Alexis and the Lake Tahoe Tumult - Erica Rodgers [19]
“I told you two to settle down!” Mrs. Howell was yelling. “If I have to tell you again, you’re not skiing tomorrow! I’ll sign you up for the hotel day care instead, and you can play with the two-year-olds! I’m not kidding!”
Alexis and Bailey sat down with Mr. Howell on the couch. He was watching the Discovery Channel and checking e-mail, completely unaware of the chaos in the bedroom.
“It’s hard to believe you two could make it onto real-life TV!” he said to Alexis and Bailey. “How’s the filming coming anyway?”
“Really well,” said Alexis. She told him all about the baby bats and the sick coyotes. She even told him about the bear cave and the one that woke up, though she failed to mention how close she and Bailey had been when it happened.
Ding!
A small screen popped up on Mr. Howell’s laptop.
“Here, Alex. Looks like you’ve got an e-mail,” he said, handing her the computer. From the next room over, they heard a lamp crash to the floor.
“I’d better go help your mother,” laughed Mr. Howell, and he left them alone on the couch.
Bailey got so excited that she almost knocked the computer to the floor. “It couldn’t be Kate, could it? It’s too soon!”
“Let’s see,” said Alexis, and she opened up the e-mail.
Alex and Bailey,
It’s so great to hear from you, and it’s SUPER great to know that I can help you! Pulling a pic out of that vid was easy. You’ll find the pics attached to this e-mail. I gave you what you asked for—close-ups of the guy on the snowmobile, but I zoomed in a little more for a few pics I thought might help you more. You’ll see what I mean. Love you lots! Happy investigating, and don’t hesitate to call if you need me again!
Kate
Alexis hurried to open the files. There were four of them. The first was a picture of the whole scene: a man bundled up from head to toe climbing onto a snowmobile. They couldn’t see his face, but they could see what he was carrying over his shoulder.
“Is that a gun?” asked Bailey.
“Probably a BB gun,” said Alexis. She opened the next picture.
It was a close-up of the man’s face, but it was fully covered with a ski mask. That didn’t help much. The third picture was just of the snowmobile, and the fourth was a super close-up of the side of the vehicle.
“Why would she send us that?” asked Bailey. The computer bounced on Alexis’s lap as Mr. Howell sat back down on the couch.
“Oh!” he said. “A Yamaha Phazer! Those are great snowmobiles. Super expensive, though. You two interested in riding?”
“You could say that,” said Alexis. She was staring at the make and model of the snowmobile, trying to figure out why Kate had zoomed in far enough to see it. All of a sudden, it hit her.
“Bailey, this is huge! We may not have his face, but we know what kind of snowmobile he was driving! Maybe that will lead us to who he is!”
“Maybe,” said Bailey. “But it’s not like this is CSI. We don’t have access to all of the registered snowmobile owners in California. And even if we did, how would we know which one was this guy?”
“You’re right, Bailey. This isn’t CSI, but we can still use the info. Didn’t you hear Dad? These things are expensive. I bet whoever was riding it rented it. Tomorrow we can call around to the rental places in town and see if anyone took out a Yamaha Phazer today. That’s a start anyway. Then we’ll go investigate the area near the cave again. Maybe this guy left something behind.”
When the girls climbed into bed, Alexis couldn’t fall asleep. Bailey’s light snoring wasn’t keeping her up. Her mind was. It seemed to be going about a million miles per hour. She hoped this snowmobile would lead them to whoever was sabotaging the reserve. She knew it could be a dead end, but she refused to think about that right now.
Please, God, she prayed. Help us tomorrow. We need a break. The reserve needs You. We need You. This is where the real investigating begins.
Starstruck
The next morning, the girls awoke to a wall of white. Snowflakes as big as silver dollars drifted toward the ground—so many that they melded together to form a frozen fog. There had always been snow on