Danger at the Fair (16 page)

“What if the cops find him?”

“Mitch can talk his way out of anything. He’ll catch up to us in Portland.”

“You can’t let the cops take Mitch in,” Tucker said. “What if they fingerprint him?”

“What if they do? Mitch doesn’t have a record.”

“He never told you?”

Joan swiveled around so she could see Tucker’s face. “Told me what?”

“Nothing,” Tucker said. “Forget I said that.”

“Told me
what
?”

Tucker wiped the perspiration off his brow and looked out the window. “I thought you knew,” he said. “I just assumed Mitch had told you.”

“Tucker!” Her voice hissed, like a poisonous snake. “If you don’t tell me, right now, what you are talking about, I will turn you in to the cops.”

Tucker pointed at the back of Alan’s head.

“Alan,” Joan said, “get out and go see if you can figure out why traffic isn’t moving.”

“I want to hear about Mitch.”

“Go!”

Alan opened the car door and walked off.

“Ten years ago,” Tucker said, “Mitch was convicted of armed robbery and assault. After the trial, while he was being transferred from the county jail to a state prison, he escaped; he got away from two guards and was never caught. He lost thirty pounds, had plastic surgery on his nose, cut his hair short, and changed his name.”

“His name?” Joan said. “Mitch Lagrange is not his real name?”

“No. His real name is Michael Garrenger.”

“I married someone called Mitch Lagrange.”

Tucker was sorry he had spilled his brother’s secret but it was almost worth it to hear the shock in Joan’s voice.

Alan rushed back to the car. “You know why we’re going so slow?” he said. “It’s because there are cops up ahead, and they’re checking every car.”

ELLEN
heard splashing as the man moved beside the edge of the walkway. She couldn’t see his face but she sensed that he was peering under the walkway every few feet, trying to see where she was.

The thick algae squished up between her fingers as she crawled through the water. The foul smell was worse under the walkway, where the water was more stagnant. She wondered if the smell was part of the scary effect of The River of Fear or merely the result of poor maintenance.

This water is probably full of germs, she thought, and gagged at the idea of crawling on her hands and knees through zillions of wriggling creatures, all carrying terrible diseases.

She heard another row of empty boats enter the tunnel. They moved quickly, so there was no time to form a plan or consider where the man was standing. As the boats went past, Ellen sprang out from under the walkway, grabbed the side of a boat and jumped headfirst into the bottom of the boat.

She almost made it. She landed in the bottom of the boat but couldn’t get her legs tucked in fast enough. The man grasped her ankles and tugged. Ellen kicked, trying to free herself. The man ran along beside the moving boat, yanking on her legs.

Ellen grabbed the safety bar but her hands were slippery
from crawling around in the algae and when the man tugged harder, she was unable to keep her grip. He pulled her up and over the edge. Although she tried desperately to cling to the side of the boat, it slid away from her outstretched fingers.

The man held fast to her ankles and Ellen fell face downward into the water. Immediately, she felt a foot on her shoulders, holding her under.

CHAPTER
16

ELLEN TWISTED
and kicked. The foot moved off her shoulders but now the man’s hands pressed hard on the back of her head. Ellen felt as if her lungs would burst like popped balloons if she didn’t get some air soon.

Help! she screamed in her mind. Grandpa! Guardian Angel! Spirits! Anyone! Help me!

But even as she pleaded, Ellen knew that she would have to help herself.

Empty boats streaked past beside her, so close, yet so un-reachable.

Frantically, Ellen scooped a fistful of algae from the bottom and flung it over her shoulder at the man. He was leaning over her, holding her head down. The foul-smelling algae hit him in both eyes, temporarily blinding him.

Cursing, he let go of Ellen in order to wipe the algae from his face. She scrambled to her feet, gulped air, and dove into the last boat in the row.

As she rode away from him, she heard him yell, “Joan! Where are you? Turn on the light!”

A short distance ahead, the wolf lunged low toward the side of the boat, then raised its head as the boat passed, snapping its huge jaws.

Ellen realized that when Corey had been knocked unconscious, the wolf’s head must have come along just at the right moment to lift Corey and raise his limp body up, keeping him out of the water. When the ride stopped, Corey still lay on the wolf’s head. If the wolf had not been there, Corey would surely have drowned in the foul water.

Her boat passed the enormous beast. Instead of being scared of the vicious-looking creature, Ellen felt like hugging it.

She continued on through the Tunnel of Terror and past all the horrible monsters of Mutilation Mountain. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have been scared silly by the Dracula, werewolf, and other horrid creatures. This time, she barely noticed them. She was too shaken by her encounters with real danger to be frightened by anything fake.

After what seemed like an hour, she emerged at the top of The River of Fear platform. It was crowded with people.

“There she is! Ellen’s here!”

Ellen recognized The Great Sybil’s voice.

Below, the red lights of an ambulance flashed around and around near the bottom of the steps.

A police officer and The Great Sybil helped Ellen climb out of the boat. The officer turned the ride off.

“Corey’s in one of the other boats,” Ellen said. “He’s unconscious.”

“We already found him,” the officer said. “A paramedic is
examining him now.” He called over the side of the platform. “Mrs. Streater! Mr. Streater! Your daughter is safe!”

Below her, Ellen saw her parents standing next to two men in white jackets. Corey lay on a stretcher beside them.

Her parents waved at her and then bent over Corey again.

“What happened?” The Great Sybil said.

“A man inside The River of Fear tried to kill me,” Ellen said. She started to shake. Her teeth chattered as if it were a freezing December night instead of a balmy August evening.

“Here.” The Great Sybil removed the fringed shawl that she had on and wrapped it around Ellen’s shoulders.

“I’m not really cold,” Ellen said. “I don’t know why I’m shivering.”

“Nervous reaction,” said the police officer. “Who tried to kill you? How?”

The officer raised his eyebrows but listened intently as Ellen told exactly what had happened inside The River of Fear ride. Partway through her story, he directed two other officers to look for suspects on the maintenance stairway on the back side of the ride.

“It was Tucker Garrenger,” The Great Sybil said. “He’s the only one who would know to go inside the ride.” She frowned. “I can’t think who the woman would be, though.”

“Who is Tucker Garrenger?” the officer said.

“He’s been running this ride,” The Great Sybil said, “and I haven’t trusted him from the very first.”

“The man inside wasn’t the man who was running the ride,” Ellen said. “The man who tried to drown me wasn’t the same man who tried to push me off the platform.”

“Two
men tried to kill you?” the officer said.

Ellen nodded. She didn’t blame the officer for looking dubious; she could hardly believe it herself.

“The man in the water,” Ellen said, “was average height and build and he had thick, dark hair. And evil eyes.” She shivered harder, remembering how the man had looked at her. “And he kept talking to someone named Joan.”

The siren on the ambulance bleeped. Ellen jumped at the sudden sound and then quickly looked down. The medics were sliding the stretcher bearing Corey into the ambulance.

Corey lay still as stone. Mrs. Streater climbed in the back of the ambulance and knelt beside Corey. Mr. Streater looked up, waved at Ellen, and pointed to the ambulance before he, too, climbed in.

Ellen waved back. Her parents were going to accompany Corey to the hospital. It must be serious, for both of them to go, leaving her here. Even though they could see that she was unharmed and did not need their assistance, it was unlike her parents to take off like that without explaining to her first.

And what about the Streaters’ car? Dad must be in a terrific hurry to get to that hospital, if he was leaving his car at the fairgrounds, to be retrieved later.

Ellen knew that the police officers or The Great Sybil would be sure that Ellen got safely home. Maybe Dad had arranged for the police to drive Ellen to the hospital when they finished questioning her. Even so, she trembled harder as she watched both of her parents and her brother leave the fairgrounds in an ambulance, its siren wailing and its red lights flashing. Surrounded by people, Ellen felt completely alone.

CHAPTER
17

MITCH SPAT
into the water and wiped more algae from his face. “They got away,” he muttered. “Both of them.”

The only sound was the splash of the boats in the distance and the noises of the scenes in the tunnel.

Mitch sloshed through the foul-smelling water toward the landing. Joan had said maybe someone was coming. She must have slipped outside to watch and listen. Or maybe she had gone back up the steps to tell that idiot Tucker to turn the ride off. Mitch could not imagine what had possessed Tucker to turn the thing on in the first place. Tucker knew Mitch and Joan were inside; what was he thinking?