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

“Ugh!”

“What happened?”

“It’s just heavy.  Back up again about the same distance asyou just did.”

“Backing up.”

“Stop!”  This time Matthew was able to level the statue andexpand his portal out so it was covering the entire bottom of the statue.  Nowhe could just push it over to the door where he had the 2x4s placed and ready. Once he had it next to the 2x4s, he rotated the statue until it was parallelwith the front of the building then lowered the statue.  While his portal wasfree, he checked on Jerome again.  “Damn, he’s just tightening up the lastlug nut.”

“Emily, how far can you back up?”

“How far or how high?”

“I guess I want to know how high.”

“Not very high here, but if I move across the road, there’s alane that goes up a hill.”

“Okay, hurry.  Jerome is on his way.”

Matthew checked on Jerome again.  He had just tossed thespare into the back of the truck.  “Damn, there’s not enough time.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry, keep going,” Matthew told Emily.  He reallydidn’t want to give Jerome another flat, but what else could he do.  Emily neededat least a minute to get to the hill.  Jerome was putting the jack in the backof the truck also.  “Damn.”  Matthew looked in the truck.  The keys weredangling from the ignition.  “Why not!”  Matthew used his portal to pullthe keys out.  He buried them under some trash on the floor of the pickup.  Hefigured Jerome would think he’d pulled them out automatically when he turnedthe truck off and then accidentally dropped them.

“Christ, where are my keys?!”  Jerome stretched out and feltin his pocket.  Not finding the keys, he started searching along the seat,reaching under the seat behind him to see if they had slipped in the crack. Eventually, he got out of the pickup and started to search the floor.

“I’m ready,” Emily announced just as Jerome found the keys.

“Okay, give me a sec.”  Matthew moved over to the statue andstraddled it.  Then he opened his portal under it between the 2x4s.  “Okay,start backing up.”

“Tell me when.”

“Keep going, . . . keep going, . . .  a few more feet, . . . there.”  Matthew and the statue had risen up twelve feet, well into the uppershadows of the shed.

“Emily, mute your phone.  We don’t want Jerome to hear youbreathe or something.”

“Yeah, right.  Muting it . . .”

“Okay, he just drove up, so cross your fingers.”

Matthew heard Jerome curse as he opened the door to the shed. “Probably wasn’t happy to find the lock gone.”

The door rattled as it slammed into the side of the shed.  Jerome’sflashlight illuminated the center of the shed where the statue had been.  Jeromecursed as the light revealed the neatly folded tarp that had covered thestatue.  The flashlight panned around the shed then stopped as Jerome stoodnext to the tarp.

“Dalton, where’s the statue?!”  Jerome yelled into his phone. “Well, it’s not here.  The shed was unlocked when I got here.

“Of course I am, I’m standing right where it’s supposed tobe.  The tarp is here, but no statue!”  Jerome kicked the tarp.  “Where’s thelight switch?”

Jerome walked back to the door and flipped on the lights. Matthew started to get nervous.  If Jerome spent too much time searching forclues, Matthew wouldn’t be able to maintain the portal.  He’d have to drop thestatue back down.  The longest he’d ever managed to keep it open was 75 minutes,and he’d used it a lot on the way up here.

Jerome walked around looking at the ground.  “I probablyleft footprints,” Matthew cursed himself as he watched Jerome walk over towhere Matthew had grabbed the wood.  Jerome examined the bent fence post andthrew it onto the ground.  Then he walked back over to where the statue hadbeen and followed Matthew’s prints over to the wall.

Matthew held his breath as Jerome stood directly below him. He brought his head back inside the edge of his portal.  If Jerome looked up,he would only see the bottom of the pickup where the other end of the portalwas.  Matthew crossed his fingers.  He heard Jerome kick the side of the shedand used the noise to let out his breath.  Holding your breath was a badstrategy.

Finally, Matthew heard Jerome slam the door again as he leftthe shed.  He waited until he heard the pickup start up and its wheels spin as Jerometook off.  “Whew!”  He let his portal descend back to the floor.

“Is he gone?” Emily’s voice whispered over Matthew’s phone.

“Yes, he just left.  Just a second, I’m almost down.”

“I see his lights, he just turned onto the main road.  Itlooks like he’s heading home.”

As the statue settled back onto the 2x4s Matthew had placednext to the shed, he jumped off of the statue saying a quiet prayer of thanksthat Jerome hadn’t moved them.

“Should I come up there now?”

“Wait, let me see where Jerome is first.”  Matthew reopenedhis portal at Jerome’s location.  He was definitely heading back home.  “We’reclear, come on.”

Matthew closed his portal and rested while Emily drove thegardener’s pickup to the shed.

“What happened?  I could only hear some of what he said onthe phone.”

“I could only hear this end of the conversation.  He calledthis Dalton guy and asked about the statue.”

“I remember a Dalton from the party, this shed is probably onhis family’s property.”

“Makes sense.  Now let’s get this thing loaded.  You need todrive back down the hill a bit so I can raise it up.”

“Okay,” Emily said.  She was already running back to thepickup.

Matthew waited until he heard the pickup start and move downthe hill a bit, then he opened his portal under the statue.

“I’m ready,” Emily announced.

“Okay, drive back up and park next to the door.  Then we canmove it into the bed.”

Emily brought the pickup back up to the shed.  As it came upthe hill, the statue raised up until it was about 4 ½ feet above the ground. Once Emily parked the truck, Matthew let the statue sink down to just above thebed.  He was already pushing the statue around when Emily came around thetruck.

“Open the tailgate.”

“Got it.  . . .  Damn!”

“What happened?!”

“Nothing, I just broke a