Tommy ghosted in after her, followed by Toad, who sounded like a demented penguin in his flip-flops. (And yes, they looked like red lobsters complete with antennae, eyes, nubbly shells, and oversized claws. Why would anyone wear those?)
“Do you think he’s here?” Toad whispered.
“Shh!” Olivia pointed fiercely at the pew nearest Toad. “Sit. Wait.”
Toad sat, looking bug-eyed in surprise. She was vaguely surprised that Toad obeyed her; he normally attempted to walk all over her. The rifle on her back and the marines at her beck and call might have changed his mind.
Olivia caught sight of an unmade bed on the floor behind the altar; all thoughts of Toad vanished. It was a big queen-size air mattress pumped up to nearly two feet thick, with sheets of fairy silk and a faux red fox fur blanket. A can of beer sat next to the unmade bed, sweat beading down its side. Someone had been in bed until recently.
The sight of it made her furious. “All this space! Three buildings’ worth! And he’s sleeping right on top of the altar?”
Tommy wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, that’s Jonnie’s bed. It reeks of him.” Tommy walked in a wide circle, sniffing. “He was here recently. He probably heard us pull up. He’s crawled into a hole. I can’t get a bead on him — too many people.”
“So it’s hide-and-seek?” Olivia said. “Okay, we can play that.”
Olivia’s mother married a man with five other wives. All told there were ten boys and fourteen girls, not counting Olivia. The Ranch overflowed with children but it lacked toys. It meant that playground games were the only distraction. Red Rover. Red Light Green Light. Double Dutch. But in the winter, when snow and sleet kept everyone inside, there was only Hide and Seek.
Since Olivia always started as “It,” she had gotten very good at the game. Of course, this triggered her stepbrothers to insist that she was cheating somehow. What they never realized was all the little tiny clues someone hiding left behind. Dirty footprints on clean floors. Furniture moved ever so slightly from its normal position. Floors whispering that they were bearing a nervously shifting weight. The faint scent of a dirty boy. The gentle sigh of a breath released when the searcher turned away.
The hide-and-seek games at the Ranch had pitted her against her twenty-two stepsiblings. Their family used the rules that anyone who touched home base would be “free” and if Olivia didn’t tag at least one person before they could reach home, she would be “It” a second time. With twenty-two possible full-out panic runs for freedom, she discovered the number one rule for winning: until you had the hidden person cornered, never let them know that they’d been found. Cornering someone required moving quietly, pretending that you hadn’t spotted their hiding place, and taking the appropriate measures to block their escape.
Olivia scanned the area. The outer doors had all been shut. There were two doors at the front of the nave. The left one was closed but the right was open halfway. She walked quietly to the door, keeping to the hinge side. She paused at the doorway to peer through the crack between the hinge and the frame. The sacristy lay beyond, although it seemed as if the priest had taken the vestments when the church was abandoned. There was no place large enough to hide a full-grown man within. She slipped inside, careful not to touch the door that might squeak.
A window looked out over a second courtyard between the church and the mystery redbrick building and a baseball field. Two marines stood staring through the high fence, obliviously mystified by the baseball diamond still visible through the tall grass. They hadn’t noticed the hoverbike parked in the courtyard. To be fair, they hadn’t been warned to keep watch for one.
If Jonnie had heard the cargo truck, he could have realized his pickup was blocked in. He might have headed toward the bike. Had he seen the marines and decided to hide instead? She needed to get between Jonnie and his bike.
Olivia tiptoed through the sacristy. The far door opened to a long dusty hallway. There were three doorways on the left. The passage ended with a stairway down. A sign explained that the stairs led to a basement locker room and the baseball diamond. From what Olivia had seen from the window, going out to the ball field would have trapped Jonnie within the tall fence. He probably hadn’t gone that way.
The first two doorways on the left had beautiful wood paneled interior doors with leaded glass transom windows above them that spilled sunlight into the hallway. They seemed original to the century-old church. The last doorway had an ugly modern exterior steel security door that was so new, Jonnie must have installed it himself. If he’d gone through the last door, he’d be at the hoverbike already.
He was behind one of the wood paneled doors. Which one?
The hallway had a layer of dust bunnies covering the floor. While Jonnie hadn’t cleaned the passage, he used it enough that there were no helpful fresh tracks. As she stood considering the two interior doors, she noticed that more dust motes were dancing in the sunlight coming through the far transom window. Jonnie must have kicked up the dust as he ducked into the room.
If she tiptoed carefully to the exit, she could step outside, wave over the marines, and have them tackle Jonnie.
Squeakie, squeakie, squeakie. Toad came up behind her, his lobster flip-flops making a horrible noise in the silent church.
Olivia motioned him to be still and quiet.
He pulled out his phone, mouthed, “I can call him” and pushed a button.
From the far room, music started to play. “Why did you go out on the road? You were my friend and now you’re dead. You wear the mark of tire tread.”
The door burst open and Jonnie was on the run.
Olivia ran after him. If he got to the hoverbike, he could escape before any of them got to a vehicle to give chase. He was halfway across the courtyard when she reached the door. The marines were turning from the fence, surprised and confused. Jonnie was going to get away.
Like hell he was.
She brought her rifle around, took aim and fired. Jonnie went down with a yelp.
“You shot him!” Toad cried with shock.
“Yes, I did!” Olivia shouted. “If he doesn’t stop running, I’m going to shoot him again.”
That checked Jonnie’s limping run. He swore loudly as he checked his wound. “You stupid bitch! You could have killed me.”
Olivia lowered the rifle slightly and fired a round into the soft ground beside Jonnie. “I might still kill you if you keep calling me a bitch. You’re going to tell me where Peanut Butter Pie and the others are, and you better tell me the truth because you’re not going to the hospital until we find them.”
“I’m bleeding!” Jonnie cried.
“Yes, you are! One tends to do that after being shot!” Olivia advanced on the downed EMT with rifle leveled. “You’re going to be fine unless you keep screwing around with me. Where is Peanut Butter Pie?”
“I had nothing to do with that!” Jonnie cried.
“You brought those men to Toad Hall. Because of you, Joyboy is dead. You know who took the others. Where did they take them?”