Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles) - By Nancy Holder Page 0,28

a weeping banshee searching for the children she had murdered; a thief who made nooses out of Spanish moss to hang his unsuspecting victims as they walked through the forest. A man who had changed into a bear.

She’d thought they were all so stupid, proof that she had been exiled to “Banjo Land.” But the laugh had been on her.

She felt the back of her neck prickle, swore that the blue eyes of the stained-glass wolf tracked her, and she ran-walked the rest of the way to the classroom.

The door from the hall was unlocked and light spilled into the room from the windows, saving her one more time from using the flashlight. She could see the black rectangle behind Mr. Henderson’s desk that was the door to his office.

Hurriedly she crossed the room, remembering the first time she’d walked into it. Trick had just nicknamed her “Kat,” and she’d told Mr. Henderson that was her name. Now everyone called her Kat except Trick, who had whispered her real name, Katelyn, over and over on Halloween night, when she had broken down in grief and fear and he had been there.

The door to the office wasn’t locked. But as she pulled it open, there was something stretched across the transom, like a thick spider’s web — yellow police caution tape. NO TRESPASSING, it read, and she shied backward. They had wrapped the ruins of her home in yards of that tape, after they found, when they found . . .

“Mom,” she whispered.

Lifting one leg up high, she snaked her way through.

Mr. Henderson’s desk, usually cluttered with textbooks and papers, was bare. A chair that had contained more books sat empty.

It hadn’t dawned on her that the police might take away his stuff. Grimacing, she looked around the room, then squinted at a low-lying bookcase, which still had a few books piled haphazardly, as though someone had looked through and then discarded them.

Katelyn reached back through the tape and quietly pulled the door shut. Then she hurried to the bookcase, dropping to her knees so she could more easily read the titles. He had the teacher’s edition of her textbook; and lots of titles about the Civil War; and then at least half a dozen on Arkansas history.

Then book after book after book about treasure hunting, shipwrecks, ancient civilizations, and lost mines. A fleeting smile crossed her mouth. It seemed that Mr. Henderson was Wolf Springs’ answer to Indiana Jones.

Unsure of how much time she had, she satisfied herself that In the Shadow of the Wolf was not on the shelves, then stood and moved to his filing cabinet. It creaked as she opened it, and the first thing she saw was a large file labeled HISTORICAL DETECTIVE. That had been the name of the assignment that had led to Katelyn and Cordelia researching the Madre Vena mine. She pulled open the file and started thumbing through the papers, which were from her class, filed in alphabetical order. FENNER, CORDELIA/McBRIDE, KAT, came up quickly, and she pulled it out. They’d gotten an A. He had circled the letter and written “GOOD WORK!” beside it. A few sentences were marked, and in a couple of places in the margins he had written, “CONCLUSIONS DRAWN HOW? BACK UP ASSERTION!”

On the last page, he had written, “SWITLISKI?” and “YOU TWO ARE DEF. ONTO SOMETHING.” She was about to put the paper back when something slipped to the floor. She squatted and found a paperclip.

And then she saw something wedged between the file cabinet and the book case. She used the paperclip to fish it out.

A business card for Fenner Construction, Lee Fenner, Owner. She stared at it as the wheels turned in her mind. Had Mr. Henderson been trying to find the mine for Mr. Fenner? Is that why Lee had pushed Cordelia to choose it as their project?

Is that why he was missing? Had he found it?

Katelyn thought of the Hellhound. Had it been guarding the mine?

Or had someone else done something to her history teacher? Did the police have any leads? Obviously, they had missed the business card.

Then someone called out, “Hello?”

6

She must have made too much noise.

Katelyn tucked the business card in her pocket and ducked down behind Mr. Henderson’s desk. Then she looked up with horror at the open filing cabinet, sure to attract attention if someone came in through the office door.

She could make up an excuse, she thought, trying to stay calm as she braced herself for discovery.