Free Challenge by Ridley Pearson Page A

terminal-turned-mall hummed loudly as hordes of people milled about. Steel dragged his roller bag over to the counter. His mother, without objection, headed toward WOMEN .
    As Steel approached the counter, a porter was just delivering some golf clubs and Cairo’s carrier through a door to the right. Steel approached the carrier and stuck his fingers through the grate and was licked and nibbled by an affectionate Cairo. The crate didn’t smell so good. Steel felt sorry for the dog.
    As Cairo moved around the tight confines, Steel spotted the briefcase. The baggage handler headed back through the door. A steady stream of people paraded past him. Steel looked around, checking thoroughly for any sign of the man from the train. Not seeing him, he popped open the carrier door, shoved past a wagging Cairo, and grabbed hold of the briefcase. He quickly shut the cage door and lifted the briefcase onto the counter.
    “Lost and found,” he was about to tell the man behind the counter. But he caught himself, afraid the attendant might ask him all sorts of questions he couldn’t answer. What if the man on the train checked the lost and found?
    “May I help you?” the attendant asked.
    “I’d like to check this, please.”
    “It’s a ten dollar deposit,” the man said, pointing out a rate sheet taped to the counter. “Ten bucks covers the first three days, two bucks a day thereafter.”
    Steel dug into his pocket for the bills and change he had collected from trips to the dining car over the course of the trip. He counted out a five, three ones, and enough change to reach ten dollars.
    The attendant passed him a claim tag. “Don’t lose it, kid, or it’ll cost you fifty to get it back. Not that I’d forget you. This here is my department, and I don’t forget a face. But rules is rules.”
    Steel had no intention of ever going back for the briefcase. He would tell the cops about it, and that would be that. But he nodded as if this mattered to him, and he pocketed the claim tag to give to the police.
    Relief flooded through him. He was free of the briefcase at last.
    Or so he thought.

25.
    “Where are the restrooms, please?” Steel asked the woman behind the hotel registration desk.
    The woman pointed to a hallway across the Grand Hyatt’s lobby, her face expressionless.
    His mother bent down and whispered to him, “Can’t you just hold it? We’ll be in the room in a minute.”
    “If I could, I would. But I can’t,” he said. “Be right back.”
    He crossed the busy lobby, swollen by attendees of the science challenge and their families. There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of people going in every direction. But only one had stood out to Steel: Kaileigh. He’d spotted her furtively waving at him from the alcove marked RESTROOMS/TELEPHONES .
    And he’d made up the excuse of needing the restroom.
    “What’s up?” he said, reaching her.
    She wore a backpack and the same gray sweatshirt from the train. Her hair was a little mussed. She led him toward a bank of pay phones, out of sight of the registration desk. She grabbed his hand—for a second he thought she wanted to hold his hand—then uncurled his tense fingers and placed some change in his open palm.
    “You’ve got to call the front desk,” she said. “Make your voice as deep as you can. Tell them you’re my father, Mr. Augustine. Mention my name. Say that you’re running late but that you’re dropping me off at the hotel front door and you’d like them to give me a key to the room. Tell them the credit card’s on file—which it is—and that you’ll be checking in later.”
    “This is crazy.”
    “You’ve got to do it for me.”
    “Why?” he asked.
    She just stared at him. And somehow he knew she was right. “Okay,” he said. She was already putting coins into the phone and dialing the number. “Ask for the front desk,” she said.
    “My voice isn’t exactly deep,” he reminded her.
    “It’s deeper than mine,” she said.
    A woman