Trapped in the Mayan Tattoo (7 page)

“Have a cup o’joe
with Jammin’ Jon in the morning! You dancers out there, Lip-Smackin’ Chicken
has a dance contest! You’ve got three weeks to put it together and win the
prize money. Get the downlow after the news or go to our website for all the fantasmic
details. Maybe a chicken dance to strut your stuff? Yeah!”

Why not? Abbi
thought. I think I could win and that would give me money to find my parents.

Louise walked in
and overheard the radio announcer.

Staying with Louise
was almost like having a sister, including the occasional need for privacy. Lucky
for them both, they respected each other’s space. They also appreciated each
other’s company. Their many differences usually balanced them out.

“Abbi, I’ve been
meaning to talk to you.”

“
Louise, I’ve
wanted to talk to you, too!” Abbi said. “Please sit down with me a minute.”

“What’s going on?”
Louise asked, suspiciously. “Our house wasn’t broken into, was it?”

“It looks fine to
me.”

“Thank God! So
spill,” Louise said.

“For one thing,
this dance contest,” Abbi said. “What about you?”

“Tell me about the
contest first,” Louise said.

“Let’s go up to
your room. We can check out the house on the way. Lowell’s in the basement, in
his own little world, so he probably hasn’t noticed if anything was wrong!”

Louise and Abbi
went through the house then upstairs to the room they shared.

Abbi grabbed her laptop from the
cluttered desk.

Louise sat on her
bottom bunk and reached for a half-empty bag of doughnuts. She offered Abbi
one.

“No, but thanks!
Listen to this,” Abbi said.

Abbi sat on the
floor and pulled up the radio station’s website. Winning this dance contest would
bring Abbi a cash prize. Maybe a job offer. More importantly, she could do whatever
she wanted—most especially, find her parents. Now, how to convince the
Pelletiers about what she needed to do.

Even if she didn’t
win this contest, dancing always helped her forget about her frustrations, kept
her from getting overly angry. No one seemed to know why or how her parents
went missing. If Shoe Clerk knew, he wasn’t telling. Maybe someone knew. Lowell’s
behavior, and especially what he said, made her curious. She would talk with
Lowell later and try to find out what Mrs. Hightower had in mind.

Right now, Abbi
wanted an ally, and if that ally came in the form of Louise Pelletier, that
would be perfect.

Abbi downloaded the
contest information. Her hips began swaying to the music. When she turned it up
loud enough to drown out the trumpet, she began picturing the dance. Soon her frustration
was replaced with thoughts of choreography, the dance movements that might
become part of the winning dance.

“Look at this
screen, Louise. The rules for the dance contest are really simple. I’ll need to
send a video of the dance. That’s all. They jury the entries, and then narrow
the search down to the final ten who will compete for the prize.”

Abbi made some
dance notations.

“Alright, Louise,
think I can dance to this?”

She tried out some
movements while Louise watched.

“Go, Abbi!” Louise
said loudly. “You have some really good moves.”

“You like?” Abbi
asked.

Louise nodded but
looked doubtful.

“Abbi,” Louise
said. “Didn’t you want to talk?”

“Oh, yeah,” Abbi said,
still dancing.

“Your latest phone
call? About your parents?” Louise asked.

“I think
something’s cooking. Don’t know what,” said Abbi. “Or maybe they’re just late.”

“Late? Really? Abbi,
people aren’t late for weeks without calling or anything.”

Abbi could feel
her nose burning. She had to get her mind off her parents. Talking about it didn’t
always help. Nothing would help until she could actually DO something.

Before she could
change the topic, she quickly figured out a way she could sell the idea of
entering the dance contest to the Pelletiers, not easy since a dance contest
wouldn’t be “keeping a low profile”.

“This dance
contest is just three weeks away. I need to win! I need the money. There’s also
a contract that comes with it if I have the winning dance. Believe that?”

The dance contest
for the huge fried chicken franchise, Lip-Smackin’ Chicken Kitchen, known as
LSC Kitchen, sounded fun. Abbi needed some fun. All Abbi had to do to enter was
download the music, come up with the winning dance, send in the entrance form
and a video of the dance and then, if she landed an audition, make it look great,
worthy of a nationwide ad campaign!

“I have to give
this a try,” Abbi said, working on a modified chicken dance.

“Forget the
contest. I’m here if you want to talk.”

Lowell seemed to
be prepping for a cross between graduation and a pep band for a basketball
game. The various pieces of music he played sounded confused and raucous,
particularly when Dixieland Jazz was thrown into the mix.

Over the blaring
sounds from the trumpet, Abbi said, “There’s the situation with my parents, my
house was just broken into, your brother’s trumpet is on some heavy-duty
steroids, and I’m hoping that when my “guardian agent” calls again, he’ll anwer
my questions. Until then, I’m going to dance it off. Things seem a little crazy
right now, and I don’t know what else to do. I have to clear my head and think.
Fred’s Boots isn’t even in the phone book, for God’s sake! It’s not online
either. What am I supposed to think? Dance with me!”

 “I can’t dance. But
you know, LSC sounds good!” Louise said, closing the magazine. “LSC’s Chinese
Chicken Bowl! I won’t need to cook tonight. Except maybe dessert!”

“Come on! Dance!”
Abbi pleaded.

Louise put down
the magazine and started dancing with Abbi. Her moves were fluid, actually remarkably
rhythmic. Her hips swayed with the music in a way only bigger girls can do, as
if her waist were a pivoting point. She watched Abbi’s
not-yet-ready-for-prime-time moves.

 “We really need
to talk, Abbi. Entering a dance contest, is that ‘laying low’?”

            Abbi sighed, stopped
dancing, and looked around. With the growing possibility of listening devices
planted around the house, talking about her parents wasn’t something she felt
comfortable doing. Her parents might be in serious trouble. Were they missing?
Were they dead? Again she diverted the topic to the dance contest.

            “I have to do something,”
Abbi said.

Maybe it was the
physical activity allowing oxygen to reach her brain cells after the heat of
the day almost melted them. Anyway, it occurred to her that the dance contest
was weeks away. Abbi didn’t have that kind of time. Something was going on with
her parents. They needed her NOW!

            “Remember what Mr.
Agent Man had said? Stuff about ‘Lay low for a few weeks. Don’t do anything to
bring attention to yourself. Your life may be in danger’,” Louise reminded her.
She moved to the bed and sat down.

 Abbi remained
silent.

“OK. If you don’t
want to talk, we won’t talk. But forget about the dance contest. That would
only draw attention.”

 “You know what? I
think you’re right, Louise! Besides, I don’t gots time for no freakin’ dance
contest!”

“I don’t gots
time?”

“That’s what I
said. Life’s an adventure, not a spectator sport!” Abbi said. “You get on and
ride it or you get thrown to the curb! I’m riding this baby!”

Then she quickly
spun around to look at Louise.

“Oh, my gosh! I
have to look at Mom’s stuff! What in the world was my mother into? You have to
tell me, Louise! What am I up against here?”

Louise looked like
she was backed into a corner. She whispered hoarsely, “Bad stuff. Criminal
investigations. It’s the work they do! Your parents. My parents, too, Abbi!
It’s their way of life! Listen, for their safety, just be a spectator for once.
Your parents are in way over their heads and you don’t even know it. You’re not
prepared to handle it.”

“Oh, wow! So what
folder was taken? Most of Mom’s material is kept on the computer. Louise, I’ve
got to get back home and get those other files printed before someone else gets
to them! If they’re even still there. I can find a connection. I know it!”

“How can you do
that?”

“I’ll have to hack
into her files. I’m going alone this time,” Abbi said. She ran down the stairs
and into the kitchen.

“You can’t, Abbi!”

Abbi felt so angry
at Louise. She finally talked, but it was a little late. Abbi tried to ignore
her. She also tried to ignore Lowell’s trumpet playing. It seemed the more
Louise wanted to talk, the louder Lowell played his trumpet.

Abbi grabbed her backpack
to leave.

Louise came
downstairs and looked at her hard. “Before you do anything stupid, we really
need to talk.”

“Really? More? What
about all those times I wanted to talk, and you just went along with Fred’s
Boots? If my parents are in over their heads, then they need my help.”

“And just what do
you think you can do? You’re not prepared to take this on.”

By now, Abbi was
so angry she just had to get out of the house. She stared at Louise who was
standing near her and not blinking, as if the challenge was on.

“I’m going. I’ll
be back with everything I can find that might be important.”

“You shouldn’t go
alone.”

“You wanna come?”

“No.”

Abbi was upset
with Louise, but decided to use her anger to make things happen. Otherwise,
being upset was simply a waste of time.

For the third
time, she took her bike and made a bee-line to her house, avoiding the main
streets. She cut through yards and alley ways whenever she could, sometimes
passing the same people out in their yards.

Even when people
yelled for her to stop or began cursing at her, she kept going and just yelled
over her shoulder, “Sorry. Emergency.”

Within a few
minutes she was back home. The first thing she did was to take a full bag of
chicken feed and scatter it around the yard. She opened the pen so that the
chicks could get out. “Listen, chicks, you’re on your own. Don’t go out into
the street and don’t drown in the pond. Just hang out here and be good little
chicks until I get back. And one more thing, if you start laying, use the
nests.”

Again, she used
her passcode to get into the house, grateful that it wasn’t dark. Her mother’s
office had been tampered with a little, but at least Abbi had already taken the
file of drawings that was on the desk.

Abbi quickly
turned on the computer, managed to get back into the locked program, and
returned to Fred’s Boots with its files. She checked the printer and added more
paper.

She looked around
for a storage device. Not finding one, she remembered the secret chamber in her
mother’s desk, just big enough for small items. There was a tiny lever
somewhere underneath on the right side of the desk. Abbi was feeling around to
find it. Farther back than she expected, she found the lever, pulled it, and
watched as a little side drawer opened on the desk. Inside the hidden drawer
were storage devices, used and labeled. To make sure she had everything, she
tossed them all into the pocket of her backpack, took a new USB thumb drive and
stuck it into the side of the computer.

Then she started
printing notes and reports. She saved each one on a USB thumb drive that she
found in the desk drawer and put that in the pocket of her backpack when she
finished.Within 15 minutes she had a stack of different documents, some just
random notes. Each document got a separate manila folder. She found an empty
briefcase in the closet and put the folders in it.

Before she left,
she locked the Fred’s Boots computer file and secured it with a different
password. Then she erased all recent activity.

Now she studied
cabinets for documents in manila files. Nothing seemed to relate. Gas receipts.
Nothing she could use. She still didn’t have a clue what the woman had taken.
But one thing she felt certain of—Abbi had everything else!

Back at the
Pelletiers, Louise was standing at the back door waiting for her when Abbi
pulled her bike around to the back yard. Abbi placed her bike beside the porch
and slowly walked up the steps with her pack.

“I’m sorry, Abbi.
We thought this would be like other times, but it’s not.”

“Apparently.”

“You were right to
be suspicious.”

“Apparently.”

Louise inhaled
deeply and started talking.

“I don’t know a
lot. None of us did. Maybe you’ve figured out that my father is in the CIA, in
the cyber division. He gets information but he is not like your father. Yours is
a special agent, FBI. My dad never goes out into the real world. But sometimes
he comes across critical info, like today. Dad just texted while you were gone.
They think your mom has been kidnapped.”

Instantly Abbi
felt her knees go weak. She fell into Louise and they hugged tightly. Abbi
still felt angry, but not at Louise anymore. At whatever allowed this to
happen.

           
The taxi driver
looked at the address Tina had given him and shook his head.

            “I can take you as far
as the taxi station in the next city. That’s going to be a lot of money, miss!”

            “OK, if you’ll take me
that far, I think my father could meet me there. Is there a phone I could use?”

            “Sure, but it’s not
free. That call gets added in.”

            Tina shrugged. Nothing
was going to keep her from getting home.

            “OK. You’ll get the
money. I have to call.”

            The taxi driver handed
the phone to her.