Page 94 of It Happened on the Lake

Hazarding a look over his shoulder, he saw the beams of headlights cutting through the drizzle.

A truck!

Probably the bald guy.

Sweating despite the cool night, he raced even faster on the pavement to the V where the road forked, one route heading upward and continuing around the hills overlooking the lake, the other, Trail’s End Road, leading downward to Fox Point where he and his dad lived.

Legs pumping, he veered downward and sent up a prayer that the truck behind him would keep driving on the main road, ever upward.

Nope!

He wasn’t that lucky.

The truck bounced down the narrow lane behind him, bearing down.

Jesus.

Faster! He stayed just outside of the headlight beams, using the sharp downward slope to increase his speed. His hair was flying, the wind harsh against his bruised face.

No way could he stop and turn into the A-frame without being caught, so he just kept riding, past the Hunts’ and Leonettis’ houses and beyond the rental house at the end of the street. He didn’t stop there either but jumped the curb and hit the trail that led to nowhere, just more woods past a trickle of a waterfall from the cliffs above.

At the end of the path, he slid to a stop. His heart was hammering, his panic growing, as he stashed the bike behind a huge fallen tree. Breathing hard, he crawled to the edge of the root wad, peering between the exposed, broken roots and limbs to squint through the thickets. From his hiding spot he was only able to catch a glimpse of the street in the distance.

He saw the vehicle.

Not the truck the old man had been driving.

Instead Rand watched a DeSoto station wagon pull into the driveway of the house at the end of the street. Pink and gray, just like his mother wanted. She commented about it each time it passed the house. The family of five piled out, mom and dad and three blond girls wearing eye masks and carrying bags of candy.

Not the bald man who’d been chasing him.

Rand let out a long breath.

No sign of the guy in the massive two-toned pickup.

Maybe he’d lost Baldy.

Could he have gotten that lucky?

Or maybe the guy was dealing with Evan and Chase.

He waited a few more minutes, half expecting his attacker’s pickup to roll down the street, but the road remained quiet.

Slowly Rand began to breathe normally, and after what seemed a lifetime, he got onto his bike again, always on the lookout for his friends. Thankfully his old man was working tonight, a cop on patrol, making certain there were no juveniles causing trouble, no pranksters. And his mother was working at some church Halloween party, on the clean-up crew, so she’d be home late.

Rand swallowed hard. If his dad even guessed what his only son was up to, Rand would be dead meat.

He hid his bike behind the wood stacked at the side of the house and heard a growl from Sievers’s place. He didn’t really mind the dog, had even managed to pet Duke a couple of times through the fence, but the owner was bat-shit crazy, one of those vigilantes who didn’t trust anyone, especially the government and cops. Sievers’s whole house was booby-trapped, according to Chase.

Just last summer when Rand and Chase and Levi had been swimming but were taking a break and eating Fudgsicles on the deck, Old Man Sievers had been spreading gravel in his side yard. Nodding toward the older guy, Chase had said, “I’ve seen him with sticks of dynamite. He puts ’em in that shed of his, and it’s got a basement. That’s where he keeps kids hostage.”

“No way,” Rand had said, just as Duke started barking from the other side of the fence.

“Scout’s honor.” Chase wasn’t backing down. But he kept his voice low so the neighbor couldn’t hear him. “I saw him with chains and locks going in there.”

“You did not,” his younger brother, Levi, had argued while Sievers ordered his dog to quiet down.

Levi accused, “You’re a liar.”

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