“This says,
Then she shouted and disappeared.
“Ellie!” I cried, scrambling toward the toilet. “Ellie!”
“Goldy!” Was she struggling with somebody? My whole body was braced, hoping against hope not to hear a gunshot. “Goldy!” Her voice sounded as if she was at the bottom of a chasm. “There’s no floor in here! Don’t step inside! It’s just all… blech!”
“Ellie!” I was at the toilet door, which I swung open recklessly, concerned only about Ellie. I looked inside. The smell was unbelievable. I could not see her. “Ellie?” I wailed. “Where are you?”
“I’m waving at you.”
I saw only blackness. I blinked and squinted. It didn’t help.
Ellie’s voice said, “I’d guess I’m about eight feet down. It’s an extra large tank that the school bought to save money.”
I didn’t say,
Before she could reply, I skidded back in the direction of the walkway. Five, ten minutes at the most, I would have her out of there.
Then I heard a car… but saw no headlights. The car sounded as if it was slowly winding up the school driveway, approaching the lot. Was it possible that it was Tom? Could he have received my message? I doubted it.
And where were the car’s lights? Why would you drive around in the dark without lights?
“Somebody’s coming!” I croaked.
“Oh, no! They said to come alone! They don’t know you’re here!” Her voice was getting hysterical. “Goldy!”
I watched carefully. I finally made out a vehicle that had almost reached the parking lot. One of the lights along the driveway briefly revealed it as a small four-wheel-drive vehicle. It was not Tom.
Ellie had been lured here, and she’d stepped into a trap. My instinct told me whoever this was approaching in that dark car wasn’t here to help. I skittered back to the portable toilet and pulled the door completely open.
“OK, pay attention,” I called into the darkness. “Do you have your cell phone?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was hoarse. “And the pistol.”
“Press a button on your cell phone so I can at least see a little light. I need to know where you are.”
A tiny square of green glowed a foot out of reach. In the sickly light, I could just make out Ellie’s face.
“Hand me the gun!” I commanded. Not that that would do much good. The two times I’d been with Tom at target practice, I’d completely missed the paper man with the concentric circles around his heart. But I knew how to ease off a safety. And I knew how to make a lot of noise.
I lowered myself to my knees, then lay flat. Ignoring the stench, I inched forward until my shoulders were over the pit. There were sloshing sounds as Ellie moved below. The car roared into the lot.
The stench was horrific, the air frigid. I took shallow breaths while reaching for the pistol, which Ellie pressed into my hand. Once I had it, I eased upright.
“Whoever got me to come here isn’t expecting
“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I scrambled to my feet. I hid most of my body around the far corner of the portable toilet, and only stuck my head out far enough to see the parking lot. The small four-wheel-drive was slowly circling Ellie’s car. “I need you to yell for help!” I commanded Ellie.
“Help!” Ellie shrieked obediently. “Help!”
Far down in the lot, the vehicle stopped. It idled by Ellie’s car. Were any of its windows open? I couldn’t tell.
“Again!” I whispered.
Ellie screamed, “Help! Come and get me!
Moments later, the driver-side door of the new SUV swung open. A figure in a long, hooded coat emerged. Tall? Short? Fat? Thin? Impossible to tell from way up on the field. Whoever it was cast a glance up at the portable toilet and headed across the lot toward the path.
“Do a man’s voice,” I urged, “like you’re coming to help!”
“OK, Ellie,” she bellowed in a surprisingly convincing bass, “I’ll be right there!”
“Me, too!” I hollered. Then I held the gun out and fired. One, two, three shots exploded.
The figure froze and glanced up.
“I think I got him, Ellie!” Ellie’s bass voice boomed out from the toilet tank like a whale’s. “He’s not going to bother you!”
I let out a high cackle and fired another shot. The figure trotted back to its car, hopped in, and gunned the motor to get away.
I put the safety back on the pistol and stood stock-still, shivering uncontrollably. It wasn’t from the cold.
After a moment, I called down to Ellie, “Our visitor’s gone.” Ellie began to cry. “OK,” I said, with a matter-of- factness I wasn’t sure I was feeling. “Let’s rescue you! How are you doing?”
“I don’t know whether it’s worse to freeze your butt off or be asphyxiated!” she sobbed. “Please, please, get me out of here!”
I peered into the darkness, and tried to come up with some idea of how to rescue Ellie. The wind had picked up again, and my eyes began to tear.
“OK!” I called. “I’m going to go get the headmaster!”
“No!” she yelled. “That’ll take forever! You know that lacrosse bag? It had a pocket knife in it—”
I squinted at the upended athletic bag. OK, got it. I set the gun down, then moved quickly over the ice and snow. I rummaged through the bag’s detritus, and finally closed my freezing fingers around a Swiss Army knife. I gasped out steam and moved to one of the lacrosse goals, where I sliced, chopped, and hacked to free the net from its moorings. Once I had an armful of netting, I closed the knife and hustled back to the portable toilet. There I twisted the white nylon into a makeshift rope and tossed one end down to Ellie.
Gripping the jerry-rigged line, she climbed up as I tugged with every iota of strength I possessed. I groaned and strained, but kept pulling until Ellie heaved herself up from the pit. Once out, she gasped for mouthfuls of clean air.
We hobbled back down to Ellie’s car. Ellie’s coat, clothes, and boots smelled terrible. She stripped down to her underwear in the bitter wind and jumped into one of her daughter’s spare sweatsuits. Shivering and crying, she revved the engine to drive me home.
CHAPTER 13
On the way back to my house, Ellie calmed down, and we talked in earnest. Yes, someone had deliberately lured her to that field and that hole. Yes, she was in danger. When she left me off at home, she promised to take Cameron out of school and stay someplace safe, “until this whole thing blows over.” She would call both Marla and me when she was settled, and give us her number. And yes, she had to let the cops know where she was, too.
“Thank you so much for coming tonight,” she said. Her voice quavered, and her face was still pale with worry. “Oh, Goldy, I’m so sorry—”
“It’s OK. Take care of yourself, Ellie. And don’t forget to let me know where you and Cameron are.”
Tom was putting on his boots when I stomped through the front door. “Miss G., I just got your message. What happened?”
I gave him an abbreviated version of the night’s events, then begged to take a shower. He said he would call the sheriff’s department to examine the toilet and lacrosse field. It might or might not be attempted murder, he added somberly, but we were definitely looking at criminal mischief. Technically, the lacrosse field was a crime scene. Great, I thought, as I stumbled up to steaming hot water and lots and lots of soap. Now Arch was
Some time later, I snuggled up next to Tom’s warm body. His smooth, pine-scented skin felt heavenly.
