a couple splinters on the way, but she paid them no mind. She noticed little cracks along the floor, shaping into a messy square. It was barely noticeable, but it was there. Tawny thought for a moment.

Then, she said suddenly, "Allison, give me that needle."

"Why?" Allison asked, handing it to her.

"Just do it. Trust me."

Tawny poked the needle through different cracks, until she came to a larger crack that seemed to have the same shape as the tip of the needle—the tip with the two tiny metal bars attached to it. She fit the tip into the crack and turned it. They heard a click from somewhere underneath the porch.

"It's a key!"

Without taking a moment to rest, everybody helped as Tawny fit her fingers between wider cracks in the floor and pulled the wooden door out of the floor. They placed it next to the hole in the porch and then peered inside the opening. They didn't need a flashlight to see what was in here.

"It's money," Tawny breathed.

She reached in and pulled out a faded piece of paper money, dated back to the early 1900's. "It's ancient!"

"What's this?" Ren reached in and pulled out a yellowed piece of paper.

As her eyes scanned front of the paper, they widened. "It's a will! It leaves the Stevenson's family fortune to a Joseph and Margaret Stevenson, to be passed to their son Nathaniel after their death, to be passed to his son Drake his death, and then Drake's son. This must be a later copy of Henry and Clarice's will!"

"You guys, I think we may have almost solved the mystery!" Tawny said happily. "I can't believe this. Thanks so much for your help, Ren!"

"No," came Miss Pateer's voice, "thank you."

A/N: All I'll say now is to watch out for the next chapter!