The Vanishing Game Read online

  At the sight of Joe and me, Daisy’s face totally changed. Her eyebrows made an angry V over her eyes, and her cheeks flushed. “Daddy, what are they still doing here? I told you they can’t be trusted. They’ve been snooping around our house, keeping things from us—”

  Hector held up his hand to stop her. “Daisy, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s time I was honest with you. It’s me who’s been keeping things from you, not these boys. They’ve just stumbled onto the truth.”

  Daisy raised an eyebrow. “Daddy . . . what are you saying?”

  Hector let out a deep sigh and then launched into an explanation of who Cal was and how they knew each other. When he got to the part about what he’d done, and how Cal had taken the blame for him and things had gone south after that, Daisy’s eyes widened.

  “What? Is that why you told me not to talk to him?” she asked. “Because you thought he’d tell me the truth?”

  Hector nodded. “I tried so hard to be a good example for you,” he said. “I didn’t want you to know that I hadn’t met my own standards as a kid.”

  Daisy’s expression softened. “Dad,” she said quietly. “Did you really believe I’d think any less of you? You were young and stupid. You made a mistake, that’s all.”

  Hector’s eyes watered. “Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured. “You make me so proud.”

  Daisy shook her head. “The only thing that matters right now is finding Luke and Kelly,” she said. “If what you’ve told me about Cal is true . . . I just don’t know what he might have done with them. This is really serious.”

  A male voice suddenly piped up from the doorway. “You can say that again!”

  SIGHTINGS

  12

  JOE

  DEREK PIPERATO STOOD IN THE door-way, red-faced and furious-looking.

  His brother Greg ran up behind him. “We got your message,” he said, as the two of them strode into the office toward Hector. “Frankly, I’m stunned. With the amount of publicity G-Force has gotten this fleabag amusement park! The only problem with the ride right now is that it isn’t running. If you would just open back up, you’d be rolling in money!”

  Hector stood up. “Your attraction has been involved in the kidnapping of two children, and frankly, I’ve been horrified by your reactions to the whole proceeding. I want that thing out of my park. I want you to tear it down. Take it to Wonder World; I don’t care.”

  Derek shook his head, too upset to speak, while Greg looked at his brother and then turned back to Hector, making a big show of looking composed.

  “We’ve been over this,” he said. “We were not involved in the creation of the secret room. There was space there, yes, but the hidden trapdoor was not part of the original design. It was your ride operator who must have altered the ride—to suit his ulterior motives.”

  Derek suddenly leaned forward and grabbed Greg’s seersucker jacket. “Ulterior motives!” he cried. “That’s perfect for the next trailer.” He spoke in a deep, horror-movie voice. “He had ulterior motives . . .”

  “ENOUGH!” Hector shouted, standing up and pointing his finger at the two brothers. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyers, but our association is over. G-Force is done at Funspot.”

  Suddenly Frank checked his watch. “Oh, wow,” he said, holding it up to me. “Look at the time. We’ve got about five minutes to get to school.”

  Daisy groaned. “That means I’m going to be late too.” She glared at us. “If you two hadn’t been here, I’d be at school by now.”

  Hector sighed. “I’m sorry, Daisy—I didn’t realize how late it was. But now I have this to deal with.” He gestured at the red-faced Piperato Brothers. “I’m sorry, but I can’t drive you to school.”

  Daisy turned to us and scowled.

  “It’s okay,” Frank said. “We’re headed in that direction. Can we give you a ride?”

  Was he kidding? I glared at him. Frank shrugged back at me innocently.

  Daisy huffed. “I guess I don’t have a choice,” she said, turning from me to the Piperato Brothers to her father. She put the bag from the Coffee Stop on her father’s desk and hoisted her backpack higher on her shoulder. “Bye, Daddy. I’ll come by later.”

  She strutted out the door, and Frank turned to follow her. “Thank you for the information, Hector. Will you tell the police?

  Hector sighed and nodded. “Of course.”

  I had little choice but to follow my brother. The three of us walked out of the administration building and out to the parking lot in awkward silence.

  Nobody spoke until we were in the car—I drove, because I needed something to focus on—and pulling out onto the main road.

  “Did you know that it’s a myth that toilets flush in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere?” Frank piped up suddenly.

  Daisy shot him a withering look. “Are you kidding me?”

  “It’s true,” Frank said, nodding. “A toilet flushes in whatever direction you shoot the water. It’s simple physics.”

  I tried to focus on the drive as Frank went on to try to interest Daisy in static electricity, digestion, and whale songs. Nothing seemed to take, and soon Daisy was glaring out the window.

  We were driving down the “main drag” of town—a commercial strip filled with mini malls, fast-food chains, and run-down motels. There were a bunch of stoplights, and I was cursing our timing as we got stopped at a third light. We were going to be late for sure. I glanced out the window, trying to remember what we were doing in first-period Spanish, when suddenly a slight figure walking into a dumpy convenience store caught my eye.

  “Wait a minute,” I said out loud, pointing. “Frank—do you see that?”

  Frank turned. The figure was wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses, but the swagger was unmistakable. “Oh, wow,” he said, leaning up in his seat to see better. “That’s Luke!”

  Daisy startled and turned around. “Are you crazy?” she demanded.

  But I was already throwing the car into reverse so I could pull across three lanes of traffic and into the store parking lot.

  Daisy screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? We’re already late! There’s no way that’s him!”

  But as we barreled into the parking lot, the figure turned around, spotted us, and took off running.

  REVELATIONS

  13

  FRANK

  GET HIM!” I SHOUTED.

  Joe slammed the car into park and threw the door open, forgetting for a second that he had a seat belt on. As he snapped back into his seat, I disentangled myself and sprinted out of the car after the guy. Soon I could hear Joe right behind me.

  Luke was running out of the parking lot, behind the convenience store. As we drew closer he ran up to the wire fence separating the parking lot from the lot of the motel next door. He artfully inserted his foot into one of the links, launched himself up, and jumped the fence. I ran after him, scrambling up and over the fence and jumping down onto the broken asphalt with a thud that rattled my leg bones.

  He was taking off around the nearest motel building, a long, squat, one-story structure that looked like it had seen better days. I rocketed after him as I heard Joe climbing the fence behind me.

  When I got to the front of the building, Luke was running across the parking lot, around the tiny fenced-in swimming pool, and over to the next lot, which housed a pizza joint. This lot, however, was separated from the motel by a tall plastic fence that looked impossible to climb—or jump. He stopped, looked at it for a second, and then looked back at me, seeing that I was just a few yards away.

  “Give up, Luke!” I yelled. “Tell us the truth about what happened to you!”

  He watched me. His dark glasses hid much of his expression, but he seemed to be considering my words. I moved closer.

  Then, when I was almost close enough to touch him, he suddenly sprang back into motion, darting away from me and across the lot in the other direction—toward the street.

  “Nooooo!” yelled Joe from behind
me. The light had just changed, and traffic was moving by at a rapid pace.

  But Luke didn’t listen. He scrambled out into traffic, cars screeching to a halt and loudly honking their horns as they tried to avoid him. He reached the median, missing a pickup truck by just inches, and hopped over the narrow metal divider.

  Joe ran up next to me. “Are we going to lose him?” he asked.

  It was a rhetorical question, I knew. We couldn’t let Luke get away after everything we’d learned. Either he was being held by Cal and had escaped by now, or there was another, more complicated, reason for his appearance.

  “Let’s go,” I said simply, and ran toward the street.

  I tried to bob and weave through the cars, but the drivers still didn’t like that much. Traffic was moving around forty miles an hour, and suddenly I was trapped in a real-life game of Frogger. (That’s an old arcade game. I like vintage arcade games.)

  A red sports car in the second lane screeched to a halt just inches from my feet. The driver, a pretty blond lady, was so mad that she reached out the open window and threw her iced coffee at me.

  Luckily, I was able to avoid that.

  I scrambled over the median. I could hear the cars honking in protest as Joe followed me. On the other side of the road traffic was lighter, and I was able to cross without causing too much of a problem.

  Luke was running around an old candy store and into the lot of another run-down motel.

  He must have thought he’d lost us, because he slowed a little as he ran into the motel parking lot. He paused and looked around, and I grabbed Joe and ducked down behind a minivan in the candy store parking lot to watch. What was he doing?

  When he was satisfied that Joe and I were gone, Luke casually strolled up to a motel room on the right—this motel was made up of ramshackle buildings whose rooms all faced the parking lot—and knocked. The door opened, and he disappeared inside.

  “Room thirty-four,” Joe observed, straightening up beside me.

  “Room thirty-four,” I echoed. “Do we call the police?”

  Joe nodded. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I’m not walking into this one alone.”

  He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and hit the speed dial for the Bayport PD.

  • • •

  “OPEN UP! POLICE!”

  Chief Olaf and an officer were crouched outside the door to room 34, guns cocked. They hammered on the door, and for a long time nothing happened. You could hear muffled voices inside, like the inhabitants were debating what to do. Just as Olaf gave the officer a meaningful glance, like they should break the door down, we could hear the scrabble of the cheap chain lock against the wooden door, and then the door opened inward.

  Olaf nearly lost his balance, but he recovered quickly.

  Luke was standing at the door. He stepped back, allowing the police to enter. Joe and I followed.

  Inside, on one of the sunken double beds, sat Kelly, sipping a McDonald’s shake.

  “What’s going on here?” The chief demanded, looking from one missing kid to the other.

  Luke looked sheepish. He glanced behind Olaf to Frank and me, and his eyes narrowed in a glare. Then he turned back to the policemen, and his expression cleared.

  “It was a hoax,” he said simply.

  • • •

  Over the next couple of hours at the Bayport police station, Luke and Kelly told us the whole sordid tale.

  “The idea was to get more publicity for G-Force, and for Funspot,” he explained. “But I don’t think Hector knew anything about it.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t,” said Daisy. Once the police had Luke and Kelly loaded into their squad car, Joe and I had gone back to the car to find a very teed-off Daisy. Luckily for us, she’d softened when we told her what happened.

  “Tell us how this all started,” Chief Olaf said.

  Luke sighed and gestured to Kelly that she should start.

  “A few weeks before the opening, I got an e-mail,” she said. “It was from an address I’d never seen before, but the sender said he knew me and thought I might like an opportunity to help start an Internet sensation, for a lot of money.”

  “An Internet sensation?” Olaf repeated, like the words tasted sour.

  Kelly nodded. “It was a brand-new marketing idea, was how they described it. All I had to do was pretend to disappear on the ride, and hide for a few weeks in a motel until the search died down. I’d get free meals, a few weeks off school, and a thousand dollars for my trouble.”

  Chief Olaf’s eyes softened. “That must have seemed like a lot of money to a girl your age.”

  Kelly frowned at him. “It’s not just that. My mom works three jobs already. I’m too young to work. I thought maybe this was a way to help out my family.”

  “Except that they’d go crazy with panic thinking you were missing for weeks,” Olaf pointed out.

  Kelly nodded, looking a little ashamed. “I know. I felt terrible about that. But I told myself it would all be okay when I came home, safe and sound. They’d be so relieved—plus we’d have the money.”

  “So you said yes,” I said.

  Kelly nodded. “Right. I e-mailed back and said I’d do it.”

  “How did you know what to do—what would happen when you ‘disappeared’?” Olaf asked.

  Kelly reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded printout. “I got this back,” she replied.

  The chief took the printout and unfolded it. I could read over his shoulder. There was a diagram of the inside of G-Force, like a map, with the seats numbered. Sit in seat #6, it said clearly. Someone will help you out during the ride. Follow him and don’t ask any questions.

  Olaf pointed to the e-mail address at the top of the page.

  [email protected], it read. “Anyone familiar with that e-mail?”

  “Derek Piperato,” Joe and I said in unison.

  Olaf turned to Kelly. “Does that sound familiar?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I never met him,” she said. “A guy named Cal got me out of the seat and told me what to do. When I was able to leave the ride that night, he took me to this motel. He was bringing us food and making sure we were okay, but he stopped a week or so ago.” He gestured to Luke. “Luke’s been taking care of us since then.”

  Luke nodded. “It’s a good thing I had some money in my pocket.”

  He described a similar experience: the e-mail, the offer of a thousand dollars. He didn’t mention needing to help his family—he wanted the money to put toward a new car. Like Kelly, he told himself that the pain he caused his family would be eliminated when he came home. And he produced an identical e-mail—from [email protected].

  “I can’t believe this,” Daisy muttered, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it! Dad never would have gone into business with these guys if he knew they had this in them.”

  Chief Olaf looked at his officers. “We’d better get these Piperato Brothers in here,” he said.

  About half an hour later, Derek and Greg Piperato were dragged in, struggling and complaining.

  “This is an outrage!” Derek cried. His handlebar mustache was all out of whack. “A travesty of justice! With what are we being charged?”

  “Oh, take your pick,” Olaf said, strolling out of the interrogation room to greet them. “Kidnapping, fraud, endangerment of a minor? Shall I go on?”

  Greg Piperato looked indignant. “What are you talking about? What is the meaning of all this?”

  The chief strolled over to the brothers with the printout Kelly had given him. “Does this look familiar?” He held it up in front of Greg’s face.

  I could see Greg’s eyes moving back and forth as he struggled to take it all in.

  “ ‘Get out of the ride’?” he asked. “ ‘You will be handsomely rewarded’? What does all this mean?”

  “It means,” Olaf said with a smile, “you didn’t get away with it. And your little stunt backfired, because G-Force is dead in this town!”

 
G-FORCED AGAIN

  14

  JOE

  IT’S GOING TO BE THE end of the season soon,” Frank said, popping a piece of cotton candy in his mouth as we walked down the main drag of Funspot toward G-Force. “I guess this place will be dark until next season.”

  “That gives them plenty of time to tear down this ride,” I agreed. “I’m sure Hector will be relieved about that.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Frank said. “Although the park has been pretty busy lately—no doubt all the publicity the hoax got.”

  For the last week straight the news had been obsessively covering the “G-Force hoax,” featuring interviews with Luke, Kelly, Hector—even Derek and Greg Piperato, vigorously insisting that they were innocent in their bright orange jailhouse jumpsuits.

  “I have to admit,” I said, “I’m kind of looking forward to the last ride.”

  Tonight was G-Force’s final hurrah. The Piperatos had been charged, Luke and Kelly were back with their (nonplussed, but relieved) families, and the attraction was going to be torn down starting tomorrow. But since nothing had ever been found to be wrong with the ride itself, Hector had agreed to open it for one last night. After that, surely, G-Force would just be one more strange appendix in amusement park history.

  “It’s a great little ride,” Frank agreed, finishing up his cotton candy and tossing the paper cone in the trash. “Kidnapping, greed, and unnecessary drama notwithstanding.”

  We stepped around the food stands and found ourselves staring at G-Force—which was still pretty impressive, with its polished chrome sides gleaming in the late-afternoon sun. A huge line was already snaking around the clearing, excited kids and teenagers chatting eagerly about their last chance to go on the Death Ride. (Despite Hector’s best efforts, the nickname had stuck.)

  “This is where I wish you’d worked it out with Daisy,” Frank said with a sigh.

  “I know,” I agreed. “I kind of wish we’d worked it out too. I miss her.”