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Back A Penny for Your Thoughts Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. Cover
  2. A PENNY
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Twenty-Four
  29. Twenty-Five
  30. Twenty-Six
  31. Twenty-Seven
  32. Twenty-Eight
  33. Twenty-Nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-One
  36. Thirty-Two
  37. Thirty-Three
  38. Thirty-Four
  39. Thirty-Five
  40. Thirty-Six
  41. Thirty-Seven
  42. Thirty-Eight
  43. Thirty-Nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-One
  46. Forty-Two
  47. Forty-Three
  48. Forty-Four
  49. Forty-Five
  50. Forty-Six
  51. Forty-Seven
  52. Forty-Eight
  53. Forty-Nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-One
  56. Fifty-Two
  57. Fifty-Three
  58. Fifty-Four
  59. A Sample Chapter of Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels
  60. About the Author
  61. Other Books by Mindy Starns Clark
  62. About the Publisher

“Stood you up?” I asked, thinking about the airplane he had been on, the 1.5 million dollars he almost stole from her company. She didn’t even know yet that he had been running away or that he had been shot. I waved to the cops that we had finished our conversation.

“Oh, Judith,” I said before walking away. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Forty-Six

Forty-Six

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The police took Judith downtown for questioning by Detectives Sollie and Keegan. The rest of us decided to proceed on the assumption that Judith was telling the truth about Carlos, that the child had had only two opportunities to get out of her car—at Alan’s apartment and here. We split up, with Derek and Sidra and several of the policemen and quite a few helpful onlookers deciding to search the parking lot, the shopping center, and the surrounding area. Marion, Nick, and I decided to head to Alan’s apartment and see if we could turn anything up there.

Our drive to Alan’s was a little slower than the high-speed chase we had taken to Quakertown. As we drove, I went over and over the day’s events in my mind. I tried to put myself in Carlos’ shoes, tried to think where a boy who fancied himself a spy might have ended up. I hadn’t a clue.

My greatest fear was that Carlos had somehow slipped out of Judith’s car at Alan’s apartment and been spotted by Alan once Judith was gone. By now, I was convinced that Alan Bennet was capable of almost anything. I didn’t want to imagine what he might do to a little boy who stood in the way of his well-laid plans.

Once we reached Alan’s part of the suburbs, we followed the police car into a large apartment complex where we found an endless series of three-story block-like structures arranged in and around an irregular parking lot. The apartments seemed bland and impersonal, the kind of place where someone like Alan Bennet could live quietly, unnoticed by anyone, while carrying out his nefarious schemes.

“Carlos could be anywhere!” Marion sobbed as we pulled to a stop. The task did seem daunting. Such a big world, such a small boy.

We got out of the car and followed the police to Alan’s apartment. There were already a few uniformed policemen there going through Alan’s things and packing up any relevant evidence. Marion and Nick both looked bereft as they stood in the middle of it all. One officer assured Marion that they had several officers canvassing the entire complex, looking for the boy, though so far they had no reason to believe he had ever been there.