screen door. In the distance Nancy could hear the
musical twanging of tree frogs and the occasional cry of
a bird. She felt as though she were a million miles from
River Heights.
“Let me get the iced teas. I'll be right back,” Susan
said.
After she had gone, George turned to Nancy. “What
was that all about?”
“I guess you look like some girl or whatever,” Bess
replied, studying her nails.
“Yeah, but usually, when someone thinks you look
like someone else, they say, Hey, you look like
someone I know!' They don't scream their lungs out,”
George pointed out.
“True,” Nancy agreed. “Mrs. Fitzgerald acted as if
she had just seen a ghost.”
George nodded. “Susan, too.”
“Okay, no talk about ghosts, we're on vacation,” Bess
protested.
A minute later Susan returned with four glasses of
iced tea on a tray, which she put down on the coffee
table. Nancy sat down on the couch between Susan and
Bess, and George sat in a chair across from them.
“So how was your trip?” Susan asked. “Was the
plane ride okay? How was the drive from Miami
airport?”
Nancy took a sip of the iced tea. It had sprigs of
fresh mint in it. “Mmm, yummy. The plane ride was
great. The drive from the airport was long. The park is
totally amazing and beautiful.”
“Isn't it?” Susan said, beaming. “I'm so glad you
could make it down. It's been so long! I hardly rec-
ognized you guys.”
Nancy noticed Susan's glance drifting to George.
She leaned toward Susan. “Okay, so tell us,” she in-
sisted. “What's the story with George and this Jade
person? Why did you and Mrs. Fitzgerald scream like
that?”
Susan's smile disappeared. She sighed and leaned
back on the couch. There was a long silence, filled only
by the creaking of the ceiling fan and the night noises
drifting in through the screen door.
“Jade Romero is a volunteer at the park, like me,”
Susan began after a moment. “Or she was. People
think that—it's possible that—well, the bottom line is,
she may be dead.”
“What!” Bess gasped. She shivered. “This is totally
creepy.”
“No wonder you and Mrs. Fitzgerald screamed,”
George murmured. “You guys really did think you were
seeing a ghost.”
Nancy frowned. “Susan, you said that this Jade
person may be dead. You're not sure?”
Susan shook her head. “No, we're not sure. We're
pretty sure, though. It's a long story.”
“Tell us!” George said.
Susan sighed. “Jade disappeared about a month ago.
She went backcountry camping up along Whitewater
Bay. Whitewater Bay is just north of here. It's a pretty
good-size body of water that empties into the Gulf.”
“The golf? As in, the sport with little white balls and
sticks?” Bess asked her.
Susan smiled. “No, not that kind of golf. The Gulf of
Mexico. Whitewater Bay has lots of little islands. You
get there via the Wilderness Waterway, which is a big,
long, ninety-nine-mile canoe trail connecting Flamingo
to Everglades City up north. Whitewater Bay is
popular with campers.” Her smile faded. “Anyway,
Jade went backcountry camping in those parts and
never came back.”
“Backcountry camping,” Nancy repeated. “How is
that different from regular old camping?”
“It basically means not camping at an official
campsite,” Susan explained. “You take your tent and
other equipment and pitch camp wherever you want—
on the beach, deep in the wilderness, wherever.
Experienced campers like to do this because it's more
challenging, plus you get more privacy that way.”
“Did Jade go with anyone?” Nancy asked Susan.
“Nope, and that's part of the mystery,” Susan
replied. “It's really, really stupid to go backcountry
camping by yourself, especially around here. You know,
with all the wild animals and so forth. But she did it,
anyway. I woke up one morning and there was a note
on my desk.”
“What did the note say?” George asked her.
Susan scrunched up her face. “Let me see if I can
remember the exact wording,” she murmured. “It said
something like, Heading up to Whitewater Bay to get
some peace and quiet. See you in a few days.' “ She
nodded. “Yup, I think that was it.”
Nancy took another sip of her iced tea. She loved
solving mysteries, and this one was especially in-
triguing. Why would Jade, who must have been savvy
about the dangers of the Everglades, go back-country
camping by herself? Was it a moment of bad
judgment? Or was it something else?
Nancy turned to Susan. “You and Jade were
roommates?”
“Yes,” Susan said. “So when she didn't come back
after a couple of days, I started to get worried. When
she didn't come back after a couple more days, I went
into all-out panic mode. I told Mrs. Fitzgerald, who
told the park rangers and police. There was a massive
search for her.”
“Did the park rangers or police find any clues?”
George asked Susan.
Susan shook her head. “Nope, not a one. They didn't
even find her campsite.” She paused and swiped at her
eyes with the back of her hand. “Um, sorry,” she said,
sniffling. “It still upsets me to think about . . . you
know. Anyway, Jade's parents flew in from California.
That's where she's from. They helped with the search
and even hired private detectives, but they couldn't
find her, either.”
Nancy pulled a tissue out of her bag and handed it
to Susan. “Here. I know this is upsetting for you.”
Susan took the tissue and wiped her eyes. “Thanks,
Nancy. Anyway, Jade's parents finally had to give up
and fly back to California. The official search has been
canceled. Everyone's decided that she's probably dead
or that she's run away and doesn't want to be found.”
Nancy studied Susan's face. Obviously, Susan didn't
agree a hundred percent with the people who'd given
up on Jade. “What do you think?” Nancy asked her
friend. “What's your theory about what happened to
her? Do you think she's dead? How well did you know
her?”
Susan folded the tissue in half, then folded it again.
She seemed to be considering something. “I think she's
still alive,” she said after a moment. “Jade was my good
friend as well as my roommate. I knew her, and I don't
think she would have gone backcountry camping
alone.”
She lowered her voice and added, “I have this crazy
theory. Like, maybe she was kidnapped. I mean, maybe
the kidnapper made her write that note to me, I don't
know.”
&
nbsp; Nancy started. Kidnapping, that's pretty serious
stuff, she thought. “Why would anyone have wanted to
kidnap Jade?” she said out loud.
“I'm not sure,” Susan replied with a shrug. “The
thing is . . . she'd been acting kind of strange before
she disappeared.”
“Strange how?” George asked her.
“Strange like she had a big secret she was keeping
from me. From everyone,” Susan said. “It's hard to
explain. But I'm wondering if maybe Jade had
something on somebody.”
She leaned forward and added, almost apologeti-
cally, “I kind of had an ulterior motive when I asked
you guys to come down. I want to try to find Jade, or at
least find out what happened to her. Will you help
me?”
So that's why Susan was so eager to get us down
here, Nancy thought. Her detective's instinct had told
her something was up.
Before Nancy had a chance to respond, she was
distracted by a noise at the screen door. It was a new
noise, one that wasn't made by mosquitoes or tree frogs
or birds. She glanced up quickly.
A shadow fell across the doorway. Footsteps
crunched the broken seashells as the shadow disap-
peared.
Someone's been eavesdropping on us! Nancy
thought in alarm.
3. A Chase through the Dark
The shadow disappeared from the doorway. Nancy
knew that someone had been listening to the con-
versation about Jade. She wondered who it was.
She rose from the wicker couch. “Who's there?” she
called out.
“Nancy, what is it?” Susan asked.
Bess hastily pulled her feet onto the couch and
wrapped her arms around her knees. “It's not an al-
ligator, is it?” she demanded.
There were more footsteps crunching across broken
seashells. Without wasting another second, Nancy ran
to the screen door and flung it open. A cloud of
mosquitoes and tiny no-see-ums rose in the air and
buzzed noisily around her head and around the small
overhead lamp that lit the doorway.
Nancy brushed the bugs away with one hand while
glancing around. Someone—a man?—was running
down the seashell path, away from the dorm building.
It was too dark to see him clearly, or to tell if it even
was a man. The short hair and broad, muscular
shoulders seemed to indicate that it was, though.
George came up behind Nancy. “Who's out there?”
she whispered.
“Shhh,” Nancy told her, trying to focus on the
eavesdropper.
The man cut a sharp left off the path and disap-
peared into a grove of palm trees. “You guys stay here!”
Nancy whispered to George. “If I'm not back in fifteen
minutes, come looking for me.”
“But—” George protested.
Before George could stop her, Nancy took off after
the man.
Nancy turned left into the palm tree grove. Pumping
her arms, she sprinted as fast as she could, which was
quite fast. She jogged several times a week at home,
and she was a natural sprinter. At that moment she put
everything she had into chasing the eavesdropper.
It wasn't easy, though. The ground felt soft and
slightly swampy, and her sneakers kept squishing in the
mud, getting sucked under. Even with the rising moon,
it was hard to see in the ever-increasing darkness. The
palm trees were tall and densely packed, creating a
natural canopy that prevented most of the moonlight
from shining through.
The man was getting farther and farther ahead of
her. He obviously knew the area and terrain better
than she did.
A branch whacked her in the face. “Ow!” Nancy
cried out, but after ducking under the branch, she kept
on going. Her right cheek stung, but she ignored the
pain.
The woods seemed to grow eerier by the minute.
The man was leading Nancy away from the village
complex, where there were buildings and lights and
people, and deeper into the darkness, into the
wilderness of the Everglades.
She neared a small body of water. Was it a swamp?
An inlet? Along its shore were big, gnarled trees with
big, gnarled roots. Mangroves, Nancy thought,
remembering pictures of them from the guidebooks.
They were especially creepy looking in the dark. With
their roots curving and crawling out of the ground, they
seemed almost able to move. She had to take care not
to trip over them.
Abruptly Nancy heard a terrible, piercing scream.
She stopped in her tracks, feeling the blood drain from
her face.
“Hello?” she whispered. “Anyone there?”
There was no reply. After a minute she decided that
the scream had come from an animal, not a human.
She wondered what kind of animal could make a sound
like that. A panther? she asked herself, and shuddered.
She knew that there were panthers in the Everglades.
Come on, Drew, snap out of it, she told herself.
She took a couple of deep breaths to restore her
focus and started running again. Her sneakers were
totally covered with muck, and each step was slippery,
precarious. Where did the man go? she wondered. She
didn't see him up ahead.
Nancy slowed and glanced around, squinting into
the darkness. She was aware of the cool, humid
evening air, the symphony of insect and frog noises,
and the smell of the brackish water from Florida Bay,
close by.
There was a rustling in some nearby bushes. Nancy
bit back a startled cry. Whatever had made the sound
was small, too small to be the man. Nancy kept
searching.
A twig snapped. Nancy spun around, trying to follow
the direction of the sound. All she could hear were
insects and frogs.
After a moment she let out a sigh of frustration. The
man was gone, and it was useless for her to continue
searching without a flashlight—and some backup.
She turned around and headed back toward the
dorm, hoping she could find it in the dark. She tried to
feel for broken branches under her feet and use her
intuitive sense of direction to lead her back toward
civilization. She didn't like being in the palm tree grove
alone.
After a bit, Nancy could make out—through the
overhead palm fronds—a couple of dimly lit windows
in the distance. She sped up. Soon she could make out
more windows, and the outlines of Susan's dorm and
the surrounding cabins.
When she got close to the place where the man had
veered off into the palm grove, Nancy bent down and
searched for footprints. She could make out several
different kinds: a sneaker with a striped tread, which
was probably hers, and another sneaker with a more
deeply textured tread. That footprint was larger than
hers and wider, which seemed to indicate that it
>
belonged to a man.
Just then something else caught her eye. Lying on
the ground near the seashell path was a small silver
object. It glinted dully in a thin sliver of moonlight.
Nancy picked up the object and wiped the mud off
it with the hem of her tank top. It was an oddly shaped
key chain with a single key on it.
Nancy frowned. Had the eavesdropper dropped it?
Was this a key to the dorm? She walked over to the
doorway, swung open the screen door, and jiggled the
key in the lock of the main door. It didn't work.
Nancy heard footsteps on the other side of the door.
“Who's there?” someone asked.
Nancy recognized Bess's voice. She smiled and
pushed on the door.
Bess was just about to scream, until she saw Nancy.
Bess's hands flew to her hips. “Where have you been?”
she demanded. “We were worried sick. Where did you
go?”
Susan came up behind Bess. “Come in before the
mosquitoes get you, Nancy,” she said, sounding
concerned.
“I think they already did,” Nancy said, rubbing the
itchy pink welts on her arms.
She walked inside, and Susan closed both doors after
her. Nancy glanced around the brightly lit room with
its cozy wicker furniture and pretty turquoise walls.
She was glad to be back.
“Are you okay?” George asked her. “Your feet and
legs are covered with mud.”
“I'm fine,” Nancy said. She glanced down at her feet
and legs. George was right—she was a mess.
“We almost went after you with flashlights,” Susan
told Nancy.
“Well, some of us almost went after you with
flashlights,” George corrected Susan.
Nancy sat down on the wicker couch. Susan walked
over to a large potted plant with thick swordlike leaves
and snapped off a leaf. Then she went over to where
Nancy was sitting and began rubbing the leaf across
her arms.
The leaf oozed a clear, cool liquid that coated her
skin. “What are you doing?” Nancy asked Susan. She
touched her arms. They were sticky. “What is that
stuff, anyway?”
“Aloe, for your mosquito bites,” Susan explained.
“You'll like it, it's very soothing.”
“Okay, spill,” Bess demanded. “Where did you go?
Who was that guy? Did you catch him?”
Nancy took a deep breath and told Bess, George,
and Susan the entire story. When she had finished, she
turned to Susan and said, “Do you have any idea who