Free Deadly Waters by Gloria Skurzynski

camera was the strangest of all. I don’t think there’s much chance of finding him. How low can you get, stealing from a kid?”
    â€œBridger tried to tell Jack not to hand over the camera to the man, but Jack did, anyway,” Ashley said. “Huh, Bridger?”
    Bridger’s voice was flat. “I guess.”
    Jack looked out the window, then back to his parents. “He had an expensive boat—it’s not like he couldn’t afford to buy a camera. I don’t understand why he took mine.”
    â€œThere’s no telling with people,” Steven explained. “It’s like with the shark: You think you can figure it out by just looking at the situation, and then—wham! You find things are not what they seem. That’s the way life is. Sometimes you just don’t know.” Maybe Steven wasn’t intentionally directing that at Bridger, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Bridger’s eyes were locked on his fork. He plucked one of the tines with his thumbnail as if he were picking a string on a guitar. Plink, plink, plink. If this had been a movie, Jack thought, the sound track would have started up right then with one of those gloomy cowboy songs.
    What right did Bridger have to mope? It was Jack who’d lost his prized possession. He was so caught up in his own unhappiness that at first he didn’t tune in to what Ashley was saying.
    â€œâ€¦and he said he was fishing, but there wasn’t any fishing pole in his boat, or any fish, or bait, ’cause I looked. And another thing I looked at—you know how boats have numbers painted on the side? Well, this one had FL and then a 10, and I don’t remember the rest.”
    Steven spread out his napkin on his lap. “Too bad you don’t. But you couldn’t be expected to remember. There’d be too many numbers and letters.”
    â€œBut I remember the name on the motor,” Ashley said. “Mercury. That’s what it said. Mercury.”
    â€œThanks for trying to play detective, Ashley,” Jack told her, “but ‘Mercury’ is on half the outboard motors around here. But hey—” He gave his sister a little punch. “You’re good! ”
    Ashley accepted the compliment as if it were her due. “I noticed this, too,” she said. “That man said he was from Massachusetts, but he sounded more like the people around here.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Olivia asked.
    â€œWell, he said ‘y’all.’ And ‘mosquiters’ instead of ‘mosquitoes.’”
    â€œThat doesn’t count for much,” Steven commented. “You can’t tell where someone’s from just by hearing a couple of words.”
    â€œWhat else?” Jack asked, alert. “Tell me more.”
    Encouraged, Ashley went on, “He had one of those really expensive watches. A Rollo-dex.”
    â€œYou mean Rolex,” Olivia said.
    â€œWhatever. And something else—his beard was a different color than the hair on his arms.”
    Now all of them were staring at her.
    â€œI mean, his arm hairs were real blond—really, really blond—and his beard was kind of a dark brown. Well, he couldn’t fake his arm hairs, could he? But he could have faked a beard.”
    â€œAshley….” Steven’s tone was skeptical. “All this sounds pretty wild. Fake beards? Why would anyone—?”
    â€œCause with the hat and sunglasses and his beard, we couldn’t really see his face. He didn’t want us to.”
    Steven just shook his head.
    â€œDad, how come you never believe me?” Ashley asked. “Jack does, but you don’t.”
    â€œI believe her, too,” Bridger said, low. “Well, maybe not the beard part, but everything else Ashley said is right. About us not seeing his face, and about him having money. I’ve seen lots of rich guys when the rodeo goes to Las Vegas. They wear