D. MacHale - SYLO

I started to reach for the vial when…

“No!”

Somebody knocked the vial out of Feit’s hand. I came to my senses to see that it was Tori. She stood with her legs apart and her fists clenched, facing off against Feit.

“Get out of here,” she ordered Feit. “Take that crap with you.”

Feit was momentarily thrown but recovered quickly and scooped up the vial. He backed off with a smile.

“Easy now,” he said calmly. “No need to get all worked up.”

“I’m going to the sheriff,” Tori threatened.

Feit stopped walking and gave her a curious look, as if he didn’t understand what she had said.

“The sheriff?” he said and laughed dismissively. “Let me know how that works out for you.” He looked at me and added, “It’s your call, Tucker. I’ll be around.”

Feit turned and strolled off, whistling as if we had just had a casual, friendly conversation.

My brain had locked. Too much had happened too quickly, not the least of which was the realization that I had actually considered taking the Ruby again.

“You’re welcome,” Tori said. “Now we’re even.”

“You know about it?” I asked, desperately trying to collect my thoughts.

Tori kicked at the ground, as if buying time to decide on how to answer.

“Would you have taken it?” she asked.

I had to think about that for a second.

“I don’t know,” was my honest answer. “I’m being publicly humiliated. Taking that stuff would be dangerous, and totally unethical, but man, it’s so tempting.”

Tori nodded as if to say she understood where I was coming from.

“But I think it killed Marty,” I added. “And maybe Mr. Nelson. That makes Feit a killer. I think that guy with the baseball bat took it too, and he nearly brained you. You’re right, we’ve got to tell the sheriff. This could be what SYLO is looking for.”

“But we need more than theories,” she said. “We need proof.”

“Fresh out of that,” I said.

Tori gave me a small smile. It was the first time I had ever seen her smile. I liked it.

“Come with me,” she ordered and strode toward the parking lot.

“What? Why?”

“You need to see something,” she said without breaking stride.

I followed obediently until we arrived at her motor scooter.

“You want me to get on that? With you?”

“Unless you want to run alongside,” she said.

The seat was barely big enough for two, but there didn’t seem to be much choice.

“What about helmets?” I asked.

“Do you have one?”

“No.”

“Then I guess you don’t wear one.”

I slung my gym bag over my shoulder and sat on the back of the seat. Tori turned the key and the engine whined to life.

“Hang on,” she said.

“To what?”

She hit the throttle and I barely had time to grab her around the waist. The bike wasn’t big, but it was fast. At least it seemed pretty fast as we hurdled along with no protection.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I’m going to show you what a huge mistake I just kept you from making…and how we’re going to get SYLO off this island.”

Idecided not to ask her any more questions until we had arrived at wherever she was taking us. The whine of the scooter was too loud and besides, I wanted her to focus on not wrapping us around a tree. Tori liked to go fast and take sharp corners. It felt just shy of reckless but I didn’t want to sound like a weenie by complaining.

Our trip took us past the Oak Hills Country Club where we saw that it had been transformed into the SYLO base camp. Dad had a contract with Oak Hills, so I’d spent a lot of time there tending the clubhouse gardens and knew the layout pretty well. Flashing past, though, I barely recognized the place. There were dark green military-looking tents erected up and down the golf fairways. Some were small and looked to be where the soldiers slept while others were massive, circus-tent-sized structures. I also saw the tops of some wooden structures that were going up. That made me nervous. They may have been prefabricated quickie buildings but it gave the impression that they planned on being there for a while.

Humvees and Jeeps came and went. A helicopter swooped overhead and skimmed the treetops before landing somewhere within. I caught a glimpse of a truck that had sprouted a dozen antennas, all pointed in different directions. The amount of equipment that had suddenly appeared on Pemberwick was incredible. The once-perfect golf course had a new personality. There had always been a tall ivy-covered wall surrounding the property but now with armed soldiers at every entrance, that wall had taken on a different, more ominous character. I saw the glint of silver razor wire peeking over the top as if another, more secure barricade had been erected within. This was now a secure military base. There would be no sneaking in to walk your dog or going for a run on the wide fairways as long as SYLO was there.

“I guess the members aren’t going to be playing a whole lot of golf for a while,” I said to Tori above the engine whine.

“So sad,” she replied with total sarcasm. “What’ll all those rich guys do with their time?”

“Seriously. I just hope my dad gets the contract to clean it up.”

Tori had probably never set foot inside the country club, I realized, unless it was to deliver a load of lobsters. Being so close to her, I caught the unmistakable scent of lemons. I couldn’t help but think that it was her way of masking who she really was. Was she ashamed? Or embarrassed? She said she hated Pemberwick, but was that because she hated being the daughter of a lobsterman? Or did she resent the “rich guys” who spent their days playing golf while her dad was out on the ocean pulling lobster traps? The more I learned about Tori Sleeper, the more I wanted to know.

We shot quickly out of town and sped along the winding Memagog Highway, which was a fancy name for the four-lane road that circled the entire island. It was the same road that Quinn and I used for our midnight rides. Every so often the road dipped closer to the shore, where glimpses of the ocean could be caught through the trees. A few times I thought I saw a military ship moving far offshore, but it was hard to get a good look through the dense foliage. It was a sobering thought. Did the Navy have the island surrounded?

We passed a farm where I spotted a familiar structure that I’d seen a thousand times before and never gave a second thought to…until then.

“Silo,” I said aloud without thinking.

It was a tall red-and-white grain silo with a rounded dome that was used to store feed for a small herd of dairy cows. Was that what we were dealing with? Was SYLO doing the same with us? Storing us for some purpose other than what they would admit to? It was a silly thought that I shook off quickly. There was no sense in letting my mind spin to possibilities that didn’t make sense.

After fifteen minutes of butt-numbing, teeth-rattling travel, Tori turned off the highway onto an unpaved road that led toward the shore. The sandy road was packed enough so that we didn’t spin out, but I had to fight to keep my balance as we bounced over the washboard-like surface. Finally, we arrived at our destination: a house that sat on the edge of a quiet salt pond. The place was classic Pemberwick Island, with steel-gray shingles and a porch that wrapped around the three-story structure. There was a narrow yard in back covered with a checkerboard of grass and sand that definitely could have used my dad’s expert touch. Beyond the yard was the water. A dock was built out from the shore that led to a long float where two lobster boats were tied up, bow to stern. It was a tidal pond, which meant the float would rise and fall with the tides.