Gem Stone (10 page)

He'd been abused both physically and mentally for years, then was in a series of difficult foster homes, followed by gang affiliations that led to his first stint in juvie when he was only fifteen.

At least he was alive. If he hadn't been arrested, and he'd stayed with the gang, chances were he'd be a forgotten memory by now.

"The bottom line is we can't have anything else negatively impact on John and Doris,” Gem said. “Otherwise we're liable to get shipped back and the home closed. Personally, I'd like to stay here."
Love
to stay actually.

"Anyone get a feel for local law enforcement?"

Gem grinned at Reid's question. How typical of the kids she knew.

"Honestly, I couldn't get a handle on the sheriff. There's a whole lot of small town cop to him, but his eyes were damn sharp," she said.

"I hear you. The young deputy seemed all right, you know. I heard the big deputy call him Barry. Only Barry wasn't much older than we are."

"And in some ways, he seemed much younger than any of us,” Mark added. “He's either new or a summer hire."

Reid nodded. "That too."

The three slowed to a stop as they surveyed the area off to their left. "What do you think?" Gem asked. "Here, or down a bit?"

"I think the old pump house is down past that huge oak, another hundred yards or so, but if we go in here we might be able to find the truck tracks," Mark said. "See if we can find any sign of what the guys had with them or why they were here."

"Damn. I should have printed those pictures off."

Reid grinned. "Not a problem." He pulled out several folded pieces of paper from his back pocket. "Mark told me about them so I did it."

Gem rolled her eyes at Mark. "So that's what you did after you left my room. I couldn't figure out where you went."

"I wanted to get them printed off just in case." He tossed her a half serious and half joking grin.

The three of them knew all too well how hard it was to keep possessions. Mark had been moved from foster home to foster home so often, he'd ended up refusing to pack the last few times. That meant most of his stuff had either ended up spread across the countryside or passed on to the next kid. Gemma had gone the opposite direction. She had so little, she kept a close watch on what she did have.

"That's not funny."

"Neither is your flash drive. Have you got enough money to buy a new one?"

She shook her head, a frown forming. "I don't think so. I bought that one in a huge clearance sale as it was."

"And I loaned you five bucks so you could get it then."

They all worked around the home to earn pocket change, but that's all it amounted to. The regulations said they had to live there for six months, trouble free, before they'd be allowed to find jobs in the community. They'd wondered whether the community had been the ones to install that rule. It would give the local business a chance to see how much of a nuisance they would be, before hiring them.

"Next month I'm going to try at the Safeway." Mark grinned. "Maybe I can stock shelves."

"You'll be a bag boy most likely. I thought to try the fast food joints. Maybe, I can get free meals." Reid, at close to six feet was hollow down to his big toe.

"Doris would appreciate that," teased Gem. "I don't know where I want to apply. Too bad I can't work at the Sheriff's Office."

"What good would that do you?"

"I don't know. Solving crimes might be fun."

Mark poked her. "Uh uh. No way are they going to let you work there. The only thing you'd be able to do is pick up coffee."

"Don't forget the donuts."

They all laughed at the cliché.

"Although, none of the sheriff's group are overweight – not like the cops on TV." Gem said, thoughtfully.

"That's because those aren't real cops," Mark said. "Besides, the ones we saw were younger. They haven't had enough time to pack it on their butts yet."

Reid snickered. "The older deputy looked like a boozer. Did you see his red nose? Then they probably all are. Not too much else to do in a small town."

Their lighthearted banter came to an abrupt halt as they came upon crime scene ribbons spanning the trees and bushes around the old pump house.

The place was deserted.

"Now what?"

Reid, the more serious of them, stepped forward, frowning. "Shouldn't there be someone guarding the spot?"

"Why bother?" Gem said. "So much damage was done last night, I'm surprised they even bothered to put up the tape."

Mark wandered around the large marked circle. "Do we go in?"

Gem hesitated. "I don't want to do anything that will tarnish Doris or John's reputation. We'd go inside, in a heartbeat, if we only had to consider us. Not that we'd do any damage…"

"I hear you." Mark turned back toward the bush. "Let's look for the location that's shown in the pictures."

Gem followed behind, but let Reid take the rear position along the narrow path.

"Everything was pretty crazy last night," Gem said. "I don't know about you, but I covered a lot of ground. It all looked so different then."

They walked in silence. Gem pointed out the broken branches and churned pathways that revealed the various wild dashes made through the night. They stopped at the clearing that was close to the creek. Reid pulled out the photos again.

"It looks different in the pictures."

After walking another few feet, she pointed. "There's the one tree from the picture." With a male on either side of her, Gem moved forward until they stood in the clearing in the photo.

"It looks bigger in the picture." Mark stuffed his hands in his pockets and wandered throughout the open space.

"That's because it was bigger." She frowned. "At least I thought it was too."

"That's what happens in the weird half light when the sun goes down and darkness falls," Reid said.

"Let me see the photo." Taking it from Reid she positioned herself so she could see the exact alignment of space and vegetation shown on paper. "Okay, so I'm standing in the right place – right where the vehicle was."

"Which is obviously not here now." Mark fisted his hands on his hips and stared at the spot where she pointed. He walked forward several feet while the other two watched. He crouched down, motioning to the flattened grass. "It sat here. And you can see from the damage to the grass how big it was. Look at the tire tracks. There's no road back here but someone still drove in. The question is
why
?"

Reid walked further around the circle and turned to his friend. "Picking up stuff? Or unloading stuff most likely?"

"Yeah, but what? The creek is no longer a major water source for anything. It used to be but with the town expanding toward the river on the other side, this one isn't used any more. This is just plain weird."

"Weird, yes, but they went to a lot of trouble to keep it quiet. They were carrying that kit for some reason. So whatever it was, it could be important."

Reid walked in an ever-widening circle. "I doubt they've left anything behind, but if they did, we should be able to find it.

With that, the three of them walked, slightly apart, in a logical approximation of how the men would have traveled to the creek.

"Damn it." Gem kicked a rock out of her way. "There're so many tracks. How can we find the important ones in this mess?" She kicked a bigger rock even further, then stared glumly at the overgrowth of grass and bushes. "They could have done all sorts of things out here and no one would ever know."

Crack.

Instinct had the three dropping to the ground and they stayed that way for what seemed a long time. Silent, the kids remained frozen, staring at each other.

Gem hated the dryness in her throat… Swallowing was damn near impossible. Closing her eyes, she focused on breathing…slow and steady. She didn't know if someone else was out there, but neither did she want to find out the hard way.

Mark whispered through the brush, "Did anyone see anything?"

"No," said Reid off somewhere on Gem's left.

Gem inched closer to Mark. He'd hunkered down in bushes off to the left. Most of the area had been trampled already so she kept to the flattened ground rather than give away their position by moving the tall grass. Mark watched her approach.

"I didn't see anything. What the hell do we do now?" she asked.

"We get out of here." He searched the area as Reid snuck closer to them.

"If we head down to the creek we should be able to run north and circle back home," Reid said.

Gem considered that. It might work. "Let's do it, but we have to stay close to each other. Don't fall behind."

Both males shot her a disgusted look and crawled ahead of her.
Right.
So she was now the one that shouldn't fall behind.
Whatever.

Ten uncomfortable minutes later, they reached the top of the bank leading down to the creek. The water, although shallow, looked awfully inviting. Gem swallowed heavily, wishing she'd thought to bring a bottle of water. The crawling had bruised her knees and filled her nostrils with dust.

She coughed softly, then coughed again, harder.

"Shh."

Shaking her head while trying to stifle a third cough didn't work. She waved them on. Just in case she was heard. She tried to cough into her shoulder and that just brought on a major coughing fit. It took several minutes for her chest to clear, until she could breathe normally again. She must have inhaled a mess of dust.

The sunlight speckled its way through the branches overhead, giving her a break from the afternoon heat. This would be a great spot to spend an afternoon someday, when they weren't trying to get away from someone. Speaking of which…she looked ahead but couldn't see her friends. Gauging the direction by their tracks, she figured they'd turned north to follow the creek.

They couldn't be too far ahead. They'd find a spot and wait for her. What she wanted was to stand up and walk though. She was tired of crawling. She listened closely. Not a sound. She stood then clambered down the bank to move along the creek. The breeze blowing off the water was refreshingly cool. Wandering down to the edge, she saw tracks leading upstream. Two sets of tracks. Mark and Reid?
Yes.
Now she was onto something. She picked up the pace and followed the tracks a good fifty yards.

The cool air wafted over her, easing the film of sweat she'd earned crawling on the ground. She sneezed again. How far would they have gone ahead without her?

She was used to being alone outside, but after Misty's abduction, her normal nerves of steel had taken a beating. She glanced behind her, hating how the afternoon heat added a heavy atmosphere to the stillness.
Creepy.

Her steps sped up of their own volition, and she was almost running by the time she headed up the bank to get a different perspective on her surroundings. If she didn't find the guys soon, she'd turn around and go back down. The creek crossed under the road below the old pump house. It's not like she could get lost out here. Not as long as she kept the creek in sight...and her mind clear.

She carried on for another five minutes. Five minutes where her stomach chewed up her insides and her feet raced more than walked. For the first time, it occurred to her that maybe she was following someone else's footprints.

She pulled out her cell phone and sent Mark a text. "Where are you?"

The answer came right back. "Following the creek. We're waiting. Hurry up."

A sound whispered down the water just in front of her. She bent down behind an old gnarled tree trunk and roots.
There.
It came again. She poked her head above the cover she'd found, hoping to see what made the sound. There was nothing to see. Collapsing onto a rock, Gem couldn't help but wonder if she were letting a bad case of nerves get in her way. She'd hate for the guys to think she'd turned girlie.

This was ridiculous. She stood up but a loud sharp noise cut through the air close to her. She flattened.
What the hell was that?
She spun around, hoping she could head back the way she'd come, then grimaced. Her nerves were seriously jangled right now. She hunkered down and listened and tried to find an explanation for that noise.

Shouts sounded. She popped up, took a quick look around and sunk back down. Nothing.

Was she in trouble? What if Mark and Reid were in trouble?
Shit.
Paralyzed by indecision, she figured she'd trust that the guys hadn't ditched her. But with those shotlike sounds, what was the chance they were in a bad spot up ahead?

And if they were, she had to help them.