The Vanishing Game (30 page)

“Noah?” I whispered, peering through the shadows. Where was he? Still holding the knife, I stood and walked down the hall to the bathroom. The door was open and he wasn't there. I checked the other empty rooms downstairs and was just heading to the kitchen when I heard a low
tone of music. Recognizing it as Noah's cell phone, I hurried back to the front room.

The notes grew louder as I approached his duffel bag and saw the phone lying beside it. Sensing that I had to answer and find out who was calling at this early hour, I flipped it open and put it to my ear. I didn't speak, but only listened. I heard a voice I once believed I'd never hear again.

“Jocelyn,” Jack said. “Get out of there now!”

Before I could say a word, the phone went dead.

I dropped the phone, grabbed my backpack, and shoved my feet into my shoes. I reached the front door and fumbled with the dead bolt, the knife still in my hand. Finally getting the lock unlatched, I jerked the door open and saw a steady downpour of rain.

Fingers on my shoulder startled me. I cried out and spun around to see Noah standing there, his face hidden in shadow. I pulled away, trying to go through the door when he grabbed my arm. “What are you doing?”

His voice was so withdrawn and distant that I wondered if I really knew him at all. Had he put the knife under my pillow?

“Let go!”

“Come back here and calm down.”

That's when I recognized the Noah I knew, and relief flooded me. I started tugging at him. “We have to get out of here!”

“Why?”

“Come on!” A terrified sob crept into my voice. “Get your stuff and come now!”

I headed through the door, the cold rain a shock as it hit me. The sound of Jack's warning echoed in my ears, and I ran.

Noah called my name. Glancing over my shoulder, I was relieved to see he was following me, carrying his leather laptop bag. He sprinted forward, catching up with me.

“What's the matter? Why are you so freaked?”

A loud blast filled the air and we instinctively ducked. Turning back to look at the house, we saw fire. The windows on the upper floor exploded. Noah and I ran to the road, where it was safer. Flames shot skyward and hissed in the rain.

His face grew livid. “What's going on?”

I had no chance to answer. Running through the shadows, coming straight at us, was the dark outline of someone dressed all in black with a hooded face. Crying out a warning, I pointed and Noah turned as the man leaped through the air. His foot slammed into Noah's chest, causing him to drop his laptop case. Noah staggered backward and spun away, running across the driveway. The man chased him. Noah turned; his foot shot out, striking his opponent hard on the shoulder. The man faltered, took a step back, and Noah attacked. They started to exchange blows.

I stared at them with disbelief. It seemed as if I were inside the weirdest dream of all—the black ninja from our
childhood had come here for a fight. The attacker lunged at Noah but was repelled by a sharp blow. They threw punches and kicked each other with skilled precision. It became an uncanny war dance, with Noah blocking the ninja's blows and delivering kicks and strikes of his own. At one point he blocked a hit and caught hold of the guy's hand, bending it back so sharply that it brought him to his knees.

The ninja didn't stay down long, rebounding in a nearly unearthly way and giving Noah several hard hits. They jabbed and kicked each other. The attacker sidestepped a roundhouse and punched back. Noah flew through the air. His foot glanced off the guy's chin. Their movements became a blur in the curtain of rain, and I stood in trembling fascination and watched the vicious thrusts of fists and feet. I heard no sound from either because of the rain.

Several neighbors were outside now, their shouting voices muted by the crackling flames and hiss of rain. In the distance we heard sirens. Turning back to the fight, I wiped the rain from my eyes and missed seeing the move that felled Noah. The ninja had the advantage. He stood above, his hands on Noah's head, getting a grip to snap his neck.

I was still carrying the knife. Noah stared up at me as his hands uselessly dug into the arms of his assailant. His eyes focused on the knife and I knew he was telling me to throw it. And yet I was too far away, my aim so weak it might hit Noah, or not hit anything at all. I froze with dread, only able to watch helplessly as he gazed at the dagger.

Despite the cold rain, the steel blade seemed to grow hot in my hand. I opened my palm, glancing down and then up again at the ninja readying himself to snap Noah's neck. I opened my mouth to scream, but then the attacker reeled backward, releasing Noah. Blinking through the rain, I saw the knife's hilt sticking out of the ninja's shoulder. Stunned, I looked back down at my palm. The blade was no longer there, and yet I knew I hadn't thrown it! Noah twisted around, striking hard, and the other guy faltered. The sound of sirens grew closer as the ninja cast another blow. Noah staggered back and the man in black sprinted away, the knife still in his shoulder. He disappeared into the shadows.

Rushing to Noah, I put my hands on his shoulders. “Are you all right?”

He was gasping for air but his gaze met my eyes and he nodded. Then he stood, snatched up his laptop case, and limped back to the house. The roof was near collapsing, but the flames were dying in the rain. Reaching the garage, Noah forced the door up and disappeared inside. I heard a car engine turn over. When he backed his Jeep Cherokee out onto the driveway, I climbed in.

We drove away, turning onto another street as a police car came around the corner, sirens blaring. It was followed by a fire truck. Neither of us said anything for several minutes, but I kept shivering. “Are you hurt?” I finally managed.

“Nothing permanent.”

Nighttime shadows slid in and out of the car as we drove, and the wiper blades hypnotically sluiced rainwater from the windshield. “Where were you, Noah? I woke up and you were gone.”

“I thought I heard something and went to investigate. I don't suppose you have a reasonable explanation for why you were heading out the front door without me?”

“Oh. Not reasonable, no.”

“What then?”

“You're angry.”

“No kidding!”

I took a deep breath. “I woke up and you were gone. At least, I couldn't find you. I was scared, because I found the knife under my pillow. It cut my thumb.” It had stopped bleeding, but I held it up and showed it to him. “I wondered if maybe you put it there.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don't know. Why did that bomb go off, and why did the black ninja show up tonight and try to kill you?”

“It wasn't the black ninja, Jocelyn. It was Paul Gerard.”

“How do you know?”

“I sparred with him once at my dojo, remember? He has some signature moves I've never seen anyone else use.”

I sighed with relief. “I thought … I don't know what I thought. Sometimes I can't seem to separate the dreams of childhood from what's going on now.” Pausing, I took in a slow breath. “While you were gone, Jack called on your cell phone and told me to get out of the house.”

“What?”

Neither of us said anything for several seconds until he asked, “You're sure it was Jack?”

I only looked at him and he nodded with a sober expression. “Okay. So how did he know about the bomb?”

“I don't know. I'm still reeling from the fact that I heard his voice and know for sure he's alive.”

Noah studied me. “Why call? Why not just show up and help us? I could have died tonight, and then Gerard would have nabbed you.”

Discouraged, I shook my head. The rain had slowed and the wipers were squeaking. Noah turned them down. “I don't suppose you stuck my cell phone in your bag, so we could find out where Jack was calling from?”

“I didn't think of that. Sorry.”

“It's official then. I've lost everything I've ever owned except for my laptop, this car, and the ibuprofen in the glove box. Which I need, by the way.”

I handed him three tablets, along with a bottle of water from the backseat. “I'm so sorry, Noah. I should have tried to find you. But after I found the knife under my pillow and then got that call from Jack, I was scared. I grabbed my backpack because the clues were in there.”

My small suitcase full of clothes had been left behind, along with my netbook. I inwardly cringed at such an expensive loss, not to mention all the files that I'd been too busy to back up. At least I'd already e-mailed the English essay.

“Okay, I understand. But we can't go on like this, you
know. We're following bread crumbs that just lead in a circle.”

“And now we've lost the knife,” I added, shivering again.

Noah switched on the heat and turned the vents in my direction. “Yeah, well, if you hadn't thrown that knife, I'd be having an unpleasant visit with the coroner right now.”

“But I didn't throw it.”

He gave me a doubtful look, and I shrugged. “At least I don't remember doing it.”

“Maybe that's because you were scared. Hell, I was scared! I knew he was going to snap my neck and there was nothing I could do. Then I saw that knife in your hand and thought, ‘Throw it, Jocey, or I'm dead.' The next thing I knew, his grip was broken.”

“You were amazing, by the way. I didn't know you could fight like that.”

“But it wasn't enough against Gerard.”

“He had the advantage of surprise. And he's a lot older.”

Thinking of how dangerous our enemy really was, and how close Noah had come to dying, more waves of cold fear swept over me. We drove along a road following the Black River and Noah asked, “So where do we go from here?”

I shook my head. “I don't have any idea. Though I do feel if Jack can't come to us, we've got to go to him. But how do we do that? The clues wrapped around the knife don't tell us enough. Maybe there's nothing left for us to figure out.”

Noah steered the car into the empty parking lot of a closed drugstore and stopped beneath a pole light. “Where's that box the knife was in?”

“In my backpack.”

I dug around and pulled it out, handing it to him. He opened it, picked up the strips of red paper that were still inside, and tossed them in my lap. Grabbing the black foam lining where the knife had been embedded, he tugged until it came out. Then he smiled with triumph and dumped the box upside down. Four jigsaw puzzle pieces fell into his open palm.

Beneath the harsh glare of the parking lot light, Noah and I finished the puzzle together. With the last four pieces in place, it showed a black-and-white photo of a small shop with a sign above the door that read:
TATTOO ORIENT
.

“Oriental Avenue,” I murmured. “That's where Beth ended up in the Monopoly logic problem. And the clue for her said, ‘Knives and needles lead to death. Trust least, trust most our Angry Beth.' I didn't think about needles being from a tattoo parlor.”

“Me either.”

“This looks kind of familiar,” I said, peering at it. “Do you know where it is?”

“No, but we can find it on the Internet. That is, if my laptop is okay after I dropped it.”

We got Noah's laptop out of its case and it booted up just fine. We drove down a deserted street, trying to pick
up a wireless signal. Finally we found one. After a quick search we pulled up a simplistic website for Tattoo Orient. The address was only a few blocks from Seale House. We looked at each other.

“Maybe that's why it seemed familiar.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

The rain had stopped but the air was heavy with humidity, and a hazy mist was starting to drift in from the river. We drove across Watertown to an area not far from Keyes Avenue, the Seale House street. The tattoo shop sat between a hair salon and a consignment boutique.

Noah said, “I know this place, but it's been remodeled. Borke's Shoe Repair used to be here, remember?”

Stopping the Jeep in front, we read the sign on the door. “It doesn't open until nine.”

I pressed the stem on my watch. “That's hours from now.”

He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. “We'll just have to wait.”

He was right, though it was uncomfortable to sit in our wet clothes as time slowly ticked by. Noah left the car running for a while, the vents blowing hot air on us to help dry our clothes. In time I shut my eyes and tried to ignore the low thud in my temples. At last the adrenaline seeped from my body and I dozed in and out, often jerking awake. As the sky became a translucent gray in the east, I heard something and opened my achy eyes to see a police car pulling even with us.

“Noah, wake up.”

He roused, slowly sitting up. “Just great!” he said, his voice thick from sleep. Two officers got out of their car and came over to us. Noah rolled down the window and one of the policemen looked inside and asked to see his license and registration.

“Is there a problem with parking on this street?” Noah asked as he handed over the items.

The policeman studied the papers and then said, “Please get out of the car.”

“Why?”

“You and your passenger will have to come with us. Detective Iverson has been looking for you.”

A sinking feeling washed through me as I grabbed my backpack. Locking the Jeep and leaving it parked in front of the tattoo parlor, we did as they asked and climbed in the backseat of the squad car. As we sped away I glanced at Noah and murmured, “Terrific.”

“I can't really blame Don. Two houses I'm connected with got blown up in less than forty-eight hours.”

Gazing at the foggy haze, I grew more anxious with each mile that separated us from Tattoo Orient. Being taken off course when we were so close was just plain rotten. And I wasn't exactly crazy about going to the police station.