Grave Shadows (6 page)

Chapter 19

I met Hayley at Red Rock Lake,
about halfway between our houses. We sat in the gazebo and fed the ducks bread crumbs. The lake’s been fed by an underground spring, and they’ve never had problems. But this year something must have happened to the spring because the water level keeps going down. They finally decided to just drain the whole thing.

I told Hayley what I had found out from Darren. She pulled out her cell phone and called information for the number of Gunnar’s old girlfriend, Taryn. She wrote it down and handed it to me.

“Before we call, I need to know if you’re serious about finding your cousin.”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because it took you a while to even tell me about it. And some things bother me about this. He left without his dog. Didn’t tell his mother anything. Told the people where he worked he would be right there and then didn’t show up. There’s a chance that something really bad happened.”

“Knowing is a lot better than not knowing.”

I dialed Taryn’s number, and an answering machine picked up. I asked her to call me and left my home number.

Hayley walked to the water’s edge and rooted around in the mud with a stick. She held up a chain with something on the end of it. “An old watch!” she shouted.

I took a closer look. “Somebody must have dropped it out of their boat years ago.”

“This thing could be worth lots of money.”

“Maybe.”

The sun glinted off the lake’s surface, and something moved in the water, a huge fin passing in front of us. We stepped back.

Hayley said, “Let’s come back tomorrow and look for coins and stuff. My dad has a metal detector.”

“I have to watch Dylan tomorrow,” I said.

“Bring him along.”

As I walked back to my ATV I turned to take one more look at the lake. Something yellow, submerged in the deep end, cut through the murky darkness and caught the sunlight. A cloud passed and it was gone.

Was it just the sun playing tricks?

Chapter 20

I beat Ashley to the ringing phone
after dinner, but it was for her. I went to my room to study a map of the roads and trails Jeff and I would take on the bike trip.

I’m not what you’d call a spiritual giant or anything, but I try to read something from the Bible every day and pray. To be honest, during the school year it’s hard to get up early, and in the summer I want to sleep in. I feel guilty about it, like if I don’t spend time with God he’ll hate me and give me some disease like Jeff has. I know that’s not true, but still . . .

I opened my Bible to Proverbs. Mom told me once that if I read one proverb every day I’d be as wise as Solomon. I said, “Who’s Solomon?” Now I know, of course.

There are 31 proverbs, so sometimes I read the proverb that’s the same as the day of the month, but this time I just found the nearest one. It was the 17th proverb and I stopped at the 17th verse: “A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need.”

I felt like a brother to Jeff. Everything I had gone through with my dad dying had prepared me to be a better friend than I would have been otherwise.

I copied the verse onto a small sheet of paper and read it over and over. The best thing I could do for Jeff was try and find his missing stuff. I wrote a list of suspects and tried to think of my next move. I was about to pray when Ashley came in.

“Who was on the phone?” I said.

She frowned and plopped onto my beanbag chair. “Gunnar’s ex-girlfriend. I thought she could help figure out where he might be.”

“She didn’t give you anything?”

“Said they broke up a month ago. She was tired of being strung along, and he wasn’t ready to move out of his mom’s place.”

“Sounds like she was more serious about him than he was about her.”

Ashley stared at the ceiling. “Yeah, but she did say she talked with him a couple weeks ago and he acted weird.”

“Weird?”

“She called about something she had left at his house, and Gunnar sounded scared and said he’d call her back. He never did.”

“What could he be scared of?”

Ashley shrugged. “I’ve got a bad feeling. I wonder if anybody will ever see him alive again.”

Chapter 21

Mom dropped Dylan and me at Hayley’s house
, and we walked to Red Rock Lake. I told Hayley what Taryn had said, and I could tell it upset her. I had made a mental list of all the things I thought could have happened to Gunnar, from being robbed or kidnapped to hurting himself. I hoped he would turn up at his mom’s house and apologize for scaring her, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

Dylan tagged along as we walked down to the lakeshore. He was interested in the metal detector.

Hayley winked at me and tossed a coin on the ground behind Dylan. “Want to try it?” she said.

His eyes lit up, and he grabbed the thing so fast I thought he would tear it apart. She helped him hold it, and when the thing beeped, he almost came out of his skin. He held up the quarter like it was a billion dollars, and I couldn’t help laughing.

Hayley explored a sandy place at the end of the lake, swinging the metal detector from side to side. She found fishing lures on old logs exposed by the receding water. When she got a strong beep, Dylan and I helped her dig up a gun.

“Wonder why this is in here,” Hayley said.

“Looks really old. I’m not sure we’ll ever know.”

She found a 1963 class ring from Red Rock High School, two knives, a tackle box, and several coins as we walked back and forth along the bank.

Suddenly I looked around and couldn’t see Dylan. I figured he had moved up to the playground, but when I got there, I didn’t see him.

I heard a scream and looked across the lake. Dylan was waist-deep in mud and sinking.

Chapter 22

While Jeff’s mom took him to a doctor’s appointment
to get final approval for going on the bike trip, his dad unlocked the trophy-room door for me. He was leaving for work and asked if I would mind letting in the housekeeper when she arrived.

He paused. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your helping Jeff with the bike trip. To tell you the truth, I wish he’d stay home and rest.” I could tell he was fighting tears.

“I’ll take good care of him,” I said.

“I know.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s just so hard not knowing what’s going to happen with him after that.” It seemed he had more to say, but his voice caught.

“Mr. Alexander,” I said, “Jeff knows how much you love him.”

He nodded and hurried out to his car.

The trophy room looked almost bare with so much stuff gone. A glass case, like you see in jewelry stores, had empty baseball and basketball holders inside. What was left were things like a signed CD from a female singer Jeff hated and things like that.

The window was locked, and there was no other way into the room. The closet had a few games on the shelf and some old suitcases, but nothing else. An opening led to the attic, but I wondered who would know about that or want to go to all that trouble. I locked the door and left the room.

The doorbell rang and I let in the housekeeper, a thin woman with dark hair. She carried supplies in a plastic bucket.

“I thought only rich people had housekeepers,” I said, smiling. She said she had found out about the Alexanders at church and was donating her services every two weeks.

“Have you ever cleaned the trophy room?”

She shook her head. “They told me not to bother with it. Never been in there.”