Alexa’s eyes suddenly grew very big. “At this moment I’d say villains are the least of our worries. I just heard Dad’s car pull into the garage.”
Both girls’ bedrooms went pitch black.
CHAPTER 3
INVESTIGATION
“Hey Alexa, find any bodies in the woods today?” It was Shaun Wheatley, one of the bigmouths in her middle school math class. To her embarrassment, the comment broke up half the students in the room, especially the guys. “Heard you were in our neighborhood. You sure scared my mom last night. She’d like to run you and your wacky sister out of the development after all that excitement at the lake.”
“We’re not crazy.” Alexa was about to explain what she and Rachael saw, but thought better of it. The important thing was to get back to the lake in the afternoon for more investigative work with her sister. They simply had to get to the bottom of this. Why debate the issue now?
Rather than create a big to-do over their now-famous evening, she gave Shaun one of her super-stares. It worked. He suddenly stopped taunting her and went about his usual business, sharing ignorant remarks with others. At least he wasn’t directing them to her.
Could twelve-year-old boys make stupid comments on their own, without her influence? She thought. Maybe so.
Rachael fared no better at her elementary school, especially since it all happened just blocks away. “Get into trouble for what you did last night?” Jason Simpson asked as they went to lunch. “Are the cops going to arrest you?”
“For what?”
“Come on. You gave them the cool story about that man in the woods. Last time I did that--”
“We didn’t make it up.”
“Yeah, right. You gave them that awesome story, and it’s not even Halloween yet.”
“Halloween has nothing to do with it.”
“Did they try to lock you up? That would be excellent, seeing you and Lex in cuffs. Get pictures for all us guys if it happens.”
Rachael was about to give the big doofus a shove, but she controlled her anger. “We saw what we saw. What more can I tell you?”
“Ooh, I’ll bet your dad’s mad.”
“We didn’t talk about it, Jason.”
Not yet, anyway, Rachael thought.
“Well, I’ll bet you will. Last time I did something like that, I was grounded for a month.”
“Yeah, but that’s because it’s you. See, my parents understand these things. It is no biggie to them.”
Jason just laughed. “That’s what I thought--at first.” He began to walk away. “Don’t forget pictures when they show up with the handcuffs. You Casadays will be heroes for all my buds.”
After school, the sisters charged through into homework, just to get it out of the way. Then they changed clothes in preparation for that afternoon run. Of course, they also knew it was always good to do the right thing (homework already complete on a Friday) when there was a distinct possibility that they were in big trouble with the parents.
Their mother checked in on Alexa before she began preparing the evening meal. “How is your homework coming?”
Alexa looked up from her history book. “Nearly done, Mom. Was Dad mad about last night?”
“We’ll talk about it at dinner.” She glanced into Rachael’s room. “You two upset the neighbors and we need to fix that. Get that run out of your system and then we’ll discuss it.”
Alexa hoped to talk to Mom about the poor victim in the woods again, but let it slide. After her mother went downstairs, she ducked into Rachael’s room. “You ready?”
“All I need to do is change.”
“Hurry, we need to get out there before I blow up at somebody and say the wrong thing.”
“Please. No meltdowns with Mom, okay?”
They made the jog to the lake playground in record time. Looking around to make certain nobody saw them turn in at the parking lot, Rachael took the lead as Alexa watched behind them with her extraordinary vision.
“Keep moving, Rache. I sense something again.”
“Like last night? What is it with you?”
“There’s no harm in being too careful.”
They retraced their steps to where they thought the man lay. Rachael got down on her knees and examined the scene thoroughly, something Officer Mulligan couldn’t do in the darkness and fog.
“Look, Alexa. You see that? These weeds are all smushed down, like something, or somebody, was lying here. We’re not crazy after all.”
Alexa gave it a super stare. “I sense that it was human.”
Rachael looked again. “The person was bleeding. See those drops of blood? There, and there. Over there, too.” She pointed to a spot on the ground several feet away.
“I believe you but I don’t want to get dirty. My sweats were just washed.”
“Okay, Neat Freak, don’t look. I’m just saying that we didn’t see this last night in the dark.”
“Well, if I had looked more carefully, maybe I would have seen it. Of course, then Officer Mulligan would’ve suspected something about my powers of super vision. We don’t want him to know about our powers.”
Rachael looked to her right. “Then someone dragged him in that direction. You can see the marks in the sandy soil and broken weeds.”
They followed what appeared to be two heel marks between the clusters of pines. The girls discovered droplets of blood about ten or twelve feet apart. Every minute or so, Alexa gave a look, scanning in a total circle to check for danger before they moved on. They followed the tracks through the woods until they reached the hard road.
“What do we do now?” Rachael asked.
“I don’t know. That’s the end of the heel marks. Should we check out the houses on the other side of the road?”
“Maybe they threw the guy in the back of a car, or something. That would end all signs of the mysterious man.”
“Let’s just say that’s what happened. Then we should find more blood along the curb where they loaded him in that car, right?”
A sedan suddenly approached. Both girls raced to the edge of the wooded area again to remain unseen to traffic as the car flew by. Alexa looked up, straining her eyes and ears.
“Do
