Nancy really didn’t want
to comply with the thug’s command, but she knew better than to argue with a
loaded gun. So did her siblings. With a twinge of regret, the five of them
tromped down the street a little ways, then steered into an alley just wide
enough for the garbage truck to come empty the dumpsters. There, they waited, expecting any minute to
be frisked and robbed.
The man who’d been in the
store pointed at Frank. “You,
there. Turn around.”
Frank did as he said,
without a word. He didn’t like turning
his back on a loaded gun, but he sincerely doubted that this tough would shoot
him. Frank had never seen the man before—there
was nothing he could say or do that would make him that dangerous to the man.
Sure enough, the crook
didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he
walked over and gave Frank a hard smack on the shoulder.
“Oof!”
Frank started to stagger
forward, only to be clasped by the other shoulder and whirled around, at which
the thug delivered a hard right to the chin!—followed by a kick to his
midsection—Frank tumbled down the alley and crashed against a stack of garbage
bags, falling out of breath to the ground. The others gasped.
“Stop looking for
Stephanie Dale,” the tough said, in a monotone sort of voice. “Or next time, some of these girls get hurt
too. Don’t try to follow us, or you’ll
get it.”
With that, he and his
partner backed out of the alley, then ran off down the street. Nancy ran straight to her brother.
“Are you hurt?” she
asked.
“Only my pride,” Frank
said, wheezing as he sat up.
Louis was irate. “Let’s follow them!” he said, but Frank
quickly shook his head.
“Not now, Louis. They’ll be expecting us, and they’ve got
guns. We’ll wait for Zach, then go
straight to the police station and tell what happened. Hopefully, the cops will know who these
crooks are, and they can pick them up.”
He glanced at Ashley.
“We did learn something
from them, though,” he told her.
“Somebody’s behind your sister’s disappearance.”
Ashley’s face had gone
white. “I was afraid of that,” she
said. “You don’t think they—”
“I don’t know what
happened to her,” Frank said, “but we must be on the right track, or they wouldn’t
have threatened us. Maybe that license
plate will give us a clue—do you still have it, Ashley?”
The Dale girl nodded,
holding up the envelope. “They didn’t
touch it.”
“That’s funny,” said
Nancy. “They had the perfect opportunity
to steal it away from you. They didn’t
even try to take the Sandberg card I bought, and that’s valuable—”
“Robbery wasn’t their
motive—it must have been intimidation,” said Frank. “The plate part doesn’t make sense, though. If they want us to lay off the case, then why
leave the plate—although, I suppose they figured we could memorize it easily
enough. It’s only six digits.”
“I don’t think they knew
there was a plate in the package,” Nancy said.
“I saw that guy in the store when we arrived. He left before we opened it.”
“Say, you’re right,” said
Frank. “In that case, he wasn’t
interested in it at all—”
“Unless he already knew
what was in it,” said Louis. “Maybe he
found out from the girl that lost it, and he was just waiting to see who picked
it up.”
The others stared at
him. “Great point, Louis,” said
Frank. “I don’t know if that’s it or
not, but it makes more sense than the rest of our ideas. And if that’s the case—it could mean—” He broke off as he spied a familiar hot rod
coming down the street. “There’s
Zach. Let’s get in and have him take us
to the police station.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oklahoma City was a
pretty big place—especially when it came to square miles—but the card store was
downtown, so the police station wasn’t far away. Better yet, Mr. Anderson was at the office
when his kids walked in. He was
delighted to see them—less so when he found out why they were there.
“What’d they look like?”
he asked, his face grave. “If there’s
one thing I’ve taught you kids, it’s to take descriptions.”
“The one that hit me was
about five-eleven, I’d say,” Frank responded.
“Kind of thin, curly blond hair, and dirty teeth, like he smoked or
something. There was a tobacco smell around
him.”
“The other one was
slightly taller,” Nancy volunteered. “He
wore all black, he was muscular, and he had brown stubble all over his chin. His hair was straighter than his
partners—slick, too, like he used some kind of oil in it. One of his ears looked like it had been
messed up in a fight, and his nose was a little crooked—”
“Those guys,” Mr.
Anderson rolled his eyes.
“You know them?” Frank
asked, surprised.
“I’ve picked them up a
couple times before,” Mr. Anderson said.
“The first time, they had an ‘alibi’—I don’t believe it was real for one
minute, but it was good enough to hold up in court. Next time, we really got the goods on
them. They were supposed to be in
McAlester[1]
for a year, but they must have gotten out early—good behavior, probably. The one that hit Frank is Mugs Barnette, and
the other one is Slick Jordan.”
“So they’re known
crooks,” said Frank. “Have they ever
been involved in kidnapping?”
Mr. Anderson shook his
head. “Small-scale operators, usually
for a larger gang. The worst charge
they’d be guilty of is assault.”
“Then they’re probably
working for someone bigger,” Ashley said.
She’d already told Mr. Anderson about her sister’s disappearance. Now, she was wide-eyed with excitement as she
asked, “Do they work with anyone specific?”
Mr. Anderson shook his
head. “A few years ago, the gang they
were involved in got broken up entirely, but the top men in that are still in
jail. The last couple times, we haven’t
been able to associate them with anyone, but that doesn’t mean anything. They’re too likely to get arrested for any mob
boss to reveal his identity when hiring—”
“Joe?” Officer Sellers
poked his head in. “I just got a line
on—oh, hi kids!”
“Hello, Officer Sellers!”
Frank greeted the man, as did the rest of the kids. Sellers worked with Mr. Anderson a lot on
cases—he was easily Joe’s best friend in the Oklahoma City Police
Department. He’d even helped the
Anderson children out on their first case—First
Adventure. Now, he obviously had
something important to say.
“Got a line on that plate
the kids brought in,” he said. “Belongs
to a Mr. Ernest Wright, but that won’t help us much. It was reported stolen three days ago.”
“Stolen?” said Mr.
Anderson. “You think it has anything to
do with our case?”
“Probably not,” Sellers
said. “The vehicle disappeared in
Blackwell.”
“Blackwell!” The kids exchanged glances. Brittany
McPherson’s hometown!
“Too bad,” said Mr.
Anderson. “We just can’t seem to catch a
lead on those car thieves.”
“What car thieves, Dad?”
Frank asked.
“Oh, it’s the big case
we’ve been working on,” Mr. Anderson responded.
“There’ve been a ton of car robberies in Oklahoma City lately. Any big city’ll get its share, but the bad
part about these vehicles is that they don’t turn up. None
of them have come to light so far. They
just vanish—like that. At least sixty
different ones have disappeared over the past month, and none of the decoy cars
we set out as bait have even been touched.”
“None of them?” queried
Frank.
“It’s almost as if the
thieves know which are which,” Mr. Anderson said. “Sometimes, we leave the decoys unlocked—deliberately. Other times, we make sure the security system
is visible—some crooks get scared off when a vehicle’s too easy. Still, they avoid them! Why, we’ve had cars parked next to decoys get
stolen, and our bait doesn’t even get scratched. It’s almost as if they have a list!” He sighed.
“We don’t have anything to go on, yet—other than that none of the cars
stolen are more than twenty years old. I
was hoping the license plate would be a clue.”
“If the car went missing
in Blackwell, though,” said Sellers, “then it’s probably not the same gang.”
“Why did the plate turn
up here, though?” Nancy asked. “Who got
it off the car? Was it Brittany—or was
that even her in Oklahoma City?”
“There’s one person that
should know that better than anyone else,” Frank said. “Brittany McPherson. We’ll call her as soon as we get back.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ashley’s house should
have been three minutes from the Main Street exit off the Interstate. Today, it was more like seven. First, the light on the Main Street exit was
red. Then, the Interstate Drive light
was red. This caused them to just miss
the 24th Avenue light—a long one—and one of the others had turned a
slow shade of crimson.
The Dale girl stared
sadly out the window—towards the front of the car, but Nancy guessed her
friend’s attention wasn’t on the traffic lights. She gave her a tap on the shoulder. “Everything okay?”
Ashley kept looking out
the window. “A couple years ago, we were
at Sears, and Caitlyn went missing while we were there. We looked all over the store for her, and
when she didn’t turn up, we were about to call the police. Fortunately, a security guard found her
playing with the mall fountain. She was
only gone about a half hour, but I was so worried about her then—and there was
no reason to suspect she’d met with any harm.
Now, with Stephanie missing…” she sighed. “I just hope she’s alright.”
“If she wasn’t,” Frank
observed, “they wouldn’t have threatened us like they did. The fact that they want us off the case means
they think we can find her and learn something from her.”
“Why did she go missing,
though?” Ashley said. “At least, if we’d
gotten a ransom call, there’d be a chance that they’d return her. Why did they kidnap her? If she knows something about their racket,
are they just going to keep her a prisoner for—for—”
“If they’re planning to
do that,” said Frank, “then we’ll find her long before they’re ready to be
through with their evil scheme. No
criminal is perfect. They always make
some mistake that’ll lead to their capture”
“And then, will she be
alright?” said Ashley. “Are they
treating her well? How’s she
feeling? Oh, I just—”
“Try not to think about
it,” Nancy said. “I know you’ll think
about her some, but just remember, you’re doing all you can. We’re doing all we can, and we’re making
progress! The kidnappers are getting
worried! And Ashley, don’t forget to
pray.”
“What do you think I’ve
been doing all day?” the Dale girl asked, as the car pulled up in front of her
house. Opening the door, she scrambled
out. “See you,” she said.
Frank stared after her as
she walked up the sidewalk to the front door.
“I know how she feels,” he said.
“That time you all were missing in El Reno[2]—it
was pretty tough for me then.”
“Are you sure about
that?” Nancy asked. “Be honest. Weren’t you glad to get rid of us for a little
while?”
Frank looked over at his
sister in surprise, then laughed as he saw she was joking. Zach said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! If that’s the way you feel about it—glad I’m
an only child!”
A few minutes later, the
1957 Chevrolet pulled over at the side of the house on Ponca Avenue, and the
four kids got out. They bid Zach
goodbye, then headed inside. Frank went
straight up the stairs to his room and got out his computer, where he wasted no
time pulling up whitepages.com.
“McPherson, McPherson,”
he muttered to himself. “If she was an
adult, it’d be easier. I’ll just type in
the name and see what comes up.”
Nancy wandered in after
him, eager to see what he found out.
“McPherson’s not terribly uncommon,” she said.
“No, but it is in
Blackwell,” Frank declared triumphantly.
“7,092 residents, and only one family with that last name.” He jotted down their number, then picked up
his phone. “Let’s see what we can find
out.”
Holding the receiver to
his ear, he listened. There was a ring,
then—“Hello?” The voice was way too deep
to be Brittany’s; Frank decided it must be her father’s.
“Hello,” Frank said. “I’d like to speak to Brittany McPherson.”
“So would we!” said the
voice on the other end.
“Huh?”
“She hasn’t been seen in two
days!”
Was Caitlyn simply playing with the mall fountain, or diving for coins? Be honest... After all, whatever she was doing attracted the attention of a security guard...
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