The Abduction Read Free Page B

you have enough energy to lead a manhunt.”
    “Whatever. There’s no way I can go to school.”
    An hour later, Theo parked his bike outside the middle school and reluctantly went inside as the 8:15 bell was ringing. In the main lobby, he was immediately met by three crying eighth-grade girls who wanted to know if he knew anything about April. He said he knew nothing more than what was being reported on the morning news.
    Evidently, everybody in town had watched the morning news. The reports showed a school photo of April, and a mug shot of Jack Leeper. There was a strong suggestion that a kidnapping had taken place. Theo didn’t understand this. A kidnapping (and he’d checked the dictionary) usually involved a demand for ransom—cash to be paid for the release of the person seized. The Finnemores couldn’t pay their monthly bills—how were they supposed to find serious cash to free April? And there was no word yet from the kidnapper. Usually, as Theo remembered from television, the family gets word pretty soon that the bad guys have the child and would like a million bucks or so for a safe return.
    Another report from the morning news showed Mrs. Finnemore crying in front of their home. The police were tight-lipped, saying only that they were pursuing all leads. A neighbor said his dog started barking around midnight, always a bad sign. As frantic as the reporters seemed to be that morning, the truth was that they were finding very little to add to the story of a missing girl.
    Theo’s homeroom teacher was Mr. Mount, who also taught Government. After Mr. Mount got the boys settled, he called the roll. All sixteen were present. The conversation quickly got around to the disappearance of April, and Mr. Mount asked Theo if he’d heard anything.
    “Nothing,” Theo said, and his classmates seemed disappointed. Theo was one of the few boys who talked to April. Most of the eighth graders, boys and girls, liked April but found her difficult to hang out with. She was quiet, dressed more like a boy than a girl, had no interest in the latest fashions or the weekly teen-gossip magazines, and as everyone knew, came from a weird family.
    The bell rang for first period, and Theo, already exhausted, dragged himself off to Spanish.

Chapter 3
    F inal bell rang at 3:30, and by 3:31 Theo was on his bike, speeding away from school, darting through alleys and back streets and dodging downtown traffic. He zipped across Main Street, waved at a policeman standing near an intersection and pretended not to hear when the policeman yelled, “Slow it down, Theo.” He cut through a small cemetery and turned onto Park Street.
    His parents had been married for twenty-five years, and for the past twenty they had worked together as partners in the small firm of Boone & Boone, located at 415 Park Street, in the heart of old Strattenburg. There had once been another partner, Ike Boone, Theo’s uncle, but Ike had been forced to leave the firm when he got himself into some trouble. Now the firm had just two equal partners—Marcella Boone on the first floor, in a neat modern office where she handled mainly divorces, and Woods Boone upstairs all alone in a large cluttered room with sagging bookshelves and stacks of files littering the floor and an ever-present cloud of fragrant pipe smoke rolling gently across the ceiling. Rounding out the firm, there was Elsa, who answered the phone, greeted the clients, managed the office, did some typing, and kept an eye on Judge, the dog; there was Dorothy, a real estate secretary, who worked for Mr. Boone and did work that Theo considered horribly boring; and there was Vince, the paralegal, who worked on Mrs. Boone’s cases.
    Judge, a mutt who was Theo’s dog, the family’s dog, and the firm’s dog, spent his days at the office, sometimes creeping quietly from room to room keeping an eye on things, oftentimes following a human to the kitchen where he expected food, but mostly snoozing on a small square bed