Once Upon a Toad (16 page)

“We appreciate that,” said my father.

“I've put in a call to our forensics team,” the agent continued. “They'll need to examine the house, the grounds outside, and the ransom note. May I see the note, Mr. Starr?”

My father passed it to him, and the agent read it somberly, then handed it to his female colleague. “Diamond Girl, eh?” he said, looking at Olivia again. “I guess that's what the media is calling you, right?”

Olivia nodded. For the first time since this began, though, she didn't look too happy about it. Geoffrey's disappearance had really shaken her.

The two FBI agents stood there expectantly. So did a trio of policemen. Iz glanced over at Olivia and nodded to her.

My stepsister leaned forward and looked at the closest agent's badge. “It's
nice to meet you, Agent Salgado,” she said. “I'm Olivia Haggerty.” Fragrant white lilies of the valley tumbled from her lips, along with twin diamonds. They lay on the living-room rug for a moment, twinkling like stars.

With a pang I thought of Geoffrey's LEGO castle. He'd been so thrilled with it!

Iz bent down, picked up the diamonds, and handed one to Agent Salgado, a tall African-American man with glasses and a soft voice, and another to Agent Reynolds, his female colleague. They both had kind faces, and just having them here made me feel a little better already.

“Wow,” said Agent Salgado weakly.

Agent Reynolds was speechless.

“Do you understand now what we're dealing with?” my father asked them.

“Not really,” replied Agent Salgado, looking dazed. He tapped out a few notes on his computer tablet. Agent Reynolds and the trio of police officers just stared at Olivia, stunned.

Iz finally broke the silence. “How can we best help you get our son back?”

A few minutes later I found myself upstairs in Geoffrey's bedroom.

“Did you happen to notice what time it was when you got up?” asked Agent Reynolds, her pen poised over her notepad.

I scribbled the answer on my own notepad:
5:30 a.m.

She looked surprised, and I patted my throat and winced. I was getting good at this. “Laryngitis, huh?” she asked.

I nodded.

Agent Salgado pulled his head back in the window. “Looks
to me like there are some holes in the ground below,” he reported. “Let's go check.”

They all trooped outside in the pouring rain, then came back into the kitchen a few minutes later to report that they'd found a ladder under the back deck, and twin holes in the flower bed directly under Geoffrey's window.

Agent Reynolds wiped the mud from her shoes. She looked like a drowned rat. “The intruders definitely used the ladder to gain access to your son's bedroom,” she told Iz and Dad, glancing across the table to where my stepsister was sitting. “We found traces of wet mud on the carpet runner in the hall outside Olivia's bedroom as well. Looks like they may have tried your daughter's door first.”

Olivia's face flushed, and she looked like she was going to burst into tears again. She was right, then. They had taken Geoffrey because they couldn't get to her.

“There are footprints across the lawn leading toward the woods,” Agent Salgado added. “It's going to be difficult to lift any decent prints in this downpour, but the forensics team should be here any minute to give it a try. We've got search and rescue dogs on the way too.” He patted my stepmother's shoulder. “We'll follow up on every lead, ma'am. I know this is difficult, but there's no reason to believe we won't get your son back.”

Iz nodded. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“We'll be setting up a phone trace too. The kidnappers will likely contact you soon to make arrangements for a handoff.”

“You're not going to give me away, are you, Mom?” Olivia asked anxiously.

Fair trade,
I thought. I'd swap my stepsister for Geoffrey any day of the week.

“Of course not, darling,” Iz reassured her.

At lunchtime the FBI had Chinese food brought in for everyone. Not that we were hungry. I could barely swallow, and it wasn't because of toads.

Afterward, I slipped up to the attic again to text A.J.

Any luck?

Just got it up and running. Found ur great-aunt. She's at Redwood National Park. What next?

Not sure,
I told him.
Will call when I figure it out.

I made sure my cell phone was silenced—the last thing I wanted was for Dad or Iz to discover that I'd swiped it back—then tucked it into my pocket and went slowly downstairs. How on earth was I supposed to get to the redwoods? Weren't they in California or something?

Cat Starr, Toad Huntress, was fresh out of ideas.

CHAPTER 15

The day dragged on with no word yet from the kidnappers.

Police officers and federal agents came and went as they set up a command station and tested the equipment they'd be using to trace all incoming calls. They were trying to keep the kidnapping under wraps, but the reporters were getting restless, what with all the activity. Finally Agent Salgado went outside and made a vague statement, telling them that due to the sensitive nature of the events of the last twenty-four hours, his office had been called in to offer assistance.

“I think that will buy us some time,” he said to my father and stepmother when he came back inside. “They'll assume I was talking about Diam—uh, Olivia. No need for them to know about your son yet.”

Iz nodded. She looked drained and pale. “Thank you,” she said, and then sent me and Olivia upstairs to our room for the afternoon to shield us from prying eyes. People weren't snooping,
really, but they couldn't help themselves; they were curious about Diamond Girl.

We were supposed to be doing our homework, but I'd left my backpack in the kitchen and didn't feel like going down to get it. I doubted we'd be returning to school anytime soon anyway—maybe never—unless I could somehow figure out a way to get to Great-Aunt Aby.

Across the room Olivia took out her glue gun, flipped on the radio, and started another diorama. I needed something to take my mind off everything too. My gaze wandered over to my bassoon case, which had been sitting at the foot of my bed ever since Tuesday night's fiasco. Practicing it was out of the question, and at this rate I might have to kiss my dream of playing with a symphony orchestra good-bye too. No one was likely to hire a toad-spouting bassoonist. Not unless some composer out there got busy writing the Amphibian Concerto.

I stuck my earbuds in and cranked up the Bach, then lost myself in a book.

Olivia slipped out a little while later to use the bathroom, which we now had to share not only with our whole family, but also half the Portland police force plus the FBI. I waited until she was safely down the hall, then sneaked over to her bed to take a look at her latest creation. Call it morbid fascination on my part, but I had to see what she'd come up with this time, now that she knew about the toads.

My stepsister surprised me for once. The Skipper-who-was-me was nowhere in sight. Instead, Olivia had made an exact replica of Geoffrey's room.

Well, sort of. Geoffrey's room if it were suddenly transformed into Ali Baba's cave, maybe, or transplanted to Broadway.

The furniture was all there—his bed and the armchair in the corner and his bookcase, too, complete with little titles written on the construction paper books. She'd re-created the zoo mural, and there was even a LEGO castle in the middle of the floor. But in Olivia's version of Geoffrey's room everything sparkled. The walls sparkled; the ceiling sparkled; the windows and doors sparkled; the eyes of the zoo animals in the mural sparkled. There were diamonds glued to everything. It was dazzling.

While I was plugged into my iPod reading, she must have been talking up a storm or singing along to the radio or something to have produced so many gems. I frowned. But where were the flowers? There should be flowers around here too somewhere. I glanced around to see what she'd done with them and spotted a lumpy-looking pillowcase by the bed. Sure enough, she'd stuffed them inside.

Turning back to the diorama, I traced the stones on the diorama's floor. She'd even re-created Geoffrey's Traffic Tyme carpet. Something was different, though. Looking closer, I saw that she'd tweaked the design. Instead of multiple lanes there was just one. It looked kind of like an arrow. In fact, it
was
an arrow. A long, shimmering arrow that ran from the tiny open window—the one the kidnappers had climbed through—to Geoffrey's door, which was open, and pointed down the hall to Olivia's door, which was also open. On her door she'd posted a big sign:
DIAMOND GIRL THIS WAY!

I sat back on my heels, stunned. I wasn't sure what to think. She'd been truly, genuinely upset this morning. Was
Olivia trying to make things right? Was this diorama her way of saying she was sorry?

Not wanting to get caught spying, I headed back to my side of the room. By the time my stepsister came through the door, I appeared to be deeply engrossed in my book. I pretended to jump when she poked me in the leg, and pulled out an earbud as I lifted my eyebrows questioningly.

She pointed urgently toward the stairs. “I think they just got a call from the kidnappers!” she whispered, showering me with morning glories. Blue. Her favorite color. I took this as a hopeful sign.

I jumped up and followed her out of the room. The two of us crept downstairs to the landing and huddled behind Iz's messenger bag, which was hanging over the banister. From there we had a clear view across the front hall to where my dad was seated at the dining-room table. A knot of FBI agents and police officers were clustered around him. He had the phone on speaker.

“We'll make the exchange at the zoo,” said a gravelly voice. “Friday morning, nine o'clock sharp. Bring her to the penguin exhibit.”

Olivia elbowed me in the ribs. Friday was the day of our school field trip.

“Don't bring anyone else with you,” the gravelly voice continued. “If I get so much as a whiff of a police uniform, the deal is off.”

Agent Salgado made a stretching motion with his hands, like he was pulling on a rubber band. He was telling my father to try and keep the conversation going. I figured they must be trying to trace the call.

“Hang on a minute!” protested my dad. “I'm not just
going to hand my daughter over to you!”

Stepdaughter,
I thought automatically.

“How do I know you even have my son?” he continued. “And how do I know you're going to keep your word?”

The kidnapper gave a short bark of laughter. “What's this world coming to? Doesn't anybody trust anybody anymore? Hey, Geoffrey!”

From somewhere in the background came an answering, “With a
G
!”

Beside me, Olivia sucked her breath in sharply. Our little brother's voice sounded very small and very far away. Downstairs in the dining room I saw my father reach over and squeeze Iz's hand. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. We'll be there.”

“Good.”

There was a click and the line went dead. The kidnapper had hung up.

Agent Reynolds took off her headphones and shook her head. “Sorry, Mr. Starr. We couldn't quite pin down the location.”

“I don't like the idea of using my daughter as bait,” said Iz.

“She won't be,” Agent Salgado assured her. “We just want to lead the kidnapper to believe that you're willing to make the switch.”

Agent Reynolds tapped her notebook thoughtfully. “Why the zoo? Why Friday?”

“I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but that's Field Trip Friday,” said Iz. “Half the schools in Portland will be there.”

Agent Salgado gave a low whistle. “I think you hit the nail on the head, ma'am.
Smart move on their part. If the place is crawling with kids, it makes our job all the more difficult. Not that we aren't up to it,” he added hastily.