Melinda Metz - The Vanished

"There are a million caves like that around here," Max said, rubbing his forehead.

Isabel grabbed his hand and looked him directly in the eye. "I know it's practically hopeless," she said. "But it's the only chance we've got to save Alex."

I should have thought of coming here myself, Liz thought as she climbed through the first-floor office window of the Astral Projector, the tabloid newspaper DuPris had published before he disappeared. She fell through the window and landed on the floor at Adam's feet.

Adam had found a copy of the Astral Projector, with its pages of doctored photographs of alien encounters, in Ray's museum. Apparently Ray subscribed-probably to give himself a good laugh every month. As soon as Liz explained to Adam what the newspaper was, he'd been sure the tabloid's office was the perfect place to search for clues to DuPris's whereabouts. And he didn't want to wait for Max and Isabel to be done upstairs.

Liz didn't want to wait, either. She was glad to have something to do. Anything that might lead to getting Alex back home.

"Where should we start?" Adam asked.

"You take the desk," Liz said as she looked around the dark office. "I'll go through DuPris's file cabinet." She shut the blinds and flicked on the overhead light.

Adam started rifling through the desk, and Liz opened the top drawer of the file cabinet, marked Abyss-Humidity. She pulled out the first file and scanned it.

"Abyss" turned out to be a bunch of articles about a hole in Colorado that led to the center of the earth, where an alien race had built a civilization. This was according to some questionable sources that DuPris had interviewed. It sounded insane to Liz, but then the Astral Projector's stock-in-trade wasn't exactly reality. DuPris had just used the newspaper as a cover for his investigation of Michael, Isabel, and Max and his search for the Stone of Midnight. Liz was amazed that he'd kept records at all.

Diligently Liz skimmed every article in the drawer, even though there were hundreds of them. She didn't want to miss anything that might help Alex. By the time she reached the file titled Humidity, she was struggling to contain her giggles over the ridiculousness of it all. "Humidity" was an article about how aliens from some planet called Neutron-6 needed to keep their skin moist at all times or they'd shrivel up like worms on the sidewalk after it rained.

"The scary thing is that people believe this stuff," Liz muttered to herself as she replaced the file. She had just closed the top drawer of the filing cabinet when she heard footsteps in the hallway outside the office.

The hair on Liz's arms rose as the doorknob started to turn. She glanced at Adam, and his eyes were wide with fear.

"Quick!" Liz hissed. "Under the desk!"

A second later the two of them were smashed together in the small space in front of DuPris's desk chair. "The light," Adam whispered as the door creaked open.

Liz squeezed her eyes shut. There was nothing to do about it now.

Liz strained her back until it hurt and peered under the metal edge of the desk. She stretched and managed to glimpse a pair of sensible shoes and a set of wheels on a cart. An odor of disinfectant wafted through the room.

It was the cleaning service. Liz's heart calmed in her chest. Although it still wouldn't be good to be discovered, she'd take the maid over DuPris any day.

"Always leaving the light on," the cleaning woman mumbled to herself.

As the cleaning lady emptied a garbage can near the door, Liz started to become very aware of Adam's arm lying across her stomach and his cheek pressed up against her shoulder. She could feel his heart beating… and it was thumping pretty rapidly, too.

She glanced at his face, and in the moment before he looked away, she saw that he was staring at her with wide, amazed eyes. Liz tried to shift away, but the space under the desk wasn't exactly roomy.

Adam's obvious crush on her had always seemed kind of sweet… from a distance. But up close, it was making her nervous and tense. Liz held her body taut, trying to prevent any skin contact whatsoever, trying to send out an anti-attraction vibe. She listened to Adam's ragged breathing and felt her face flush.

Liz stole a peek at Adam again. It wasn't that he wasn't cute-quite the contrary. He was muscular and sleek. But Adam wasn't Max, and that was that.

The cleaning woman finally left, shutting off the light and closing the door behind her. Liz scrambled out from under the desk as fast as she could and brushed herself off. The darkness in the office seemed far too intimate, so Liz hurried to turn the overhead light back on.

Adam didn't emerge for another minute, lingering as if he'd hoped their uncomfortable situation didn't have to end. He smiled awkwardly at her as he climbed to his feet.

Liz needed to take control before Adam said or, even worse, did something they'd all regret later. "Okay," she said. "Back to work."

"I'm done with the desk," Adam said. He sounded almost remorseful, as if he'd done something wrong. As maybe he had… in his imagination. Liz cut that thought off before her own imagination started supplying details.

"Then check out DuPris's bookshelf," Liz ordered. "Look inside the books, too, in case he's hidden something inside one of them."

Liz returned to the file cabinet, and by the time she was halfway through the third drawer, she had a monster crick in her neck. As she reached deep into the drawer to pull the files and condense them so they opened more easily, her finger grazed something along the side of the drawer. Liz yanked her hand away. "Ow," she muttered. She stuck her index finger into her mouth, tasting the coppery flavor of her own blood. Paper cut.

But what had she cut her finger on?

With her other hand Liz reached into the space between the hanging files and the side of the drawer. And found a manila folder that had been inserted into that space sideways.

She pulled it out, her hand shaking with excitement. It could be a folder that had been dropped there accidentally, or it could be something DuPris hadn't wanted to be easily found…

Liz opened the folder. It contained a single photo.

A photo of a middle-aged guy in a military uniform shaking hands with Sheriff Valenti. Both men were smiling at the camera.

With a jolt Liz realized that she recognized the man in the uniform.

It was Mr. Manes.

Alex's father.

Liz's stomach lurched.

This doesn't have to mean anything, she told herself as she stared at the picture. Alex's dad is retired air force, and Valenti was the town sheriff. There could be hundreds of reasons why they were hanging out. It could be some kind of macho-guy barbecue.

But the scene in the picture didn't look like it was taking place at a barbecue. It looked like an office. Valenti's office at the Clean Slate compound, to be exact.

Liz's heart dropped to the floor. It can't be, she thought. But what other explanation is there?

If Alex's father was at the secret compound, he had to be a member of Project Clean Slate, too.

Maria tried to open the front door to her house as quietly as humanly possible, but she wasn't doing a great job. The keys seemed to be making an incredibly loud jangling racket as she unlocked the door. It was late-very, very late. She'd still been on the road back from the ranch house with Michael at nine, and that was hours ago.

Not that it really mattered. Her mom was probably out somewhere wearing clothes that were way too tight for someone her age.

Maria stepped into the house and saw her ten-year-old brother, Kevin, standing on the stairs in his pajamas.

"You are in so much trouble," he whispered, his mouth exaggerating the shape of his words.