J.M.J.
Author's note: Thank you for reading and leaving reviews! The next chapter will be out tomorrow. God bless!
July 18 – Tuesday
Nancy yawned as she leaned against Jerry's SUV. It was about two o'clock in the morning and close to forty hours into their drive. They had just gotten past Chicago and were back in fairly quiet farmland. Right at the moment, they were at a rest stop, and the only other people around were truckers. Jerry was pacing around a few feet away from the car while they waited for Callie and Iola to return.
"What are you doing?" Nancy asked.
"Trying to stay awake," Jerry replied. "You know, I'm thinking maybe it would be best if we all took a nap for a few hours. I think we'd be okay here."
Nancy glanced toward the interstate with its never-ending stream of traffic speeding along it. Any one of those cars could stop here any time with who knew what intentions, but that could just be paranoia talking. "I guess if everyone's as tired as I am, it wouldn't be a bad idea."
Jerry blinked sleepily. "At this point, I think it would be a bad idea to keep driving. Even if we can manage to drive without getting sleepy, we need a bit of a break. I thought Iola was going to bite my head off back there in Chicago."
"Well, I don't know you very well, but I'm going to take a guess and say that exiting the interstate like that right in the heart of Chicago wasn't the best idea you've ever had," Nancy teased him.
"Hey, it wasn't my fault," Jerry protested. "The lane I was in just suddenly turned into an exit lane, and I couldn't merge back over with that traffic the way it was."
"It wouldn't have been so bad, except it took us on a different interstate," Nancy went on. "Finding our way back was a bit tricky."
"And we did it," Jerry insisted. "Just because I got on the eastbound side instead of the westbound, but that's easy enough to fix, as long as you can get to an exit. Okay, so I've never driven anywhere like Chicago before. I didn't even get in a fender bender, so I'm going to take the whole thing as a win."
Nancy chuckled. "I have driven in Chicago, and I probably couldn't have done much better. I'd say you're entitled to take it as a win, for your first time." Her humor faded as she paused and then added, "Jerry, I'm getting a little worried."
"There aren't any more big cities, are there?" Jerry replied. "Or do we have to go through St. Paul? I don't remember. In any case, I know once we get to South Dakota, we're in the clear."
Nancy shook her head. "Not about that. I haven't heard from my dad since he texted me to let me know he'd landed in Hawaii. That's been over twenty-four hours now. He hasn't answered his phone or responded to any texts since then."
Jerry frowned. "Uh, well, do you want to do anything about that?"
"If I don't hear from him by morning, I'll call the police in Hawaii and report it." Nancy shrugged. "Unfortunately, that's about all I can do. But it is making me think maybe we're walking into trouble, too."
"You think we should turn back?" Jerry asked.
"No, but some extra help wouldn't hurt." Nancy glanced toward the interstate again. "We're about as close to River Heights as we're going to get. Well, actually we were about twenty miles ago, but that doesn't make much difference. I could probably get us some more help from there, but the problem is that it's the middle of the night and by the time it's morning, we'll be miles away from here."
"Not if we spend the whole night," Jerry said. "In that case, we'll want to find a real hotel instead sleeping in the car in some sketchy rest stop. Are there any towns coming up that would have a hotel?"
"Oh sure. Rockford isn't far away. We can find a hotel there."
"Then let's do it," Jerry replied. "It would probably do us all some good to spend a few hours outside that car."
HBNDHBNDHB
Joe and Chet had started out right after breakfast to look for the mysterious girl. Frank was still recovering, and at the insistence of the other boys, he wouldn't take part in the search. The remaining five boys had drawn straws to decide who would go and who would stay to attend to the ordinary daily tasks. Joe and Chet had the two longest straws, so they were the lucky ones.
"Do you think this girl knows all about the edible plants on the island?" Chet asked as they were hiking around the base of the northmost hill.
"You mean, especially ones that we haven't tried yet?" Joe replied, grinning slightly.
"Yeah, in particular, breadfruit. I mean, man doesn't live by fruit and fish alone."
"I think you mean by bread alone," Joe replied. "You know, the exact food you're asking for. But I can sympathize. Fruit and fish aren't very filling."
"At least we have potatoes," Chet said, trying to not sound at all sarcastic. "I wonder what bread made out of breadfruit tastes like. Probably not much like bread made out of wheat."
"Probably not, but at this point, anything would be great."
As they continued walking, Chet went on about all the kinds of food he missed. Joe was walking ahead of him, trying to grin good-naturedly, but reminiscing over all the food that they were missing was only making him hungry. He would have preferred to change the subject.
As he was walking, something lying on the ground caught his eye. It was off to the side of the path, and he wouldn't have noticed it, except that it reflected the sunlight just as he was walking past. Joe paused and then went to pick up the object, but he stopped himself when he saw that it was a piece of broken glass.
"What do you make of that?" he asked Chet, who came to look at the glass.
"Weird. Where did that come from? Do you think the girl dropped it?"
"None of us did, so if it wasn't her, then there's someone else again on this island."
Chet folded his arms. "Maybe it's been here a long time, and it's Eli who dropped it."
"If it's been lying here that long, it would be all caked with dirt. Besides…" Joe glanced around for a second and then used his foot to bend down a stand of grass. There was most of a glass bottle lying there, so streaked with cracks that it looked like it would fall apart if it was picked up. "If it was that old, the rest of the bottle wouldn't still be here."
Chet smirked. "Do you think it's full of snails?"
Joe rolled his eyes. "Do you see any?"
"No, just pebbles. I wonder if it belonged to the same person who put the snail shells in the other bottle."
"We might find out, if we find that girl," Joe replied.
HBNDHBNDHB
"This isn't exactly how I was expecting to spend my day," Bess commented as she sat in the back seat of George's SUV, which was on the way to Rockford. "Then again, I should probably stop being surprised by the things we get into with Nancy."
"I don't know," George said as she continued to nonchalantly drive. "Running out the door first thing in the morning to take an unexpected road trip to a mountain has kind of been a lifelong dream for me."
Ned, who was in the passenger seat, grinned, despite feeling the gravity of the situation more keenly than the girls. "I hope you remembered a pocket handkerchief."
"Ah, shoot," George replied. "I forgot."
"Oh boy. We get book references all the way to Montana." Bess shook her head good-naturedly.
Ned turned and watched the scenery roll by the window. They were already on the interstate, and it wouldn't take them long to reach Rockford, where they would meet Nancy and the others. "It's still a long way from Rockford to Butte," he said. "This is going to be kind of a rough trip."
"Right," Bess agreed. "A long drive for a sad reason. And we don't know Callie or Iola or Jerry at all. I mean, I met Callie and Iola once, but it was basically getting introduced to them. So anyway, we're going to want to be careful what we say so we don't accidentally upset them even more."
George let out a long breath. "I don't really know how to deal with that part of all this. I've never been in a situation like this before."
"I would hope not," Bess replied. "It's just so awful when you think about it."
Having the reason for their trip brought back into focus dampened the mood considerably, and they rode for a long way in silence, until George turned on the radio to try to distract them with music.
It was close to ten o'clock when they reached the hotel where the other travelers had stayed. Ned texted Nancy that they were there, and she replied that they would be out in a few minutes. Sure enough, within five minutes, Ned saw Nancy coming out the door of the hotel with a blonde girl about the same age as her. Ned had never met Callie Shaw before, but he had seen pictures of her and so he recognized her right away. Ned and the girls got out of the car, and Nancy smiled when she saw them. She jogged the rest of the distance across the parking lot and greeted each of them with hugs.
"Thank you so much for coming," she told them. "You guys are the greatest."
"What did you expect us to do?" Bess asked. "Sit around and be bored?"
Nancy only smiled again. Then she turned to Callie. "I think you've met Bess and George before. This is Ned Nickerson. And Ned, this is Callie Shaw."
Callie and Ned shook hands, and Callie smiled a little sadly at him. "Thank you. I know that coming like this is a lot to ask." Ned thought she probably meant to address Bess and George as well as him, but she kept her eyes steadily on Ned, a little uncertainty in them. Ned wondered what she meant by it.
"We're glad to do it," Ned replied. "Frank and Joe were our friends, too."
Bess stepped around him to give Callie a hug. "I'm so sorry."
Callie thanked her, and then George added her condolences. Then Bess asked where Iola and Jerry were.
"Iola's still showering," Nancy said, "and we knocked on Jerry's door, but he sounded like we had just woken him up, so hopefully he didn't fall back to sleep. We need to get on the road, but we also need breakfast. Maybe while we're waiting for them, some of us should make a breakfast run. There are several restaurants around here."
"We'll go," Bess offered. "I know a great little bakery just a few blocks from here. Come on, George."
"I'll go with you," Callie said. "That way, when Iola and Jerry are ready, the rest of you can just meet us there."
They set out in George's car, leaving Nancy and Ned to walk back and forth in the parking lot as they waited.
"How are you doing, Nancy?" Ned asked.
Nancy shrugged. "Okay. Considering. I'm so glad you're here. And Bess and George. It felt so weird being with just Frank and Joe's friends, when I don't know them much at all."
"I can imagine." Ned put his hands in his pockets. "Nancy, I feel like I ought to apologize."
"For what?" Nancy asked incredulously.
Ned took a deep breath. "For the way I used to tease you…about Frank. I didn't mean anything by it, but I should have left it alone, anyway."
"Oh." Nancy looked at the ground for a few steps and then back up at him and smiled ruefully. "It's all right. You're not the only one who thought it was a little strange for us to still be friends."
"I didn't think anything," Ned insisted. "I did mean it when I said I don't mind who you're friends with. I know I can trust you, and I know that you wouldn't be friends with anyone you didn't trust. And for the record, I've always liked Frank."
"I know." Nancy shook her head. "I've always valued Frank's friendship, but I never had a crush on him or anything like that. I've known him and Joe since we were all kids, and I thought of them like brothers, which was why it was so weird when Frank asked me on that date. I wish I would have turned him down. It would have been better all the way around, but I didn't know what to do."
"You've told me that before," Ned replied. "There's no need to keep on explaining."
"I'm glad you understand." Nancy sighed.
Before she could say anything more, someone called to her. Both she and Ned turned, and Ned saw that the person calling was a teenaged girl whose dark hair was only half-dried. She was carrying a bag over her shoulder. Ned recognized her as Iola Morton.
"You have no idea how nice it is to sleep in a bed and get a shower until you haven't done either for a couple of days," Iola declared. She glanced at Ned and then held her hand out to him. "Hi, I'm Iola."
Ned shook her hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Ned." He glanced questioningly at Nancy. Iola didn't seemed particularly grieved to him.
A few minutes later, Jerry emerged from the hotel and was introduced to Ned. Then they headed to the bakery to meet the rest of their party.
HBNDHBNDHB
Time passed agonizingly slowly. At least, it did for Carson. Don was asleep, or half-dozing, for most of it. Weston's men had scarcely touched Carson while trying to persuade him and Don to tell them Reese's whereabouts, possibly assuming that Carson would be more likely to talk to save someone else rather than himself. The part that Carson didn't understand was why Brock Garret had intervened to keep him and Don from being killed. He might have understood better if he had known what the men had been talking about. From their conversation, it sounded like there was a woman involved in the highest levels of this organization, a woman that Brock had some tenuous influence over and that Weston was frightened of. So far in the investigation, no hint of a woman being involved had come up. Whoever she was, she kept out of sight well.
And whoever she was, it didn't help Carson to understand why he and Don had been given a reprieve from being killed. It must have been at least twelve hours since Brock had intervened, so he hadn't been simply bluffing, but there was still no indication why he had done it.
Suddenly, there was a loud bang—like a door being thrown open forcefully—and a shout from upstairs. The noise jolted Don awake, and he sat up without thinking, although the action made him groan.
"What was…" he started to ask, but more noise from upstairs interrupted him.
There was more shouting, although neither of them could make out what was being said. Footsteps pounded and more doors were thrown open. Then there were a few gunshots. The two prisoners listened intently, wondering what on earth was going on.
Then, without warning, the door to their prison was thrown open and three men in tactical gear were in the doorway, aiming rifles at them. When they saw the prisoners, one of them lowered his gun a bit so that it wasn't in front of his face. The action also moved his arm enough that Carson could see the badge on his chest.
"Who are you?" the officer asked.
"I'm Carson Drew," the lawyer told him. "This is Don Cameron. We're being held prisoner here."
The other two officers then also lowered their guns. The first pulled his radio which was clipped to his shoulder a bit closer to his mouth. "Lieutenant, we've got them in the basement. We're going to need paramedics down here."
A minute or two later, a Hawaiian man in plainclothes came into the room. Don sighed in relief when he saw him.
"Lieutenant Hikialani," he said. "Thank goodness. I didn't think we'd ever get out of here."
"From the looks of it, you almost didn't," Hikialani replied, noting the young man's injuries. "Where are those paramedics?"
"I'll check," one of the officers volunteered, disappearing up the steps.
"You must be Carson Drew," Hikialani said, turning to the lawyer.
"That's right," Carson replied.
"Your daughter reported you missing a few hours ago," Hikialani explained.
"Only a few hours ago?" Carson asked. "How did you find us so fast?"
"We had a tip." A strange look crossed Hikialani's face. "From a very unexpected source. Brock Garret walked into the precinct half an hour ago and told us that there were two people being held prisoner here, and that he was willing to tell us everything he knew about it."
