Scared Stiff (18 page)

Connie couldn't wait for her to tell it herself. He leaned forward. “So you stuck the papers in Rick's notebook, then dropped it on the steps so they wouldn't get it.”

“I dropped it accidentally,” Ma said. “The papers weren't particularly incriminating, though they did have a list of customers that included the ones who'd lost loads when they were hijacked and the one I suspected they
intended
to steal from next. Packard said they wanted to talk to me, and kept trying to get me into the car. I pretended I didn't know what they were talking about, insisted I had to get home right away, and practically ran. I knew if they found that
tape on me they'd do something to stop me from ever telling anybody about it—”

“So where is it?” I interrupted. “Did they get it back?”

Ma shook her head. “No. I ran up the steps and into our apartment house, but they came after me before the door latched behind me and followed upstairs. I only had a few seconds before they got there. I was so frantic I didn't even get that door locked, either. All I could think of was getting rid of that incriminating tape.”

“So where is it?” I demanded. “They came back and searched for it. They made an awful mess.”

Ma almost grinned a little. “There was a sweatshirt of yours on the floor beside the table just inside the front door. Right where you dropped it, instead of hanging it up. I stuck the tape in one pocket, just seconds before they got there.”

“And I packed it with my other clothes when we went with Uncle Henry,” I said. “Only it never got cold enough to wear it, so I didn't find the tape.”

“And you didn't tell them where it was, so they kidnapped you,” Julie said to Ma, looking horrified. “And they hurt you.”

“Not as much as I was afraid they were going to,” Ma said. “They decided it would be easier to take Rick and Kenny hostage. They knew I'd have to do what they said if they had my boys, and I didn't know how I was going to get out of it.”

“But even if you cooperated then,” Connie said soberly, “they might not have let you all go.”

He meant, I thought, gulping, that they might have killed all of us to keep us quiet.

Ma nodded, and her face was grim. “They said they'd just leave us all locked up, and when they got to Mexico they'd call somebody and tell them where to find us before we starved.”

And if anybody believed that, I thought, they probably believed in fairies and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It made me feel sick, and I prayed that the cops would get Kenny away from Packard real quick.

Right then we heard the shot.

Ma turned pale and jumped out of the car.
The rest of us were right behind her, but the cop was waving everybody back from the laundry building.

A minute later, when Ma was hanging on to me so hard it hurt, Mrs. Giuliani's dog began to bark wildly and jerked his leash free of her hand. He ran right through the laundry and Mrs. Giuliani tore after him, and then all of a sudden people pushed forward and started cheering.

Because the police were coming through the building from the hole in the fence behind it, and they had Packard and Kenny.

Kenny was beaming as we ran toward him, and Ma almost squashed him in a big hug.

“I bit him,” Kenny said proudly. “That nasty man tried to take me up where he could drop me off the rolly coaster if they didn't let him go, so I bit him. He let go of me, and I ran. He tried to catch me, but a cop shot him, and I got away.”

Packard wasn't hurt very bad, I guessed. He was walking with a cop hanging on to him on each side, but there was blood on his shoulder. He didn't look at anybody when they put him into one of the patrol cars.

It was all over, except for everybody having to tell the police everything.

Connie and Julie told how they'd found the keys, activated the rides and the music and the lights, and how Connie even realized when he found the microphone setup that it could be made to broadcast over the entire park. He'd sneaked up close enough to set the operation going in the Pirate Cave, so that the lights were triggered by moving gondolas as they were supposed to be, and then broadcast his well-practiced laughter. I told Connie if the park had still been open, they'd have recorded it to play every time they had a customer go through the cave.

They were the heroes, but the next day they put my picture in the paper, too, and they said I'd cleverly outwitted the crooks by hiding in the Pirate Cave.

Right then, though, it was mostly just a relief to know that Packard and Zimmer weren't going to get a chance to torture us to keep Ma quiet until they'd hijacked one more quarter-million-dollar load. They'd caught up with Pa and told him they had his wife and
kids and that if he didn't cooperate, too, they'd shoot all of us. Once they disposed of that last load, they were all going to take the money and run for South America where the U.S. authorities couldn't get at them.

It told all about it in the paper. How Ma had found out about their scheme to steal valuable loads from several different trucking companies. There were more than the ones Ma knew about.

Packard had been setting up hijackings for quite a while. He had persuaded dispatchers from several firms to tip him off to when something valuable and easily fenced would be shipped, like Pa's load of television sets, in return for a share of the profits. Because Packard was an insurance adjuster for a lot of trucking companies, he had a legitimate excuse to be talking to dispatchers or any other employees.

Once they knew where a truckload of something they wanted was going to be, they simply had somebody approach the driver and divert his attention one way or another, like offering Pa a steak dinner and eating with him to
make sure he didn't leave the restaurant until the thief had time to hijack the load.

They didn't care if suspicion fell on the driver of the stolen trailer, or if he lost his job. All they cared about was the money they made.

If Ma hadn't worked in the same office as the dispatcher, Bob Cranston, and if she hadn't been trying to figure out whether or not Pa was involved in the hijacking, they might have gone on doing it forever.

I felt kind of limp after they'd finally taken Zimmer and Packard away. All the people who lived in the RV park were standing around talking, unwilling to go back to their TV after the live action in their backyard.

I was glad when Uncle Henry suggested Ma go into the purple bus and clean up, and then we'd have something to eat. Everybody was suddenly starving, especially Ma.

“I'd like that,” Ma said. “They didn't bother to feed me much the whole time they had me locked up.”

“Ma,” Kenny said, tugging at her arm, “can we go back into Wonderland now that the
lights are on and everything will run? Can I ride the merry-go-round?”

Everybody looked at him. Ma made a sort of tired little gurgling sound of laughter. “Oh, honey,” she said, “let's just go home where I can have a bath and something to eat besides greasy hamburgers!”

“Hot dogs?” Kenny asked, brightening. “And then we could come back. Doesn't anybody else want to ride the merry-go-round?”

“Sure,” Julie said, and Connie nodded.

“If they're going to tear it all down, we ought to ride on everything once more,” Connie said.

“Not tonight,” Uncle Henry said firmly. “Maybe tomorrow, if they'll let us.”

And they did. The next day we came back and everybody from the RV park got a chance to ride the merry-go-round, though some of them just stood and watched and listened to the music. We got permission from the granddaughter of Mr. Mixon who had wanted to keep the park open. Reporters even came and took our pictures, and the story was on the front page of the paper.

When people read about it, there were a lot of calls to Mrs. Biggers, offering places for the people who lived there to move their trailers.

I hoped when Pa came home he and Ma would get back together again. It hasn't happened yet, though he did come to see us and hugged everybody, even Ma.

But we got away from Packard and Zimmer. We got Ma back. So maybe good things will happen in threes, too.

Anyway, I'm still hoping.

DON'T MISS THESE OTHER

WILLO DAVIS ROBERTS MYSTERIES:

Surviving Summer Vacation

The View from the Cherry Tree

Megan's Island

Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job

The Kidnappers

Hostage

The Pet-Sitting Peril

What Could Go Wrong?

Secrets at Hidden Valley

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

This Aladdin hardcover edition April 2016

Text copyright © 1991 by Willo Davis Roberts

Jacket illustration copyright © 2016 by Jessica Handelman

Also available in an Aladdin paperback edition.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and related logo is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or
[email protected]
.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at
www.simonspeakers.com
.

Jacket designed by Jessica Handelman

Interior designed by Mike Rosamilia

The text of this book was set in New Century Schoolbook.

Library of Congress Control Number 2015958584

ISBN 978-1-4814-4911-3 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-4814-4910-6 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4814-4912-0 (eBook)