Read Online The Mystery of the Russian Ransom by Roy Macgregor - Free Book Online

could be here somewhere.”
    Nish looked up briefly, his face now serious. He climbed up the back of the stands again, then came back down, shaking his head. “She’s not on the ice.”
    “Where would she be?” asked Fahd.
    “We’re going to have to look around,” said Travis. “Fahd and Lars, you stay here. Nish and Sam, go that way. I’ll go this way. Stay down, just see what we can see.”
    “I don’t want to stay,” protested Fahd.
    Travis tapped the phone Fahd still held in his hand. “You’ve got this. If something goes wrong, use it.”
    “Call nine-one-one?” Fahd asked.
    “They might not have nine-one-one here,” said Travis. “Call the hotel and ask them to put you through to Data’s room. He put the number in before we left.”
    Nish and Sam were already on their way, moving silently beneath the stands. Travis doubled back toward the Zamboni chute and then turned through the first exit from the ice surface.
    There was a door, with a handle, but this time when he turned it, the door opened. He was through.
    Travis found himself in a long corridor. There were rubber mats laid down to protect people’s skates, so the corridor must lead to dressing rooms. He moved quickly, darting ahead when he was sure he couldn’t be seen, slipping behind support columns and garbage bins and rows of lockers when he got nervous.
    He could see a row of windows ahead that looked into another room. The room was much more brightly lit than the corridor, so he crouched extra low and made his way toward it, crawling in between the wall and a support column. For one of the few times in his life, Travis was glad he was small. He fit the narrow space. No one could see him if they walked by. And if he stretched himself high, he’d be able to see in one of the windows.
    Travis slowly counted to ten to try and calm himself. He breathed in and out, deliberately slowing his breath. He was sure he had a grip on himself now.
    He stretched to look.
    He saw a bank of computers with people in white lab coats working at several of them. He saw some workout machines: treadmills, spinning bikes, weight machines, step machines.
    And then he saw Sarah! She was wearing one of the red tracksuits with the yellow bird crest. She was doing sprints on a treadmill, and she seemed to have a dozen wires running off her body. There were wires attached to her legs, her arms, her chest, her neck – and even four to her head. She was running easily. On either side of her stood one of the white-coated people, a woman on her right, a man on her left. They held stopwatches and clipboards.
    Travis dropped back down. His heart was pounding.
    He had found Sarah
.
    She was alive and well and, he had to admit, didn’t seem particularly unhappy. That would be Sarah, though. If Nish was the Owl who hated practice and exercise most of all, Sarah would be the one who most enjoyed it. Workouts were like oxygen to her. She craved them.
    He had to tell the others. He had to slip back the way he had come. And he had to do it unseen.
    Back through the long corridor Travis snaked, moving quickly from hiding spot to hiding spot.
    This time, instead of slipping behind the lockers, he dashed across in front of them.
    And when he did, he saw something.
    It was only a flash out of the corner of his eye – something pink. But the color seemed as familiar as his own face.
    He stopped behind a column and looked back. Several of the lockers were open. The girls’ team seemed to be the only ones using the rink, and they must have felt secure enough to use the lockers without locking them. Several of them hadn’t even bothered to close the doors.
    And there, at one end, was the backpack Sarah had been wearing when she’d been kidnapped that day in the park.
    Travis’s first thought was to leave a note, but he had no paper, no pen. He could take something from the pack, but what would be the point of that? Sarah wouldn’t take it as a sign. She’dthink one of the