our lives someday.”
A passing shadow overhead caused Alexa to look up. Above them, two large birds circled, perhaps seventy-five feet in the air.
“You see them? They’re not geese.”
Rachael looked up, too. “Definitely not geese. Even from down here, you can see they’re too big. I think they might be vultures.”
“Ooh, what would vultures want out here?”
“Dead things. Vultures are scavengers,” Rachael smirked. “So don’t stand in one place for too long. You might be their next meal!”
Alexa shivered. “It’s almost like they’re watching us.”
The birds disappeared after a few minutes of circling the lake, and the girls continued their investigation.
Then Alexa’s nose twitched. Looking both ways for traffic first, she crossed the street. Rachael scampered behind her.
“Just as I thought. More spots of blood.” Alexa continued to the yard of the house directly in front of them. “Guess they didn’t take the injured man away in a car.”
They looked at each other.
“Should we keep looking around?” Rachael asked.
“No. Not today, anyway. We’re in enough trouble already, after last night.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
“The trail leads to this house, though. I can smell it.”
Rachael yanked on Alexa”s elbow. “We better get away from here before someone sees us.”
They worked their way back through the wooded lakeside. Rachael collected some of the blood samples as best she could in a zip-lock bag. She carefully scooped up a sample of sandy earth and vegetation with it.
“What are you going to do with that?” Alexa asked.
“Don’t know. Something to show Mom, mainly to prove to her that what we saw last night was real.
If their mother still believed the story at all, Rachael thought.
“The way it looks to me, somebody took the man away while we were at home. They didn’t want anyone to discover him,” said Rachael.
“Right.”
“Gee, you don’t tell me I’m right very often.”
Alexa ignored the remark. “Looking at it another way, maybe they didn’t want the police to find him. Just us.”
“Yeah. Why would they do it?”
“You mean, besides making us look totally stupid? I don’t know. I’m just saying--”
A car door slammed. “Hear that? It was from the direction of the house over there,” Alexa whispered.
“Come on, let’s go peek.”
“No, Rache--”
Rachael paid no attention to Alexa and ran back the same way they had come. She crossed the street again, hiding near some evergreens on the property. Two youthful guys appeared, crawling out of an SUV in the driveway of the house on the hillside. They were well dressed in khakis, white shirts and ties.
“Stay down. We can’t let them see us,” Alexa said, following behind her.
“Alexa, how are we going to find out what happened if we don’t do anything?” As she spoke, Rachael reached down and grabbed a broken branch about three feet long.
Alexa grabbed at the branch. “What do you plan to do with that?”
“It’s just in case. Why do you think I trained myself to fight?”
“You’re delusional. Can’t you see? There’s two of them.”
“Only two? Yeah, I guess that gives me an unfair advantage.”
“Oh Rache--”
As Alexa and Rachael watched, the two figures entered the house.
“They don’t seem to be full adults, but older that us,” Alexa said.
“Maybe high school age?”
“Too well dressed to be coming home from our high school. Maybe they work, or go to college.”
“Or a private school. Let’s get closer.”
“No way. I know all I want to know for one day. Let’s go home.”
They made the jog back home as if it was just another routine run in their neighborhood. After a few closing stretches at their front door, the girls charged for the kitchen, to cool down with energy drinks.
“So what should we do now?” Alexa asked as she flopped down on a nearby chair.
Rachael wiped perspiration off her face and palms with a towel. Then with a dry hand, she slid the plastic sample bag from her pocket and carefully placed it on the counter before her. “Doesn’t show much, but you can still see the dried blood in there--like anybody cares besides you and me.” She stared at the evidence a moment. “I’ve been thinking about it. We need to get a closer look at that house.”
Alexa shook her head. “I don’t like the sound of that, the closer look thing. What did you have in mind?”
“Have you been practicing your invisibility skills lately?”
“Invisibility? What do you think that I could possibly do with a skill like that, even if I possessed such a power?”
“Oh, come on, Alexa. Don’t give me that innocent look. I know you tried sneaking into my room by making yourself invisible.”
“Huh?”
“I saw you do it just last week. You did it to mess with my stuff and make me crazy.”
“You knew?”
“Of course I knew. You didn’t do it very well or I wouldn’t have caught you.”
“I fooled Peanut the other day.”
“Peanut is a dog. The family dog. The point is, an invisible person could walk right up to that house and peek in. Nobody inside would have a clue.”
“You just said I’m no good at it.”
“If a door was unlocked, an invisible person could walk right in, look all around for clues, and--”
“Oh, no I won’t! No way am I gonna snoop around in a strange house. What happens if somebody’s in there?”
“So what if
