The Silver Ring by Robert Swartwood Read Free Book Online

okay,” I said, and started to lower myself to the pavement, first one knee, then the other. “But please, will you just listen to me?”
    The cop wouldn’t. While he kept his weapon aimed at me, he turned his head to speak into the mike Velcroed to his uniform, and that was when I felt the sudden pinprick on my finger.
    I looked at the ring that was now glowing, looked back up at the officer who was speaking into his radio but suddenly stopped when he turned his attention back to me.
    I was invisible again. I knew it by the way the cop’s eyes widened, by the way his body suddenly tensed. And he wasn’t looking at me like he had before with those cold, hard trained eyes; now he was looking through me.
    The radio squawked again, the dispatcher asking the cop to repeat what he’d just said.
    The cop stood there, his eyes still wide, his mouth now opened.
    I got back to my feet, watching the cop carefully. He didn’t notice a thing.
    How much longer the ring would keep me invisible, I didn’t know. All I knew was that right now I was less than two miles away from home.
    Turning my back on the speechless cop, his radio still squawking, I started running.

 
     
     
    22
     
    At some point between where the cop had pulled me over and my house, the silver ring had stopped glowing and I became visible again.
    I barely noticed.
    I just kept running as hard and as fast as I could and didn’t even slow when I reached our block or when I reached the steps to our brownstone.
    What slowed me was the front door. It was locked—something I should have assumed—and I had to ring the bell repeatedly until my dad opened it.
    “David?” he said incredulously. “Where—where have you been?”
    I pushed past him into the house, hurried over to the table just beside the door where he kept his wallet and keys and breath mints and other junk he’d acquired over a typical business day.
      “Where is it?” I said, sorting through the loose dollar bills and change and plastic-wrapped toothpicks.
    My dad shut the door. “Where is what?”
    Before I could respond my mom rolled into the hallway. She actually gasped when she saw me, placing a hand on her chest.
    “Honey, what happened to you? Where have you been?”
    Upstairs I heard my sister shouting, “David? Is David home?”
    I ignored both of them and turned back to my dad. “The cop from last night, Officer Mallory, he gave you his card. Where is it?”
    “I think I have it in my study. Why?”
    I was already turning, hurrying around my mom, through the kitchen and into my father’s study. Surrounded by bookcases, his desk stood in the middle like an island. I went to it and started rifling through the papers on top until I found the cop’s card.
    Dad stepped into the room. “David, what is the meaning of this? Where have you been?”
    I picked up the phone on his desk and dialed the number on the card and then listened as the phone rang, hoping that I wasn’t making a mistake by calling Mallory. He’d shown patience and intelligence last night and he knew about what had happened—or at least some of what had happened—and right now I felt calling him was a better chance than trying to get through to someone at 911, someone who would transfer me to someone else who would then transfer me to someone else …
    “Hi, this is Frank Mallory,” the voice mail prompt began, and I closed my eyes and listened to the rest as my mom and Emma both entered the study.
    Then there was the beep and I started talking.
    “Officer Mallory, this is David Beveridge, from last night. I need you to call me back as soon as possible. Please, it’s important.”
    I left the house number and hung up the phone and then just stood there for a long time, staring down at the cluttered papers on Dad’s desk.
    “Honey?” Mom said.
    I looked up.
    She glanced at my dad, cleared her throat, and in a cautious voice said, “Did you visit grandma this morning?”
    Right then the doorbell