The Fossil Hunter of Sydney Mines (10 page)

Suddenly the road lit up brightly behind her. Someone was coming! Grace ducked behind the guardrail and peeked out between the metal slats.

The vehicle slowed down. Her body tensed. It was Stuckless's truck and there was someone with him in the passenger seat. Her heart was playing the drums on her ribs.

The passenger turned and Grace saw the outline of a cap on his head. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn't place what it was. He reached up and turned on the overhead light, but his face was hidden in shadow.

Grace gasped. Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her. The hat the passenger was wearing—she could read it as plain as day.
DAL!

Chapter
13

“DAD?” SHE WHISPERED, REACHING HER HAND OUT TOWARD
the truck.

The passenger turned the interior light off and the truck continued on, turning up Fraser Avenue. At that same moment the moon turned off too, hidden behind a cloud. It was like Grace had been suddenly blindfolded.

Grace leapt after the car, forgetting the guardrail was in her way. She banged into the metal slats and stumbled backward. There was only a metre or so between the guardrail and the cliff face. She gasped as her foot slipped. The earth was falling away beneath her.

She was at the edge
!

Grace lost her balance and fell forward. Her face smacked into the dirt. She could feel her legs dangling in the air behind her.

She tried to wriggle forward. But as soon as she started moving, she could feel more earth eroding away beneath her legs.
She was going to fall!

She desperately felt around for something to grab onto. The guardrail was too far away. Her rock hammer! She could use it to dig into the ground and climb to safety. Where was her pack? She'd dropped it beside her when she'd sat down. Her eyes were starting to adjust to the sudden darkness and she could see faint outlines.

There it was!

She clenched one hand tightly around a clump of grass and stretched the other toward her pack. Her fingertips brushed the strap, but she couldn't quite grab it. Her other hand slipped on the grass.

She wasn't going to make it!

Dad, help me!
she screamed in her head.

A pair of hands grabbed her. “Come on, Grace! Climb!” her rescuer yelled, pulling her upward.

She reached up to grab his arms, and used all her strength to climb up. Suddenly she was on solid ground again. Gasping, she lay against the rail. Her rescuer was stretched out beside her, his ragged breathing matching her own.

At that moment the moon reappeared and Grace turned to her knight in shining armour. “Dad?” She stopped. “
Jeeter
? What are you doing here?”

“Who were you expecting?” Jeeter grumbled. “You're welcome, by the way. You know, for saving your life.”

“I was fine,” she muttered, feeling her face flush.

“Uh-huh.” Jeeter stood up and tugged Grace to her feet.

She brushed the dirt off her clothes, fingering a tear in her jeans. “How did you know I was here?”

“I wanted to tell you something. By the time I came back around the corner, I saw you biking away. So I followed you.”

“Why?”

“Wherever you were going in the dark, I wasn't going to let you go by yourself.” He peered down at her. “What are you doing here?”

“I just felt like I had to come here. Finding my dad's bag today…I don't know, I needed to see the spot…where it happened.” Grace brushed a tear from her eye. “Anyways, thanks…for pulling me up.”

“No sweat. You can save me some day,” Jeeter replied. “Ready to go?”

She nodded.

The grabbed their bikes and turned back toward town.

“Are you sure you're okay?” Jeeter asked as they slowly pedalled home. “It sounded like you called me ‘Dad' back there. I thought you must be sleepwalking or something!”

Grace told him about seeing the man with the Dalhousie hat in Stuckless's truck.

“You think it was your dad's hat?” Jeeter asked.

“I don't know.” Grace stopped her bike and sat back on the seat. “Dad was wearing it that day.” She rubbed her temples. “I've never seen anyone else wearing one.”

“But how would the guy with Stuckless get it? Could the other guy have been Stanley? Do they know each other?”

“Know each other? Well, the other guy did look familiar…. Oh, I don't know!” Frustrated, she gazed down the hill behind her at Shore Road. “Nothing makes sense anymore!”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was sitting on the guardrail I remembered something. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Everything was crazy, I guess.”

“What was it?”

“Dad would never have willingly driven on Shore Road. He always said it wasn't safe, because of the erosion.” She pointed to the droops in the pavement. “He was convinced it would all fall into the Atlantic one day. He called it a death trap. Whenever we drove to North Sydney, we always went a different way. I never really thought about it, until now.”

Jeeter frowned. “So why would he go on Shore Road that day? And then he just happened to have a car accident? That
is
weird!”

“Maybe he knew it would happen someday, a feeling. That could be why he never trusted the road…. Geez, now I really sound crazy!” she sighed, closing her eyes.

“It's been hard on you.”

“It's just that my head hasn't stopped spinning since that mystery guy put the note in my locker. It won't turn off. Who was he? Why didn't he tell me to my face? If he knows it wasn't an accident, why didn't he go to the police?”

“Maybe he couldn't.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know, but I'm sure you'll figure it out, Grace,” Jeeter said. “You're really smart.”

“I don't feel very smart.”

“Well, think about it. What if his accident
did
have something to do with his work at the fossil museum?” Jeeter said.

“Or…maybe it had something to do with the strip mines? Lots of people were mad about the protests he organized. But then…that wasn't new. He was always against strip mining.” Grace swallowed and kneaded the handlebars of her bike. “Everything was fine that morning—I mean, we had pancakes…”

They rode the rest of the way home in silence and coasted to a stop in front of Grace's house on Queen Street.

“So what did you want to tell me, anyways?” Grace asked.

Jeeter looked startled. “What?”

“You know, when you said before that you came back to find me because you needed to tell me something?”

“Oh, that!” Jeeter glanced down at the fossil bag Grace was clutching in her arms. “Never mind…it can wait.”

“Are you sure?”

Jeeter hesitated for a second. “Forget it. I'd better get going. If you can't sleep and want to talk later, call me.” He sped away and disappeared around the turn.

Grace went inside and hobbled up the stairs. She slid her jeans off and examined the rip in the thigh. They were a total write-off. There was a long, deep scrape on her leg to match the hole in her pants.
That needs peroxide
, she thought, and she headed to the bathroom to clean off her wound.

As she entered the washroom, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and gasped. Her face was covered in tiny scratches from the tree branches.
Great!
she thought sarcastically.

She washed her face gently, hoping the scratches would disappear overnight. After cleaning the scrape on her leg, she crawled into bed, yawning deeply as she got under the covers.

Just then, Grace heard an engine. She tiptoed to the window and carefully pulled back the curtain, watching as Stuckless got out of his truck. He was alone now. He unlocked his door and paused in the open doorway. He turned and seemed to look directly at Grace's window. Grace jumped back. Did he see her? She waited a minute and peeked out again, but he was gone.

Grace returned to bed, her head filled with unanswered questions. Why had Stuckless been following her? Was this about the strip mines, after all? She thought about seeing Stuckless at the Halfway Road pit. How had he managed to get the mining lease for that area? What had he done?

She tried to sleep, but after hours of tossing and turning, she realized it was hopeless. Her mom had already come home and gone to bed.

Grace pulled out her walkie-talkie. Jeeter would help.

“What else was your dad working on? Maybe there's another site we could check,” Jeeter suggested.

They'd been brainstorming, trying to make sense of everything.

“As far as I know, he was only working at Point Aconi. But if there was another site, it would be on his map.” She pulled his field bag onto her lap and dug out his map. “Hold on a sec.” There was a moment of silence as she examined his notes. “I'm looking at it right now,” she finally said, “and there's nothing new here.”

Jeeter's frustrated sigh echoed her own feelings. “How about his office in the basement? Maybe there are clues in there.”

“Mom locked it and she can't find the key, but I'm going to find a way to get in there. I think Stanley might have been trying to get in there when he was over for dinner—”

“WHAT?”
Jeeter's voice vibrated through the air. “He was
in your house
?”

“Yeah…Mom invited him after he found her when her car broke down on the side of the road, but that's another story. Sorry I didn't mention it. I told Mai—I guess you weren't there. She didn't seem to think it was a big deal.”

“He actually tried to break into your dad's office? I can't
believe
it!”

“Well, I don't know that for sure. It seemed like he was trying to get into the basement. And the only thing down there is my dad's office…. Hang on, how did you know he had an office in the basement?”

“Uh, I don't know. I guess I just assumed he'd have one…Roger does.”

“Oh.”

“Grace, you have to get into that office!”