Strawberry Summer (11 page)

“It doesn’t matter, though.” The receptionist shrugged. “In fact, now that you’re here, I can take off a few minutes early.” Conspiratorially, she added, “My lunch hour doesn’t officially begin until twelve-fifteen. But if you’re going to cover the phones, I might as well sneak out now. Hey, that means I’ll even have time to go to the bank!”

“Take your time,” said Chris breezily.

After a quick tour of the offices, during which Chris was able to identify Tom’s office—and the office’s key filing cabinet—and a brief lecture on how the telephone system worked, the receptionist hurried away. Her glee over getting out of the office a few minutes early kept her from asking a lot of questions-—exactly what Chris had been hoping for.

Well,
that
was easy enough! she thought, greatly relieved once the woman was gone and she had the office to herself. Now, if only I can keep my hands from shaking....

Chris got down to business immediately. She started with the file cabinet she had noticed first, right in Tom’s office. It was very organized, with a separate file, it seemed, for each of their clients, all alphabetized. She checked under “R” for Reed and “P” for Pinewood, but found nothing. So she began reading through the files, one at a time, hoping to stumble upon something that rang a bell.

At first, she was nervous. Each noise made her jump. It hadn’t occurred to her until she was actually doing this—going through Lake Majestic Realty’s files, pretending to be someone she wasn’t—how much of a risk she really was taking. What if someone came back early? She could be caught red-handed!

But that won’t happen, she kept telling herself over and over again. Susan and I already checked all that out. The real estate agents never come back before one ... so there’s still plenty of time.

The other concern that plagued her was that what she was doing was probably illegal.

But what
they’re
doing is illegal, too! she thought.

No, this was no time to be debating the pros and cons of what she was doing. She had already come this far. Now she had no choice but to go ahead with her plan. After all, it was all for the Reeds. And reminding herself of that made it much easier to continue.

As she became more and more involved with seeking out the information she so desperately needed, Chris forgot to be nervous. Instead, she found herself becoming angry.

Darn! I
know
there’s something here! If only I could find it!

She gave up on the large filing cabinet. But another quick tour of the offices told her there weren’t any other such files.

That left the desks.

Somehow, snooping around someone’s desk seemed like a real violation of privacy. But once again she reminded herself that it was for a good cause. All she had to do was think about the conversation she had overheard—Tom’s evil laugh, his plans to get rich in such an underhanded fashion, his triumph over forcing the Reeds to sell their land, and at too low a price. She forged onward, more determined than ever to expose the crooked dealings of Lake Majestic Reality. After taking a deep breath, she descended upon Tom’s desk.

One drawer, she discovered, contained more files, like those she had found in the big file cabinet. Chris wondered why these were kept separately ... unless they were
all
files on unethical dealings. She pounced upon them eagerly.

Sure enough, the third file she came across was labeled “Pinewood.” And inside the manila envelope were six or eight memos and letters, all of them concerning the Reeds’ property.

The memos were written to the real estate agents who worked in the office. Chris’s eyes grew round as she skimmed them. They talked about plans for upsetting things at the camp—hiding supplies, releasing all the boats onto Lake Majestic, even hiding the folding chairs, rented for the counselors’ show. And the tone of all of them was the same: congratulating Pete
for
successfully carrying out the evil little schemes that Tom had thought up.

At the back of the folder was a letter, written just a few days before. It was to a local architecture firm, describing the Reeds’ property, which, the letter said, the Lake Majestic Realty Company “expected to acquire sometime in the near future.” Tom suggested in the letter that the architects begin drawing up plans for a complex of lakefront condominiums. There was even a reference to the fact that saving money on the buildings, by “cutting corners wherever possible,” was much more important than quality. Chris was astounded.

The folder was a gold mine! She had found exactly what she had come looking for. Now all she had to do was make a copy of each of the memos and the letter, get out while she still had the time, and hide behind the inn and wait for Alan and Susan to come by and pick her up. Once she presented copies of these documents at the public land auction, everyone would know exactly what had been going on. The game would be over for the Lake Majestic Realty Company!

But she had to hurry. The clock on Tom’s desk
told her it was ten minutes to one. She rushed over
to the copying machine in the front room and
quickly made two duplicates of each piece of paper.
As she did she heard a car door slam—and jumped
about two feet.

It could be anyone, she told herself. It’s still early. That’s probably just someone on his way to the dentist. You’ve still got time....

With the copies in one hand and the originals in the other, Chris rushed back to Tom’s office. She pulled open his desk drawer and leaned over to put the entire folder back exactly as she had found it. She was struggling to fit it in between two other folders when a sinking feeling suddenly traveled over her, making her break out in a cold sweat.

She knew even before she looked up that someone was standing in the doorway.

“Looks to me like I’ve got myself a burglar,” growled the large, heavy set man who was looming before her.

Chris immediately recognized his voice as Tom’s. Her knees felt so weak that she was certain she would sink to the floor. But instead, she just froze.

“But you’re not just any old burglar. You’ve been going through my files, haven’t you?”

Chris just stared at him. She had, indeed, been caught red-handed. She had his file in one hand, her copies of its contents in the other. What she had been doing was all too obvious—especially to someone like Tom, who knew that he was on the verge of completing the shady deal he’d started two or three years before.

When he walked over and calmly took both the folder and the copies away from her, Chris recoiled. And as he glanced at them, she told herself to run while she still could. Her legs didn’t want to move, at first. It was like a nightmare, where she knew she had to get away but was frozen to the spot. And then, when she finally did manage to start hurrying away, he grabbed her roughly by the arm.

“Not so fast, honey. You think you’re just going to walk right out of here? Especially since it’s all too clear what you’ve been up to! No, you’re a real troublemaker. Sent over by Jake Reed, I suppose....”

“No! He doesn’t know anything about this! And if you let me go, I promise not to say anything....”

‘“You promise’!” Tom laughed coldly. “And you think I should believe you, huh? Well, I’ll let you go—in due time. But for the next couple of hours, I think it’d be best if I made sure a little troublemaker like you stayed out of the way!”

With that, he pushed her into a small storage room with no window, just an air vent, throwing in the folder and all the papers after her. “Here, that’ll give you something to read while you’re in there! Don’t worry; you’ll get out soon enough. Just as soon as the land auction is over! And by the way, if you should get any ideas about pounding on the door and yelling your head off, I’ll be leaving a note on the door, telling Nancy to take the afternoon off.

“Now I’ve got a meeting to get to!”

He slammed the door behind him, and Chris heard him lock it from the outside. She was shaking all over by then, and she sank to the floor. But it wasn’t fear that was causing her to tremble; it was anger. She had been so close! And now she wouldn’t be able to help the Reeds after all. Susan and Alan would be coming by soon, but they would never manage to get her out of there.

Oh, she would get out sooner or later, she knew. All in one piece, too.

But not until it was too late.

“What time is it?” Susan asked nervously for what
must have been the tenth time in the past fifteen minutes. She and Alan were in the pickup, headed for the Okie-Dokie Inn, on their way to their rendezvous with Chris.

“It’s one-thirty,” Alan replied patiently.

He, too, had been nervously watching the clock. Ever since Susan had come to him an hour earlier and told him the whole story of the “investigation” she and Chris had undertaken, and what they had found out as a result, he had been worried.

His first inclination had been to tell his parents. But they had already left for the public land auction, intending to run some errands beforehand.

Probably to keep their minds off what they’re about to do, he thought sadly. Camp Pinewood has been their life for as long as I can remember—ever since I was a little boy. What they must be going through, having no other choice but to sell it!

So Susan’s report of what she and her twin had discovered was heartening. Now, if only the rest of the girls’ plan went off as smoothly as she seemed to think it would!

It certainly seemed simple enough. By now Chris should have had enough time to find the evidence that was necessary to prove what the Lake Majestic Realty Company had been doing all along. Once they picked her up from behind the Okie-Dokie Inn with that evidence in hand, they could race to the auction, stop his parents from signing over their land—and expose those real estate people for the crooks they really were.

Just as long as nothing went wrong....

“What time is it
now?”

Alan looked at his watch. “It’s one-thirty-one. What time were we supposed to meet Chris?”

“One-thirty, on the nose. But it doesn’t matter if we’re a little late. She’ll be there.”

Alan just wished he could be as confident about this whole thing as Susan seemed to be.

As the two of them drove into the parking lot, they were both searching for Chris. Alan pulled up behind the Okie-Dokie, puzzled.

Susan, too, was surprised. “Now,
that’s
funny. This is where we’ve both been hiding all week, while we were ‘spying’ on the Lake Majestic Realty office. I was sure she’d be here....”

“Maybe she’s still inside. Let’s park over there, out of the way, and wait. She’ll show up sooner or later.” He glanced at his watch once again. “I just hope it’s sooner. The auction starts in twenty-five minutes.”

“Don’t worry,” Susan assured him. “Chris will come through. She
always
does.”

They waited in silence. The minutes slipped by—and no Chris. Even Susan was growing fidgety

“How long did you say it takes to drive to Town Hall from here?”

“Oh, about twenty minutes.”

Susan gulped. “It’s getting late, isn’t it?”

Alan just nodded.

The two of them sat in the pickup truck in silence. When it was almost one-forty-five, Susan turned to Alan and said, “Look, I’m starting to get worried. I know for sure that if Chris could be here, she’d be here. Something must have happened. Something must have gone wrong....”

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll go inside the Lake Majestic offices and see if I can find out anything.”

“No—I’d better go. They might recognize you. Besides,” she added, almost as if she were talking to herself, “it’s my turn.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, just something I’d worked out with Chris.’’

She walked over to the Lake Majestic Realty Company office, trying to look as casual as she could. She didn’t know what she was going to say once she got inside ... but it turned out not to matter. The door was locked.

“Hello? Hello? Anyone here?” she called.

At first, she tried to keep her voice low. But as she started to get scared, her cries grew louder and louder. “Chris, are you in there? Chris?
Chris?”

But there was no response, only the loud hum of the air conditioners of the other offices. Even when she went around to the back of the building, she had no luck. And the window of Tom’s office was closed up tight.

“She’s not there, Alan,” Susan reported once she got back to the truck. Her growing panic was reflected in her voice. “The whole place is deserted. I don’t know
where
she could be!”

“Maybe she went on without us. Yes, that must be it. She must have gotten a ride somehow and decided not to wait for us.”

“I suppose that’s possible.... But it still doesn’t sound like Chris,” Susan remained baffled. And she was growing more and more worried about her sister.

“Well, at this point I guess there’s nothing else for us to do but assume that she managed to get to Town Hall on her own steam. You know, your twin is one tough lady. I’m sure she’s got everything under control.”

“I suppose so ... but let’s go on to Town Hall anyway.” She thought for a minute. “I can’t explain it, but I just have a feeling that we should show up there.”

“What do you mean, ‘a feeling’?”

“Oh, it’s just sort of a sixth sense that Chris and I have. About each other, I mean. I think it comes from our being twins.”

“Sounds kind of spooky, if you ask me.”

“Trust me. Let’s just get over to Town Hall as fast as we can.”

With a shrug, Alan started up the truck.

Twenty minutes later, they pulled into a crowded parking lot. Apparently there were a lot of people who were interested in buying local land. Susan thought she recognized Tom’s car—but she couldn’t be certain. Even so, she had no doubt that he would be here. Her heart was pounding as she hurried inside with Alan in tow.

Inside, a large community room was buzzing with people. They were late, she could see; the auction was already under way. Susan scanned the crowd, looking for her twin. But she was nowhere to be seen. Her heart sank.