Stone Investigations (Stone Series Book 4) by Bob Blanton (ereader that reads to you .TXT) 📕

for sale.  The Grahams lived ina community of houses with one-acre lots.

Emily started the truck up.  “Which way is he heading?”

“East.”

“So back to the other side of Interstate 15?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Pull over,” Matthew instructed Emily after they’d beenfollowing Jerome for about thirty minutes.

“Why?” Emily asked as she pulled over the side of the road.

“I have to give Jerome a flat tire.”

Emily scooted over to the passenger side of the pickup so shecould see what Matthew was doing.  He pulled a board out of his backpack theninserted a nail in a hole.  “I made this up last night.  I’ll lay it here anduse my portal so Jerome’s tire runs over it.”

“Wicked.  But do you know where the statue is?”

“I’m pretty sure; he’s turned off the road onto a privatedirt road.  I’m betting the statue is in the shed at the end of the road.”

“What happens if it isn’t?”

“We have to wait for him to fix the flat.”

By this time Matthew had the board on the road.  Emily couldtell that he had opened his portal by the look on his face.

“Got him.”  Matthew picked up the board, removed the nail,and returned them to his backpack.  He hopped in the back of the pickup. “Drive another quarter of a mile and I’ll hop out.  Then you should go on bythe road and pull into the next side road and wait for me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Find the statue and hide it.”

Emily slid back to the driver’s side and started to drive downthe road again.  A few seconds later, Matthew patted the top of the cab, Emilyslowed down, and Matthew hopped out carrying his backpack.  He ducked throughthe barbwire fence and started running through the orchard of avocado trees.

When he reached the shed, Matthew pulled a flashlight out ofhis pack, and using his portal, examined the inside of the shed.  The mascotstatue was sitting in the middle of it under a tarp.  “Okay, so how do I getinside?” Matthew asked himself as he started to look around the shed. There was a lock on the door and he didn’t see any easy access.

“Oh, well.”  Matthew used his portal to open the lock.  Itwas rather easy since he could just open the portal inside the mechanism andpush the upper pins up so the lock would open;  he used his thumbnail to rotatethe cylinder.  Once it was open, he removed the lock and tossed it into thefield beside the shed.  He opened the door, squeezed inside, and closed itbehind himself before he turned the flashlight back on.  He made a quick checkof Jerome to see how much time he had.  Jerome had just gotten the jack out ofhis truck and was getting it oriented underneath the axle.

Matthew’s phone buzzed indicating a text message.  He lookedat it.  “From Emily of course.”  He texted back, ‘Found it.’  His phone buzzedagain.  ‘Call me.’

“Why do I need to call you?” Matthew asked once he’d calledher.

“That way I know what’s going on.  You might need help.”

“Actually, I do.  Where can I hide this thing?”

“Where is it?”

“In the middle of the shed.”

“Can’t you push it to one side?”

“Not easy, there’s a bunch of junk in here.”

“Can you push it out the door and hide it around back?”

“I don’t think I’ll have enough time.”  Matthew wascontinuing to look around the shed.  He’d need some help lifting the statue; hewas hoping to find a lever.  After a bit, he found a fence post against thewall alongside a bunch of 2x4s.  He grabbed the post and several short 2x4s andheaded back over to the statue where he dropped his load.  A quick check on Jeromeshowed that he already had the truck jacked up and the tire off.

Matthew looked up; the shed was a lean-to shape with thefront side taller than the back.  The front looked to be about fifteen feethigh.  “I hope that’s not too short.”

Matthew laid two 2x4s on top of each other to use as afulcrum and pried the post under the statue.  “Grrr!”  Matthew put all hisweight on the end of the post.  Nothing.

“What was that?”

“I’m trying to lift the statue up so I can get my portalunder it.”

“Can’t you just open it underneath it?”

“Sure, but then how do I raise it up enough to move it?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Use an elevator to lift it.”

“That sounds like overkill.”

“It might be, but I need to be able to move it after I liftit.  The shed is probably too short right above the statue and it’s kind of anobvious space.  I think Jerome might notice it.”

“Should I come there and help?”

“No!  Are you on a hill?”

“Of course, there’s nothing but hills around here.”

“I mean can you drive uphill from where you are?”

“I can back up a hill.”

“Okay, wait a second and I’ll tell you when to back up.”

Matthew moved the stuff he’d collected back to where he hadgotten it.  He kept two of the short 2x4s, and placed them at the front of theshed right next to the door, spacing them out just the way he wanted.  Then hewent back to the statue and focused his portal.  He was able to get it to openunder about four inches of the statue.

“Okay, slowly back up the hill,” he instructed Emily.

Since his portal maintained equal potential energy betweenthe two points, raising one end would raise the other, but you had to supplythe energy to lift any object on the portal to the higher potential energyposition.  As Emily backed up the pickup, the statue lifted.

“Stop!”

The statue was tilted.  Matthew tried to level it out so hecould expand his portal but it was just too heavy.  Thinking for a minute hedecided he could start to lower the statue and spread the portal out bydropping it faster than the statue.  He’d figured out that the portal allowed himto go to a lower potential energy state on one end versus the other, though whoknew where the energy went.  He leveraged himself under the raised end to tryand hold it up, or at least slow its