Kate and the Wyoming Fossil Fiasco (8 page)

A flash of lightning lit the skies as the girls entered their cabin.

Kate shivered. “Looks like we ended our treasure hunt just in time.”

Patti shook her head. “I don’t like storms. I hope it doesn’t …” Just then a loud peal of thunder shook the building. Her lips quivered as she said, “Th—thunder!”

“The storms up here can get pretty intense,” Megan said. “So stay indoors.”

“Do we have time to shower before lunch?” Kate asked. “I’m sticky and sweaty.”

“Me, too,” Lauren said. “I’ve got to get into clean clothes.”

“You have plenty of time,” Megan said. “Go ahead and shower, then let’s sit and talk awhile before lunch. We have plenty of time, and I want to get to know you girls better.”

As Kate grabbed clean clothes, she noticed a text message on her phone.

“Who’s it from?” McKenzie asked, drawing near.

“Looks like it’s from Sydney.” She pressed a couple of

buttons and read the message. “Oooh, look, McKenzie.”

“Located the missing stingray fossil at a museum in Vancouver.” Kate read the words then looked at McKenzie, stunned. “Joel’s missing fossil is in Vancouver, Canada? What’s it doing there?”

McKenzie shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the people at Stone’s Throw are loaning it to them. Probably isn’t any big deal.”

Kate shook her head. “Then why doesn’t Mr. Jenkins know about it? He owns this place.” She lowered her voice. “Unless—he’s behind all of this.”

She glanced at Megan and thought about how sad the counselor would be to find out her father was a bad guy!

“I don’t know, Kate,” McKenzie whispered. “I still suspect Grumpy Gus. That makes more sense to me, especially since we saw him with the brown sugar.”

“Maybe. But I’m going to ask Sydney to check on one more thing. I need to know how long that stingray fossil has been there, and I need to make sure it’s the real deal. Maybe that fossil in Vancouver is a fake, just like the one in Philadelphia.”

“So if the one in Vancouver is fake, then where’s the real one?”

“Hmm.” Kate bit her lip. “I think there’s an underground ring of thieves. Maybe Grumpy Gus is just one of many. And maybe …” She snapped her fingers as an idea came to her. “Maybe he hasn’t had time to sell that one yet. He could be hiding it here somewhere. Maybe that’s what he was doing in the woods yesterday, finding the perfect place to hide it.”

McKenzie shrugged. “I guess that’s possible.”

Kate began to pace the room. “If only we’d won the treasure hunt! Then we could have gone into the shipping room instead of the boys. I would have looked for brown sugar … or something else to incriminate Grumpy Gus.”

McKenzie sighed. “This really stinks. We’re getting close to solving the case and can’t even get into the room where the forgeries are taking place.”

“Maybe we can.” Kate chewed on her fingernail, deep in thought.

“What do you mean?”

Kate lowered her voice. “Tonight, after everyone goes to bed, we can go to the shipping room and look around. I’ll take my fingerprinting kit and see if there are any prints I can lift.”

McKenzie’s eyes grew wide. “What if we get caught?”

“We won’t. I have an idea. I’ll take my little video camera in there, too. I’ll find a place to leave it so that we can record Gus. Then we’ll have the proof.” She looked at McKenzie as a peal of thunder cracked overhead. “You know,” she whispered, “there’s really only one way we’re ever going to solve this.”

“Ooh?”

“Yes.” She leaned in close and whispered, “If we do make

it into that room, we’ll do some serious digging. We need to know if the fossils they’re sending out are the real thing or if they’re made out of sugar.”

“But how do we get in there?” McKenzie whispered.

“I noticed there’s a back door leading to that room, too. And when we came across the parking lot after the treasure hunt, that door was propped open with a large stone. Maybe it still is.”

McKenzie shook her head. “I don’t know, Kate. I want to pray about this while I take my shower.”

Kate thought about the case as she showered and she prayed, too. The last thing she wanted to do was to falsely accuse someone. But with the clock ticking away, the girls had very little time to solve this case. Desperate times called for desperate measures. That’s what Kate’s mom always said anyway.

But how desperate? Should they really sneak out of the cabin and try to enter the prep room? Something about that felt wrong and even a little scary. However, the idea of not solving the case felt even more wrong.

By the time she ended her shower, Kate had talked herself into it. Tonight, while everyone else was asleep, she would take her fingerprint kit, her video camera, and several other gadgets, and she would go into the prep room … to see what she could see. Hopefully it would help solve the case.

After showering the girls dressed for lunch. Megangestured for them to sit on her bed.

“I just wanted to say something, campers,” she said with a smile. “I see a lot of campers come through here and you girls are great! I hate to play favorites, but I’m so happy to be your counselor this week.”

Kate reached to hug her. “We’re happy to be here. And thank you so much for being a great counselor, Megan.”

“It’s easy when your campers are as good as mine are.” Megan winked and they all smiled.

Soon the campers were sitting in Conner’s class on the various types of fossils. Then, as the evening wore into the night, Kate couldn’t stop wondering what Grumpy Gus was up to in that back room. With her curiosity getting the better of her, she knew there was only one way to find out. She had to get inside that room, no matter what!

“Shh!” Kate used the tiny flashlight on the end of her ink pen to guide the way across the dark quarry parking lot toward the main building. Every step made her a little more nervous than the one before. What were they thinking … coming outside in the middle of the night? What would Megan say if she caught them?

Still, they didn’t have any other choice, did they? Fossil camp ended tomorrow. If they didn’t locate a few more clues tonight, there might not be enough time tomorrow to really figure things out. And Kate couldn’t bear the thought of leaving without knowing who forged the fossils. So in spite of her fears, they headed toward the main building. Hopefully, they would make it inside without getting caught. Thank goodness the storm had passed!

“I’m trying to be quiet,” McKenzie whispered, “but I just tripped over a rock and it scared me. Everything about being out here scares me. Aren’t you frightened?”

“‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!’” Kate said. “That’s the scripture Elizabeth gave me and I’m just going to keep saying it!”

“‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,’” McKenzie repeated several times in a row.

“Not so loud!” Kate whispered. “Someone might hear us.”

A coyote’s howl stopped them in their tracks.

“D—did you h—hear that?” McKenzie asked.

Kate nodded but kept walking. “Yes. But we can’t stop now. C’mon. We’re almost at the building.”

When they reached the back of the main building, she stopped at the door, praying it was still propped open.

“Oooh, great news!” she whispered, pointing to it. “Let’s go inside.”

McKenzie took hold of her arm. “Kate, are you sure? If the door’s open that probably means someone is inside.”

Kate nodded, hoping to convince herself. As she opened the door, it creaked. The girls tiptoed inside, and their eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. The girls realized they were in a tiny enclosed hallway. At the end of the hallway, they saw another door with a see-through glass window in it.

On the other side of the glass, they glimpsed someone moving. A man. The room was dimly lit, so they couldn’t tell who it was. Kate ducked and grabbed McKenzie’s arm, pulling her down, too. Kate reached into her bag and grabbed her digital camera.

“If you take pictures through the glass, he’ll see you,” McKenzie whispered.

“I won’t stand up to take the pictures … and I’ll turn off the flash so he won’t see anything. Watch and see.” Still kneeling, Kate lifted the camera to the bottom of the glass window. “Say a little prayer, McKenzie.”

“Trust me, I’ve been praying ever since we left our cabin.”

Kate snapped several photographs, holding the camera at different angles.

“Now what?” McKenzie asked.

“Now we look at the pictures.” She quickly scrolled through the pictures she’d just taken. Several weren’t very good. But a couple of them showed a large fossil plate.

“Yep, that’s him all right,” Kate whispered. “I wish I could zoom in the photo to see if that fossil plate is real or not.”

“Can we do that on your computer?” McKenzie asked.

“Yes, but I don’t want to go back to the cabin just yet.” She patted her backpack. “I brought my fingerprint kit. I need to get inside to lift some prints and see if they match the ones on the fossil plate in Philadelphia.”

“How can we get in there with someone working?” McKenzie whispered. “It’s impossible.”

“Maybe he—or she—will leave. You could distract him and I’ll go inside.”

“Distract him?” McKenzie asked. “H—how?”

“Go to the window on the other side of the room and tap on it. He’ll go to the window and I’ll slip in and do my work.”

“Kate, that’s scary.” McKenzie paused, and then said, “Okay, okay. I’ll do it. But I’m not happy about it.”

She slipped out of the back door into the darkness. Kate peeked through the glass pane into the room where the man worked in the shadows. After a few moments, she heard McKenzie tapping on the window and saw the man look up from his work. Unfortunately, he didn’t head toward the window … he came toward the door!

Kate ran into the parking lot. She called out to McKenzie and soon the two of them were standing in silence on the back of the building in complete darkness. Her heart pounded so loudly she could hear it in her ears. Still, they hadn’t gotten caught. That was good.

“Why is it suddenly so dark out here?” McKenzie whispered.

“Someone turned out the light,” Kate responded. “Maybe he’s trying to spook us.”

“Well, it’s working!”

The girls stood frozen in their tracks. After a while, they heard a sound at the back door and realized the man—whoever he was—had gone back inside.

“I guess we’re safe,” McKenzie said with a sigh. “But I’m all turned around now that it’s so dark out here. What about you?”

“Yeah, me, too.” Kate took a couple of steps to her left. “I think our dorm is this way,” she whispered. “Isn’t that right?”

“I’m not sure.”

They took a couple of steps together and crashed into a trash can. Kate held her breath, hoping no one would notice.

“I don’t think we’re going the right way,” McKenzie whispered. “How will we ever find our way back to the dorm now, Kate?”

“Hmm.” Kate paused. “Oh, I know! I have a GPS tracking system on my phone. It’s really detailed, so I think it will guide us.” She turned it on and within minutes they were headed the right way. Though they bumped into a few things on the way to the cabin, the girls finally made it back safely.

“I don’t ever want to be scared like that again!” Kate whispered as they entered the cabin.

The girls tiptoed to their bunks, careful not to wake the others. Kate bumped her toe on the edge of the bed and almost yelped, but stopped herself. If only she could stop her hands from shaking and her knees from knocking!

After fetching her laptop and a bag of chips, she gestured for McKenzie to meet her in the bathroom. There, she plugged her camera into her laptop and downloaded the photos. She opened a photo of a fossil plate.

“That’s what I wanted to see,” she whispered. “That plate.”

She zoomed in … close … closer … closer … until she finally got a good look at the fossil plate.

“Hmm.” McKenzie shook her head. “When you zoom in on it, it doesn’t look like the others in the museum.”

“No kidding.” Kate opened her bag of chips. “But it looks just like the one I spilled water on that day I was with my teacher. Look here.” She searched her computer until she found the copies of the photos she’d taken with her

camera that day at the museum. She placed the photos side by side. Sure enough, they looked alike!

“The fossils Grumpy Gus is shipping
are
fakes, just as we suspected,” Kate said, taking a bite of a salty chip. “No doubt about that. And I’d guess they’re made out of brown sugar, just like these.” She pointed to the photo of the ruined fossil plate.

“So it’s true.” McKenzie bit her lip. “He’s shipping fakes. But how do we know he made them, or even knows they’re fake?”

“Ooo, look at this one!” She pointed to a picture that showed a man’s legs. A man wearing blue jeans. “Does Gus wear jeans? I can’t remember.”

McKenzie shrugged. “I don’t know. I never paid attention.”

“I wish we could’ve gotten in the room so I could’ve gotten those fingerprints.” Kate sighed, and pressed a couple more chips in her mouth.

“Maybe we can do that tomorrow.” McKenzie yawned. “But can we talk about this in the morning, Kate? It’s really late and I’m so tired.”

“What in the world are you girls doing up in the middle of the night?”

Kate looked sheepishly at Megan. “Oh, we, um …”

Megan knelt beside her and looked at the computer screen. “And what were you talking about? You found out something about the fake fossils?”

“Sort of.” Kate’s heart began to thump. She wanted to

tell Megan everything … but could she trust her? It was getting harder to know who to trust.

“We have some pictures of someone packing fake fossils to be shipped out,” she explained. “We’re not sure who it is, but we’re sure the fossils are forged. They look just like the brown sugar ones my teacher and I discovered back home in Philly.”

“And where did you get these photos?”

“Well, we … um …” McKenzie’s gaze shifted to the ground.

“From the cleaning and shipping room,” Kate explained. “I took the pictures.”

Megan’s brow wrinkled. “Surely you weren’t really outside in the middle of the night.”

“Well, we, um …” Kate sighed.

“Look, I’m all for crime solving,” Megan said. “But remember the one rule I told you not to break? You’re
not
to go off by yourself. It’s too dangerous. And to go off by yourself at night makes it even more dangerous. We have coyotes here.”

“I know.” A shiver ran down Kate’s spine. “We heard them.”

“Well you’re very fortunate to be back in one piece,” Megan said. “But you broke a quarry rule, and I’m really disappointed in you.”

Kate’s eyes filled with tears right away. “I’m sorry, Megan. And I’m sorry about going outside, too. It was a little scary, being out there all alone. We should have asked

you to come with us, but I didn’t really want anyone to know what we were doing until we had the proof.”

“And this is your proof?” Megan asked, pointing to the computer screen. “Pictures of someone packing fossils?” She examined the photo again. “I’m not even sure who that is, to be honest.”

“Don’t you see?” Kate said. “We know the fossils are forged. And we know Gus is the one who usually packs them. Doesn’t that make him guilty?”

Megan shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t like to accuse anyone without proof. And if I’m going to accuse anyone of anything tonight, it’s going to be you two. You broke the rules. I have no choice but to tell Conner and my dad and let them decide if you should be reprimanded or not.”

“R—reprimanded?” Kate’s eyes filled with tears. “Really?”

“Well, yes. There are always consequences for our actions, Kate. You broke the rules.”

“I—I suppose so.” She began to cry. “I’ve never done anything like this before, Megan. I’m so sorry. But we have to figure this out by tomorrow because my teacher is going to lose her job.”

“You can’t fix everything for everyone, Kate,” Megan said. “Some cases aren’t yours to solve.”

Some cases aren’t yours to solve
.

Kate dropped into bed, Megan’s words tumbling in her head. Maybe her counselor was right. Maybe she
wasn’t
supposed to solve this.

But if she wasn’t, why did she feel as if she was?

She squeezed her eyes shut, but kept hearing the sound of the coyotes howling, which caused her to tremble all over again!

With images of a man in blue jeans still floating through her brain, Kate finally fell into a troubled sleep.