Nightmare Academy (34 page)
Ramon was only the first to start asking questions. “So what do we do now?”
Kids were coming out of the dark, gathering like moths around a lamp. They were bored, scared, disillusioned, hungry, and restless. “When do we get the lights back on?” “They're after us, aren't they?” “We're all in trouble now.” “How are we going to cook anything?” “There's no hot water.” “What are you going to do, Alexander?”
“They're just trying to scare us!” Alexander answered. “They're trying to break us down, make us give up.” He yelled so they could all hear, “But we're not going to give up! We've won the first round, and tomorrow morning we're going to win the second!”
Brett asked for all of them, “What's the second?”
Alexander could see lights on up on the hill. “They think as long as they can hide behind that wall they can play around with us and put us off. Down here, we're just their puppets. But up there, up in that mansion, that's where the strings are. That's where the power is.” They all looked at him, caught up in his spell, awed by his visions. “Come on. I know what to do.”
Kids were coming out of the dark,
gathering like moths around a lamp.
Nate and Sarah were driving through Coeur d'Alene, returning from a tedious visit to the local branch of the U.S. Forest Service, their last stop of the day. They'd spent the day going over maps, making phone calls, grappling with bureaucrats and checking any discrete sources that would come to mind, but no one anywhereânot the forest service, or the sheriff's office, or the power or phone companies, or the local gas station attendants or restaurateursâhad ever heard or seen anything about a summer academy for high school kids or runaways. Now it was late at night, they were tired, and beyond frustrated.
“Let's call Morgan,” said Nate. “It may be more fruitful to help him track down Margaret Jones.”
Sarah picked up his cell phone. “Oh-oh. We missed a call.”
She pressed the button to play back the message, listened, and her face went pale. “PULL OVER!”
On the west edge of Coeur d'Alene, Mr. Morgan stepped out of his big black car and looked toward the car parked just ahead of his. The driver, head down to hide his face, pointed toward the classic old house across the street and then drove away.
“Thank you, sir,” said Morgan, watching the car shrink in the distance.
He opened the passenger door of his car, and a matronly woman got out. Together, they walked across the street and up the steps onto the broad front porch. Some lights were still on. Apparently the occupant was enjoying a late TV show and not expecting callers. That was fortunate.
Morgan rang the doorbell.
The sound of the television cut off. A moment later, the door opened a crack and a redheaded woman looked out.
“Very sorry, ma'am, please pardon the intrusion,” said Morgan.
“And who are you?” she asked, wary and bothered.
“My name is Morgan.” He showed her some ID. “This is Emily Perkins, a forensic consultant assisting me.” He then referred to some papers in his hand: color copies of KnightMoore brochures and a photograph of Kathy Simons holding a trout. “Kathy Simons? Or should I address you as Suzanne Doming? Or perhaps Margaret Jones?”
“My name is Morgan” He showed her
some ID, “This is Emily Perkins, a
forensic consultant assisting me.”
She looked at his evidence and said nothing, but her face said everything.
“I work with a team of private investigators, and since our investigation thus far seems to be leading to you, I thought it might be in your interest to make sure our information is correct. May we have a chat?”
She sighed and let them in.
Nate and Sarah were forcing themselves to remain calm, to think, to work with the information they'd just received from Elisha's frantic, tortuous phone call. They could hear the struggle, the cursings and yellings in the background, the sounds of kicking, tripping, crashing, falling, the sound of the receiver being dropped, followed by a horrible crashing of glass. It sounded like the end of their daughter, and now, all they had was a hodgepodge of numbers staring at them from Sarah's notepad.
Nate listened to the error message from his cell phone. “It's not a phone number, not even international. Did we miss any of the numbers?”
Sarah shook her head. “It's all she gave us. She finished her message. She said she loved us at the end, right before we heard the crash. It has to be enough.”
They stared at the numbers.
“Forty-seven,” Nate mused.
“Four hundred, seventy-one . . .” Sarah tried. “Four thousand, seven hundred and ten.”
“Forty-seven and ten.” He froze. He tapped on the numbers with his pen. “That's it. THAT'S IT!”
Sarah was already catching on. “Forty-seven and ten . . .”
Nate grabbed his pen and divided the digits into groups. “Forty-seven and ten. One hundred fifteen and fifty”
“Latitude and longitude!”
Nate was already scrambling for the forest service map. “47 degrees, 10 minutes north latitude, 115 degrees, 50 minutes west longitude! Oh, kids, I love ya! I love ya!”
He located the coordinates on the map. “Closest town is Stony Bend, a good distance southeast of here. Call Morgan, tell him where we're going.”
He tossed Sarah the map and hit the gas pedal.
Minutes passed, enough for Elisha to conclude nothing further was going to happen unless she made it happen. With the floor the only thing known, she lay belly-down and began inching along, reaching out in front and to the sides, probing and exploring.
BANG! A
loud noise and a sudden flood of light nearly scared her to death. A wall panel had opened, vanishing into the ceiling in the blink of an eye. Squinting in the light, Elisha could see she was in a small, square room. At one end was the bottom of the slide that brought her here; at the other end, with the panel raised, was a long, narrow hallway, washed with an amber glow from hundreds of tiny ceiling lights.
Squinting, trying to get accustomed to the light, she could vaguely see someone walking up that hallway, coming toward her. It was a man. No, it was a young man. He was wearing a burgundy blazer. He kind of walked like her brother.
It was her brother!