No Way Out by Fern Michaels (great books for teens .TXT) 📗

get totally smashed and pass out on the sofa. That seemed to be the routine since he had come to stay with them. He never once made it over to the futon that Greg had unfolded into a bed.

Greg knew that Elaine was going to be asking how much longer Mitchel would be staying with them. She had argued that he could stay with their mother, who was alone, in a much bigger house. But Elaine also knew that Vivian Haywood could be as impossible to deal with as Mitchel. At least she knew where he got his attitude from.

Gregory and Mitchel’s dad had been a farmer. He worked at least twelve hours a day until late one afternoon, when he didn’t show up for supper. The boys were only ten and twelve years old at the time. Greg, the older of the two, was sent out to look for him. After an hour spent searching the property, he found his father crushed by a tractor. It appeared he had been trying to fix something when the tractor engaged and ran right over him, then stopped a foot away from his trampled body. It was clear that he was dead.

Smashed like a pumpkin. Greg was never able to forget that image. It had humbled him for life. Greg often thought about what effect it would have had on Mitchel if their roles had been reversed? Would Mitchel be less aggressive and angry? He would never know the answer. What he did know was that his brother was on the fast track to either jail or a hospital. He was hoping neither would be Mitchel’s fate, but one or the other seemed inevitable.

Chapter Twelve

Ellie cringed as she watched her ninety-year-old neighbor, Andy, hobble to his big 1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Unlike Andy, his car was in pristine condition. In fact, Andy had several classic cars that he kept in a storage facility on the outskirts of town. What he planned to do with them was something she could not imagine. She supposed everyone should have a hobby, but a man in such frail condition probably shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car.

Andy was a pleasant old gentleman. As far as she could tell. Each morning, using a cane, he would navigate his way to his automobile. Slowly and carefully, he would back out of the driveway and, Hector had told her, head to Sissy’s coffee shop, where he would have breakfast. It was almost embarrassing to her that someone at his age and his state of health had the guts to get out and do something every day, while she was homebound.

An hour or so later, the huge car would return and gingerly inch its way back into the driveway. Andy would get out of the car, open the trunk, and pull out one or two grocery bags. She watched with trepidation as he managed his way back into the house. She prayed every morning that he wouldn’t fall. If he did, she would have to call 911. That would make Birchwood Lane quite the hot spot for police activity.

At one time, she suggested to Hector that he should go over and talk to Andy and offer to run errands for him for free. She offered to pay Hector out of her own pocket, just to avoid the anxiety caused by watching him, but Andy politely declined Hector’s offer. He said that going shopping gave him something to do. And every morning, watching Andy gave her something to do as well. She wanted to be sure he was safe and not lying on the ground with a carton of milk at his side. What happened after he got into his house was another story. She knew from doing a little surreptitious checking that not only did he not have Internet service; he didn’t have cable, either. He had an old antenna on the roof, which she assumed provided whatever he needed for entertainment.

She put down the binoculars and moved toward the “control panel” area of the loft and began to type. Ever since her release from the hospital, she had been on a mission to acquire information—information that could save her from the prison in which she was living.

Before she finished with one of her searches, her computer dinged. It was Hector. He needed some advice on a project he was doing for one of his classes. He had another idea for a game that would be somewhat like the one they had developed together. It was called Catch Me. The premise was for people to pretend they were running from something and for players to find ways to catch them.

Hector’s game was all about finding someone who was running from the law or had simply gone missing. A “missing person” type of game for kids. Something like super-sleuthing but without a lot of technology. Good, old-fashioned, gumshoe detective work. It would be a simple game. Not a lot of special effects. It was more of a puzzle-solving game that required thinking skills instead of the skill of pushing buttons. Granted, games required thought, but quick reaction was how you won.

When she read the premise, it freaked her out a little. Was Hector trying to dig into her past in reverse? No. Hector wouldn’t do that. Though maybe, subconsciously, the idea had come to him because of her mysterious background. In any event, it reminded her of the old episodes of Columbo that had recently been running on a cable network. It was the little clues that led the shrewd detective to solve the case. This would be similar, except you had to locate the person by following a set of clues. There was a sprinkle of Choose Your Own Adventure involved as well. The player got to choose which door, street, alley, room, town, or place to explore. If they hit a “dead end,” they would have to start all over, but the clues would be different, and