No Way Out Read online

  “Don’t worry, I will,” Frank answered. “Okay, here I go,” he repeated. Then there was silence.

  Joe squinted at the dark area where the ground had swallowed Frank. “I can’t just stand here,” he told Ray. “I have to do something.”

  “Okay,” Ray said. “See that bunch of birch trees over there?”

  Joe followed Ray’s pointing finger and saw a couple dozen thin, straight trees with white and pale gray bark striped with occasional bands of black. The trees shot up from a thick mass of green weeds and undergrowth, but he caught an occasional glimpse of blue glinting through the tangled leaves and twigs.

  “The lakeshore is on the other side of those birches,” Ray said. “That’s the direction Frank is walking—that’s where he said the pale light was coming from. Go see if you can find an entrance to the mine tunnel around there. I’ll stay here in case Frank has to turn back.”

  Slowly, cautiously, Joe stepped down the hill and walked toward the lake.

  Ten feet belowground, Frank’s flashlight shot a wide, steady beam. Each time the light hit a dark patch of dirt, something slithered or scampered back into the shadows. There was a peculiar smell, almost metallic, and a gritty gray dust bounced in the beam of light.

  Frank’s eyes adjusted to the harsh contrast of light and dark as he walked. He tuned his ears to every sound, ignoring the skitters and rustles and listening instead for the more perilous cracking and creaking of the walls that would signal a cave-in. I can handle the things that live down here, he told himself, but I’m not ready to become a permanent resident myself.

  Every once in a while he swung the beam of light to the ground and squinted ahead. He still saw that pale glow, and each time, it was a little nearer. Finally he grew close enough to see that the glow was formed by individual patches of light piercing through tiny openings.

  At last, he came to the source of the glow. A few rotted boards marked what had apparently once been an opening to the outside. The powdery wood had been plastered with a tangle of weeds and vines, which allowed hundreds of pinpoints of light to poke through.

  Frank pocketed his flashlight and began tearing away at the branches and vines.

  “Frank!” Joe called from the other side. “Hey!”

  The two of them tore away at the barrier until Frank could step through. The sunlight blinded him for a minute as it ricocheted off the rocking waves of the lake.

  The brothers clamped arms, and both took a deep breath.

  “You made it!” Ray called, running over to join them.

  Frank brushed a few slugs and beetles out of his hair with an involuntary shudder. “Okay, it’s time to go back to work,” he said. “Do you suppose your father could have fallen into a tunnel the way I did?” he asked, turning to Ray.

  “I don’t think so,” Ray said. “I sure hope not. You’re the first person who’s fallen in that I know of since the mine’s been closed. There was a terrible cave-in eighty years ago, which prompted it to be shut down for good.”

  “Is it just abandoned?” Frank asked. “Who owns it?”

  “We do, now,” Ray said. “But Dad has no intention of ever opening it up again. The locals talk about a curse connected with it. Supposedly there are still miners’ bodies down there, and anyone who disturbs the mine takes on the curse. Dad sealed up all the entrances that were marked on the mine map over five years ago when we first moved here. I don’t remember seeing this one on the map, though.”

  “Well, I’m sure glad it was here,” Joe said.

  “Dad’s going to be pretty upset when he finds out about this,” Ray told Frank. “You could have really been hurt.”

  “I’m okay,” Frank said. “We probably should rope off this area just in case anyone else is wandering around over here.”

  “You’re right,” Ray agreed. “It’s pretty isolated over here, but you never know. …”

  “Have you got anything on the ATVs that we can use?” Frank asked. “Rope or chains, something like that?”

  “Each one has a chain, but there’s not enough to cordon off this area. There’s an old caretaker’s cottage down the beach, and I bet there’s some rope there.”

  “You two go get it,” Frank said. “I’ll stay here. I can check in with your sister and try your dad’s cell phone again while I wait.”

  Joe and Frank started down the beach. The sandy shore was very narrow and littered with large hunks of driftwood. A couple of times, the tide washed over their cross-trainers.

  After walking for about twenty minutes, they rounded a jetty and saw a small house on a butte about fifteen feet up from the shore. They left the sand and hiked up the short path to the cottage.

  “This place hasn’t been used for fifty years,” Ray explained. “A caretaker lived here. I think they launched sailboats from the end of the jetty.”

  “It’s pretty impressive,” Joe said, gazing out over the panoramic view. He saw nothing but shoreline laced with trees, the vast slate blue lake, and a few large islands far out in the water. As he watched, a bald eagle appeared from nowhere and surged into a powerful swoop toward a spindly pine tree. With an instantaneous switch of gears, it raised its huge shoulders and lowered its landing gear, grasping the treetop with killer claws.

  “If I lived here,” Joe said quietly, “this would be a very cool place to hang out.”

  The inside of the cottage was layered in dirt and sand, except for a few places where the wind had apparently blown through a broken window and swept the floor and furniture clear.

  Joe’s nose twitched as they walked around the two main rooms. “Are you sure no one’s been here?” he asked.

  “Sure … why?”

  “I smell fish,” Joe said, walking over to the kitchen.

  “Yeah well, we’re right next to a pretty big lake,” Ray said with a grin.

  “I smell cooked fish,” Joe said. “Greasy cooked fish.”

  “I don’t smell it,” Ray said. “I don’t smell anything but old dust and the lake. Maybe someone had a clambake on the beach nearby.”

  Joe poked around the kitchen, but didn’t find any evidence of someone being there. He turned on a small stove burner, and the gas fire flamed up. “The stove is still connected to a gas line, did you know that?” Joe asked.

  “Actually, no,” Ray said, joining Joe in the kitchen. “I’ll tell Dad.”

  “Speaking of your dad,” Joe said, “let’s get out of here and keep looking.”

  They grabbed a couple of coils of heavy rope and some tent spikes and hurried out of the cottage and back up to the beach where Frank was waiting.

  The Hardys and Ray roped off a wide area around the sinkhole where Frank had fallen into the mine. They secured the ropes around the spikes and drove the wood into the ground with a couple of large rocks.

  “Did you get hold of Kay?” Joe asked his brother as they pulled the rope tight.

  “I did,” Frank said. “They were back at the house. They found nothing at the maze, and there’s still been no word from Alan.”

  “Did you tell them what happened here?” Ray asked.

  “No—we can tell them when we get back,” Frank said. “The police are on their way out to the house right now. They’ll probably be there by the time we get back.”

  “I’m going to ask you guys not to mention this to the police until I get a chance to talk to Dad about it. This is private property, and I know Dad: He’ll want to fix this himself—and probably haul in the contractors who were supposed to make that mine totally inaccessible in the first place. Dad’s not going to want the whole village to know that the mine has been opened up.”

  “You mean because of the curse?” Joe asked. “That’s crazy!”

  “I’m sure it seems like that to you,” Ray agreed. “But to a lot of people around here, the curse is very real. They are descendants of people who lost their lives in that mine. If Dad wants to tell everyone what happened, okay. But I’m not saying anything about it until I talk to him.
And I’m asking you two to please keep quiet until then too.”

  Frank looked at Joe, and they both nodded. “Okay,” Frank said. “It’s your place—we’ll do it your way.”

  The three walked back to the ATVs and headed inland. It took them forty-five minutes to get to the house, by which time Officer Chester had arrived. He, Kay, and Penny were talking in the sunroom. The officer remembered Joe from Friday night, and Ray introduced him to Frank.

  “Where have you been, Frank?” Kay asked. “You look like you’ve been digging in dirt!”

  Everyone told the officer about the individual searches they had launched for Alan, and Joe asked him whether the police had figured out who the flaming arrow archer was.

  “No,” Officer Chester said. “But we’re working on it.”

  “Did Dad get a chance to show you the arrow shaft that Frank found on the site?” Ray asked.

  “No, I haven’t heard anything about that,” Officer Chester said. He had an odd way of speaking—very slow and deliberate. “Like to see it for myself, though.”

  “It’s in Dad’s desk in the library,” Ray said. “I’ll get it.”

  “Like to talk more about these fellas, too,” Officer Chester said, checking his notebook, “Vincenzo Blackstone and Bruce David MacLaren. Like to know more about how they figure in with your family.”

  Penny and the Kay began talking at once, and Ray joined in when he returned with the arrow shaft. It was information Frank had already heard, so he gestured to Joe, and the Hardys quietly left the kitchen.

  “I’ve got to get cleaned up,” Frank said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Joe said. “I want to copy the stuff I pulled up about Blackstone and give it to Officer Chester.”

  Frank and Joe took the steps of the carved staircase two at a time. Inside the guest suite, Joe fired up his computer at the small table by the window while Frank took a quick shower.

  Joe clicked into his private files and opened the folder labeled Vincenzo Blackstone. Inside was one file, named VB.

  “Mmmmm, that’s weird,” he mumbled. “There should be four files in that folder.” He clicked on VB, and the file opened onto the screen. There was only one page:

  Hey, Joe Hardy

  Think you’re pretty smart?

  Well, you’re not even close.

  Think you’re a hacker?

  You’re nothing when it comes to fighting me.

  Think you’re a detective?

  You’re nothing when it comes to FINDING me.

  Stay out of my computer.

  Stay out of my business.

  Or you’ll be one sorry jouster.

  9 Ring of Fire

  Joe stared at the note for a few seconds. Then a spurt of adrenaline spurred him into action. He copied the file onto a CD and raced to Ray’s room to print out the note. Then he grabbed the copies and charged back to the guest suite. Frank was ready in fresh jeans, sweater, and a jacket.

  “Look at this.” Joe showed Frank the note hacked into his computer. “This has to be from Blackstone,” Joe reasoned. “It was in the folder I set up with his data. He traced my research back to my computer, hacked in, and left me this note.”

  “He knows your name,” Frank pointed out.

  “He got that from my own computer files.”

  “He knows you’re a detective.”

  “He could have gotten that from my files, or even from some article on the Internet about a past case that we cracked. And if he knows who I am, he knows who you are too,” Joe pointed out.

  “Here’s the best part,” Frank read. “He calls you a jouster. That means only one thing.”

  “That he was in the stadium last night,” Joe said with a nod. “There’s no reason to call me that otherwise.”

  “Or someone who works for him was here,” Frank suggested, “and fed him a report.”

  “At this point, I’d bet anything that Blackstone’s at least on the island.”

  “And his message is pretty clear,” Frank said with a grim frown.

  “Looks like Blackstone just moved to the top of the suspect list,” Joe said, folding two copies of the note and sticking them in his sports bag.

  “I agree,” Frank said. “And let’s not tell the family about this. They’re already worried enough.”

  “Okay—let’s get going. We need to get this investigation moving and find Alan.”

  The Hardys took the stairway two steps at a time again and skidded into the kitchen.

  ‘Where’s Officer Chester?” Joe asked.

  “He left,” Kay said. “He got a call to check out a fender bender in the village square.”

  “Why?” Ray asked. “Did you find out anything?”

  “Uh, nothing … well … I have some information on Blackstone for him, that’s all,” Joe said.

  “We’ll take it to him when we go to the village,” Frank said. “We’re going in to see the rough cuts of the footage,” he explained to the others.

  “First, have some lunch,” Penny urged. “It’s been a hard morning, and it’s already two o’clock. We have to keep healthy so we can find Alan.”

  Over a bowl of hearty soup, and sandwiches piled high with turkey and cheese, the Hardys and Ray told Kay and Penny about Frank’s accident. Kay got maps of both the property and the mine, and laid them out on the big table.

  “Here,” Ray said, pointing to the spot where Frank disappeared. “This is where he fell through.”

  Frank and Joe both studied the maps, getting an idea of where the sinkhole was in relationship to the house, the stables, the maze, and the rest of the estate.

  “And this must be the caretaker’s cottage where you got the rope,” Frank said, pointing to a small building located on the property map.

  “That’s it,” Ray said. He told his family why he and Joe had gone to the cottage and how the three of them had roped off the sinkhole area.

  “Ray said no one uses that cottage anymore,” Joe said. “It’s pretty cool—it would make a great beach party house.”

  “Someone might have already figured that out,” Frank said. “Joe smelled cooked fish when he was in there. You may have some trespassers.”

  “It didn’t look like anyone had been in the cabin,” Ray said. “It was probably someone just using the beach for a bonfire cookout.”

  “We were in a hurry, though,” Joe said. “We didn’t get a chance to give it a thorough search.”

  “Sounds like it might need a second look,” Frank said. He turned to Penny. “What’s happening with the tournament today? Have you canceled any events, or is everything happening as scheduled?”

  ‘Well, some of the events are on hold until the maze is repaired, and that might be as soon as this afternoon. But there’s no way I can make the final inspection. Only Alan can declare it ready for the relays and the scavenger hunt competition.”

  “The medieval bazaar is really busy,” Kay reported. “There were tons of people hitting all the booths and vendors, so that should keep things rolling out there for a while.”

  “We’ve got more competitions scheduled for the stadium this evening,” Ray said, checking his watch. “I talked to Shorty before we started lunch, and he said everyone registered for the games has checked in. So we shouldn’t cancel them.”

  “Can you three handle those without Alan?” Frank asked.

  “And without our help?” added Joe.

  “I think so,” Penny answered. “We’ve held the games and tournament for several years now while the maze was being restored. We know the routine pretty well.” She looked out the window.

  “Mom, it’s going to be okay,” Kay said. “I don’t know where Dad is, but I’m sure he’s all right. And Frank and Joe will find him. They’re real pros, Mom—we can trust them to do the job.”

  “That’s our cue,” Frank said, standing up. “Okay, we’re out of here. We’ll keep in touch by phone. Be sure and call us if you hear anything.”

  The Hardys left the ho
use and went to the vehicle court. “Ray said to take what we need,” Joe said. “That one,” he announced, pointing to an SUV.

  Joe drove while Frank phoned Officer Chester and then the film studio. “Officer Chester is just leaving to come to EagleSpy,” Frank reported when he’d finished with the calls. “He said he’d hook up with us there later. Skip Jennin is on call at the studio and said he’d be happy to set us up.”

  They made pretty good time getting to the village, and were happy to see that traffic was bumper-to-bumper in the other lane, headed back to EagleSpy.

  The studio was housed in the buildings once used by the old marble mine. Skip took them into a small screening room. All the film so far from all the cameras had been spliced into one long video.

  Skip set up the film on a full-size movie screen to make it easier to watch. Then he showed the boys how to fast-forward, slow-forward, reverse, and pause, and how to zoom in on a certain part of an object. He also showed them how to determine where they were at any given moment in the footage, so they could make a note and he could pull up that image whenever they wanted. Then he left them and went back to his own work.

  There were hundreds of yards of film, and the Hardys were determined to check out every inch that was shot on Friday afternoon and evening. Having four eyes helped.

  Frank watched for Blackstone and followed the fire-eater when he was on-screen. Joe concentrated solely on finding the man he had seen running into the woods. Neither boy spoke for the first half hour. Then Frank broke the silence. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Stop the film.”

  Joe hit the pause button on the console in front of his chair.

  “Look,” Frank said. “There’s the fire-eater behind the stands. Who’s he talking to?” The fire-eater was head-to-head with someone whose back was to the camera. Joe zoomed in and hit the slow-forward button.

  The fire-eater was listening intently and nodding as the other man talked. Then the other man turned his head slightly to the left, and Joe paused on the man’s profile.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Frank asked.

  “It could be. It definitely could be—”

  “Vincenzo Blackstone!”