“Not so loud.”
But it was too late. There was a heavy thud, and the trunk moved.
“Come out of there!” a male voice commanded.
Nick and Marta were too frightened to respond. They felt another hard jolt—the guy was kicking the sides of the wooden chest.
So much for the element of surprise, Nick thought. Marta poked him sharply, as if to say: Do something!
Nick shifted his weight to his heels and prepared to launch himself against the balky lid. At that moment the trunk went over backwards and the top flew open, spilling him and Marta in a tangled, terrified heap.
Standing over them was the man who had overturned the chest.
“Get up,” he snapped.
Nick rose first and helped Marta to her feet. He noticed that they’d landed on the mount of an endangered wood stork, snapping its long spindly legs so that it was now the same height as a duck.
The stranger carried a flashlight of his own, which he aimed harshly in their eyes. “This must be your first burglary,” he said, “because you stink at it.”
“We didn’t come to steal anything. That’s the truth,” Nick blurted.
He couldn’t see the face behind the flashlight, but the voice didn’t sound like Duane Scrod Jr.’s.
“Let’s go for a ride,” the man said.
“No, wait!” cried Marta. “We’re looking for our teacher, that’s all.”
“Move it.”
They exited through the back door, the stranger prodding them from behind. Outside, there was enough starlight to see that the man was shirtless and wore scuffed trousers and muddy hiking boots. A black ski cap covered his hair, forehead, and ears. He stood about the same height as Smoke, although he was leaner and more muscle-bound.
Nick didn’t even consider trying to get away, because Marta was still so wobbly that she couldn’t possibly have outrun the stranger.
Mrs. Starch’s blue Prius was parked next to the house.
“Hop in the backseat,” the man told them.
Marta froze on the spot. “No way.”
“Just let us go,” Nick pleaded. “We won’t tell the police.”
The man chuckled dryly. “I’m the one who oughta be calling the cops. Now you two can either get in the car or be thrown in the car, it’s your choice.”
Reluctantly, Nick and Marta got in. The stranger whipped the Prius around and drove down the trail to Buzzard Boulevard. He didn’t bother switching on the headlights.
“What’d you do with Mrs. Starch?” Nick heard himself ask.
The man eyed him in the rearview mirror. “The question is, what’m I gonna do with you?”
Marta reached over and slugged Nick’s leg.
“My name’s Twilly,” the man said, a sure sign—or so Marta believed—that he intended to murder them and dump their bodies in a drainage canal. Otherwise why would he so casually identify himself and risk being turned in to the authorities?
“I’m Nick Waters,” said Nick. “My friend’s name is Marta.”
“What happened to your arm, son?”
Nick was pretty sure that the man named Twilly wouldn’t believe the truth—that Nick was training to be a lefty—and, in any case, Nick didn’t feel like getting into a detailed discussion of his father’s war injury.
“Lacrosse,” he said. “I sprained it at lacrosse practice.”
“Mmmm,” said the man.
Marta interjected, “Seriously. I was there when it happened.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Where are you taking us?” Nick asked.
“Depends.”
“My mom’s meeting us back at the mall,” Marta said. “If we’re not there, she’ll go nuts. I swear to God, she’ll call the White House!”
The stranger named Twilly said, “I wish I’d had a mom like that.”
Nick decided that because he was the one who’d gotten them into this awful mess, it was his duty to get them out. And since he couldn’t very well overpower the guy and hijack the car, the next best option was to talk some sense into him.
“Mister, you don’t want to go to jail for kidnapping.”
“No, and I don’t intend to,” the man said evenly.
“Honest, if you’d just let us go, we won’t nark you out—”
“So, Mrs. Starch is your teacher?”
Marta spoke up. “We’re in her biology class.”
“And you adore her so much that you busted into her home just to make sure she’s all right? That’s your story?” The man named Twilly was smiling behind the wheel.
“Not exactly,” Nick said. “We didn’t break in. There was a key on the porch.”
“Ah.”
“What were you doing there?” Nick asked, not expecting to receive a straight answer.
“Looking for some powdered cocoa,” the man replied, flicking on the headlights, “and a book. Ever heard of a writer named Edward Abbey?”
Nick and Marta admitted they hadn’t.
“No surprise,” the stranger said. “I’m sure they don’t teach his stuff in that uptight private school of yours. Ed was sort of a bomb thrower, only the bombs were ideals and principles. He liked the earth more than he liked most humans.”
A Hannah Montana ring tone went off, and Marta sheepishly smothered her cell phone. “That’s gotta be my mom. She’s supposed to pick us up outside the movie theater.”
“Answer it,” the stranger said. “Tell her you’ll be right on time—and if you say anything else, I’m turning this car around and we’re going to Miami. Or maybe Key Largo.”
Marta did as she was told.
After hanging up, she said, “ Ten-thirty sharp. She’ll freak if we’re not there.”
“Understood,” said the man named Twilly.
Nick was relieved to see that the car was heading in the direction of the mall, which raised the welcome possibility that they weren’t actually being kidnapped.
“How do you know Mrs. Starch?” he asked the stranger.
“None of your business, Nick Waters.” The man tugged the ski cap even tighter on his head.
“We’re worried about her, that’s all. Nobody’s seen her in, like, a week,” Marta said.
“Yeah? Then take out your cute little pink phone again, princess, and dial this number: 555-2346.”
Marta switched on the cell phone’s speaker so that both she and Nick could hear the recording:
Hello, people. I’ll be away from school indefinitely because of an unexpected family matter. You may leave a message at the tone, though it might be a while before I have time to reply. Please accept my apologies in advance. Now here’s the beep!
“That’s her,” Nick said.
“Definitely,” Marta agreed.
“Did she sound the least bit dead to you?” the man named Twilly asked. “Gravely ill? Mortally wounded?”
“Not really.”
“Then quit worrying,” he snapped, “and quit nosing around places you don’t belong.”
He pulled over a block from the mall, in front of a seedy pawnshop. He stepped out of the Prius and ordered Nick and Marta to do the same. Standing in the glow of a gaudy neon sign, the man looked to be in his late thirties, with an athletic build that reminded Nick of his father.
The stranger said, “It would be best if I never set eyes on you two again.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Marta assured him.
Nick was staring at Twilly’s belt, which was made of tanned cowhide and stitched with a row of small sleeves designed to hold bullets. It looked very much like the one worn by the mysterious figure in Nick’s video from the field trip to the Black Vine Swamp.
The man tapped the face of his wristwatch. “You’ve got six minutes and thirty seconds before your momma shows up. Get a move on.”
“Thank you,” Marta said with a grateful sigh. “Thank you, thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not killing us and tossing our bodies into a ditch.”
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“You’re welcome,” said the man named Twilly. “I’ll tell Aunt Bunny you asked about her.”
Nick rocked back on his heels. “Mrs. Starch is your aunt?”
With a thumb, the stranger popped two shiny bullets out of his ammo belt. He began tossing them from hand to hand, like jellybeans. “I hate repeating myself,” he said.
Nick and Marta started running. They didn’t stop until they reached the mall.
TWELVE
Drake McBride had stumbled into the oil business after failing at many other jobs and ruining many other companies. He enjoyed spending money much more than he enjoyed working for it, and this was the secret to his lack of success. It also helped to be lazy, easily distracted, and not very good at math.
Every time Drake McBride got himself into trouble, his wealthy father would simply buy a new company for him to noodle with. But now, after several wasted years and millions of wasted dollars, Drake McBride’s father finally had lost patience with the free-spending poser who happened to be his youngest son. The Red Diamond Energy Corporation was to be Drake’s last chance.
“If you screw up this one,” his father had warned, “you won’t get another nickel from me.”
“Have you checked out the price of gas, Dad?” Drake McBride had chortled with confidence. “Only an idiot could lose money in the oil business.”
“You said the same damn thing when you were selling real estate,” his father had reminded him coldly, “or trying to sell real estate.”
“It’s not my fault the market went sour—”
“Get real, boy. You couldn’t sell an igloo to an Eskimo,” his dad had said. “Red Diamond is my last act of charity. If you come crawling back here with another lame sob story, you might as well change your name to Drake Chowderhead and sign up for bartender school, because I’m done with you. Now go find some oil. Hurry up!”
Because the competition in Texas was fierce (and also because he owned a waterfront condo on Tampa Bay), Drake McBride chose Florida as headquarters for the new Red Diamond Energy Corporation. His first move was hiring Jimmy Lee Bayliss, recently retired from ExxonMobil, to teach him about oil exploration and run the day-to-day operation so that Drake McBride could concentrate on water-skiing and fishing.
It was Jimmy Lee Bayliss who’d explained to Drake McBride that Florida’s richest petroleum deposits lay miles offshore and were controlled by giant companies who’d been battling for years to get drilling permits. The drilling was opposed by most Floridians, who didn’t want to risk having their beaches choked with black tar in the event of an accidental oil spill.
“Aw, forget about what’s under the ocean,” Drake McBride said, and handed a newspaper clipping to Jimmy Lee Bayliss. “Here’s where the fast money is, my friend.”
Jimmy Lee Bayliss frowned at the headline. “The Everglades?”
“Keep readin’, pardner.”
According to the article, the U.S. government had announced a plan to buy up the drilling rights for oil and natural gas beneath the vast Big Cypress Preserve to protect the vanishing wetlands from future damage.
“All we’ve got to do is find some oil, any oil,” Drake McBride said excitedly, “and Uncle Sam will pay us a fortune not to pump it. Isn’t that the wildest danged thing you ever heard of?”
“Sure is,” said Jimmy Lee Bayliss, who was immediately leery of the scheme.
“Tell me this isn’t a great country!” Drake McBride exclaimed.
“But we don’t own any drilling leases in the Everglades.”
“Your job is to get me one,” Drake McBride said, poking Jimmy Lee Bayliss in the chest, “and make it a winner.”
The task turned out to be frustrating and complicated. All but a few of the oil leases were held by huge corporations or rich old geezers who practically laughed at Jimmy Lee Bayliss’s offers. Eventually he was able to obtain a single 640-acre parcel from a troubled soul named Vincent Trapwick Jr., who was facing trial for embezzlement and was frantically selling everything he owned to pay his lawyers.
The Trapwick parcel, known as Section 21, was located east of Naples at a promising location near the Black Vine Swamp. Yet after months of ground testing and half a dozen boreholes, Jimmy Lee Bayliss had reached the grim conclusion that Section 21 held barely enough oil to fill a goldfish bowl.
The news set badly with Drake McBride, who kicked at his desk so viciously that he tore the python skin on one of his cowboy boots.
“Too bad we don’t have Section 22,” Jimmy Lee Bayliss remarked.
“What?” Drake McBride perked up. “Is there serious oil in Section 22?”
“That’s what the geologists think, but it doesn’t matter. The state owns the land,” Jimmy Lee Bayliss said, “and they ain’t sellin’. It’s part of some wildlife preserve.”
“But there’s oil, they said. How deep?”
“Eleven, twelve thousand feet is their guess. But as I told you, the state’s got the property—”
Drake McBride snapped his manicured fingers. “I got an idea. We sink a pirate well on Section 22, totally secret, then run the pipe underground to our rig on Section 21.”
Jimmy Lee Bayliss’s gut started to churn. “Sir, it’s not worth the risk. The geologists say there’s no more than nine hundred barrels a day. And it’s poor quality, sir, gooey and full of sulfur—”
“I don’t care what it looks like, or how bad it stinks,” said Drake McBride, “as long as it’s oil. All I need—or, I should say, all we need—is genuine Florida crude to drip on some sucker’s desk at the Department of the Interior, who will then give us such a gi-mongous wad of money for our drilling rights that even my old man will be impressed. You with me?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not if you care to remain employed,” said Drake McBride.
And that’s how the Section 22 scam had been born.
Now Jimmy Lee Bayliss squinted through the open hatch of the helicopter, his line of vision following a row of small pink flags that marked the path under which the illegal pipeline would travel from Section 22 to Section 21. The small drill rig would be concealed in a tall stand of bald cypress and would be practically invisible, even from the air.
Because Section 22 was so wild and remote, Drake McBride didn’t worry about getting busted for hijacking the state of Florida’s oil. Jimmy Lee Bayliss, however, was highly concerned. If just one wayward hiker made a wrong turn in the Black Vine Swamp, the Red Diamond drilling scheme might unravel—and Jimmy Lee Bayliss could wind up sharing a ten-by-ten jail cell with Drake McBride. The thought made Jimmy Lee Bayliss’s stomach pitch, and had pushed him to take extreme measures.
He wasn’t a crook by nature, but the lure of making millions of dollars by not pumping oil had been too juicy for even him to resist. Still, ever since agreeing to Drake McBride’s sleazy scheme, Jimmy Lee Bayliss hadn’t had a good night’s sleep. The disturbing incident involving Melton had only worsened his jitters. Gluing a man naked to a tree didn’t seem like something an ordinary thief would do.
So Jimmy Lee Bayliss had decided to make daily patrols by helicopter over the wetlands, scouting for signs of intruders. So far, he’d turned up nothing.
“You ’bout ready to head back?” the pilot asked.
“Sure. Drop me off at my truck,” said Jimmy Lee Bayliss.
As the chopper gently touched down on the dirt road, Jimmy Lee Bayliss was surprised to see a cherry-red SUV parked next to his pickup. The SUV had a set of emergency lights mounted on the cab and the initials “CCFD” painted on the sides.
It took a few moments for Jimmy Lee Bayliss to realize that the letters stood for “Collier County Fire Department.” He chewed up four more Tums tablets before climbing out of the chopper.
The fire investigator’s name was Torkelsen. He had thinning blond hair and a handshake that could crush walnuts. He wanted to chat about the fire in Section 22.
“We work in Section 21,” Jimmy Lee Bayliss said quickly.
r /> “Yes, I know. We were wondering if you or your men saw anything suspicious in the area that day.”
“Like what?”
“Like any person or persons who weren’t supposed to be there.” Torkelsen spoke in a mild, official tone that made Jimmy Lee Bayliss uncomfortable.
“My crew was on another site when the wildfire broke out,” he said. “I was with them.”
“It wasn’t a wildfire, Mr. Bayliss. It was arson.”
“What?” Jimmy Lee Bayliss tried to hide his shock so that the fire investigator wouldn’t know that he was in danger of soiling his pants. “Arson? That’s crazy!” he said with a weak laugh. “What’s the point of torching a swamp?”
Torkelsen shrugged. “People do crazy things sometimes. Do you recognize this?”
He held up a plastic ballpoint pen stamped with the name of Red Diamond Energy. For a moment, Jimmy Lee Bayliss thought he might puke his breakfast muffins all over the fire investigator’s shoes.
“Yeah, that’s mine,” he croaked. “It must’ve fell from my pocket while I was shootin’ pictures from the helicopter.”
Which was a lie, of course. Torkelsen seemed to buy it.
“No big deal. We’re just trying to run down every lead,” the investigator said. “We found the pen about a hundred and fifty yards from where the fire flashed up.”
“Well, you can keep it. I got a whole box of ’em.” Jimmy Lee Bayliss was trying to sound casual and unworried.
Torkelsen dropped the Red Diamond pen into a large manila envelope and took out a small photograph. “Could you take a look at this, too?” he asked.
It was a police mug shot of a pimply teenaged kid whom Jimmy Lee Bayliss didn’t recognize. In the picture, the kid looked surly and uncooperative, a pose that reminded Jimmy Lee Bayliss of his own boys when they were that age.
“This is the guy who started the fire?” he asked Torkelsen.
“He’s a person of interest.”
“Is that the same thing as a ‘suspect’?”
“Between you and me? Yes, he’s a suspect,” Torkelsen said. “His name is Duane Scrod Jr., a local punk who likes to play with matches. He’s been arrested before. The sheriff’s office gave us a tip that he might have been in this area on the day of the arson.”