Under the Boardwalk (20 page)

She pulled away just far enough to look up into his eyes. "How can you keep believing in dreams after everything that's happened?" He brushed away a tear on her cheek.

"How can you not believe?" he asked.

She pulled away from him and picked up the brush again, dipping under the mare's neck and disappearing behind Poky's shoulder. He heard brushing sounds, and the mare munching, and a rustling from the bats upstairs.

He went back to the bale of straw and sat down. An unloved girl, shuttled from one foster home to another, easy prey for a smooth-talking man who promised to take care of her. Her dreams had become a trap. No wonder she couldn't believe.

"He said I didn't need my own life. He'd give me everything I needed." Her voice was soft, barely audible over the mare's chewing.

He sat silently, and waited for the end of story that he knew would come.

"There was a craft shop in town that took work on consignment," she whispered. "Handmade quilts, pottery, stuff like that. They liked my little carvings, so I made some for them while he was at work." She sighed. "I thought he'd be proud."

The puzzle pieces fit into place: a jealous, self-absorbed husband who wouldn't share his pretty young wife with anyone, or anything else, even if he had to destroy her in the process.

"Dreams are all right for you," she said firmly. "But not for me."

"I don't know," he said. There was so much sadness in the world; maybe he was a fool. He looked down at the newspaper clipping. If it was true...? How could he believe in anything anymore if his whole life had been built on a lie? "Maybe it's not all right for me anymore, either." He cradled his head in his hands.

Hallie set the brush down. She ducked past the mare and came closer to him, till she stood in front of where he sat on the hay bale. He didn't look up. She wrapped her arms around him, and he leaned his head against her stomach. She stroked his hair, as he had comforted her before.

"I don't know what to do," he mumbled. "I can't take this to the police yet. But I've got to find the answers."

"We'll find them together," Hallie said.

~*~

CHAPTER EIGHT

He left for the park when it got dark. Hallie stood with the house phone in her hand and watched the pickup truck head down the driveaway until it was out of sight. Then she went inside the rancho.

She hated this feeling of helplessness, of emptiness. She knew Kyle was facing something awful—the realization that the danger to his family might be closer than he ever could have imagined. But even if they were right in who was behind it, they were still no closer to finding Windy and Zac. And they had to find them.

She had to do something, not just sit here waiting.

She went upstairs to Windy's room. It felt odd to see so many things from the dorm room they'd shared transplanted here. It made Windy feel more out of reach than ever.

She set the phone down on the dresser, then started going through all of the stuff in the room. First she went through all the clothes, feeling in the pockets for papers—or really anything that might be a clue. Nothing.

Then she started on the papers on Windy's desk. Unlike Zac's, she found no newspaper clippings, no notes.

There was a stack of books on the nightstand next to Windy's bed. Hallie sat on the bed and went through the books. No surprises there: three on local history, one intro to biology book identical to the one Hallie had used last semester, and the latest volume in the vampire romance series Windy loved.

The local history books looked fragile. Hallie went through the first two, gently turning the pages so she wouldn't damage them.

Then she got to the last one. This wasn't actually a book, it turned out. It was a diary. Hand-written, in a crabbed, faded script. She turned to the first page, and saw the name: Miss Rose Aiden. How sweet. The Irish lightkeeper's daughter who handed down the cherry trees and her green eyes to the present generation. Hallie paged carefully through the yellowed pages. The text was hard to read. There were slips of papers between some of the pages. At first she thought the slips of paper were clues, but quickly realized they were torn up notes from Windy's biology class. She must have just used the recycled paper to mark the diary pages.

Okay. Hallie went through the diary systematically, looking at each marked page and working to make out what the faded writing on that page said. First page was about Rose
gathering up her satchel with all her meager possessions and stealing into the night to meet AM, though Mama and Pa would never forgive her.
AM must be Arturo Madrigal, of course. Then were pages marking other events in her long life, from
Alas, our first son had taken nary a breath before the Lord called him home
in November of 1927 to
the new flying saucer is a big hit with the grandchildren
in 1952. That was one of the last entries. The diary ended in 1953, presumably when its owner was no longer around to write in it.

None of this was a bit of help. She read through it again, refusing to accept that this was yet another dead end in the search for Windy and Zac.

The second time through she saw the connection. 1927, the amusement park opened. 1933, 1942, 1947, 1951, 1952. Each page referred to some update in the amusement park. 1933, the earthquake damaged some items, and a band organ, carousel horse, and three game booths were put into storage after they were broken. 1942, the King Kong was replaced with one with moving parts. 1947, the bumper cars were all replaced with new ones. 1951, several rides were replaced, and the old one were put in storage in
the big box under the roller coaster, and the attic and cellar of the haunted house
.

The cellar of the haunted house.

"The cellar of the haunted house!" She picked up the phone to call Kyle. She dialed his iPhone, but it just rang and then went to voicemail. Oh no. If he was missing, too, that was just too much.

She heard a door open and close downstairs. She flew down the stairs. "Kyle!"

At the bottom of the stairs she almost ran smack into Chris coming up. "It's just me, Hallie."

"How'd you get here?"

"The park's closed. I got a ride back with Steve—he works at the carousel."

Hallie's shoulders slumped. "Then Kyle isn't with you?"

"No. He said he wanted to stay a bit later to do some more looking around."

"You mean you talked to him?"

"Of course. He was checking up on me every ten minutes—you know how he is." Chris went past her and up the stairs. "I'm getting out of these clothes."

"Wait, Chris."

He stopped, and looked down at her from a spot directly under the Arturo Madrigal painting. "Yeah?"

What could she say? If she told him about their suspicions about Tom, Kyle would never forgive her for turning him against his uncle. And about the cellar under the haunted house?

He was still looking at her, waiting.

"Um," she said. "Never mind."

He went on up the stairs with a shrug, and she stood in the living room, thinking hard. Okay, she couldn't tell Chris what she knew. She couldn't call the police until Kyle got back. And Kyle wouldn't be back until he'd confronted Tom.

There was just one thing to do.

"Chris!"

He came pounding down the stairs no louder than a herd of elephants. "Yeah?"

"I've got to meet Kyle at the park. Take the phone." She handed the house phone to him.

The keys to the Little Guy were hanging on their pink keychain by the front door. She grabbed them, then turned back to Chris, who stood there in the middle of the living room holding the phone.

"If I'm not back in an hour, call Joe Serrano."

He started to ask something, but she stopped him. "Tell him Kyle and I are at the amusement park, and to send someone out there. One hour, Chris."

The Bug started on the first try, which was more than it used to do on cold winter mornings in Davis, and Hallie patted it appreciatively on the dashboard. She headed down the mountain toward town, and Kyle.

When she arrived at the park she ran into a problem. A gate had been pulled across the road leading to the employee parking lot. Hallie turned on the interior lights in the car to see the time on the little stick-on clock Windy had attached to the dashboard. Midnight. She got out and peered through the bars of the gate. The fog was thick, and she couldn't see much, but the parking lot seemed to be just about empty. She didn't see Kyle's truck.

Well, there wasn't anything she could do. She got back in the car, backed up and turned around in the road, then drove back the way she'd come and found a place to park down on Main Street, just a few blocks away. The street was empty, except for a couple standing in front of a house down the block. They kissed, then went into the house. She walked back to the employee gate along the empty street.

When she got within sight of the employee entrance she saw a delivery van stopped in front of the gate.
Mama Thu's 100% Organic Vegetarian Hot Dogs
was painted on the side of the van. The driver got out, went up to the gate and pulled it open, then got back in and drove through. She started to run, waving her arm to try to get the driver's attention. Once he'd passed the gate, he got back out of his van and closed the gate behind him, then drove off along the service road.

She stopped in front of the gate, out of breath, and watched the red tail lights of the van fade into the mist. She put her hands up on the bars of the gate.

The gate rattled. She pulled on it again, and it moved easily under her hands, sliding open a couple of feet. Luck was on her side. The driver must have just pulled it shut without locking it, figuring he was coming back this way once he'd finished making his delivery.

Hallie pulled the gate open enough to slip through, then shut it again.

"Okay, Einstein, now that you're inside, where are you going to start?" she whispered. She saw a few dark shapes of cars in the foggy parking lot ahead, and went to investigate. Sure enough, one of the few was Kyle's red pickup truck. She put a hand on the hood, and left a palm print in the wet drops covering the glossy red paint. Kyle had been parked here long enough for the truck to become covered in a layer of mist. So where was he?

She looked around at the colorful buildings all shrouded by fog. How was she going to find him? She headed toward the blue-and-white striped carousel building that held Tom's office.

There were outside lights all along the row of buildings next to the parking lot, but they didn't pierce through to the ground below. Instead the light was reflected by the fog itself, turning it into a swirling silvery mist. Hallie shivered as she walked through it.

She reached the door of the building. The door was propped open, and the lights were on inside. Okay. What could she say to Tom?
Hi, Tom. Have you seen Kyle? He's going to have you arrested because he thinks you murdered his parents.
She shook her head. "Now what?" she said aloud.

"Shhh!" a voice hissed behind her.

Hallie jumped, then turned around, fists up, ready to fight.

"It's just me," Kyle whispered. He pulled her close and kissed her.

She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back. His body felt like a warm haven from the fog. She burrowed her face into the fold of his jacket and heard him sigh contentedly.

Then she pulled away. They didn't have time for this.

"Kyle! I have to tell you something!"

Kyle put a finger to his lips. "Shhh!" He took a step out from the building and looked up at the second floor window. Hallie could see a yellow glow through the window, and a dark shadow moved across the light. Kyle turned back to Hallie. "Why are you here anyway?—not that I mind, but I didn't expect anybody to be tailing me while I'm tailing Tom."

"I tried to call you, but you didn't pick up."

"I left my phone in the barn when we were talking earlier. What did you call me about?"

Hallie quickly told him what she'd figured out about the storage area below the haunted house.

Kyle breathed a big sigh. "Well, there's the big fat clue we've been looking for, but it doesn't make much sense."

"Could Windy and Zac be down there?"

"We'll find out soon enough," Kyle said softly. "I think—." He abruptly grabbed Hallie by the arm and pulled her back into the shadow of the building.

"What the—?" Hallie whispered.

"Shhh!" he said, and pointed to the upstairs window in the wall above them. The light had gone out.

They heard a door close upstairs, then heavy footsteps on the stairs.

"Come on, let's get away from here," Kyle whispered. "I don't want Tom to see us." They walked quickly toward the truck in the parking lot.

"If he asks, we'll just say I was late picking Chris up," Kyle said softly when they had gotten a little farther away. Hallie nodded.

They got to the truck and Kyle unlocked the doors.