Murder at the Mall

Chapter One: Hard-Boiled Hardys My skin was burning! Every breath was like sucking fire straight into my lungs. I pounded on the door, but it was locked from the outside. Now, I love a good sauna --mostof the time. But180 degrees? Give me a break! "Any great ideas?" I asked my brother Frank -- not because he's a year older than I am, but because he has a long history of thinking us out of trouble. We'd been on the trail of a notorious people trafficker -- a really bad, really rich guy. This sleazebag happened to belong to the very exclusive Moscow Health and Fitness Center -- that's Moscow, as inRussia. Working with ATAC (American Teens Against Crime) in partnership with Interpol, Frank and I had followed Mr. Bigski all the way across the Atlantic Ocean and right into this sauna that was about to broil us alive. Since this particular bad guy had made a specialty of smugglingteenagers, Interpol decided that it had tobeteenagers -- Frank and me, disguised as bait -- who would track this bad boy down. Well, we'd tracked him down, all right -- straight into this sauna. The only problem was, he'd been onto us -- maybe from the very start -- and now Frank and I were the ones who were cornered! When our mark got up and left the sauna, we waited a minute or two, like any good investigator who's tailing a suspect. Only then did we try to follow him. That's when the door refused to budge, and we realized he'd locked us in! A quick check of the thermostat showed he'd jimmied that, too -- the control lever was gone. While 180 degrees Fahrenheit isn't technicallyboiling, it was plenty close enough to finish us off. I wondered where the pool boy had gone off to. Mr. Bigski must've paid him a handsome tip to get lost, I figured. "Okay, big brother," I said, folding my arms and sitting back on the redwood bench as the waves of heat rose all around us. "Now what do we do?" "First, I would like to point out," Frank stated, "that it was your idea to trail this guy to the health club. Not mine." "This is no time to argue," I said. He was right, though. It was my idea. "Come on, Frank, you know you're the brains of this outfit." "Flattery will get you nowhere," he said. "Even if it's true." "I can't eventhinkin this heat." "Well, if you'll just stoptalkingfor a minute, I'll take a stab at it." He sighed and lowered his head into his hands. The heat kept radiating from the lava rocks, hitting me in little waves...thwap...thwap...thwap... If it got any hotter in here, I was definitely going to pass out. "Don't take too long about it, Frank." Right on cue, he cried, "I have an idea! Got any metal on you?" "Metal? Frank, we're in our bathing suits!" "Your chain, man." "This? This is gold, dude -- twenty-four carats!" "Joe, we haven't got time to fool around here." It hurt me, but I took off the chain and handed it to him. Then I leaned back on the bench and closed my eyes. I was on the edge of fading out, and I had to keep biting my lip just to stay awake. Frank grabbed a towel someone had left behind on the bench and wrapped it around his hand to protect it. Then he reached into the pile of steaming lava rocks, jamming the chain deep into the sauna's power source. There was a sudden spark, and a loudPOP! In an instant, all the lights went out, and we were in total darkness. "Frank?" I gasped, fully awake now. "Are you okay?" I sure hoped he hadn't electrocuted himself trying to save us! "I...I think so," he said in a shaky voice. "I did get shocked pretty good...." "That was a stupid,stupidthing to do, Frank." "I didn't see much choice, Joe. Either the heat got short-circuited, or we did. It ought to start cooling off in here pretty soon." "Aw, our brains'll bDixon, Franklin W. is the author of 'Murder at the Mall ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781416939306 and ISBN 141693930X.