After the initial shock of finding the emerald green rock in Max's sneaker wore off, the kids got to work trying to reveal just what it had to do with his disappearance.  Mayla was convinced that it had some sort of magical property that transported Max Blackburn to some sort of different dimension. 

"That's the stupidest idea you've had yet," Aaron grunted, whacking his sister on the back of the head hard enough to make her yelp, but not so hard that you wouldn't call it a loving sibling smack. Ebony didn't think it was stupid, but she did agree highly unlikely. Something like that seemed so impossible, but she couldn't leave out any possibilities when the whole context of Max's disappearance was strange. She examined the rock in her fingers, wishing it would just reveal it's secrets. Miles decided the best course of action was to put the rock through a number of tests. They ended up throwing the rock out of the tower, stomping on it, and Miles even attempted to bite it. The rock didn't change at all, however, and Ebony wasn't even sure what they were trying to test. They were reaching for answers, trying to find the significance in something minuscule. Maybe the rock was just a mere coincidence, having nothing to do with Max disappearing. The thought tugged at Ebony's heart, and she felt failure start to creep into her mind. The sun was starting to set, and the kids had left the tower, standing in a circle on the mulch at the edge of the playground. At that moment, they just looked like four hopeless teenagers, standing on a playground made for children much younger for them, reaching for answers that seemed to not even exist. 

"Well, we have a start." Miles smiled hopefully, even as everyone else was admitted a strange sense of failure. "Good work team. We should meet again, after school tomorrow at Blackburn Tower." The boy looked so small, the shortest out of the four of them. He had the same, giant blue eyes as Max and his mother. His cape fluttered in the wind, and he stood there bravely. Ebony couldn't help but think how strong he was. Whenever she visited the Blackburn's after Max disappeared, Miles always had a smile on his face. He would talk the most, acting almost as if his brother wasn't gone. Colin had something yelled at him to shut up. It seemed that Colin handled his despair with rage, while Miles covered it up with smiles and red capes. 

"Ok! Let's go, Aaron, Mom is probably home by now." Mayla smiled at Ebony and Miles, turning on her heel and quickly skipping off towards the street where her bike was leaning up against her brother's.

"Ebony, do you want me to ride you home?" Aaron asked, rubbing the back of his head as they followed his younger sister. Ebony smiled but shook her head. If he rode her back, he might notice the absence of her father, and that was far too embarrassing.

 "Bye guys!" Miles waved, walking off in the opposite direction of the park. The Blackburn household was only a street away, so Miles didn't even require a bike. Mayla was already on her bike, and she chased Miles down while waiting for Aaron to leave.

"See ya later, Markson. Don't do any investigating without me, 'kay?" Aaron grinned at her, and Ebony rolled her eyes. She waved, at then rode off, bathing in the warm feeling of friendship.

~

When Ebony arrived at her house, she slammed on her bracks, almost hitting a car that was parked where she usually turned into her yard. That was when Ebony noticed a slight problem. That car happened to be a police cruiser. Her front door was open, and all of the lights were on in the house. Ebony just stood there for a second, the sky overhead getting increasingly darker with what seemed each passing second. 

This couldn't be legal, Ebony thought to herself. It had to be Officer Cotton, snooping around her house to find dirt on her father. Ebony rode down her driveway quietly, making sure not to make a sound. She then got off, moving slowly and carefully, and then picked up her bike and carried it around to the back of her house. She placed it on the porch. She thought she had gotten away safe and had started tiptoeing away from the bike when it fell over, banging against the drainpipe of the house. Ebony froze, cringing at the sound of metal against metal in the silent night air. The porch light flicked on, and Ebony threw herself against the brick wall of her house, hoping to god that she wasn't in the line of sight of the back door. 

"Damn racoons." Officer Cotton grumbled from inside, flicking the light back off and shuffling away from the backdoor back into the depths of her house. Ebony breathed a sigh of relief, glad that she was safe. For now.

Officer Cotton being in their house meant two things: 

1. He knew her father wasn't home, and he probably knew her father hadn't been home for a while.

2. Officer Cotton could possibly find the suspicious file on her father's computer. In the office that she had left wide open.

Ebony didn't know if her father was guilty or not, but she knew that that file would surely get him sent to jail. The Seldom Police didn't really care about justice or not; they had it out for Jim Markson and any evidence against him would land him straight in the slammer.

Ebony had to get Cotton out of her house and fast. She quietly crept away from the house, and into her neighbor's yard. The Tawny's, a family of three with a five-year-old named Matthew who often threw mud at her father when he left for work, own a great Dane named Turtle. Turtle was an angel, a pure soul loved by all who knew him. But his way of showing affection was through snarling. A slight defect in an otherwise perfect dog, perhaps, but Ebony knew she could use him to her advantage. The Tawny's usually left him out at night, and, just as Ebony thought, there was Turtle, sitting on their front porch with a leash tied to a flower pot to his right.

Turtle snarled when he saw Ebony, his tail pounding against the ground. Ebony had watched Turtle over the summer when the Tawny's had gone on a cruise to the Bahamas. She had often fed him human food, feeling bad that he had to eat such boring dog food every day. She patted his head, untied his leash, and nodded her head at the Tawny's door. Their dog would only be gone for a second, and if they noticed she could always tell them that he got away by himself and found him in her yard. 

Ebony hurried back over to her house, where a police officer was in the middle of ripping her house apart in search of clues. She quietly walked Turtle to the back door, stopping and letting him sniff what he wanted to in hopes that he wouldn't make a sound. 

It was now time for the hard part. It was not that Ebony started to realize the holes in her plan. What if Officer Cotton wasn't scared of Turtle? What would she do then? Call the police on the police?

Ebony shook her head, trying to clear her mind of all of her doubts. If she was going to act, she had to act now. In a simple fluid motion, she pulled the back door open wide, and Turtle when flying inside. She slammed the door behind him and then sprinted like a manic as fast as she could to the woods behind her house. Behind her, she could hear a very shocked Officer Cotton yelling and a delighted Turtle snarling and barking contently. 

Ebony threw herself behind a tree, her chest rising and falling with her heavy breathes. After a moment, the air became silent again, and Ebony couldn't help but fear that her plan had failed. Then she heard the sound of her front door slamming, and Officer Cotton loudly cursing as he stomped up to his police cruiser. Ebony didn't realize she had been holding her breath until Cotton drove away and she sighed with relief.

Ebony ran back up to her house, throwing the back door open again to see Turtle, waging his tail and, of course, snarling. He jumped up at her, attempting to lick her face as she giggled. Turtle was quite a hero, and she felt bad as she walked him back to his house and tied him back up again. Turtle whimpered as she walked away, left to sit in the dark by himself once again. Ebony blew a kiss at him, mentally promising that she'd visit the brave and heroic Turtle once again soon.

Finally, Ebony was home, and it was empty of snooping police officers. Cotton hadn't bothered to hide his tracks, throwing papers around just as he had the first time he had searched their house. All the lights were now off, except one room: her father's office. Ebony walked slowly toward its, afraid of what she might find. 

And her fears were met. Ebony barely noticed the mess that Officer Cotton had left on the floor, and she just walked straight over to the computer that was powered on that sat on her father's desk. The file was open, the file with Blackbeak, the package, and Portugal. 

The file that mentioned a boy and a date four days after Max Blackburn went missing. A single tear rolled down Ebony's cheek, hitting one of the papers strewn across the floor. It didn't matter to her that her father had left, it didn't matter to her that he didn't seem to love her. Now she didn't even have a chance to prove his innocence. And as soon as Jim Markson was charged with the kidnapping of Max Blackburn, Ebony's own innocence would be lost as well.

How would she look at Miles and Mayla? How would she talk to Aaron, the boy who always seemed to be there for her? Would they even give her a chance after Officer Cotton announces to the world how sure he is that her father was responsible for her very own best friend's disappearance?

Ebony fell to her knees, her eyes now flooding with tears. But Ebony Markson was not crying with sadness or despair. No, that girl was crying with rage, and if you would have seen her on that night, you would have sworn her tears were red. They were red with anger, and her tears were simply her battle cry. Ebony was going to find out what happened to Max Blackburn. She would prove her father's innocence, even though she wasn't even sure he was. She was going to destroy Officer Cotton, the man who plundered her home and had no respect for everything that was important to her. 

 Ebony Markson was out for blood, and as the dimwitted Officer Cotton drove to the bar across town, he had not the slightest idea that he had a new enemy rising from the ashes, ready to fight back against his once unchallenged power. 

The silent girl he cruelly teased so much was about to become the loudest force of all.