from Susan and Griffin. Specifically, she needed to
know whether Jade had ever been involved in citizens'
groups, environmental and otherwise. She also needed
to know how strongly Jade had felt about the
degradation of the Everglades.
Half an hour later after enjoying a dessert of mango
parfaits, the girls got up to go. As Nancy was leaving
the tip, she noticed a woman sitting two tables away.
She was hunched over a newspaper, wearing a big
white hat.
The woman glanced over her shoulder—ever so
slightly—in the direction of Nancy's table. Nancy
noticed just then that the woman's newspaper was
upside down.
Nancy frowned. Had the woman been listening to
their conversation?
“Come on, Nancy, let's go,” Bess said from the
doorway.
The woman glanced away quickly. Nancy shrugged
and followed Bess and George. “Okay, coming,” she
called out.
As they left Nancy turned and stared at the woman
one last time. Now the woman was talking quietly into
a purple cell phone.
There was something familiar about her. Or am I
just being paranoid? Nancy wondered.
In any case she made a mental note: big white hat,
purple cell phone. She would remember the woman if
she ran into her again dressed like that.
“Do you suppose Jade might have been a member of
CAMC?” Bess spoke up from the backseat.
The girls were driving back to Flamingo. The
midafternoon sun beat down and shimmered on the
asphalt pavement. Thank goodness for air conditioning,
Nancy thought fleetingly as she made a left turn at a
light ten miles outside of the park.
“That would explain the piece of paper you found
with the word Pantera on it, Nan,” George agreed.
Nancy nodded. “Maybe. Or maybe Jade was in-
terested in the Panterra Corporation's business all on
her own, without being a part of CAMC or any other
group.” She added, “We can ask Susan when we get
back to Flamingo. We're meeting her later this
afternoon for a sunset cruise thing.”
“A sunset cruise sounds like fun!” Bess exclaimed.
“I want to talk to Griffin, too,” Nancy added. “He
might know some stuff about Jade that Susan doesn't
know.”
“Don't be too hard on the poor guy, okay?” Bess
reminded Nancy. “He's still in mourning.”
“I'll try to be nice,” Nancy promised.
Nancy pressed her foot on the accelerator and sped
up slightly. The road was relatively deserted, with an
orange grove on one side and a fallow field on the
other. Tall, brownish green palm trees lined both sides
of the road. Just ahead of them, a flock of herons
swooped through the air. One of them had a small fish
dangling from its mouth.
Nancy glanced in the rearview mirror. There was a
gray car behind them, in the distance. No other cars
were around.
“It is so hot,” Bess remarked, fanning herself with
the road map. “When we get back to our cabin, I'm
going to sit in the bathtub in my bathing suit and
pretend it's a swimming pool.”
“I'll crank up the AC,” Nancy offered. She reached
down and adjusted the controls. She peeked in the
rearview mirror again. The gray car was catching up to
them.
That driver's going awfully fast, she thought.
The mysterious gray car continued closing the
distance. Out of instinct, Nancy glanced at the license
plate number. The plate was caked with mud and
partially obscured.
She could just barely make out the first three letters.
The first one looked like L. No, J. The second one was
a D, and the third one was an O.
JDO. But the rest of the plate was unreadable.
All of a sudden, the gray car veered into the left lane
and put on an extra burst of speed. It caught up to
Nancy's car, as if to pass her.
Instead of moving ahead, the gray car started
inching closer to Nancy's. Nancy tried to inch to the
right, to get out of the way. But the road had no
shoulder. In seconds she would smash against a palm
tree or roll over the grassy embankment.
The gray car inched even closer to Nancy's car.
“Nancy, look out!” Bess shouted.
7. Girl Overboard
The gray car bumped up against the side of the girls'
rental. Nancy heard the awful sound of metal scraping
against metal.
“What is that crazy person doing?” George yelled.
“I think that crazy person is trying to run us off the
road,” Nancy said.
She gripped the wheel tightly, trying to stay in
control as she felt their car weave and wobble to the
right. She glanced quickly at the edge of the road.
There was a steep embankment leading down to a
dense grove of orange trees.
If we get run off the road, Nancy thought worriedly,
we could go tumbling down the embankment. Our car
could flip over. . . .
Nancy glanced to the left, trying to make out the
drivers face. The windows of the gray car were tinted,
making it difficult to see in. Plus, the person was
wearing dark glasses, a wide-brimmed hat, and a coat
with the collar turned up.
A coat in this heat? Nancy wondered. Obviously the
person was trying to disguise him or herself.
A disguise meant that the person had intended to
follow Nancy and her friends, and to run them off the
road. The whole thing had been premeditated.
The gray car bumped Nancy's again, but harder this
time. Bess let out a scream. Nancy was able to hold the
car steady, but barely. Thinking quickly she abruptly
slammed on the brakes.
The gray car didn't stop. Instead, it kicked up a
cloud of dust and sped away, out of sight.
The girls' car did a one-eighty in the middle of the
road before coming to a stop. Bess was still screaming,
while George was white-knuckling the dashboard, not
saying a word.
“Bess, it's okay, the other car's gone!” Nancy yelled.
Bess clamped a hand over her mouth and stopped
screaming. “Oh.”
Nancy shifted the car into Park, opened the door,
and got out. The air shimmered with heat. Nearby, a
couple of roseate spoonbills were sitting on the ground,
watching her.
Nancy pushed her hair back and knelt down to
examine the driver's side door. There was a slight dent
and some scratches. Considering everything, though,
the damage wasn't too bad. Wiping a bead of sweat
from her forehead, she got back into the car.
“Well?” Bess asked. “How bad is it?”
“Not too much damage,” Nancy said.
Nancy started the car up again. She proceeded down
the road as fast as the speed limit would allow.
George turned to her. “Um, Nancy? What are you
doing?”
?
??I'm going to try to catch up to that gray car,” Nancy
replied. “I want to get the rest of the license plate
number.”
“What if that crazy person wants to play bumper cars
again?” Bess asked anxiously.
“I won't let that happen, believe me,” Nancy
promised.
The gray car had gotten too much of a head start,
though, and by the time Nancy reached the next in-
tersection, the gray car was nowhere in sight.
“I want to report a hit-and-run.”
Back at their cabin at Flamingo, Nancy was on the
phone with the local police. George was lying on the
floor, dressed in sweats, doing some ab crunches. Bess
was in the bathroom, taking a shower. Nancy could
hear her singing.
After a moment Nancy was transferred to a police
officer named Detective Garcia. Nancy told her what
had happened to her, Bess, and George on their way
home from Miami. Detective Garcia took down the
information, then began asking Nancy some questions.
“You didn't get the whole license plate number?”
Detective Garcia asked.
“I'm afraid not. Just JDO.' The rest of it was cov-
ered with mud.”
“Were those the first three letters, or the last three
letters?”
“First.”
“Uh-huh,” Detective Garcia said. “You say it was
some sort of a gray four-door sedan? Did you catch the
make?”
“I'm afraid not.”
“Dark gray or light gray or silvery gray?”
Nancy thought for a moment. “More like dark gray.
Like a charcoal gray.”
“Uh-huh. What about a description of the driver?
Male or female? White, African-American, Asian-
American, Hispanic, or other?”
“I'm sorry, but I couldn't tell,” Nancy said apolo-
getically. “The person was wearing a coat with the
collar turned up, plus a wide-brimmed hat and sun-
glasses. I couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman.”
“A coat in this heat?” Detective Garcia sounded
surprised.
“That's what I thought, too,” Nancy said.
Detective Garcia asked Nancy a few more questions,
then she took Nancy's name and phone number at the
cabin. She promised to try to run a license check based
on Nancy's information and call her with the results.
Nancy thanked her and hung up. “Any progress?”
George asked her. “Nine, ten, eleven,” she said as she
continued to do her ab crunches. “I'm almost finished
with this set,” she explained.
“She said she'd do what she could, based on the
partial license plate number and the description of the
car,” Nancy said. She picked up the phone again.
“Now who're you calling?” George asked.
“I'm going to try to find the leader of CAMC—
Citizens Against Manatee Commons. This Jeff Kelly
guy.”
Nancy cradled the phone against her ear, then
picked up the phone book and put it on her lap. She
looked up Jeff Kelly's name. There were a dozen Jeff
Kellys in the phone book.
“Oh, great,” Nancy moaned, then began dialing.
A man answered on the first try. “Hello?”
“Hi, Jeff Kelly? Is this the Jeff Kelly who's the head
of CAMC?”
“The head of what? You've got the wrong number.”
“Oh, sorry.”
Nancy hung up and tried again. She went through
eight similar conversations before she finally got lucky.
When she dialed the number of the ninth Jeff Kelly,
a man's voice answered. But instead of the usual
“Hello?” he said, “Sandy?”
Nancy started. “Uh, no, this is Nancy”
“Sorry, I was expecting another call,” the man said.
“What can I do for you?”
“Is this Jeff Kelly of CAMC?”
“Speaking.”
Nancy hesitated for a second. Should she come right
out and ask him if he knew Jade Romero? Or should
she get more information about CAMC and the Drakes
first?
She decided on the latter course. “I'm interested in
learning more about your group,” she said after a
moment. “I'm also interested in learning about the
Panterra Corporation's projects in southern Florida.”
There was a silence on the other end. “What's your
interest, Nancy?” Jeff Kelly said after a moment.
“I've been reading some articles. It sounds like their
projects have caused a lot of harm to the Everglades,”
Nancy explained.
“That's the understatement of the year.” Jeff
chuckled dryly. “Listen, there's a Save the Manatees
lunch benefit at the Coconut Beach Club tomorrow,
one o'clock. CAMC isn't sponsoring it, another
environmental group is. But I'll be there, and so will
some other CAMC members. The Drakes will be
there, too.”
“The Drakes?” Nancy said, surprised.
“They come to all the pro-environment events,” Jeff
said. “It's good public relations,” he added sarcastically.
Jeff gave Nancy directions to the Coconut Beach
Club. When he'd finished, he said, “See you tomorrow,
then. It should be a fun time—it's a good cause, and
you'll get the full Drake effect.”
“Thanks for your help, Jeff.”
“No problem.”
Nancy said goodbye, then hung up. George had
moved on to pushups. “What was that about?” George
asked her, huffing and puffing.
“We're going to a party tomorrow. It's a save the
manatees' benefit. And I'm going to need you to do a
special job,” Nancy told her.
George stopped in the middle of a pushup. “What
sort of special job'?”
Nancy winked at George. “You'll see.”
Bess emerged from the bathroom dressed in a fluffy
pink robe. She was towel-drying her hair with a pink
towel. “Why does George get a special job? Why don't
I?” she complained.
“Because you don't look like Jade Romero,” Nancy
replied.
The sun was just going down as Nancy, Susan,
George, and Bess climbed aboard the large white
sailboat. Susan had arranged for the girls to go on a
special sunset cruise aboard the Seabreeze.
Nancy was wearing a sundress that matched the
cornflower blue of her eyes. Bess's dress was white,
and George and Susan were both wearing linen slacks
and shirts. The air was cool, especially on the boat.
Nancy was glad that she'd brought her jeans jacket
along.
The Seabreeze was run by a couple of friends of
Susan's, Jody and Michael, who took tourists for cruises
around Florida Bay. Now, as the four girls strapped on
their life preservers and sat down in their seats, Jody
came up to them with glasses of a fruity-looking punch
decorated with sprigs of fresh mint.
“Cocktails?” Jody offered. “It's a mixture of seltzer,
papaya juice, orange juice, and pineapple juice. I made
it myself
from an old family recipe.”
“Mmm, thanks,” Bess said, taking a glass.
“Thank you,” Nancy said, taking a glass, too. “We're
really excited about this cruise, Jody. How long will we
be out?”
“About an hour. Just sit back and enjoy,” Jody said
with a smile.
As Jody and Michael got the boat going, the four
friends sipped their punches and stared out at the
sunset. The sky was streaked with beautiful ribbons of
pink, gold, and red. Hundreds of sea birds—pelicans,
ospreys, herons, seagulls, and egrets—swooped
through the air, then dove into the water for fish. In
the distance Nancy could see tiny islands dotting the
waters.
Nancy took a deep breath. The air was fresh and
salty smelling.
“I can't believe what you guys went through this
afternoon,” Susan said, tossing her long red hair over
her shoulders. Just before boarding the Seabreeze,
Nancy had filled Susan in on their trip to and from the
Panterra Corporation. “Do the police have any
information about who tried to run you off the road?”
Susan asked.
“Officer Garcia called me about an hour ago,” Nancy
replied. “So far, she hasn't come up with anything.”
“That's too bad.” Susan bit her lip. “Listen, girls. I
asked you to come down here to visit, and I was hoping
you'd help me find out what happened to Jade. But 1
didn't expect you to be in danger. I don't like it that
someone tried to send you flying into a ditch or
whatever. I feel responsible.”
“No problem, Susan,” Bess piped up. “What's a little
detective work without danger? George, Nancy, and I
are used to it. We thrive on danger, don't we?”
George and Nancy stared at Bess, then at each
other, and as if on cue burst out laughing.
“Um, right,” George said after a moment. “We
thrive on danger.”
“We'll be careful,” Nancy reassured Susan. “And if
things get too hairy—well, we'll rethink the whole
situation.”
Susan nodded. “Good.”
Then Nancy remembered what she had meant to
ask her friend. “Listen, Susan. Was Jade involved in
any environmental groups that you know of? Was she
really into preserving the Everglades?”
Susan looked thoughtful. “She wasn't in any official
environmental groups that I know of, although she may
have gone to a meeting or two here and there,” she said