Secret at Mystic Lake (12 page)

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” I
asked, shrinking back.
What would these girls do to me?
I wondered.
Would they really hurt me?

Caitlin took in a deep breath through her nose. “I'm not quite ready for the game to be over,” she said. “This is supposed to be my vacation by the lake, and as you can see, I still have a bunch of books to get through.” She gestured to the coffee table, where, indeed, about five or six romance paperbacks were piled up. “We're borrowing this cabin without the owner's knowledge, but we found a shed out there that has no windows
and a padlock on the door—it seems like a pretty good place to keep a nosy wannabe detective.”

I shook my head. “Come on, guys,” I said, trying to paste on my most we're-all-friends-here type smile. “You don't have to lock me up! I mean, you hit the nail on the head, Caitlin—I'm a total overachiever, just like you. I could sooo use some time by the lake myself. I get what you're doing now, really, and I wouldn't tell anybody.”

Caitlin glanced at Zoe, who shook her head. Caitlin smirked. “That's cool, Drama Club,” she said, gesturing to the shovel. Zoe again raised it in the air. I instinctively backed away. “But I'm not quite convinced by your performance.”

I swallowed hard. A plan was taking shape in the back of my mind, but I cowered down and made my voice high and desperate. “Please, guys,” I said, “don't make me—”

The girls swooped down on me, each grabbing me by an arm, and dragged me toward the door of the cabin. Zoe was holding the shovel in her other hand,
and when we reached the porch, I was able to twist my right hand out of her grasp and reach up to pinch her armpit—hard. She dropped the shovel on her foot, letting out a shrill cry, and Caitlin loosened her grip just enough for me to pull away.

I ran off the porch, down the path to the lake, and out onto the dock.

By the time I dove in and started swimming for the canoe, they were following me, but neither one was brave enough to dive in after me. I grabbed the canoe from where it had drifted about fifty feet out into the lake and pulled myself up and in. Then I grabbed the paddle and started paddling.

Just like before.
Don't think, just paddle.

I went as fast as my arms could carry me.

Caitlin and Zoe dragged a rowboat down from the bank of the lake and climbed in, but luckily, I had a big head start. Out on the lake, it took me a minute to get my bearings, but I soon recognized the direction I'd come from by the pattern of the trees and the angle of
the moon—as I got closer, I could see the stream I'd waded through to get to the lake. I paddled back to the dock and jumped out, hoping that the canoe's owners wouldn't mind that I hadn't bothered to tie the thing up. Terrified, I quickly glanced behind me, and, sure enough, Zoe and Caitlin were rowing furiously, getting closer and closer to the dock.

I splashed through the stream until I thought I was in the area we'd camped, and then just started screaming. “BESS! GEORGE!” I splashed up and down the bank of the stream, peeping through the trees, trying to find any sign of life. “BESS! GEORGE!”

When I'd been yelling for about two minutes, I heard Bess's voice.

“Nancy! Is that you?”

They came crashing through the woods. I ran to them like a starving man to a drumstick and threw my arms around them, letting out a moan of relief.

“Are you okay?” George asked, grabbing my face and looking into my eyes. “We heard Zoe scream. We heard her tell you to run. We were scared as anything,
but then nothing happened. No one came after us. We heard footsteps all around. After a few minutes we got up and started looking for you. But there was no sign anywhere.”

“It's a long story,” I said, glancing back in the direction I'd come. Caitlin and Zoe would be at the dock soon, if they weren't by now. We didn't have a lot of time.

“Guys,” I said to my friends, not for the first time, and probably not for the last, “we have to run!”

“OH MY GOSH,” BESS WHISPERED
, staggering over a tree root and nearly falling over. “I can't believe we're still in these woods. I can't believe we're not back in River Heights by now. How far have we come?”

I inhaled a deep breath. It was morning. We'd been running, and then hiking, through the woods ever since I'd found my friends who knew how many hours before.

“We've probably walked a few miles,” I said. “The problem is, we don't have any idea where we are, or where we're going. So we're probably walking in circles.”

“I'm so hungry,” George moaned. “I haven't even
seen any blackberries in this part of the woods. I'm about to eat some bark.”

“Don't do it,” I said. “It would play into Caitlin's plan if we ended up poisoning ourselves out here.”

George grunted her assent.

I'd explained everything that had happened to me since I'd left the tent the night before. Zoe's scream, hearing Henry's voice, and then being chased through the woods down to the canoe, as well as the whole confrontation with Zoe and Caitlin.

“I just can't believe Zoe was behind this whole thing,” Bess mused. “She was a good actress. She complained about every setback—but meanwhile she had helped plan them all.”

“Kind of nervy of her to bring the extra tent,” George said, “when you think about it.”

I nodded. “I don't think Caitlin or Zoe thought they'd ever get caught,” I said. “I get the feeling Caitlin's so used to making everything go perfectly, she thought she'd get away with this, too.”

“Poor Henry.” Bess sighed. “I guess it's a good
thing I don't have a twin who's my opposite and who I kind of hate.”

George shot her a sidelong glance. “Yeah, it's probably good we're cousins, not siblings.”

Bess gave her a rueful smile.

That's when I heard something. A rumble, so familiar and yet so . . .

“A car!” I yelled, trying to track the direction it was coming from. “To the right there. Do you hear it? Just through those trees . . .”

Bess's expression looked like I'd just told her there was a million dollars on the ground, ripe for the taking. “What are we waiting for? Run!”

We ran. I'm not sure I had ever moved that fast before, or that I'll ever move that fast again. We shot through the trees and came out onto a narrow two-lane road. I could just see the taillights of a Jeep retreating into the cool dawn mist.

“WAIT!” I screamed, my feet slapping on the pavement as I ran after it. “WAIT! We need help! PLEASE!”

The Jeep had nearly disappeared around the bend. I felt hope dying in my heart. But then, at the last moment, it stopped and a moment later the passenger door opened up and a curious face popped out.

“Girls?”

“Dagger!” George cried, running at him.

The driver's-side door opened up to reveal an older man wearing a park ranger uniform. “Are you part of the bike tour group that split up yesterday?” he asked me, looking stern.

“We are,” I said.

He nodded, glancing at Dagger. “Well, I have a lot of questions for you.”

“Good,” I said cheerfully. “I hope you have sandwiches, too.”

It turned out that Henry and Dagger had found the ranger station in the middle of the night, but when they'd led the rangers back to our campsite, they'd found the empty sleeping bags and known something was wrong. After we'd told him the whole sordid story,
the park ranger took us to the local police station a few miles outside Mystic Lake Park and said he was bringing together some rangers to look for Caitlin and Zoe. By that time, George and Bess and I had gobbled up some bagels ordered for us by the officers and were relaxing in a room with Henry and Dagger.

Dagger had, surprisingly, taken the news of Caitlin's faked disappearance in stride. “She's clearly out of balance, mentally,” he said mildly.

Henry, on the other hand, was sitting alone in a chair by the wall, his head in his hands, looking utterly stricken.

“I knew we had our differences,” he'd said a few minutes ago, speaking to the whole room, I guess. “I knew she thought I was lazy. But this is just insane. This is just . . . insane.”

He'd admitted that he had some pretty serious gambling debts, and that that was why he'd denied fighting with Caitlin before she disappeared. He hadn't wanted to reveal to the rest of the group what he was really up to.

As we waited for our parents to show, the cops brought Henry back to ask him some more questions. “They've found Caitlin and Zoe,” the young officer who came for Henry told the rest of us. “They were hiking along the road a few miles from the cabin you described. Some officers are bringing them in for questioning.”

My stomach dropped a little. I didn't really want to look at Caitlin and Zoe as they were brought into the police station, knowing that I'd foiled their crazy plan. Actually, I wanted to be done with this whole chapter of my life. I wanted to go home, see my dad, take a bath, put on clean pj's, eat a bowl of our housekeeper Hannah's amazing fettuccine alfredo, call my boyfriend, Ned, and then collapse into my own bed.

And sleep for three days.

And never go camping again.

Before I could even express my thoughts to Bess and George, the Faynes pushed open the door to the little room we were being held in, followed by another officer.

“So we can take them, correct?” Mr. Fayne was asking. “These girls are free to go?”

“Yes, sir,” the officer said with a nod.

“Oh, muffin,” Mrs. Fayne cried, running straight for George. “Are you okay?”

George hugged her mom back hard. “I'm fine, Mom. Tired. And a little freaked out. But fine. I guess maybe a gift card would have been a better birthday present, huh?” she joked feebly.

But Mrs. Fayne shook her head. “Not at all, honey,” she said. “I'm so sorry for you, for the way this turned out. But you're a responsible girl. This wasn't your fault.”

George looked at her mom and beamed. They hugged again, and Mr. Fayne suggested, “Let's get out of here. If any happening ever called for pancakes, this is it.”

I couldn't have agreed more. We said our goodbyes to Dagger and were on our way.