40b1ce81e27faee7f7dcd22da99b93e1

“Well, Mr. Dexter, we have strong reasons to suspect that you’ve kidnapped your daughter Addie Dexter, and her boyfriend Ted Machosko, and are keeping them on the premises.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Dexter. “My daughter lives with my brother Andrew, as everyone knows.”

“No, she does not. She left home a couple of weeks ago to go on a road trip, only she never arrived.”

“I don’t know anything about that. You have to talk to my brother.”

“We have talked to your brother. And he asked us to find his niece, since he’s very worried about her safety and that of her boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” said Dexter, clearly losing his patience. And as he made to close the door, Chase put his foot down—in the crack.

“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” he said. “Either you tell us where she is, or we’re going to search this place top to bottom until we find her. What’s it going to be, Dexter?”

The guy hesitated, but when he saw the determined look of steel on the cop’s face, and the equally steely look on Uncle Alec’s, he finally relented. “Okay, fine. But don’t blame me, all right? This was her idea from the start.”

And as he threw the door wide, two more people looked out at us from inside the small shack. They were Addie Dexter and what I assumed was her boyfriend Ted.

“He’s right,” said Addie. “This isn’t my dad’s fault. It’s mine.”

“Addie Dexter?” asked Chase.

The girl nodded.

She looked a little primitive, with simple clothes, no makeup, and her hair cut short and unwashed. But otherwise unharmed.

“And you, sir? Who are you?” asked Chase.

“Ted Machosko,” said the guy, a gangly kid with dark hair.

“And you both confirm that you’re living here of your own free will?”

“That’s right,” said Addie. “We actually live down there,” she added, gesturing to a spot at the edge of the clearing.

We all looked, but saw nothing.

“We live underground,” Ted explained. “We buried the RV and turned it into an underground home. Cozy and cheap.”

“Warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” Addie added. “The perfect place, really. And very private, as you can see.”

I saw nothing, but if they said the RV was there, I took their word for it.

“You do realize that your uncle is very worried about you?” said Odelia, with a touch of reproach in her voice.

“I know,” said the girl, hanging her head. “And I was planning to tell him, but I knew he wouldn’t approve, and would make me come back and live with him.”

“But why? Why live out here?” asked Odelia.

“It’s a long story,” said the girl, interlocking fingers with her boyfriend. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”

“Absolutely,” said Chase.

I think we all wanted to hear the story, not least of all Odelia, who’d spent so much time looking for this young woman.

“Okay, but not here,” said Addie. “Let’s go to the RV. It’s a lot cozier down there—no offense, Dad.”

“None taken,” the man mumbled.

Now that I saw him again, I could see the resemblance with his brother, which is why he’d looked so familiar the first time. The beard masked a lot of his features, and also the fact that he hadn’t really taken good care of himself. But there was no mistake: this was the real Edward Dexter. The billionaire.

“Why is a billionaire living in a shack in the woods, Max?” asked Dooley as we followed Addie and Ted in the direction of their cozy little home—underground.

“I think we’re about to find out, Dooley,” I said.

“He’s probably one of those survivalists,” said Brutus. “You know: a prepper.”

“He doesn’t look prepared to me,” said Harriet. “More lost than ready.”

We’d arrived at the edge of the clearing, and Ted reached down and pulled at something hidden under a clump of grass. It proved to be a hatch, and moments later we were all climbing down a ladder into a very roomy and spacious RV. It was like a small apartment, but underground. And as the lights switched on, it turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought. Clearly Andrew Dexter hadn’t stinted when he bought his niece this RV. It must have been a top-of-the-line model.

“You’ve got electricity down here?” asked Chase, impressed.

“Yeah, Ed runs his own generator,” Ted explained.

Addie led us into the living area, and the humans all took a seat around the table while Ted disappeared into the kitchen to rustle us up some coffee.

“Nice place you got here,” said Uncle Alec, to break the ice. “Very, um… special.”

“We like it,” said Addie, who was a cheerful girl, and looked pretty happy and healthy to me.

“So why live out here?” asked Chase. “When you could live in luxury with your uncle?”

“Okay, so the thing is,” said Addie, launching into her story, “that I’ve always known that one day I’d go look for my dad. Uncle Andrew said he didn’t know where he was, but I had a feeling he was lying. Or that he must have some idea where he’d gone off to but wouldn’t tell me. Ittook me until my final year in college to come up with a plan, and the support of Ted to set it up.”

“So this whole road trip idea—that was just to find your dad?” asked Odelia.