Earthshaker

Chapter 6-1

Chapter 6Following the directions in Millicent's note, we hurried down the central corridor to the far end of the main lodge. Passed the open doors of the Blue Spruce ballroom there and cut left down a side hallway. Pushed through a gray fire door...and found ourselves standing outside the building.

"She sent us on a wild goose chase." Briar stood with his hands on his hips and shook his head. "Nice move."

I nodded and looked around. We were truly at the butt end of the lodge, standing on a pad of buckled blacktop surrounded by piles of brick, cinder block, and wood timbers. Shaded by a corner of the lodge roof overhead and concealed by a wall of corrugated gray plastic.

"No, no. Millicent took care of us." Duke pointed at what looked like a double-wide portable outhouse twenty feet away. It was roughly trapezoidal in shape, bigger on the bottom than on top, and had a pale blue fiberglass shell. "There's our ticket."

"A porta-potty?" said Briar.

Duke marched to the pale blue shed, whipped open the door, and hopped inside. When he didn't come right back out, I knew he'd found something.

Briar and I jogged over and looked inside. Amazingly, instead of a toilet, we saw what looked like a silver elevator door. Duke stood in front of it, staring at a numbered keypad mounted at waist level on the dark blue frame.

"What the hell?" said Briar.

"This is one exclusive club." I stepped inside. "Anyone have the secret PIN number handy?"

"Actually, I think I do." Duke held up Millicent's note. Turning it over, he read the flip side and tapped numbered buttons on the keypad.

"She gave you the code." I nodded and smiled. "Knew I liked her."

After a moment, we heard a humming sound from the elevator door. Felt a slight vibration underfoot.

"Damn." Duke shook his head. "She told me that was her cell phone number." He stuffed the note in his pants pocket. "I knew it didn't look right, all the numbers run together like that."

I patted him on the back. "You did great, Duke. This puts us one step closer to finding Aggie."

Me and my big mouth. Mentioning Aggie killed everyone's mood on the spot. When the elevator arrived, and the door slid open, the three of us boarded silently. Didn't say anything on the ride down, either.