Read Edgewood Series: Books 1 - 3 for Free Online Page B

to have funny feelings about the whole thing. The thing that bothered me was the location. I knew Industry Drive. It was part of my route. I had no idea there was a ball bearing factory there. You learn something new every day. If she was some kind of psycho who belonged to a gang or something, her group could jump me and do who knows what. Not saying that would happen, but it did cross my mind. What kind of group meets in the industrial park at midnight during the week? It was weird. Not interesting-weird—bizarre-weird.
    I thought about my life. I had my friends, school, homework, my family. And this summer I would get my driver’s license and a job. I had a lot going on. I didn’t need Mallory and her secret club. Not to mention I was tired and needed to get caught up on my sleep. And I actually felt like I could sleep tonight, which was rare.
    Forget it. I wasn’t going to go.
    At ten o’clock I shut everything down, washed up, and climbed between the sheets. I closed my eyes and regulated my breathing the way Dr. Anton taught me. In, out. In, out. An hour later I was still concentrating on inhaling and exhaling, but now I was frustrated. I couldn’t sleep and I really wanted to sleep. Damn, I was tired. Why wouldn’t my body cooperate?
    The house creaked and outside I heard street noises: a car driving past and the slamming of a car door. Someone was either coming or going. Curious, I got out of bed and went to the window. I separated the slats of the blinds and looked down to see my neighbor arriving home with bags of groceries. Nothing interesting there.
    I turned to go back to bed, but realized that I was now wide awake. More than wide awake, really. Hyper-awake. I looked at the clock: eleven forty. I did some mental arithmetic and calculated that if I got dressed and moved quickly, I could still make it to the ball bearing factory by midnight.

 
     
     

CHAPTER TEN
     
     
    It was completely quiet except for the slapping of my shoes against the pavement. When I took a shortcut through an empty field near the industrial park, I slowed my pace. The streetlights were further apart than in the residential section, and I couldn’t see very well. I stopped at one point and opened my phone to check the time. Good, I still had a few minutes. I would make it.
    When I got to the other side of the field, I cut over to the street. Industry Drive. All the streets here had the same theme going. Manufacturing Street, Production Avenue, Assembly Circle. Whoever came up with these names probably thought they were pretty clever.
    I was more visible than I wanted to be, but I had to walk along the curb in order to spot the addresses on the buildings. Some of them didn’t have numbers at all, at least not that I could see. Finally I came to the right place: 276 Industry Drive. Metal Castings Inc. the sign said. The parking lot was half full, and lights were on inside. People working the night shift.
    I went past the parking lot to the other side of the building and eased my way toward the back. Behind the building was another parking area, but this one lacked cars. Stacks of metal rods randomly dotted the lot. A few dumpsters were lined up to one side. A lone light post illuminated the lot, but it didn’t give much light. The asphalt pavement was cracked and buckled. When a slight breeze kicked up, I got a whiff of hot metal and grease. If the odor was that strong outside, I could only imagine how the workers smelled after working in the building for eight hours.
    This empty lot didn’t look like the kind of place a secret society would meet. I stood and listened for a few minutes, but I didn’t hear any footsteps or voices. Where were they? That’s when it hit me—Mallory had gotten me good. I’d actually gone to the back of a factory at midnight looking for a top-secret organization. What kind of idiot would do that? I looked at my phone: 12:04.
    I imagined her having a good laugh at my expense. It really wasn’t all