Runner by Carl Deuker Read Free Book Online Page B

done."
    "You sure?"
    "I'm sure."
    As I walked back to the
Tiny Dancer
that night, the cool evening air somehow didn't cool me. I felt light in the head and wobbly in the knees. I thought about the kids at school, about Melissa. What would they say, what would she say, if they found out that Chance Taylor, the guy in the back of the classroom who never said anything, was a drug smuggler?

PART TWO

CHAPTER ONE
    As soon as school ended on Monday, I hustled down to the boat and changed into my running clothes. A couple of minutes later I was standing in front of my locker in the utility room, my hands sweating. Finally, I worked the combination and opened it. Inside was a small gray backpack. I stared at it for a while as if it were a bomb before finally picking it up. I pulled the backpack over my shoulders and adjusted the shoulder straps. I took a deep breath and then headed off at my normal pace down Seaview Avenue toward the Ballard Locks.
    As I ran, I passed a middle-aged lady wearing a pink Adidas sweat suit with matching wristbands and headband. Next an old guy on a girl's bike rolled by, his black poodle panting to keep up. Two bicyclists flew by on the other side of the street; both were wearing black spandex shorts and canary-yellow shirts. Outside the Juice House a college guy was talking on a
cell phone, a ferret under his arm. The fat guy had been right: nobody was going to notice my backpack.
    I did a quick loop through the gardens at the locks, and then retraced my steps, running down Seaview and past Pier B. At the end of the marina, I entered Golden Gardens Park. I ran across the grassy fields—packed with kite fliers and dog walkers in the summer but empty now—and along the boardwalk by the duck ponds until I reached the beach. A good wind was coming out of the north; the wind and sand made the running hard.
    When I reached the maple tree, I stopped. I put my hands flat against the trunk and stretched my hamstrings. It was a natural enough thing to do and a natural enough place to do it; I'd often stretched there. But this time my heart raced as my eyes furiously scanned the nooks and crannies in the big rocks that served as a retaining wall for the railroad tracks.
    And then, there it was: a black plastic bag stuck between two rocks. My hand was trembling as I reached in and pulled the bag out. Inside was a small brown package, about the size of a shoe box, weighing between five and ten pounds.
    I shoved the trash bag and the package into the backpack, hurriedly zipped it shut, and then turned around. Walking toward me was a man who, for a split second, I thought was Mr. Arnold. I froze, and then watched as he threw a stick into the Sound. His big black dog bounded into the water after it. "Loves to swim, that one," the man said, and I saw that he didn't look like Arnold at all. I nodded, and then broke into a jog and started back.
    When I reached Pier B, I stopped and walked. My dad, for
the first afternoon in weeks, was onboard. He was sitting in the cabin looking at his charts. I grabbed clean clothes from the storage bin under the bench. "I'm going to shower up," I said.
    He looked up. "I'll probably be gone when you get back," he said. If he noticed the backpack, he didn't say anything.
    Once I was in the utility room, I shoved the backpack into my locker and carried my clothes to the shower stall. I stuck them and my towel on top of the dressing bench to keep them from getting wet, and then I took a long shower. The whole time I listened for the main door to open, but I didn't hear a thing. When I finished showering, I dried myself and dressed. I couldn't leave without knowing, so I again opened the combination lock and peered inside. The backpack and the package were still there, exactly the way I'd left them.
    Back on the sailboat, I was all nerves. I kept thinking about the package, wondering who would pick it up and when. I tried listening to the radio, but I couldn't get my mind off the