They threw Ben into the van. One of the men jumped in behind him and slid the door shut. The other man ran around the front of the van and jumped behind the steering wheel.
“You drove, right?” Samantha asked.
I nodded. The keys to my Jeep were still dangling in my hand.
She grabbed my wrist and started dragging me toward the street. I stumbled after her. The kids on the lawn were all frozen in shock, quietly staring in the direction of the disappearing van.
“What about me?” Riley shouted.
“Call the police!” she shouted over her shoulder. “Tell them what happened!”
I had to run to keep up with her. The kids made room for us as we passed through the group.
I sprinted past her, cutting around the front of the Jeep and sliding in behind the steering wheel as she managed to get in the passenger side.
The Jeep started with a roar. I gunned it, and we jumped ahead.
“Seat belt!” I shouted. I scrambled to get mine on before we squealed around the first corner.
The van was a block away.
I pressed the gas pedal to the floor. We closed the gap to half a block.
“License plates,” I told her. Time seemed to be like a slow current. I felt strangely calm
and clearheaded. “Get the number. There's a pen and paper in the glove box.”
She scrambled to find the paper. I concentrated on the road.
Now the van was a quarter block away. Close enough to see the plates. Close enough to see we wouldn't get the number.
Samantha slammed the dash with her fist in frustration. The back end of the blue van was covered with mud, and the van's license plate was impossible to see.
At that moment, the van driver must have realized we were chasing him. A huge cloud of black smoke mushroomed from the van's exhaust pipe as it started to slip away.
I glanced at my speedometer. Fifty miles an hour. I thought of the rush-hour traffic on the main roads. He'd be forced to slow down as soon as we got off these side streets.
Brake lights suddenly showed on the van. It skidded sideways to make a right turn at the next intersection.
I slammed on my own brakes and wrestled with the steering wheel to keep from sliding out of control. I turned hard to make the corner.
The van had turned maybe five seconds before we reached the intersection. And five seconds earlier, both lanes had been clear. The van had been able to skid through the far lane and then veer back onto the right side of the road.
Not us. In those five seconds, a small truck had almost reached the stop sign of the cross street. And we were also skidding into the far lane, a half second away from slamming into it head-on.
I made a decision without even thinking. Instead of fighting the skid and trying to pull back into our lane, I spun the wheel to the left, aiming for the sidewalk on the other side of the truck.
For one sickening heartbeat, I thought we were dead. I braced, ready for the crash. And in the next second, we hit the edge of the sidewalk, hard enough for our seat belts to jerk us back onto the seats.
I kept my grip on the steering wheel, holding tight, trying to keep us on a straight line down the sidewalk.
Fire hydrant.
I spun the wheel again, cranking us back onto the street, missing the fire hydrant by less than the thickness of a coat of paint. We bounced off the sidewalk, shot through a gap of parked cars and hit open pavement.
The van had opened its lead to a full block again.
I mashed the gas pedal and tried to catch up.
The van's brake lights showed red again. It made another turn to the right.
This time, I was ready for the corner. I eased off the gas, hitting the brakes hard. We rounded this corner under control.
I stomped the gas yet again, throwing us back against the bucket seats of the Jeep. In the next split second, I almost stood on the brakes.
We had rounded the corner to see a huge delivery truck angled across the street, backing into an alley. The delivery truck seemed to fill the entire windshield.
I managed to stop a dozen feet from the side of the delivery truck. The blue van had not. It was resting sideways against the truck. The driver must have skidded sideways, trying to stop and turn away from it. The van now blocked the delivery truck driver's door. The driver stared down at the top of the van from behind his own steering wheel.
“My brother!” Samantha shouted.
She yanked at the door handle and popped
the door open. In her panic, she forgot the seat belt. It caught in her hair.
“Don't get out,” I said.
“But my brother! He's in the van.”
“The guys who kidnapped him are also in theâ”
I snapped my mouth shut. The sliding door on the van was opening, and the kidnappers were getting out of the van. Two of them, not wearing ski masks now. The taller one had a walrus mustache. The shorter one had blond hair that reached his shoulders.
The one with the walrus mustache reached back with his free hand and dragged Ben from the van.
Without taking my eyes off them, I reached into the backseat. I knew exactly what I was going to grab. One of my hockey sticks on top of my gym bag.
I closed my hand on the shaft of wood and pulled the stick with me as I stepped out of the Jeep.
“Leave the kid,” I said.
“Drop dead,” the short, blond-haired guy said.
“Leave him.” I wasn't going to let them take the kid.
“Drop dead,” he repeated. “We'll give you the help you need to do it.”
His partner pulled out a switchblade knife. He clicked it open.
Again, I felt a strange calmness. I gripped the stick like a baseball bat. I measured the distance between us. Instead of backing up, I took a step closer.
“Come on, boys,” I said. “Try me out.”
The second guy pulled out a switch-blade.
I grinned. A part of me wondered where my fearlessness was coming from. Another part of me got ready to swing hard and swing smart.
They split up. One moved to my left. One moved to my right. I couldn't defend myself against them both.
But the boy was free.
“Run hard, kid!” I shouted. “Now.”
The boy sprinted toward me. Then past me.
“You're dead meat,” the guy with the
mustache snarled, waving his knife. “Sliced, bloody meat.”
“And you're a home run,” I said, gripping my stick harder. Like a baseball bat.
The sound of sirens reached us.
The men looked at each other and hesitated.
In that moment, I stepped forward and swung hard at the one on the right. He managed to get his arm up. I broke my stick across his forearm.
He shrieked.
Sirens rose louder.
The other one moved in close, stabbing at air.
I was left with half a hockey stick in my hands. I swung it at him, and he danced away.
His partner kept shrieking in agony.
I heard the Jeep's door slam shut.
“I'm with you!” Sam shouted.
“And me,” a strange voice said. It belonged to the driver of the delivery truck, rounding the back of his vehicle. He carried a tire iron in his hand.
Both kidnappers reacted instantly. They ran across the street and into the alley.
I stared after them, suddenly aware that I was breathing hard and fast.
Time returned to normal speed. I began to realize what I had just doneâI'd held my own against two men armed with switchblades.
“Leave them be,” Sam said. “We got my brother back. We don't need to chase them.”
I managed to nod. Like I was stupid enough to run after them.
“Sorry, kid,” the truck driver growled. “It took me awhile to get out the passenger side of my truck. I had some boxes in the front seat.”
He was a big man. Dirty blue jeans. Dirty black shirt. Big beer belly. I was glad he'd been on my side.
I managed to nod to him too. Had all of this really happened?
Sam's brother joined us. A kid with brown hair, his head hardly reached as high as her shoulders. He stood beside his sister, his arms wrapped around her waist.
“You don't speak much, do you?” Sam said to me.
“Um,” I said. Something about her grin and the way her hair blew across her face tangled my heart and my tongue.
“What's your name anyway?” she asked.
“Um,” I said again.
Where was my sense of calm when I really needed it?
“Hey, hero,” Riley Judd told me, “prepare to look stupid.”
We stood almost visor-to-visor at the centerline during practice.
“Hero?” I asked. He stood on one side of the centerline. I stood on the other.
“You didn't see me chasing down a van, did you? You didn't see me getting thank-you hugs from Sam.”
I still couldn't believe I'd actually faced down two guys with switchblades. I didn't
expect anyone on the team to believe it either. They'd probably laugh at me. I preferred to be invisible. A person could stay out of trouble that way.
“How many times do I have to tell you it wasn't a big deal,” I said. “Sam was probably just happy to get her brother back andâ”
The piercing blast of Coach Estleman's whistle interrupted me.
“You clowns going to gab all afternoon?” Coach asked as he skated toward us. “Or are you ready to play?”
“Ready to play,” I said. “Sorry, Coach.”
“Play?” Riley Judd said. He pushed his helmet back and looked me directly in the face. “Play? I'm ready to put on a show.”
I sure hoped he wouldn't. For the first half hour, we had skated hard during this practice. We had then spent twenty minutes in shooting drills and another twenty minutes in passing drills. Now we would finish with half an hour of scrimmage. Reds against bluesâhalf the team against the other half in a game situation.
During the entire scrimmage, our fourth
line would play against the first line. When we rested, the second and third lines would play each other. We would continue to alternate until the end of the scrimmage.
I wore a red jersey. Riley Judd wore blue. If Riley did put on a show, it would be directly against us reds. Worse, Riley was my man to guard. If he played great, the person looking like a fool would be me.
It didn't take him long to embarrass me.
The puck went into their end. Riley took a pass from the defenseman and skated directly toward me with the puck.
I must have been frowning with concentration, because he glanced at my face and laughed.
“Not a chance,” he said. “Watch this.”
He faked a pass to his center. I didn't go for the fake. It would have been better if I had.
Instead of trying to slide the puck past me, Riley snapped a quick hard wrist shot into the middle of my belly.
“Oof,” I said, clutching myself as the puck dropped between my skates.
Riley snaked his stick ahead of him, pushed the puck all the way through my skates, cut around me and cruised down the boards. His laughter echoed throughout the empty arena.
His wasn't the only laughter though. The rest of the guys found it funny too.
I wish that had been the only time he made me look dumb.
But no, it seemed every time he touched the puck, he had another unbelievable move that suckered me.
In a way though, I had to admire him. At ice level, playing against him, I was able to understand what made him a superstar, although just by looking at him, you wouldn't think he was one of the greats. He wasn't as big as most of the players. He wasn't as fast. He didn't have an overpowering shot.
Instead he seemed to have a sixth sense that told him where everybody was on the ice. It was like all ten skaters were players on a chessboard, and he knew every move each of them would make and where the puck would go.
Along with his uncanny ability to read each developing play, he could also handle the puck as if it were nailed to the end of his hockey stick. He didn't need to be big or fast or overpowering. He slipped and slid through a crowd of players like oil poured through marbles, and when he reached open ice on the other side of the crowd, the puck would still be on his stick.
It was actually fun to watch him. Although it would have been nice to have him on my line instead of against me.
No matter what I did, he got past me. He scored ten goals during the scrimmage.
I don't usually get frustrated. Trouble was, every time he beat me, he laughed.
With two minutes left in the scrimmage, it was the same old situation. Puck behind their net. Defenseman passed the puck to Riley. I had to go chase him.
This time, Riley went to my right. He stopped, spun around backward, flipped the puck between his legs in the opposite direction, jumped over my stick and found open ice again.
I screamed in frustration.
Again, laughter.
I put my head down and chased him hard.
At their blue line, I almost caught him. Until he put on a little burst of speed and slipped away. At the centerline, I almost caught him again. He danced just out of reach. At our blue line he slowed, and I nearly reached him.
He laughed again. I realized he was slowing down just to give me a chance.
I screamed again. No way was he going to score goal number eleven.
But he did. He cut to the inside and lifted his stick to let the puck stop. He kicked it ahead with a skate back onto his stick. Then he fired a low hard screamer into the left side of the net, using the defenseman to screen the goalie.
I screamed yet again.
The goalie dug the puck out of the net and flipped it toward me.
I was so mad that as the puck reached me, I half turned, dropped my head and blasted
a slap shot away from all the players into the corner boards.
Only just as the puck was leaving my stick and just as I was lifting my head to see where the puck was going, I noticed trouble. Big trouble.
Coach Estleman, thinking he was well out of the way of the scrimmage, had drifted into the corner. His hands were in his pockets. Right where my hundred-mile-an-hour slap shot was about to hit.