December Park(143)

Scott said something else but it was garbled.

I keyed the radio and said, “What was that? Repeat.”

Silence.

I slowed as I crossed the overpass. To my left, Solomon’s Field was quiet, the surface of Drunkard’s Pond undisturbed. It was strange, not seeing the homeless folks around the water’s edge. To my right, December Park was desolate. The woods stretched far out toward the cliffs. The Patapsco Institute is back there, I reminded myself.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw a vehicle approaching at a slow pace. Sunlight glinted off the chrome grille.

I brought the walkie-talkie to my mouth and said, “Scott? You still there?”

More silence. Maybe we were too far apart now.

I could lose him when I cross the highway, I thought, picturing the cop getting snared at a traffic light if I went through without waiting for the lights to change. Suddenly, I didn’t want to play this game anymore.

Behind me, the police car drew nearer.

I hopped onto the curb and slowed my pace. This part of the road was a single lane that bowed over the park; there weren’t many places for the cop to keep hidden. It was just him and me out here now.

I slowed nearly to a stop.

The police car eased up beside me, the windows down, the engine purring. The cop behind the wheel had on sunglasses. He didn’t even glance at me—he just kept motoring down the road.

The whole thing struck me as false. Any normal cop would have looked at me, a lone kid biking over the park after five in the evening.

The police car slowed to a near stop when it reached Counterpoint Lane, right around the place where they had brought up the body of Courtney Cole. I got the impression that the cop was positioning the car to create a roadblock.

I contemplated turning around. But then I caught sight of the tunnel beneath the street—the tunnel the five of us had traversed that one fated day in April, where Adrian had recovered the broken fleur-de-lis from the Werewolf House’s fence.

Without giving it a second thought, I sped around the cop car, crossed Counterpoint Lane, and rode down the embankment on the other side of the road. The mouth of the tunnel grew wider, blacker. I pedaled faster. I could only hope that I had estimated the size of the tunnel correctly . . .

Crouching over the handlebars of my bike, I shot straight into the tunnel. The world around me went pitch-black. The sounds of summer vanished. The tunnel was so narrow that my handgrips nearly scraped the walls. I couldn’t sit upright because the roof would have taken my head off. I merely kept my head down, the handlebars straight, and pedaled as fast as I could. Sweat peeled down my back.

The walkie-talkie crackled, but Scott’s voice did not come on.

I focused on the pinpoint of daylight at the far end of the tunnel and continued to pedal. I knew I was under the highway when the sound of roaring engines and whirring tires filled my ears.

I exited out the other side into the ravine behind the Generous Superstore. The past several days had been dry and hot, and the ravine was a steaming plate of baked mud and scorching white rocks. I bounded up the embankment, my breath whistling from my throat. When I reached the road, I stopped. My T-shirt clung to my chest.

I put on Scott’s ball cap and brought the walkie-talkie to my mouth. “Hey, Scott—you there? Come in! Over!”

Nothing.

“Scott,” I tried again. “Hey. Come on, man. Where are you?”

It seemed like an eternity before his voice came over the radio. “I’m here. Where’d you go?”

“I took the tunnel under the highway,” I said. “I’m behind the Superstore. What happened to you?”

“I was having a hard time keeping up. I’m cutting across the park now.”

“What happened to the cop?”

“Wait for me,” he said. “Over.”

I pressed the button again and said, “Scott? Scott?”

Once again: no answer.

I watched cars glide back and forth across the plaza’s parking lot. Some kids I recognized from school leaned against the plate-glass windows outside the Quickman, smoking cigarettes and laughing. I let my heartbeat regain its normal rhythm while I waited.

Seven or eight minutes later, Scott biked across the Superstore plaza. When he saw me he waved one hand high over his head.

I waved back. My muscles still felt tense and I couldn’t stop sweating.

“Jesus Christ, that was something, huh?” he said as he rolled across the street and brought his bike to a stop beside mine.

“What about the cop?” I said.

“Oh, he was following you, all right. When I got to Counterpoint Lane, he was out of his car peering down the embankment. I didn’t realize why until you told me you’d taken the tunnel.”

“Holy shit. I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” he said. “That cop was after you.”

“What do we do?”

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to see what the others think later tonight.” Scott checked his wristwatch. “We’re still getting together after dinner to check out that Patapsco place, right?”

“That’s the plan,” I said, although, decidedly, I’d had enough excitement for one afternoon.

He took the walkie-talkie from me and tucked it inside his backpack with the other one. “I’ll see you then. I gotta go.” He plucked the ball cap off my head and pulled it down on his. “Watch your back.”