The Mystery of Stolen Diamonds (3 page)

Cam got up on the bench. She closed her eyes.

“What are you doing up there?” Eric asked.

“Thinking. This is where I was when everything happened. Standing here should help me remember what I saw.”

“You know,” Eric said, “there was another man who left the store, the man with the baby.”

Cam sat down. “Yes, I know. I have a picture of him in my brain. He was tall and wore a dark suit just like the man the police caught. And he was holding a large baby rattle.”

Cam thought for a minute. Then she went to the front of Howie's carriage and opened the insulated bag.

Cam spoke slowly, as if she were talking and thinking at the same time. “There was something strange about that couple. Your mother packs this whole bag when she takes Howie somewhere. That couple had a baby too, but all they brought along was a rattle.”

Cam stopped talking. Something was happening inside the store. Mr. Parker came to the window and turned the “closed” sign around. The other side of the sign said, “We're Open. Come in and Browse.”

The door opened. The policemen came out with the man they had caught. He was no longer handcuffed. They spoke to him for just a moment. Then the man walked away. He walked past Cam and Eric and out the nearest exit. He smiled as he walked by.

“They let him go!” Cam said.

“Yeah, but did you see which way he went!”

Cam looked at Eric. They were both thinking the same thing.

“Before, when he was in such a rush, he went that way.” Eric pointed to the center of the mall. “If he was in such a hurry to get there before, you'd think he'd go back that way now.”

“Yeah,” Cam said, “but he's going in the other direction. And it's the same way that couple went. Something strange is going on. Come on, let's follow him!”

“But what about Howie?”

“Bring him along.”

Cam and Eric quickly went out the Lee Avenue exit, the same one the man had gone through a few minutes earlier. It led to a street crowded with shoppers leaving the mall.

“Do you see him?” Eric asked.

“I think so. I think that's him up ahead. He's starting to walk down Lee Avenue.”

Cam and Eric tried to get through the crowd quickly. With a baby carriage it wasn't easy.

They brushed past a woman carrying a few large packages. She lost her balance, and one of the packages fell.

“What do you think that is,” she yelled, pointing to the carriage, “a hot rod?”

Eric picked up the package. “I'm sorry,” he told the woman.

“You should be, running through here like that. I hope you don't have a baby in there.”

Eric was about to tell her there was a baby in the carriage. Cam didn't let him.

“Come on,” she urged, “or we'll lose the man .”

They rushed ahead. They turned the corner onto Lee Avenue and saw the man halfway down the block.

“Let's not get too close,” Eric warned Cam, “or he'll know we're following him.”

They were careful to keep a good distance behind the man. It didn't help. When the man reached the corner, he turned and looked straight at them.

“He saw us,” Eric whispered. “What should we do?”

“Keep walking. If we stop whenever he does, he'll know we're following him.”

The man stood still and waited. After Cam and Eric pushed the baby carriage past him, he turned and walked down Minnow Road.

Cam and Eric kept walking until the man was out of sight. Then they turned and walked back to the corner of Minnow Road. The street was filled with construction equipment and huge mounds of dirt. A row of old houses was being torn down. Cam and Eric saw the man walk into the last house at the far end of the street.

“It's almost twelve,” Eric said. “My mother will be waiting. Let's go back and call the police.”

“And what would we tell them? If those women and Mr. Parker are right, we're following an innocent man. As soon as we know something we'll call.”

Cam crouched and made her way down the street. “Come on,” she called in a loud whisper.

Eric crouched, too, as he pushed Howie's carriage and followed Cam.

There were piles of dirt and sand all along the sidewalk. When they were behind a huge mound of dirt in front of the last house, Cam collapsed. “We made it,” she said.

“What do we do now?”

“Let's see what's going on inside that house.”

Cam and Eric started to crawl up the dirt pile. Then Eric stopped. Howie was no longer sleeping. He was beginning to move in his carriage.

“Keep him quiet,” Cam whispered.

“I'll try.”

“You better do more than try. If he cries we're in real trouble.”

Eric rocked the carriage gently. Howie looked up at Eric, but he didn't cry.

Cam reached the top of the dirt pile. She had a good view of the old house. It was three stories high with rows of windows. Some of the windows were broken. There were no curtains or shades. Cam could see right inside.

Through a large window on the first floor she saw the man they had followed. He wasn't alone. The couple who had left the jewelry store just after the robbery was there, too.

Cam quickly crawled down the hill. “I was right, Eric.”

“Sh.” Eric pointed to Howie. “I think he's going back to sleep.”

“They're all in there,” Cam whispered, “the Runner and the couple we saw leaving the store. They're all working together. The Runner made all that commotion to keep the police from catching the real thief.”

“What about the woman and the baby?”

“Maybe they figured no one would suspect a man who went shopping with his wife and baby. If they did, they were right. You saw what happened when they left the store. They just walked away, and almost no one noticed.”

“Let's go back now,” Eric urged, “and get the police.”

“You go,” Cam told him, “and hurry! I'll stay here and watch the house.”

“Watch Howie, too. I can move faster without him.”

Eric ran off before Cam could tell him she didn't know how to watch a baby.

Cam sat back against the pile of dirt and waited. It was very quiet. Cam looked around. Then she saw why it was so quiet. There were barriers at both ends of the street. Because houses were being torn down, cars were not allowed on Minnow Road.

Cam realized that she and Howie were alone. The only other people nearby were the thieves.
I hope Eric hurries,
Cam thought.

Something dropped to the ground. Cam looked up. A squirrel running along the branch of a tree had dropped an acorn.

Howie started to cry.
Oh, no!
Cam thought.
What would Eric do?

Cam said,
“Click.”
Sometimes just saying it helped her remember. It did. Cam remembered the insulated bag and that Howie couldn't drink milk and cry at the same time. She took the bottle out of the bag.

Then Cam heard another noise. She dropped the bottle and looked up. This time it wasn't a squirrel.

A big tall man was standing on top of the mound of dirt. He was wearing an ugly green tie and had a mustache that curled up at the ends. It was the Runner.

“Well,” he growled, “look who we have here—the baby sitter and her baby. Where's your friend?”

“He ... he went home.”

“If you were smart you would've done the same thing. Let's go.”

Cam carried Howie up the front steps of the house. Inside, the house was musty. The floor was covered with dust and littered with old newspapers and magazines. The Runner took Cam and Howie into a large room.

“Look what I got,” the Runner said. “It's one of the kids I saw following me.”