Ghost of a Chance (4 page)

“Carmen,” Cleo said, “I said that's enough—”

“Okay, honey,” Dustin interrupted as he and the doctor rejoined them. “Doc's going to take you to the hospital in Crosscook. It's small, but he knows the guy who runs it and trusts him. They can do the X ray and if you need any major treatment, we'll fly you to a city tonight.”

Before Frank or Joe could question Cleo further, she was carried away by the doctor. Carmen bustled along behind them.

“So what do you think?” Joe asked his brother as they walked back to Terry. “Do you suppose this is something more than an accident?”

“I'm not sure,” Frank answered. “I thought I saw something when Cleo looked at Carmen. It was like she was trying to shut her up before she said any more.”

“We need to talk to Cleo again,” Joe decided.

Terry was still examining the flying harness rig when the Hardys joined him. Huge lights flooded the area with intense brightness. Joe handed over the harness Cleo had worn, and Terry checked it out. “I don't know, guys,” he said. “It all looks okay so far. But something went wrong. I won't know what until I take everything apart and go over every inch of the assembly.”

Frank helped the stunt master dismantle the rig while Joe gave the crane motor and transmission a thorough once-over. “Hey, look at this.” Frank and Terry joined Joe at the front of the crane cab. A tiny rock was jammed into the gear assembly. One of the gears was bent into a flap over the stone.

“That's it!” Terry said. “Someone wedged that rock in there, and—”

“Not so fast,” Joe interrupted. “That really could
be an accident. This rig was brought up the mountain in a semi, right?”

“Yeah,” Terry said, nodding. “That one.” He pointed to a tractor trailer parked in the vehicle area not far from where they stood.

“Well, this isn't exactly a nice asphalt highway up here,” Joe pointed out. “You could have picked up that rock just driving it out of the semi and over here.”

“You're right,” Terry agreed. “It was probably some sort of mechanical failure.” His shoulders slumped in a dejected posture. “All those dry runs—so perfect, not a hitch.”

“This might be something,” Frank said. He held the two pieces of the harness connection that he'd just taken apart. It was a small gear assembly that looked as if a couple of the gear teeth were missing.

“This is a brand-new rig,” Terry said, examining the piece that Frank handed him. “I assembled it myself. I checked it before every rehearsal and just before the stunt.”

“And you never left the rig alone after your final check?” Frank asked.

“Two or three minutes, maybe,” Terry said. “A quick phone call—something about doing a publicity appearance tomorrow. I blew them off because I didn't want to leave the rig.”

“It would take longer than that to tamper with this,” Joe concluded.

“Unless someone knew exactly what to do,” Frank said. “And where.”

“You mean someone who knows the flying stunt?” Terry said. “That's not possible. This is my rig. I created it. I guess if someone knew stunts, they might be able to figure it out.” He looked anywhere but at Frank. It was as if he didn't want to meet Frank's gaze. Was he hiding something or just embarrassed because the stunt had failed?

“Look, I've got to talk to Cleo,” Terry said. “Where is she?”

Frank told Terry that Cleo had been taken to the hospital.

“Okay,” Terry said. His body pounced into action. “I'm going to the hospital. I have to talk to her.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Joe said. “We'll go with you.”

“I was hoping you'd say that,” Terry said. “Gene and Lloyd say you guys are detectives.” Both boys nodded. “Looks like I've got a case for you. Help me find out what happened, will you?”

“We'll give it a shot,” Frank said.

They finished dismantling the rig and packed it into the semi. Then Terry drove the crane into the truck and locked the rear and front doors.

The three got into one of the animal wrangler trucks. Frank started it up and took off down the winding drive.

Terry was the navigator, following a map. It was very dark. A few stars glinted in the occasional patches of sky they saw. But most of the time they were surrounded by the mountain forest. The high beams made a funnel of eerie light on the deserted dirt road.

“The hospital is about twenty miles from here,” Terry said, studying the map. “Wait a minute. I know where we are. Stop!”

Frank hit the brakes, and pine needles and dirt swirled in the light ahead of them.

“I have to show you guys something,” Terry said. “Turn right here.”

Frank pulled off the mountain road onto an even more primitive path that led deep into the forest. He skillfully guided the truck through ruts and over fallen branches as they wound up the side of another mountain ridge.

“There,” Terry said. “That's it.” He pointed out the window into the blackness.

“Uh,
what's
it?” Joe said, straining his eyes.

“Where's your flashlight?” Terry said.

Frank opened the metal box on the seat beside him and passed heavy-duty lanterns to Terry and Joe.

“There,” Terry said. “See that path?” He waved his light toward a narrow strip of land where the ground cover was slightly stomped down.

“I suppose you could call it that,” Joe said,
his light joining Terry's. “Where does it go?”

“Follow me,” the stunt master said, jumping down from the truck and starting up the trail. They hadn't gone far into the woods when Terry swung his light upward. A dark silhouette filled the beam. “I knew I'd find it,” he said, continuing along the path.

Frank and Joe followed until they reached a dirty, dilapidated mountain shack. It was obviously abandoned. What was once the floor of a small porch had sagged so deeply in the middle that the boards were cracked. When the floor boards had broken, the columns holding the porch roof had caved in, bringing the middle of the roof down to a sharp V.

The shack had had a chimney because large charred stones were lying on the roof. Amazingly, the front door was intact and tightly shut. Terry vaulted over the broken porch and pushed open the door. The Hardys followed.

“Whoa,” Joe said. “What's that smell?”

“It's gross,” Terry said. “Smells like something died.”

The familiar odor filled Frank's nostrils. “This is what I smelled when that bear or whatever knocked into me. Watch yourselves. There might be one lurking nearby.”

Although he was sure no one lived here any longer, Frank still felt as if he should whisper. He
was wary, his eyes scanning the room. There was something about the shack that gave him the feeling that they were being watched.

“What is this place?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“Rumor is that it was Jumper Herman's hideout,” Terry said, his voice low. Something fluttered in the fireplace on the far wall, and Frank's breath caught in his throat. Then whatever it was scampered up the chimney and out on to the roof.

“All right!” Joe said, his voice a little louder than the others. “So let's look around. It's probably been searched over and over the last couple of decades, but you never know …”

“Yeah—it hasn't been explored by the Hardys, right?” Terry said.

“True,” Frank agreed. “Although if we do find something, we won't know if it was left by Jumper or by someone else.”

Frank flashed his light slowly around the room. A few wood chairs stood in heaps of leaves and sticks and dirt. What might have passed for a bed—a long wooden platform—was in a corner. A table lay on its side near the fireplace.

As he swung his light past the grimy window in the far wall, something caught Frank's eye. Although he had moved the light past the window, his eyes stayed trained on the cloudy glass panes.

Slowly, he brought the light back and then stood very still. He tried not to move a cell of his body. The window panes were veiled with dirt, but they couldn't mask what Frank had seen. Two yellow eyes glinted through the glass, their unblinking stare fixed directly on him.

Frank's eyes locked with the yellow eyes staring into the abandoned shack. Suddenly the staring game was over—Frank had won. The yellow eyes blinked and disappeared.

Frank raced to the window and held his light high against the dirty glass.

“What did you see?” Joe asked, rushing to join his brother.

Frank told the others what had happened.

“Was it a bear, do you think?” Terry asked.

“Maybe—or something less menacing. A deer, even,” Frank suggested.

“Let's check it out,” Joe said. “It blinked first, so it's probably not in attack mode.”

“And there are three of us, right?” Terry said.

“Okay,” Frank agreed. “But remember, whatever it is, it's not Gus or Omar. We're talking wild animal here.” The three grabbed makeshift weapons of broken chair legs and other pieces of wood lying on the floor.

Frank led the others slowly around the shack to the back. The air was thick with that sweaty smell. The ground was trampled beneath the window, and there seemed to be an escape route cleared into the woods. But they saw nothing as they shone their lights into the quiet blackness.

“Shhh,” Frank said, motioning to the others to stop.

They stood very still for a few moments. Frank heard something moving away from them in the woods. Joe and Terry nodded, indicating they had heard it, too. The sound grew fainter and finally faded away.

Frank strained to hear more. For a few minutes it was so quiet that he heard only the other two breathing. Then the silence was broken by a raccoon skittering across the shack roof and dropping to the ground.

“Maybe that's what you saw,” Terry said. “Looks like this one's heading out after his buddy.”

“Could be,” Frank mumbled. He started along the trampled path leading away from the shack window. The odor was strong.

Those don't look like raccoon prints, he told himself as his light played along a strange indentation. “Over here,” he called to the others. “Look at this.” Frank pointed out two large dents in the soil. They looked like huge pawprints. Nearby a tuft of fur clung to a brambly thistle.

“Whoa,” Terry said. “It
was
a bear. Look at the size of those prints!”

Joe took a tape measure from his pocket and checked the dimensions of the prints, writing the numbers in a small notebook. “Would you believe twenty inches long by eight inches wide?” he asked the others. He also drew a rough sketch of the shape of the prints. “That's some big bear,” he added, jamming the notebook and pen back into his jeans pocket.

“And a weird-colored one, too,” Frank said, picking the piece of brown fur off the thistle.

“Gene and Lloyd can probably help us identify it,” Joe pointed out.

The three spent a few minutes more looking around the inside of the shack but found nothing. Then they returned to the truck, and Frank drove them back down the overgrown path to the dirt road leading to Crosscook.

“We shouldn't have any trouble finding the hospital,” Frank said as they pulled into a small residential area. “In a town this small, there's usually a sign with directions posted on the edge of town.”

“You're right,” Terry said. “There it is.” Frank slowed the truck so they could read the information. Three green-and-yellow signs were stacked on a pole. One said Welcome to Crosscook. One said Sheriff, with an arrow pointing right. And one said Hospital, with an arrow pointing left.

Frank turned left and four blocks later, pulled into the hospital parking lot. The hospital lobby was small but new and sparkling clean. After a quick check at the Information desk, the Hardys and Terry headed for the elevator.

Cleo was on the fourth floor—the top floor—in a private room in the corner. Windows on two walls looked out onto the quiet dark streets of Crosscook. The room was not very big, but it was furnished more like a living room with a bed than like a regular hospital room.

“Oh, I'm so glad you came!” Cleo said when they walked in. She was still wearing her pink sweatsuit. “Can you believe this place? Not bad for a town halfway up a mountain.”

Cleo sat in a dark blue velvet recliner in the corner of the room. Her bandaged ankle appeared to be very swollen, and a pair of crutches leaned against the wall next to the chair. There were already three bouquets of flowers on tables around the room.

“So how are you feeling, kiddo?” Terry asked.

“Right now I feel wonderful,” Cleo said, “but
they gave me some pretty strong medicine. I was thrilled to hear that my ankle isn't broken. It's just a bad sprain. I've had my share of those—one more won't kill me. They're making me stay overnight for observation—to make sure everything else is okay. I'll be out for a few days, but not out of the movie.”