Lure by Deborah Kerbel Page B

coming from? Thornhill hasn’t had rain in over a week.
    When I was finally able to regain control of my limbs, I crouched down low, put my nose to the puddle, and sniffed. Yeah, I probably looked like a lunatic. I’m sure that anyone passing by at that moment would have thought I’d lost my mind. And, who knows, maybe I had. All I knew for sure was that the puddle had a definite swampy smell to it. Which could only mean one thing.
    The ghost was here in the garden!
    With my pulse pounding in my ears, I yanked back the foliage and searched through the overgrown remains of the summer garden. A moment later I found what I was looking for. There, etched into a cleared patch of dirt, was a very distinct letter X.
    John had marked the exact spot for me to dig up his lure.
    It took me a couple of seconds to find my breath.
    Okay, Einstein … what are you going to do now? Go find a shovel and start digging? Right here in broad daylight?
    I knew if someone saw me, I’d get in a lot of trouble … maybe even arrested. This wasn’t just an ordinary house, after all. It was an historic property. And the garden was a … what did Caroline call it again? Oh yeah, a heritage garden. She’d said it was built and protected by the town. No, I would have to get permission to dig here. The only problem was that John very clearly told me not to talk to anyone about this. Just the memory of that moment brought back a flash of squeezing pain in my chest. Okay, I had to think of another way.
    The first thing I needed to do was talk to Caroline. Slapping the dirt from my hands, I headed back to the side entrance of the library. She was coming out just as I was going in. Her face was still pale as a snowdrift.
    “What’s going on?” she demanded, her eyes searching my face for clues. “Why did you run out of here like that? Are you okay?” There was a sadness in her eyes and voice — it almost looked like she was about to cry. Wow, she really did care about me. What a real friend she was turning out to be. Except I didn’t want her as my friend. I wanted so much more. How freakin’ frustrating!
    “Yeah, everything’s fine. I just thought I heard a noise, but I was wrong.” Man, it was frightening how easily I could spew out these lies. “Sorry if I worried you,” I added after a second. That part, at least, was the truth.
    But I could tell from the scrunch of her eyebrows that she was still concerned about what had just happened. With a sigh, she gestured back toward the library door. “Okay, well, you left your science book in the back room when you ran out here. Aren’t you going to need it for school this afternoon?”
    My insides twisted with pain; like someone was wringing out all my vital organs. The science text with all of John’s swampy messages. Crap! Had Caroline flipped through it? Had she seen any of the wet letters? Did she somehow figure out what was going on? I wanted to tell her what had happened so much, it hurt to keep it inside. But I had to make myself do it. I didn’t want to put her in any kind of danger by telling her what I’d seen.
    “Oh, um … thanks,” I replied, forcing my voice to stay cool. “I do need it for school, today. I’ll go get it in a sec … um …” My brain scrambled for a way to change the subject. “So, I was wondering … do you think it would it be okay if I wanted to do some, well, a bit of gardening work out here? The grounds look like they could use a bit of weeding and maintenance.”
    By the look on her face, you’d think I’d just suggested we run away together and elope in Las Vegas.
    “You want to start digging around in our garden?”
    I nodded and smiled, hoping I could somehow act charming enough to pull this one off.
    “Are you sure about that? It’s October. The growing season is over.”
    “Yeah, I know, but the beds could use some prep work for the winter.”
    She shot me a strange look, like I was some kind of a tricky math problem she was trying to