Secrets of Bearhaven (19 page)

Adrenaline thundered through Spencer's veins. Every muscle in his body was tense, ready to spring into action. Ivan wasn't going to get him without a fight. Gritting his teeth in a snarl to match Ro Ro's, Spencer prepared to whirl around and face that helmet-wearing—

“Billy, you know you're not supposed to be in here!”

Evarita!

Spencer spun around. “How'd you find me?” he practically gasped in relief, barely resisting the urge to hug her again. The warning look in her eye answered his question. He wasn't exactly making himself hard to find. “Sorry . . . I can explain!” In the shock and chaos of the bear baying, Spencer had forgotten why he'd come into the barn in the first place. Now he wanted to tell Evarita everything he'd found out.

“Not in here you can't, mister.” Evarita took hold of his arm, but Spencer pulled back. He couldn't go out the front, not if Ivan was there. He took Evarita's hand. If anything, holding her hand would signal that something was
really
off.

“I think it's this way, Mom,” he said determinedly, shooting her the most meaningful look he could manage.

Pulling Evarita along behind him, Spencer made his way through the crowd. It wasn't nearly as hard to move now as it had been before. Men looked down angrily when Spencer tried to push past them, but then they saw Evarita in her flowery pink shirt, and suddenly their path opened up.

As quickly as he could, Spencer led Evarita to the door at the back of the barn that he'd tried to get in through earlier. Hidden behind a set of bleachers, it stood unguarded. To Spencer's relief, it wasn't the lock itself that had held the door shut from the outside, just a wooden bolt that he could easily push aside.

“Billy, I'm not sure we want to be back here,” Evarita said, looking around, but there was nobody there to see them. A surge of cheers and hollers burst out of the crowd, echoing loudly in the space beneath the stands.

“I can't go out the other way,” Spencer whispered urgently. “Ivan's out there. Margo's here, too.”

“You saw
Margo
?” Evarita whispered back. “I saw Ivan on the way in.” Spencer pushed the door open just enough to slip out, then closed it quietly once Evarita had stepped out behind him.

“I saw her,” Spencer rushed on, still whispering. “I wanted to tell Uncle Mark, to warn him. But, Eva—” She cut him off with a warning look. “There's something really weird going on here,” he continued, dropping his voice even lower.

Another roar from the crowd thundered out of the barn. Evarita glanced over her shoulder. “I have to get back. The show sounds like it's getting close to the end. We don't know where they're keeping the bears yet—” She broke off
midsentence. There wasn't time to explain. “Go back to the Cadillac. We'll meet you there as soon as possible.”

“Wait—” Spencer needed to tell her about the wiring he'd found in the ground and the silver doors that the buried wires had led him to. He needed to explain that there
was
more to Grady's Grandstand than they'd thought; he was sure of it now.

“I can't wait any longer, but don't worry,” Evarita said. “We'll get them out of here.” Without another word, she slipped back into the barn. Raucous cheers washed over Spencer as the door swung shut behind her.

He kicked the bundle of wires that he'd dug out of the ground earlier. He wasn't going to wait in the car doing nothing. Not when Ro Ro and the cubs were in danger and needed help.

Spencer walked into the trees again. Following the path that the wires made, he returned to the silver doors set into the hill. He pushed on the doors again, but they didn't move. Maybe there was a button hidden nearby, some sort of trigger he'd missed. He studied the surface of the hill but didn't come up with anything. He searched the surrounding trees, running his hands along their bark, feeling for anything unnatural.

Bang!
The door of the barn slammed open. Quickly, Spencer ducked behind the tree he'd been inspecting, flattening himself against its trunk. Shouts and whistles flooded out of the barn. The show was over. Spencer peeked around the tree to look back down the hidden path to the barn.

He almost choked. Ro Ro's head was only inches from his face and she was staring right at him! Before either of them
could move, the chain around her neck jerked violently, and she was forced to look away. Spencer scanned his surroundings, preparing to use Bear Stealth to escape if he had to, but apparently Ro Ro's handler hadn't cared to follow her gaze.

“Open it already,” a gruff voice said.

“I'm
trying,
” another voice shot back angrily. “Keep hold of 'em so I can hit the button.” Chains rattled and Ro Ro huffed.

“You expect me to hold 'em both?” a third voice spat.

“Gimme a break!
Here
.”

The silver doors slowly slid apart, opening a wide entrance into the hill. Three muscled thugs walked through, the first leading Ro Ro inside on a chain, and the other two following behind with the cubs.

I have to do something!
Spencer rose and stepped toward the doors.
No.
He hesitated.
Find Uncle Mark and Evarita first.
The doors started to slide shut.
There's no time!
The goons were disappearing into the hill with the bears.
This could be the only chance we have!

“Let me GO!”

Spencer whirled around. Evarita was struggling in the doorway at the rear of the barn, a thick arm wrapped around her waist to hold her back. There was another shout, and Uncle Mark pushed into the doorway behind Evarita. He was fighting someone off, trying as hard as Evarita was to get out of the barn and follow the bears. Spencer hesitated. The silver doors were almost closed; he had to move now.

He locked eyes with Uncle Mark. Shock passed across his uncle's face. Suddenly, a red football helmet entered the scuffle, and they lost sight of each other.

Now!

Spencer ran toward the silver doors. He leaped into the air and spun sideways, slipping through the last bit of space between the closing doors. A second later, they sealed shut behind him.

The bears' chains shook loudly, the metallic clanking echoing through the passageway. Relieved that no one had heard him over all of the noise, Spencer didn't wait to catch his breath. Soundlessly, sticking close to the wall, he crept along behind the thugs as they hustled the bears forward.

Just as Spencer had suspected, the tunnel sloped downward sharply, leading them into the ground. The floor was covered in gray tiles, and the walls and ceiling gleamed silvery gray under a harsh row of lights that ran the length of the passage. There were no doors, and nothing Spencer could hide behind if one of the men were to turn. It was like being in a huge metal tube.

The tunnel flattened out and opened into a wider corridor with doors on either side. In the glare of bright lights, Spencer was even more exposed than he'd been in the tunnel. Still, he continued to follow, stealthily silent-walking as closely behind as he could.

Ro Ro protested with every step, pulling against the chain, swiping a paw at the metal collar around her neck. Spencer couldn't stand to watch the bear's agony, but the trouble she
was causing was keeping all three men busy. The goon with Ro Ro's chain strained to keep hold of her, dragging her along, and the goons with the cubs each brandished a menacing-looking prod to threaten and herd the animals, though the cubs had stopped struggling. Whimpering and staying as close to each other as they could, the cubs padded along behind, looking exhausted. Ro Ro's strength was obviously diminishing, too. Spencer could see she was favoring her left hind leg, and blood speckled the gleaming gray floor every few yards. She was hurt. How much farther could they be taking the bears?

One of these doors must lead to the bears' cages.
Spencer craned his neck to peer into a room as he slipped by, but he couldn't see much through the half-open door. He kept moving, but instantly realized his mistake. The rattling chains had quieted. The men had stopped in front of an elevator at the end of the corridor.

Without a second thought, Spencer took a step backward and slipped through the half-open door. Right away, he realized this was a whole new mistake.

The dimly lit room wasn't empty. Instead, the very last person in the world that Spencer wanted to see was standing inside. Margo.

Wearing a lab coat and that orange hat, Margo stood with her back turned to Spencer. She must not have heard or seen him yet. Goose bumps rose on Spencer's arms.

Now what?
He couldn't leave or else the thugs would spot him, but being this close to Margo definitely wasn't a good idea, either. He reached into his pocket, taking hold of the jade bear.

Margo was facing a long, crescent-shaped console lined with large computer monitors. It looked so much like the surveillance room in the Lab that for a second, Spencer felt like he was back in Bearhaven. The feeling didn't last long. The loud rattling of the bears' chains suddenly poured into the room from the hallway. Sure that Margo would turn at the sound, Spencer ducked behind a file cabinet. He dropped to his hands and knees, ready to move again if he had to. He didn't hear the chains anymore. The goons must have taken the bears to another floor.

Beside the file cabinet there was a long black desk with a rolling leather chair pushed in behind it. Determined to see what Margo was up to, Spencer crept under the desk. He stayed close to the file cabinet, keeping his body in its shadow, and peered out from under the sleek black surface.

Suddenly, a huge screen started to lower out of the ceiling. Margo erupted into a series of hacking coughs, startling Spencer so much that he almost screamed.

Trying to calm his thundering pulse, he focused on the screen suspended above the bank of monitors in front of Margo. Whatever was about to appear there was going to be huge. Spencer was almost afraid to find out what it would be. A replay of the bear baying? A slow-motion recap of the highlights?

Margo pulled off her hat and tossed it onto the console. Her sickening hair hung in tangled disarray. She raked her fingers through her hair, quickly trying to fix it as she leaned toward something in front of her. A moment later, she dropped her hands and the rapid
clacks
of fingers hammering
on a keyboard resounded around the room. The huge screen went from black to gray. An image appeared.

At the center of the picture sat a man in an enormous chair. At first, Spencer was relieved.
At least it's not a close-up of the bear baying.
But he quickly realized that everything about the image was disturbing. It was the chair that scared him most. Really, it was a throne that the man was perched on, and it was covered in pieces of . . .
bears
. The man sat primly on top of several cushions that Spencer was sure were made of bear hide. A patchwork of different shades of bear fur surrounded him, rising up the back of the throne and leading to a row of bear fangs studding the top edge. The throne's legs ended in carved bear paws, but the throne's armrests were much creepier. Spencer didn't want to believe it was possible, but he was almost certain that fixed on top of the chair's arms, preserved and hollowed out so that the man's own hands disappeared inside of them, were
real
bear paws, with long curling claws.
Disgusting.

Margo hacked out another round of coughs. The man in the image moved. It wasn't a picture—it was a live feed. The man lifted a hand to shield his face as though Margo's germs might reach him through the video feed. To Spencer's horror, when the man pulled his hand from inside the paw, the claws went with him. They were the man's own nails!

Margo slapped the keyboard, and suddenly a small box appeared in the top right corner of the enormous screen. The box displayed Margo's end of the feed. Her image filled the center, but behind her Spencer could see the very desk
he crouched beneath. He held his breath, preparing to run as he searched the desk on the screen for his own image or any sign that the camera had given him away. There was nothing. The space under the desk was dark. He was hidden by shadows.