Free Now You See Me ... by Jane B. Mason Page A

wait.
    â€œDo you think I should ask to borrow his phone so we can call my house?” Lena asked, pointing at the texter.
    Abby wrinkled her brows, which meant,
probably.
But what she said was, “We’ll be fine. Everyone thinks we’re hanging out in town — and we are. Onlyit’s a different town. We’ll be back before they even realize we were gone.”
    Abby was right. They
were
fine. Phelps was familiar territory, and only twelve miles from Narrowsburg. Nothing was going to happen, and they’d be back by dinner. Still, Lena felt a little guilty. She didn’t usually take off without telling her parents. But the truth was, she couldn’t risk having them tell her she couldn’t go. Time was running out. She had to get her hands on that yellow duffel! And getting on a bus to Phelps was the only way to make that happen.
    Even before Abby laid down the law and put the one-day limit on the mystery, Lena had been anxious to get to the bottom of this. Since she’d woken up she’d been overwhelmed by a new urgency. She felt like Robbie was with her all the time now, and not just in the pictures. It was as though she were walking with a strong wind at her back. She felt pushed, and whether or not she
wanted
to move forward was irrelevant.
    The girls lapsed into silence as the bus rolled along the road between the two towns, stopping here and there to pick up and let off passengers. Thelady with the groceries got off in the middle of nowhere. Two teenagers swung aboard, their chatter mixing with the hum of the bus engine. The guy with the phone lost his signal, leaned his head back, and was now snoring softly. Lena stared out the window, trying not to think about going back to see the shop owner. She definitely wasn’t looking forward to
that.
    The pines and oaks and maples began to give way to farming fields, and Lena felt her pulse quicken. They were getting close.
    â€œIs that it?” Abby asked. “Is that the field where the tower was?” Pressing her face against the window, she let the cool of the glass sink in to her skin and stared. All of the strawberry fields looked pretty much the same. But the one the bus had just stopped beside was eerily familiar. There were the roses, and at the end of the field, the shuttered U-Pick shack. It could definitely be the field, and there was only one way to find out.
    â€œTake a picture,” Abby prodded.
    She didn’t need to make the suggestion — Lena already had the camera raised. She peered through the viewfinder and pushed the button. After waitingimpatiently for a moment, she pulled the film from the Impulse with trembling fingers while the bus rumbled on.
    Lena didn’t take her eyes off the developing shot.
    â€œWell?” Abby leaned in and the two of them hunched over the image, staring hard as colors began to appear. Oh so slowly the tower Lena had captured nearly a week ago began to take shape.
    â€œNow you see it,” Abby whispered.
    Lena looked back over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t out of her mind. No tower. She would have been able to see it rising above the fields even as they pulled farther away. All she saw was September haze. “Now you don’t,” she said softly.
    â€œLena, look.” Abby tugged Lena’s sleeve, bringing her attention back to the photo.
“He’s
there, too.”
    Sure enough, Robbie had shown up in the picture as well. He was tiny, standing on a small walkway that circled the metal bulb at the top of the tower. He was really far away, but it was clearly Robbie. In fact, Robbie was the most in-focus part of the image. He was staring — not out at them like he usually did, but at something in his hand. The look on his face could only be described as intense.
    Lena gulped, struck by a revelation. “That’s where I fell from,” she gasped. “I was up there.”
    Abby sat back and gave Lena a “huh?”