Boardwalk Bust Read online

  The richest man in Ocean Point had given us our next plan of action: an all-night stakeout on the beach.

  13. Stakeout!

  We went back to our hotel and tried to get a couple hours of sleep before dinner. We were going to be up all night, after all, and we didn’t want to fall asleep on the job.

  When we woke up, it was around 6 P.M., and we were both hungry. We got dressed, packed all our overnight essentials in a backpack, and headed downstairs to get some dinner.

  We were waiting for our food to come and going over the case when I spotted the two blondes from the beach. They were in jeans and tank tops now, but they were still unmistakable.

  I just hoped they didn’t see us. I’d left my shades in the room, figuring I wouldn’t need them overnight on the beach. But I hadn’t figured on this. The last thing I wanted was them seeing me with two black eyes.

  “Yoo-hoo! Frank!”

  Ugh. Too late.

  They came right over to our table and sat down with us. The girl next to Frank nudged up really close to him—so close that he moved in toward the wall of the booth a little, edging away from her out of sheer embarrassment.

  The girl on my side of the table didn’t move in on me at all. Instead, she leaned over the table toward Frank.

  The one across the table gave me a look. “Eeeuw!” she squealed. “Look at your eyes!”

  Her friend next to me took a close look. “Omigosh, you look like a—”

  “I know, a raccoon,” I said.

  “Right!”

  “That lifeguard socked you pretty good,” the girl across the table said.

  “Hey, I didn’t know it was coming,” I said, defending myself.

  It would have been nice of Frank to say something right about then, but he was so shy in the presence of these two girls that he never opened his mouth.

  “You should have decked him,” the girl next to me said.

  “Yeah,” the other agreed. “You really wimped out.”

  I was about to argue with her, but just then our food arrived.

  “So, Frank, what are you doing tonight?” the girl next to him asked.

  “Um, Joe?” Frank looked at me pleadingly. Obviously, he didn’t know what to say.

  “We’re, uh … spending the evening with our parents,” I said.

  Talk about wimping out. But it worked.

  “Your parents? Ick. Sounds totally boring. We’re going clubbing.”

  “Really?” I said. “Have a nice time.”

  “Oh, we will,” said the girl across from me. “I don’t know about you, though.”

  Finally, they got up and left, and we were able to eat our meal in peace. “Do me a favor, Frank,” I said, “next time we’re on a case, try to stay away from romantic entanglements.”

  “Romantic entanglements?”

  “Whatever, just steer clear, okay?”

  I guess I was being a little hard on him. After all, it was me who introduced us to the girls, not him. Still. How frustrating was this?

  “Come on,” Frank said as we pushed away our dessert plates. “Let’s go nail us a criminal.”

  · · · ·

  By eight o’clock the beach was deserted, except for one or two couples strolling hand in hand as the sun went down.

  Frank and I both agreed that no one would be planting jewelry on the beach in broad daylight. We also agreed that the most likely time would be after 3 A.M., when the boardwalk lights would go off, plunging the beach into almost total darkness.

  We had a long time to wait. We probably didn’t need to be out here yet, but we didn’t want to miss anything if it happened earlier than we thought. We took up positions under the boardwalk, and Frank fished out the night vision scope from the backpack.

  “Okay,” he said as he snapped it open and scanned the empty beach. “Bring it on.”

  “Well?” I asked. “What do you see?”

  “Just a few drunks … some couples making out … there’s a guy fishing … uh, a bunch of seagulls … a homeless guy …”

  “All right, all right, never mind. Just tell me when you see something interesting.”

  Frank smiled at me. “You’ll get your turn, little brother. Just be patient.”

  I hate when he calls me “little brother.” He’s only eleven months older than me, you know. And I look older and more mature.

  Anyway, hours went by. I was sorry I hadn’t brought my MP3 player to pass the time. Ten o’clock, eleven, midnight, one … and still two hours to go before prime time! This was truly going to rank among the most boring nights of my life—especially if our criminal didn’t show up.

  At three o’clock all the lights went out. Suddenly, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. It took all of about ten minutes before I could make out Frank, still staring through the scope at the beach.

  “Am I going to get a turn, or are you just going to hog that thing?” I asked.

  “Here,” he said, giving it to me. “If you’re going to keep on nagging me about it…”

  “We’re supposed to share,” I reminded him. “They only gave us one of these.”

  That got him. He sat down and lapsed into silence. The only sound now was that of the waves crashing in.

  The spot we’d chosen for our stakeout looked out on the stretch of beach where the first ring had been found. Most of the jewelry had been dug up within view of our position. The town pier was on our left, maybe fifty yards away.

  I was looking that way, peering through the scope, when I thought I saw something move.

  Maybe it was just a homeless guy, prowling for crabs to eat or a place to sleep.

  Or maybe not.

  I nudged Frank. “Under the pier,” I whispered. “Something moving.”

  “Let’s go check it out,” he said.

  Still staring through the scope, I emerged from our hiding place and headed toward the pier with Frank on my right, holding on to my arm because he couldn’t see where he was going.

  Suddenly he let out a grunt, and I felt him let go of my arm.

  “What the—?”

  Then I felt something hard come down on the back of my head. As I crumpled to the sand, all I could see were stars.

  14. Neck-Deep in Trouble

  Joe was down—I could see that much.

  I was down too, but not out. I struggled to my feet and swung.

  Within seconds, my right fist plowed into something soft.

  “Ooof!”

  A massive shape in front of me doubled over, and I kicked hard at it.

  Then I was jumped from behind—by not one, but two guys. The second got his hands around my throat.

  I tried to wrestle the second guy off me, but he wouldn’t budge.

  Meanwhile, the guy I’d brought down before was slowly recovering. He got to me before I could get free of his friend, and socked me so hard in the stomach that I thought I was going to lose my dinner.

  I sank to the ground and felt a series of hard kicks delivered to my kidneys. I tried to protect my face and to make the rest of me as small a target as possible. It hurt—but I could sense my attackers getting tired. And it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.

  “Tie them up!” the other man said.

  Rope was wound around my hands, and the guy was busy tying them behind my back when I heard a loud “Oof!” and he let go.

  “Get away from my brother, screwball!”

  Joe was back in the fight!

  My hands were now tied too tightly for me to help. The two other assailants quickly ganged up on Joe. I heard a loud crack, and then Joe yelling, “Ow! My eye!”

  He has the worst luck sometimes.

  Another minute or two and Joe was lying beside me on the ground, getting his hands tied in the same style as mine.

  “Should I bash their heads in?” one of them asked the other.

  “Nah,” one of his companions answered. “No marks, remember? Now go over behind that piling and get the shovel.”

&n
bsp; I tried to place their voices, but they weren’t familiar. As for their faces, there was no way to make them out in the pitch darkness. Not without our night scope, and who knew where that had fallen?

  “Shovel?” the first guy repeated. He didn’t sound too bright. “We gonna bury something?”

  “Yeah, lamebrain. We’re gonna bury these two—alive.”

  I could see now where things were heading, and it wasn’t anyplace good. From the sound of the waves hitting, we were right near the waterline. And it was low tide. If they buried us here—and they were already digging the hole—all traces of digging would be wiped out by the rising tide before the sun came up. No one would ever find us until the day—years from now, maybe—when a hurricane or nor’ easter rearranged the beach and made the dead rise.

  Once the hole was deep enough, we were both thrown in alive, and they started to shovel the sand back in. When they were done, only our heads were above the sand.

  Whoever was doing this wanted us to suffer before we died. Hmmm … we must have been annoying somebody pretty badly. To me it meant that our investigation was coming close. Too close for a bad guy’s comfort.

  And mine, too, actually. The water didn’t look too great from this vantage point.

  “Who are you?” I asked the men who’d accosted us. “Why are you doing this?”

  I didn’t think I’d get an answer, but it was worth a try—especially since at least one of them didn’t seem too bright.

  “None of your business,” the answer came back from the darkness.

  “Who hired you?”

  “What makes you think somebody hired us?” the voice said. “Maybe we’re just doing this for fun.”

  “Fun? You think this is fun?” Joe raged.

  “Sure! I can just picture you two as the tide comes up. You’ll drown real slow … if the dogs and vultures don’t get you first! Hahahaha!”

  “Hahahaha!” came the echoing laugh of one of his companions. They sounded like hyenas.

  “Wait,” I said calmly. “Whatever you’re being paid, we can double it.”

  “Oh, I doubt it. I doubt it very much. We’re going to make a killing on this one! Hahahaha!”

  “Hahahaha!”

  “Come on, guys—let’s leave these two alone. They’ve got a lot of thinking to do … about how curiosity killed the cat! Hahahaha!”

  “Hahahaha!”

  The laughter was driving me nuts.

  Within seconds they were gone, taking their shovel—our only hope of escape—with them.

  For a few moments there was dead silence. Then Joe spoke up. “My nose itches.”

  There was no sense in telling him to scratch it. This sand was hard packed. We weren’t going to just slip out like we would from dry sand.

  And did I mention we were tied, hands and feet?

  Not good.

  “How’s the rest of you?” I asked.

  “I got punched in the eye again.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Same one the cow kicked.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Oh, well. At least now I won’t have to worry about how it looks.”

  There was another long silence. Then:

  “Does this remind you of anything?” Joe asked.

  “Yeah. Farmer Pressman’s grain bin.”

  “Ding-ding-ding! Yes, that’s right, for one hundred dollars!”

  “Only now we’re buried much deeper,” I added helpfully.

  “And we have no gizmos to help us.”

  “And our hands aren’t free, let alone our legs.”

  “So, we’re history, right?”

  “Wrong!” I said. “Don’t give up, Joe. I’ll think of something.”

  I think he believed me. Joe has a lot of faith in my mental powers. But right at that moment, I myself didn’t have much faith in them. In fact, I didn’t have a clue.

  15. Miracles from on High

  We were buried up to our necks, about six feet from the waterline, and the waves kept breaking closer and closer to our heads. I was having flashbacks to our grain bin rendezvous. I hadn’t really wanted a repeat performance so soon.

  “I just want to say, Frank, that it’s been awesome having you for a brother.”

  I don’t know what made me say that. Of course we were going to get out of this. Frank was going to think of something at the last minute, and it would all be okay.

  But Frank didn’t look too happy. He was busy spitting out the salt water he’d just swallowed. High tide was fast approaching.

  And so was something else.

  “Frank, look!”

  The way we were buried, I could see the light easier than Frank could. But we could both hear the sound of the engine. It was coming straight for us.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He squinted his eyes to protect them from the glare of the light. “Can’t see what kind of vehicle it is … but it must be one of those machines that rake up the garbage at night.”

  Frank and I both screamed as loudly as we could, hoping to get the attention of the driver. The light seemed to turn our way and get brighter. The machine kept coming, and the engine was now drowning out both the surf and our screams.

  “We’re saved!” Frank kept shouting like an idiot. “We’re saved!”

  I wasn’t so sure. It was pitch dark out here, and in spite of the headlights, the driver might not see our heads poking out of the sand. He might just mistake our heads for plastic garbage bags or something, and rake them up into the jaws of his machine.

  Our cries for help became screams of terror as the “grim reaper” descended on us. There was no way the driver could possibly hear us over the roar of the vehicle’s engine.

  Then, at the last second, there was a shriek of brakes. The metal monster came to a stop about three feet from our heads.

  As if that weren’t enough, a big wave chose that very moment to crash over us. When it retreated, we were left gasping and coughing.

  Help came in the form of a beautiful dark angel’s face, bending over mine. “Whoa!” the angel said. “What the … What are you two doing here?”

  Good question.

  “It’s a long story,” Frank said. “But we haven’t got much time. Could you please just dig us out first?”

  “Um, yeah, sure,” the angel said. “You’re lucky I’ve got a shovel in there.”

  She went over to her tractor and came back with one. She started digging Frank out while I had to chill, holding my breath whenever the waves came crashing over me.

  Pretty soon Frank was able to use his arms to haul himself out. Then the two of them came over to dig me up.

  Her name was Naomi, she told us—Naomi Thompson. She was wearing sweats, and her hair was done in cornrows. She was the one who embossed the advertisements in the sand, using her tractor and its nifty rear attachment to make those amazing drawings.

  “You’re lucky I spotted you,” she said. “I just happened to be circling back around, or I wouldn’t have had my lights pointed so close to the water.”

  “Well, thanks for saving us,” Frank said.

  “No problem. Are you gonna tell me how you wound up like that?”

  “Sure,” I said. “How about we tell you all about it over lunch tomorrow?”

  She gave me a look. “I’ve heard that line before. How ’bout you tell me first, and then we decide about lunch?”

  So we told her everything we knew. She’s been out on the beach every night; if anybody’d been out there, scattering jewelry in the sand for tourists to find, Naomi might have seen him—or her.

  But no. Apparently, it had been pretty quiet. “I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff poking out of the sand since I started working here,” she said. “That’s why I bring the shovel with me. But I’ve never seen anything as weird as two guys’ heads.”

  We borrowed her shovel and filled the two holes back up. That way, in case anyone came by the next day to check on us, they wouldn’t know we’d escaped.
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br />   “Well now,” I said to Naomi when we were done. “What about our lunch date?”

  “Um, Joe,” Frank said quickly. “Let me remind you about something.”

  “Huh?”

  “Whoever tried to kill us—at this point, they think we’re dead.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “If we want them to keep thinking that, we can’t go around in broad daylight, taking girls out to lunch in restaurants.”

  “Sorry, Naomi,” I said, realizing he was right.

  “That’s okay. Maybe after your eyes heal up.”

  Ouch. Forgot about those.

  She got back into the driver’s seat. “Gotta get back to work.”

  “Where can we find you?” I asked.

  “Me? I’m out here every night, from 3 A.M. to 5 A.M. Princess of Darkness, that’s me.”

  She revved up the engine and put the tractor in gear. Soon she was just a spot of light retreating up the beach.

  “So,” I said. “We’re ghosts, huh? Cool.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said with a smile. “You know, for a ghost, I feel pretty alive.”

  “Me too. Thanks to Naomi.”

  Frank looked up at the stars. “Yeah, good thing she came by, or we’d probably be sunk.” He paused for a moment. “Great night, huh?”

  I looked up at the sky. And suddenly, something hit me.

  Hard.

  Smack in the forehead.

  “What the—?”

  16. A Bump on the Head

  I heard something smack Joe on the head, and an instant later, his cry of pain.

  “Ow!”

  I turned around, ready to drop-kick whoever was attacking us.

  But there was no one there at all!

  Something had knocked Joe in the head. There was no doubt about that. He was on his knees, holding his forehead.

  “Are you all right?” I asked him.

  “Dang, that hurts!”

  “Are you bleeding?”

  He checked. “I don’t think so—but I’m gonna have a lump the size of a—”

  He broke off and reached down for something that was lying in the sand. “Hey, Frank—check this out. This must be what hit me!”

  He held it up, and I took it from him. It was a heavy gold bracelet—the kind that locks together and looks like you could attach a heavy chain to it.