Chapter 1
Apparently, finding teenage zombies at the last minute was going to be more difficult than I’d anticipated. Leaning my elbows on my desk, I considered the names I’d crossed off on the piece of letterhead I was staring at, which at one point had provided what I thought would be an adequate list of potential candidates. Boy, was I wrong.
“So, what are we going to do now?” I asked my dogs, Kai and Kallie. I’d promised Hope Masterson a complete list of zombies by the end of the day, and, as of this point, I was still five short of the fifteen I’d promised to recruit.
Kai barked once as if to indicate that he felt my pain and sympathized. When I’d agreed to help Hope recruit volunteers for the upcoming haunted house, I really had thought getting the bodies I’d need would be as simple as making a few phone calls. What I hadn’t realized was that the haunted maze and haunted house were being held the same weekend, and, apparently, Shelly Goldblum had jumped on her commitment to finding spooks for the haunted maze and had scooped everyone up before I had the chance to make my inquiries.
Tossing the list aside in a fit of frustration, I tucked a strand of my long blond hair behind an ear and began straightening my desk. I’d been waiting for a potential client who’d called earlier to inquire about my fees for surveillance, but it was already twenty minutes past the time we’d agreed upon, so I wondered if she’d even show. In a way, I hoped she wouldn’t. Following someone’s husband to prove he was cheating was not the sort of case I usually took on, but when I’d explained that to the woman, she’d insisted on a face-to-face consult just the same. I’d agreed to hear her out, but she was late, and it was well into the afternoon. To be honest, I was motivated to head back to the cottage the dogs and I called home, so I wasn’t really interested in waiting around much longer.
Deciding to give the woman ten more minutes, I put my time to good use by watering my one plant, refilling the paper in the copy machine, and locking the file cabinets that lined one wall. After those tasks had been completed, I stepped out onto the sidewalk that bordered Main Street and took in a deep breath of cool crisp fall air. I’d always enjoyed this time of year; the brilliant color, the scent of wood smoke from nearby fireplaces, the crunch of fallen leaves beneath my feet as I walked the forested trails. And, of course, there was the upcoming Halloween event that seemed to bring new energy to the boardwalk. Most of the vendors had strung orange and white lights around their carts or booths, and there wasn’t a vendor in sight without at least one bright orange pumpkin to brighten things up.
“Beautiful day,” my next-door neighbor said as she stepped out onto the sidewalk.
“It really is,” I replied to Edna Jenkins, half owner of Then and Again, the antique shop I shared a wall and a common area with. “It looks like a new vendor is setting up shop across the way.”
“The construction is for the ticket booth for the annual Halloween events,” she explained. “They set up a booth and sell advance tickets every year. The booth will block your view of the water for a few days, but it’s fun to watch all the activity.”
“Seems like a lot of work for only a few days,” I commented.
She shrugged. “I think the booth goes together pretty easily, and it does tend to draw a crowd, which in turn, provides advertisement.”
I guessed that much would be true. I’d rolled into town on Halloween evening last year and really hadn’t had the chance to look around at the local offerings. I was excited to be part of the holiday this year, and, despite the trouble that I was having getting the zombies I needed, I was excited to be helping.
I chatted with Edna for a few more minutes and then headed back inside. After the ten minutes that I’d allotted for my potential client to arrive came and went, I grabbed my key, intending to lock the front door. I’d just turned back from my desk to cross the room when two young men, who looked like they might still be in high school, walked in.
“Can I help you?” I asked from my position near my desk.
“Are you Ainsley Holloway?” the taller of the two boys asked while his shorter friend wandered over to say hi to the dogs.
“I am.”
“We heard that you find missing people,” the shorter of the two said from his squatting position between Kai and Kallie. “Cool dogs, by the way.”
I nodded. “I’m a private investigator who does occasionally take on missing persons cases.” Actually, since going into business eight months ago, most of my cases had turned out to be missing persons cases, but I felt it was better to present a somewhat wider range to potential clients. “Is someone you know missing?”
The shorter of the two men stood up and walked toward me. “A brilliant physicist named Professor Ivan Beklund.”
“I see.” I paused and looked a bit more closely at my visitors. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your names.”
“I’m Skeet, and this here is Ape,” the shorter one informed me.
“Skeet and Ape?”
“Those are our Geek Squad names,” Ape said.
Geek Squad? I was pretty sure I’d never heard of such an organization. At least not locally. “Is this Geek Squad a club of some sort?”
“A secret society,” Ape corrected.
“I see.” I didn’t. Not really. The tall guy with curly dark hair, huge brown eyes, a lanky body, and overly long arms and legs did look a bit like an ape, but that didn’t really explain the rest. I glanced at Ape’s shorter counterpart. While the guy did look a bit like a geek with his large wire-rimmed glasses, short hair, and an oversized hoodie, he also appeared to be athletic and muscular beneath his baggy clothing. If he changed his hair and his clothing, he’d probably fit in with the “in” crowd fairly well. Of course, looks weren’t everything. Given the fact that the boys were looking for a missing physicist, I supposed I could assume they were smart or at least interested in science. Maybe these smart geeky guys had decided to band together. “Okay, so tell me more about this secret society.” I decided to ask. “Is this a school thing?”
“Not a school thing,” Ape answered. “A life thing. There are five of us. All intellectually gifted, yet challenged socially. Now can you help us or not?”
“Perhaps,” I answered, offering the two boys a seat across from my desk. “Why don’t you start by telling me exactly who this Professor Beklund is and why you think he’s missing.”
They sat down as I’d indicated they should, and then the tall one, who I now knew was referred to as Ape, began to speak. “Professor Beklund has one of the most brilliant minds in the world, but he’s also a loner who, in general, avoids people. At least he avoids people now. I’m not sure if he’s always avoided people. I know that he used to work for the university in Seattle, so at one point, he must have gotten along with people okay, but he quit his job and went off the grid about three years ago. Currently, he lives in a cabin in the woods west of here and rarely talks to anyone.”
“Anyone other than us,” Skeet amended.
“Us as in the two of you?”
“Us as in the Geek Squad,” Skeet clarified.
Ape explained. “Professor Beklund is a bit of a geek like us. He gets us. We get him. It just all works out, so he lets us visit. The Saturday before last, the gang went out to the cabin for one of our brain-expanding sessions, but Bek wasn’t home.”
“So maybe the man was just out for the day when you stopped by,” I suggested.
“Maybe. His car was still in the parking area near the trailhead to the cabin, suggesting that he hadn’t left the area, but despite our repeated knocking, the guy never answered the door, so we figured that maybe he was out for a hike. It had been a really nice day.”
“Okay, that all sounds reasonable. I take it you’ve been back, and Professor Beklund still wasn’t there.”
Ape nodded. “Skeet and I went back alone the following day. He still didn’t answer the door, although his car was still in the parking area. We started to get worried at this point but didn’t take action. Then the five of us all went out to the cabin a third time this past Saturday, and when he still didn’t answer, we let ourselves in.”
“So you have a key to the cabin?”
“There isn’t a key,” Skeet answered. “The door is secured with deadbolts that can be unlocked by entering individual codes on a keypad near the door. It’s a secure system that isn’t easy to break, but Bek gave Ape and me the codes a while back.”
“In case of an emergency,” Ape added.
“And what did you find after entering the cabin?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Skeet answered. “The cabin looks okay. There aren’t any signs of a struggle or anything like that, but the guy is just gone.”
“And his car is still parked at the trailhead?” I asked.
Both boys nodded.
I paused, not really sure what to do at this point. I could see the boys were concerned, but there were a lot of reasons why an adult might be away from home for a week, and since there hadn’t been any signs of a struggle, I didn’t see a reason to suspect that foul play was involved. I said as much.
“We get the fact that it appears the guy simply went off somewhere, but there are the threats that should be taken into account,” Skeet responded.
“Threats?” I asked. “This professor shared with you the fact that he’d received threats?”
Skeet paused and then answered. “Yes. In a way. Keep in mind that Bek sometimes rambles on and on about things, but he began talking about someone named Evington a couple months ago. I guess he knew Evington from his old life at the university, and apparently, Bek had reason to believe that this man wanted something from him and posed a threat. He never specifically said what Evington wanted, and much of what he said didn’t really make sense, but he did keep going on and on about the guy stealing his research and his need to protect it.”
“So maybe he left his cabin in the woods in order to protect himself and his work,” I suggested.
“Maybe,” Skeet admitted. “But we still have a bad feeling about things. Something’s just not right. We really want to find the guy just to make sure he’s okay.”
“Have you notified the police about this missing friend?” I asked.
“We did,” Skeet confirmed. “Deputy Todd wouldn’t even make the trip out to the cabin to look around. He said the guy might just be on vacation and that unless we had a specific reason to believe the man was in some sort of trouble, he wasn’t inclined to get involved. We told Deputy Todd about the threat Bek mentioned, but he just responded that the guy was a nut.”
I paused as I tried to figure out what to do next. On the one hand, the theory that the man had met with foul play was a weak one, but on the other hand, if the guy actually was in trouble, I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. “Have either of you spoken to your parents about your concerns?”
“My mom is dead, and my dad is in prison,” Skeet said. “My Uncle Trout is my legal guardian, but I haven’t seen him for weeks. He likes to gamble and only shows up when he needs a few days to sleep it off. It’s cool, though. I’m seventeen, and I can take care of myself.”
“And you?” I asked Ape.
“My dad left when I was little, and my mom works a lot. She doesn’t have time to help us, and to be honest, even if she did have time, I don’t think she would. So what do you think? Will you help us?”
I paused to consider the situation.
“We don’t really have any money,” Ape added before I could even provide my reply. “But we know how to do things. Maybe if you help us, we can do something for you in trade.”
“Something like what?” I asked.
“Our friend, Chip, is really good with computers,” Skeet said. “If you need an update or something like that, he’d be the one to help you. And I know how to build things. Robots and stuff.” He looked around. “You’re a PI. I can help you with a security system, surveillance equipment, drones, tracking devices, and that sort of thing.”
I began to speak but then hesitated.
“Please,” Skeet persuaded. “We really are concerned about our friend. We know how to do a lot of things, but finding a missing person isn’t really in our wheelhouse. I know the gang and I can find a way to pay you back.”
I made a decision and answered. “I won’t say for certain that I’ll take on the case, but I am willing to take the next step and look into things. We can figure out what you can do for me in return later.” I realized that the Geek Squad members would round out the number of zombies I needed for the haunted house, but I decided to approach the subject of the volunteer gig after I had a chance to get more information. “I’ll need someone to take me out to the cabin where Professor Beklund lives.”
“We can take you,” Skeet said. “Ape and I. We can go now if you want.”
“Okay,” I decided. “You said the cabin is isolated. How long will it take to get there?”
“It’s about a fifteen-minute drive, and then we’ll need to hike in. That usually takes another ten minutes.”
I glanced at the dogs, who I knew would welcome a walk. “Do you have your own car?”
Skeet informed me that he did, so I suggested that the dogs and I just follow him.
The drive out to the cabin took us through town and away from the main road onto a service road that was not only rutted and uneven but narrow as well. The road wove through the trees until it eventually ended at a large clearing, where, as the boys indicated it would be, we found an SUV I assumed belonged to Professor Beklund. The boys parked alongside the SUV, so I parked next to them. I let the dogs out of the cargo area of my vehicle, and then the three of us, along with the dogs, took off walking down the narrow trail.
“So, how did you meet Professor Beklund?” I asked as we walked.
“I’m really into a lot of the same things Bek is,” Skeet explained. “My main interest is robotics, and I plan to major in engineering, but physics has fascinated me since I was a child. Before Bek decided to go rogue, he published some brilliant ideas, and I’ve read all his books and papers. Six years ago, I had an opportunity to attend a conference where he was presenting. I was only eleven, but I guess you can say that we hit it off, and we stayed in touch. Then three years ago, the guy just up and quits his job at the university and moves to the cabin in the woods. Since I live in the area, I would visit him sometimes. After a few visits, I introduced him to Ape. Ape is the real physics guy in our group. Even more than me. I knew they’d hit it off, and they did. Eventually, I introduced Chip, Phoenix, and Cosmo to him as well. I’m pretty sure the five of us are the only friends the guy has.”
“And you’re all in high school?”
“For now,” Skeet answered as he began inputting a series of numbers into a keypad near the front door, which apparently opened the seven locks one at a time. “We graduate at the end of this year.”
“So the five of you make up the Geek Squad?” I wondered.
Ape jumped in to confirm that was the case as Skeet finished his task and the door popped open.
The cabin was small yet functional. It had no windows, which seemed to be intentional given the man’s need for security. There was a single steel door with the seven locks we’d accessed to gain entry. Solar panels stored energy, which operated a small refrigerator and a few lights. There was a real wood fireplace, and the stove was fueled by wood, as was the cleverly constructed heating system. When you took the innovations to the cabin paired with the large garden, greenhouse, well, and water storage system into account, I could see how the man could live totally off the grid, or at least mostly off the grid, for as long as he might desire.
I walked toward the narrow twin bed that was covered with a single green wool blanket. The bed covering reminded me of the blanket my father had owned. He’d shared that the blanket had initially been a standard Army issue that had been given to my grandfather during World War II. I’d never met the man. He’d been dead long before I’d been introduced into the life of the man who raised me. But I did remember that blanket. Dad didn’t sleep with it, but he told me that his father had even after he’d returned from the war. It was hot and scratchy, and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would choose it for their bed. Still, I supposed when you were sent overseas at a young age to fight a war that you didn’t even understand, you took the supplies you were given and never questioned what you had. I also supposed you protected those supplies since you were unlikely to get replacements, so I could understand how an attachment to a scratchy blanket could be formed.
I glanced toward the large desk that sat in the middle of the room and dominated the space so that everything else contained within the area appeared small and insignificant. The desk was not only large but it was cluttered. Stacks upon stacks of folders filled with papers had been randomly scattered across the surface, which also held a computer, books, and notepads.
I’d noticed a short hallway off the main room. I figured there must be a bathroom, although, without a sewer system, there must be a septic tank. When I opened the door, I found a second room that had most likely initially been built to be a bedroom. The room, however, wasn’t filled with bedroom furniture; instead, the space was completely filled with rows upon rows of bookshelves, each of them reaching from floor to ceiling and each completely filled with books.
“Wow,” I said aloud. “This is really something.”
“Bek likes his books.”
“I noticed the whiteboards covering most of the walls in the main part of the cabin. Are all those equations Professor Beklund’s work?”
Ape nodded. “Bek likes to have a whiteboard handy to work out his ideas when they come to him. Once he works everything out, he transfers the equations to his files, and then he wipes the whiteboards clean for reuse. Most of the stuff on the whiteboards are equations that exist in theory but haven’t been worked out yet.” Ape looked around the room. “It looks like some of his whiteboards are missing.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” Skeet said.
“Missing?” I asked. “It looks like there are quite a few.”
“There are, but there were more at one point,” Skeet answered. “I’m surprised I didn’t notice the missing whiteboards before.”
“Maybe he just stored some away,” I said.
Both boys agreed that was likely, but they didn’t seem convinced.
“When the Geek Squad came to visit, did you all work on his projects with him?” I asked.
Skeet laughed. “No. All that stuff is beyond us. Most times, Bek would put us to work in the garden. He’d talk to us while we worked. Share a bit about what he had going on.”
I walked back into the main room and stood in the center. There was a dining table with four chairs near the tiny kitchen. It also had books and notepads piled atop it. There were dishes in the sink, and the coffee pot on the counter was half full. It didn’t necessarily look as if the professor had been abducted. There didn’t seem to be signs of a struggle. The room was beyond cluttered, but there seemed to be order to the clutter. If there had been items on the floor, which should have been on tabletops, tipped over whiteboards, or plates with food on them, I might be more apt to buy the abduction theory.
“There isn’t anything in this space to indicate to me that the professor you’re looking for was forcibly taken from his cabin,” I said.
“I admit the space isn’t trashed as it might be if a struggle had occurred,” Skeet said. “But maybe a struggle didn’t happen. What if someone showed up with a gun and the professor decided it would be best to go with them rather than risk being shot?”
“I suppose it could have happened that way,” I admitted.
“So, will you help us?” Ape asked.
I paused for just a minute. “I’ll help you look into things further,” I agreed. “I’ll see if I can figure out a way to track the man down. Even though Professor Beklund lived off the grid, he must have had money to buy the food he wasn’t able to grow. Fuel for the stove costs money, as does gas and insurance to keep a vehicle.”
“The professor has money and a bank account,” Ape said. “He mentioned from time to time that he’d invested wisely during his time at the university and had plenty of cash to live the way he chose.”
“And a phone?”
Skeet nodded. “Yes. He has a cell phone. He uses it as his primary source of internet, although he does have a satellite as well.”
“Okay, then I’ll have a starting place. It would help if I had the man’s bank records, cell phone number, email accounts, and any other information you might have access to.”
“I know his cell phone number, but that’s about it,” Skeet said.
“We can look for bank information in the file cabinets in the little mudroom off the back of the cabin,” Ape suggested.
I hadn’t noticed a mudroom when we’d walked through before, but as it turned out, to access it, one had to walk through the cluttered bookroom, making it unnoticeable unless you were looking for it. The file cabinets were locked, but Skeet knew how to break in without damaging the units. The cabinets were stuffed to the point you could barely open and close the drawers, but eventually, I found a file with bank records that gave me account numbers and a place to start. I wasn’t sure exactly what sort of information I’d be able to extract from the phone and bank records, but I figured that if those leads didn’t tell me anything, the guys and I could always come back.
After making sure the door was securely locked, the dogs, the boys, and I headed back to the cars.
“So about that favor you were going to do for me,” I said as we walked along the narrow path.
“Do you need your printer set up, a phone tapped, or someone spied on?” Ape suggested.
“Actually, I need zombies. Five of them.”
“Zombies?” Ape stopped walking.
I explained about the haunted house and my job as the volunteer coordinator for the haunted house.
“I see,” Ape frowned.
I had to admit that both boys looked confused and just a bit reluctant. Eventually, Ape agreed. “Okay. I’m in.” He glanced at Skeet.
“I’m in too,” Skeet confirmed. “We’ll call Chip, Phoenix, and Cosmo, but I’m sure they’ll do it. When do you need us?”
“The haunted house doesn’t start until Thursday, but there’s a volunteer meeting tomorrow afternoon. It’s after school hours, so that won’t be a problem. Why don’t the five of you meet me at the community center at three-thirty, and I’ll bring whatever I’ve been able to dig up relating to Professor Beklund. If we have a lead to follow, we’ll do that after the volunteer meeting. If not, we’ll come up with a plan B.”
The boys agreed to my plan, so I called Hope to let her know that I’d managed to recruit the number of zombies she needed. I’d been asked to recruit fifteen teenagers in all. I’d already called Hope with the names of the first ten zombie volunteers. When Hope asked me for the names of my last five recruits, I realized I didn’t really know their names. I shared their nicknames and promised to provide their real names the following day. Once that was done, the dogs and I headed back to the peninsula where we lived. Now that we had the phone and bank information for Professor Ivan Beklund, I needed to see if my friend and neighbor, Jemma Hawthorn, could use that information to find the clues I’d need to launch my investigation.
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