Now You See Me ... Read Online Free PDF

in to see what her friend was pointing at.
    Abby’s blue-painted fingernail was hovering over the letters on the water tower in the photo. “The town is ‘Phelps,’ right?”
    Lena nodded and looked closer, immediately seeing what Abby was talking about.
    â€œCheck it out. There are only four of the letters of the town’s name in this picture: h, e, l, and p. And that spells …”
    â€œHelp,”
Lena finished. “Maybe the shadow needs our help,” she added quietly. “Maybe there’s something about that tower that he wants us to know.”
    The air in the screened-in porch felt closer and hotter than ever. Gray clouds were gathering, throwing a blanket on the sky.
    The creepy feeling Lena had been trying to shake settled hard around her shoulders. She wished it weren’t so muggy. She wished she could crawl into Abby’s abandoned bed. She wished she could hide under the covers for eternity.
    â€œWell, I guess that’s better than
beware
,” Abby breathed.
    Lena laughed nervously. She supposed Abby had a point. So far it didn’t seem like the boy wanted tohurt her. But he was super-creepy in the pictures, and last night’s nightmare was terrifying.
    Lena could feel her heart thudding in her chest. She was trying not to panic, but …
    â€œWe need some answers,” Abby said after studying Lena’s troubled face. She grabbed Lena by the hand and pulled her through the screen door and into the den, which was thankfully cooler than outside. Abby pulled an extra chair up to the desk and gently pushed Lena into it. “Time for a little research,” she announced as she slid into her own chair and switched on the family computer.
    Lena smiled, grateful for her friend’s action-taking nature. They waited while the machine hummed to life, then did a Google search for “Phelps water tower.”
    â€œNot Phelps County in Nebraska, though,” Abby said with a chuckle, glancing through the listings that came up.
    Lena couldn’t laugh. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that she was being haunted.
    â€œOr Georgia,” Abby added, scrolling down and clicking on the only entry that looked like it might apply — a brief article about Malcolm Phelps, thefounder of Phelps, New Jersey. He’d had the tower built in 1919.
    â€œWell, at least I know that the dang thing actually exists,” Lena breathed, feeling a tiny bit relieved. “Or existed …”
    Abby tried a few more searches, but couldn’t find anything to confirm whether the tower still stood or not.
    â€œThat’s the Internet for you, totally incomplete,” Lena declared, parroting her father, who was a high school teacher. It was odd, because she wasn’t sure if she wanted the tower to be there. On the one hand, it would mean that the camera had captured reality (a welcome change). On the other, how could she have missed something so huge and obvious?
    Abby was about to start a new search when the screen went dark. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I think I crashed it.” She tried to reboot. Nothing. Lena checked the plugs. Everything looked fine, but the computer seemed dead.
    â€œThis thing is practically new,” Abby said, giving the monitor a gentle whack. “It’s never done anything like this before.”
    Lena got to her feet, and the Polaroid knocked lightly against the edge of the desk. She glanceddown, momentarily wondering if the camera had anything to do with the computer crash.
    â€œIt’s cool,” Abby reassured her. “My mom is a whiz with this stuff. She’ll get it up and running in no time. And we need to get out of here, anyway. You look like you’ve seen a gho —” She stopped herself. “Well, you’ve looked better,” she corrected.
    Abby got up and started to put on her shoes before she noticed she was still wearing her pajamas. “Wait