He didn’t have to. The trap door suddenly opened as if by itself.
And there, framed in the opening, was Caldwell’s face and shoulders. He had a gun in his hand.
Chapter 15
Ronnie’s heart began to tap-dance inside his chest. He knew, too, that his mouth was open as wide as it would go and that he couldn’t do a thing to close it.
Caldwell stepped inside, holding the gun loosely in his hand. He brought a flashlight from his pocket.
“Take your light out of my eyes!” Caldwell commanded Bill.
“Y—yes, sir,” Bill managed to say. The light clicked off. Caldwell’s took its place. It was focused, not on the boys, but on the pile of crates left in the middle of the room.
“Now wasn’t that nice of you boys to find this stuff for me and to lug it up, too. Of course you had a slight advantage over me, in that you had the book longer than me. But I figured it out, too—and just in time, it appears.”
Ronnie was looking at a different Caldwell now as the man stood framed in the light from the rear trap door. This wasn’t the Caldwell he had known during the past days. This was a cool, deliberate, scheming Caldwell. This was the man he had tangled with on the path earlier in the day.
Caldwell backed around toward the crates, keeping the gun and light trained on the boys. With the gun in his right hand, and the flashlight tucked under his left arm, he threw back the cover to the metal box.