Chaos on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer (detective books to read TXT) 📕

of us. Rachel has a hacksaw, wire cutters, a pry bar, and an ax. “I borrowed them out of my parents’ garage,” Rachel says. Nell has two pairs of bolt cutters, a screwdriver set, a set of binoculars, and a mini hacksaw, all brand new and still in the packaging.

Rachel looks at me. “I brought a robot,” I say, and point at the back window, where CheshireCat has the robot peering out.

There is a brief debate about whose car to bring and whether anyone will care about the other car sitting in the lot all afternoon. We settle on Nell driving, and Rachel moving her car to the back of the lot next to a car that looks like it’s been there for a week. We get all of Nell’s brand-new tools out of the trunk and into the car so we can cut everything out of the packaging. “Hello, Rachel,” CheshireCat says as Rachel climbs into the back seat.

“Hi, Cat,” Rachel says. “Nice robot you’re driving there. Try not to drive it into anything, okay?”

“I will only drive it into anything if it’s necessary,” CheshireCat says.

It’s another two hours to get to the compound. There’s a closed-down gas station near where the driveway intersects the road, and we park the car behind the gas station. The car is warm inside after hours of driving with the heater on, and we’d shed our scarves and hats and unzipped our coats; now we put everything back on for the trip through the woods.

“What are we doing with Cat?” Nell asks, looking at the robot. “Are we bringing you?”

“I have legs,” CheshireCat says. “I can walk with you.”

“I bet you can’t if we’re going through the woods,” Nell says. “There’s snow. I mean, try it.” She opens the door and lifts the robot out of the car to walk around. We quickly determine that the robot can walk on packed snow and plowed ground but that it sinks into deep, loose snow and is quickly immobilized and that even a small amount of underbrush is an even worse problem than deep snow. Rachel suggests carrying the robot but changes her mind when she realizes how heavy it would be in her backpack. We wind up leaving it under the car, where CheshireCat can potentially bring it in by way of the driveway.

My boots are also not super well-suited for tromping around in snowy woods as opposed to walking on city streets. They’re insulated but not as warm as I’d like. I’ve got wool socks, at least. We load up our backpacks with tools. It’s early afternoon and the sky is clouding over, but at least it isn’t snowing. Yet.

The woods are quiet as Nell leads us up a slope around the back. The snow is deep in places, and the only tracks are animal tracks. It’s a long, tiring hike, even though it’s not that far as the crow flies, and I alternate between thinking about how cold the wind is and trying not to show the others how much I am freaking out. We are breaking in to a compound owned by a religious cult that used guns as props to scare a bunch of their own teenagers, which means they definitely have guns and they’re also terrible people. I keep thinking I hear someone else’s footsteps crunching through the woods, but every time, it’s just some sort of weird echo of our own steps, or the wind making trees rattle against each other.

Finally, we come out to a clearing at the top with a picnic table and a clear path down to the house. “How well can they see us?” Rachel asks. None of us are sure. I brush snow off the picnic table benches, we sit down, and Rachel digs out the binoculars.

Nell takes a look. “I don’t know if anyone’s even here,” she says.

“There’s got to be,” Rachel says. “I saw a light on in the house.”

I take the binoculars for my own look. There is a light on in the house, but just one. I don’t see any cars, but Nell mentioned they used the barn to park cars, and of course you want to park inside in January if you can.

I see movement. “Someone’s definitely down there,” I say. Rachel holds out her hand, and I give her the binoculars.

We watch and wait. No one seems to see us—I don’t see any pointing, hear any yelling—but my face and feet get very cold. There’s a man we see going in and out who Nell confirms is Brother Daniel. There’s another man Rachel glimpses who’s gone out of sight when Nell gets the binoculars back, and an adult woman.

It starts to snow lightly.

“Do you know how many adults are probably there?” Rachel asks Nell.

“Brother Daniel. Probably Brother Malachi. I don’t know how many others.”

“How many cars would fit in the barn, then?” Rachel asks. “Because there aren’t any cars outside.”

Nell chews her lip. “There was an event in the barn during camp,” she says. “Probably … not more than four.”

In midafternoon, Brother Daniel opens up the barn and brings out a snowmobile and takes off on it. A little while later, a man and a woman come out, back a minivan out of the barn, close it up, and then turn around carefully and drive away down the driveway.

We look at each other for a minute. “This seems like our best chance,” I say.

“Just because we only saw three adults doesn’t mean there only are three adults,” Rachel says.

“It’s still probably our best chance,” Nell says.

We walk down the path to the house. It’s a lot faster to wade through snow than fight underbrush, at least. I tuck my hands under my armpits, trying to warm them up through my gloves. Rachel ducks her head down against a gust of wind.

Five sheds, all padlocked. “Can we knock?” I say. “Will she answer? Do we need to break into all five?”

Nell pulls a glove off, puts her thumb and