Legacies

9.

Jack used the sledge gently at first, for fear that he might damage whatever was hidden inside. But he quickly discovered that this was an old, solid, wet plaster wall, and he was going to have to put some muscle into it. It took a lot longer than he'd planned, but finally he had a good-sized hole clear through to the other side.

Alicia peered over his shoulder. "Find anything?"

"Nothing inside this wall but… wall." He turned and looked at the toy in her hand. "But then, why…?"

And then it hit him.

"Oh, hell."

Jack took the little Rover from Alicia and placed it in the hall on the other side of the wall. It wheeled across the floor and ended up against the wall on the far side of the hall.

"What's on the other side of that wall?" Jack said.

"Thomas's room."

Jack carried the truck into Thomas's room—in no better shape than Alicia's—and set the truck on the floor there. It ran across the room and butted against the far wall.

Jack watched it in dismay. "Damn thing wasn't attracted to the wall back there. It just wants to go uptown. So much for enigmatic clues in wills." And then a thought struck. "Or maybe it only wants to go as far as the front yard."

Swell. Even if that were the case, they couldn't exactly haul out picks and shovels and start digging up the front yard.

They'd already wasted too much time on that little piece of junk. But at least they had the key.

"Let's get out of here."

The truck kept running, spinning its wheels as it nosed against the wall. Jack resisted the impulse to drop-kick it down the hall, and picked it up instead.

"You're taking that with you?"

He turned off the motor and tucked it inside his coat.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure."

And he wasn't. But sensed he shouldn't toss it away. Too many aspects of this crazy situation converged on the little truck—"Rover" in the will and on its hatch, and the way it always ran in the same direction, "pointing" uptown. Jack wasn't through with it yet.