“Sounds great to me.”
“Good. I’ll drive,” Nancy said teasingly, “and let you see what my Mustang can do.”
As they walked through the parking lot, Nancy spotted Jake Webb among the cars. Probably siphoning gas, she thought. Every time she saw him, she remembered how he’d threatened her on the stairs the day before. Was that his first threat? Or had he tried to scare her off before with the videotape?
Then Daryl put his hand casually on Nancy’s shoulder and she forgot about Jake Webb and simply enjoyed the touch of Daryl Gray.
“How is it going, really?” Daryl asked again as they got into the Mustang. “Have you found any clues? Are any of the pieces fitting together yet?”
Nancy started the car with a roar. “I never thought I’d say this,” she admitted with a wry smile, “but right now, the last thing on earth I want to do is solve a mystery.”
Glad to be leaving, Nancy headed out of the parking lot and down Bedford Road. Daryl didn’t ask any more questions about the case, and she was grateful. There’d be plenty of time to think about it later; just then, all she wanted to do was drive.
As they headed away from the high school, Bedford Road became narrow and winding. Through the trees Nancy caught glimpses of water.
“That’s Bedford Lake,” Daryl pointed out. “It has some nice secluded benches. Why don’t you drive down there?”
Down is right, Nancy thought as the grade suddenly became steeper. She’d been doing about thirty-five and all of a sudden the needle climbed to fifty. A blind curve was coming up. Nancy put her foot on the brake. The pedal sank to the floor, and her stomach sank with it.
“Hey,” Daryl said, “I don’t want to sound like a driver’s ed teacher, but don’t you think you should slow down a little?”
Nancy couldn’t answer him. The brakes were gone, and her car was shooting down the winding road, completely out of control!
Chapter
Six
THE CAR PICKED up speed, careening wildly down the hill. Nancy downshifted to second, then to first. The Mustang slowed, but not enough.
“Sharp curve coming up.” Daryl spoke quietly, but Nancy heard the quiver in his voice. She couldn’t blame him—she was too terrified to speak.
Hands glued to the wheel, Nancy guided the car into the curve, praying that she wouldn’t meet another car coming up. The road remained clear, but it also grew steeper. And as she came out of the bend, she could see the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. It was still fifty yards away, but in her imagination she was already on top of it, could see the Mustang tearing into the intersection and colliding with whoever was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Amazed that her hand was steady, Nancy reached over and slowly pulled up the handbrake. It didn’t work. The car was going so fast that the brakes had burned out.
The stop sign was looming up like a monster’s claw in a 3-D movie. There was no time to think. Instinctively Nancy aimed her car at the soft shoulder on the opposite side of the road. With an impact that snapped their heads back, the Mustang hit the bank, went up on two wheels, and wobbled for what seemed like an eternity. But finally, with a bone-jarring thump, it landed upright.
Nancy shut her eyes and leaned her head on the steering wheel. She was breathing like a marathon runner. When she opened her eyes again, she saw Daryl pry his hand loose from the dashboard. “Well,” he said with a gasp, “so that’s what your Mustang can do.”
Nancy reached for his hand and held on tight. She felt like crying, but when she opened her mouth, a giggle came out. It was a perfectly normal hysterical reaction, she told herself. Then she giggled again.
There was a smile in Daryl’s voice as he said, “How about letting me in on the joke?”
“It’s just”—Nancy tried to stop laughing and couldn’t—“I remembered that my car is due for an inspection in two weeks. Now the gears are probably stripped, the front bumper has to be completely smashed, and the brakes are burned out—” This last thought brought Nancy out of her dreamworld.
Her car! What had gone wrong? True, it needed an inspection, but that was just an official thing. Besides, she’d had new brakes installed six weeks ago. Something awfully strange was going on, and whatever it was, Nancy had a definite feeling that it wasn’t good. She pushed open the door and jumped out.
“Hey! Where’re you going?” Daryl called, rolling down his window. He stuck his head out and saw Nancy kneeling by the left front wheel, peering underneath the fender. “What is it?” he asked.
Nancy stood up, so angry she could hardly see straight. “The brake cable,” she said grimly. “It’s been cut.”
“What?! Are you sure? I don’t get it. Who’d . . . ?”
“Wait!” Nancy held her hand up for quiet. Then she sniffed the air. Frowning, she ran to the back of the car and sniffed again.
“What’s wrong now?!”
Nancy could hardly believe what she was going to say. “That rock we went over? I think it cracked the gas tank. Daryl, the car could blow! It could blow any second!” She started down the hill. “Get out of the car. Hurry up!”
There were no footsteps behind her. “Nancy!” she heard Daryl call. “Nancy, I can’t open the door! It’s jammed!”
Nancy didn’t hesitate. She raced back to the car and fought with the door from the outside, but she couldn’t get a good grip on the handle because the door was on an angle, leaning toward her.
She ran to the driver’s side. The smell of gas fumes was stronger than ever.
“Get your seat belt off,” she said to Daryl, finally managing to open her door. She helped him climb out. “Now let’s go!” She grabbed his hand. “The car’s already beginning to burn!” she said as they ran desperately down the hill.
When the car blew, they were only a few yards away from it. The force of the explosion flung them into the underbrush by the side of the road.
They clung to each other. For a moment, hardly able to speak, they stared at the burning sports car.
“Nancy, are you all right?” Daryl whispered at last. His eyes were bright with concern.
Nancy nodded. Feeling the heat of Daryl’s breath against her cheek, she hardly noticed her bruised knee and scratched arms. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for them to keep their arms around each other. Nancy closed her eyes and breathed deeply. When Daryl had first touched her two days before, in the hallway, she’d wondered what his arms would feel like. Now she knew—they felt fabulous.
But with that fabulous feeling came another feeling—guilt. It wasn’t Ned whose arms were holding her; it wasn’t Ned whose lips she was feeling, nor Ned whose voice was murmuring her name. And hadn’t she said just three days before that nobody could compete with Ned Nickerson? Well, maybe no one could in the long run. But at the moment—in the short run—Daryl Gray was doing a pretty good job of it.
It was a dangerous moment, emotionally, and Nancy knew she wasn’t ready to deal with it. Before Daryl’s lips reached hers again, she eased herself gently from his arms.
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Hey, yourself.” Daryl’s blue eyes were smiling. Looking at Nancy, he gave a long sigh. “So,” he said in a throaty voice, “how about answering the question I never got a chance to ask. Who would do something crazy like this?”
“I have a pretty good idea.” Anger made Nancy’s voice tight. She pulled away and felt herself stiffen. “Does the name Jake Webb ring any bells?”
“Jake? Sure,” Daryl said slowly, sitting up. “I can see him doing something like this. But there’s no way you can prove it, is there?”
Nancy was silent for a moment. She was remembering Jake’s threat on the stairs, remembering him in the parking lot half an hour ago, hearing that voice on the videotape: “Stick with shopping, Nancy Drew. It’s a lot safer than snooping at Bedford High.”
Well, she hadn’t done much “snooping” yet, but she hadn’t backed off either. Had Jake, for s
ome reason, decided to stop her before she got any further?
“You’re right,” she said as she and Daryl got up and brushed the leaves and dirt off their clothes. “I can’t prove it. But I think Jake’s the one.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Talk to him about it,” Nancy said. “First thing tomorrow morning.”
“Hey, Nancy, I wouldn’t do that,” Daryl said quickly. “Jake Webb’s not the kind of guy you go around accusing of something, believe me.”
“I believe you,” Nancy told him. “I also think he has some explaining to do.”
Daryl took her hand, sounding really worried. “You shouldn’t mess with that guy, Nancy!”
“I’m not going to mess with him, I’m just going to talk to him.” In a way, Nancy was almost glad that Jake had given her something to think about. It took her mind off how she felt about Daryl, which was a mystery she didn’t want to solve just then. “Please don’t worry. I’ll be careful,” she said, flagging down a car that was passing slowly. “But Jake Webb is up to something, and I’m going to find out what it is.”
• • •
“I think Daryl’s right,” George said as she drove toward Bedford High the next morning. Until Nancy got another car, George and Bess had to play chauffeur. “I think you should steer clear of this Jake Webb and go right to the police. Show them your car. Then let them deal with Jake.”
“That’s what I think, too.” Bess leaned over the back seat and grinned at Nancy. “Now, tell us more about Daryl Gray.”
“You’ll probably meet him one of these days,” Nancy said. She stared out at the beautiful Bedford houses, trying to decide the best way to approach Jake. Daryl was the least of her worries at the moment, even though she couldn’t help remembering the kiss he’d given her after driving her home the previous night.
Before he’d kissed her, he’d tried once again to talk her out of confronting Jake. Nancy was touched that he was so worried about her, but she was sure she could handle Jake Webb. After all, she wasn’t going to meet him in some dark alley; she was going to walk right up to him in the halls of Bedford High. She couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he saw that his gruesome plan hadn’t worked—that she was alive and ready to take him on, the creep!
“What’s happening?” George interrupted Nancy’s thoughts, pointing to the wide front steps of the high school.
Nancy looked and saw at least half the student body milling around outside. The kids were talking in little clusters, waving their arms, pointing dramatically. Then she saw the police cars, one with its red lights still flashing.
“Well, at least you’ll have police protection when you talk to Jake,” Bess joked. “I wonder what they’re here for?”
“Good question,” Nancy said. Could Daryl have called them? She didn’t think so. He’d tried to talk her out of dealing with Jake at least ten times, but he’d never once suggested that she go to the police, which was a little strange, when she thought about it.
She didn’t think about it for long, though. As soon as she got out of the car, she joined the nearest group of kids.
“What happened?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
One of the girls turned to her, fear and excitement in her eyes. “It’s Jake Webb,” she said breathlessly. “He’s been killed!”
Chapter
Seven
NANCY WONDERED FOR a moment if she’d heard right. “Did you say killed—dead?”
“As a doornail!”
“But . . . how?”
“Nobody knows for sure,” the girl went on, “but somebody found him about twenty minutes ago, and they say his neck’s broken.” She shivered. “It’s awful, isn’t it? I heard the guy who found him is still throwing up. Personally, I’m sure I would have passed out. I mean, can you imagine?”
Nancy could hardly imagine any of it. All night she’d been gearing up, getting ready to face Jake Webb, to accuse him, among other things, of trying to kill her. And in spite of what she’d told Daryl and Bess and George, she had been scared. Well, she wouldn’t have to be scared anymore, not of Jake Webb.
Still finding the whole thing unbelievable, Nancy reported the news to Bess and George. Then she climbed the front steps and went into school. As she moved through the main hall, she heard bits and pieces of conversation that told her a little more about Jake Webb’s demise:
“Right next to the video lab, at the bottom of the stairs—hard, cement stairs. Geez, no wonder the fall broke his neck.”
“They say he’s been dead for two hours—I wonder what he was doing here at six in the morning?”
“Probably planting a bomb.”
“Too bad he fell first.”
“Fell? The guy didn’t fall, no way! Didn’t you hear about his face?”
Jake’s face. That’s what Nancy heard most about on her walk through the hall. His face was bruised and cut. The bruises could have come from a fall down a flight of cement stairs. But not the cuts around his eyes, not his split lip.
Jake had been in a fight before he hit the hard floor in front of the lab. And if that was true, Nancy thought, then he didn’t fall. He was pushed. And if he was pushed, then her investigation had just taken a giant leap—from vandalism to murder.
No one she heard even pretended to feel sorry that Jake was dead, and as she thought about Hunk, Hal, Connie, and who knew how many others, she realized that a lot of people around Bedford High would have wanted Jake to vanish. But who would have wanted it badly enough to give him that push?
When Nancy reached the scene of Jake’s “accident,” the police and the man from the coroner’s office were still gathered there. The body, thank goodness, was gone, but the chalk outline remained.
She knew that if she talked to the police then and there, they’d listen to her. They’d probably even ask her to join their investigation.
But if she did that, she’d blow her cover. And if she did that, she might as well kiss the secrets of Bedford High good-bye.
Since the police were busy at the stairwell, Nancy decided that then might be a good time to check Jake Webb’s locker. She wanted to look at the contents of that shoebox before anybody else got to it. What besides Connie’s bracelet had Jake stashed away?
She was so busy wondering if Jake’s locker would have any clues hidden in it, that she didn’t see Daryl until she bumped into him.
“Daryl, hi!” Even with everything else on her mind, Nancy felt a warm rush of feeling at the sight of him. “I guess I don’t need to ask if you’ve heard the news?”
“Hardly.” Daryl took her hand, but he did it in an absentminded way. “I just talked to Mr. Parton,” he said, his voice low enough that only Nancy could hear him. “He told me to tell you it’s murder, definitely.”
Nancy’s eyes widened, but she wasn’t really surprised. “Did Mr. Parton say anything about me, about what I should do?”
“Just that he wants you to stay on the case,” Daryl whispered, “and to handle it your way.”
“Great! I was hoping he’d say that.” Nancy breathed a sigh of relief and squeezed Daryl’s hand. “Now I can really follow some leads.” She started to walk away but Daryl held her back.
“Wait a second,” he said. “If Jake was the vandal, then your case is solved. You’re into murder now, Nancy. I think you should back off.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Nancy couldn’t help feeling insulted. “Why should I back off? Do you think it’s too complicated for me or something?”
“Hey, no, I didn’t mean that.” Daryl’s violet eyes were full of worry. “It’s just that it’s probably going to get dangerous, Nancy. You don’t have any idea what you’re up against.”
“No, I don’t, but I’m going to find out.” Nancy smiled at him. “Thanks for worrying about me, but please try not to,” she said. “Really. I can take care of myself.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carla Dalton heading toward them, and she couldn’t resist planting a
kiss on Daryl’s cheek. She wanted to anyway, but having Carla as a witness made it even more fun. “Gotta go now,” she told Daryl with a twinkle in her eye. “I’ll talk to you later, let you know what I’ve found out.”
• • •
The halls were still jammed with kids discussing the morning’s main event, but luckily the final bell rang as Nancy reached Jake’s locker. She was surprised that everyone was still marching to the sound of bells, on that day of all days, but it was a good thing old habits died hard. The hall cleared in a matter of minutes. Nancy pulled on a pair of rubber gloves—no sense leaving fingerprints for the police—and quickly broke into locker 515.
The shoebox was still there, but something else caught her eye first. With a grim smile, she pulled a pair of wire cutters off the shelf. Turning them over in her hands, Nancy thought how easily they must have snapped her brake cable.
Underneath the wire cutters was a small black box. Nancy recognized it immediately as a battery pack for a video camera. She would have bet her fifty-dollar designer jeans that Jake stole it from the video lab and used it to tape her and Bess and George on their shopping spree.
Finally Nancy took out the shoebox and lifted the lid, her heart beating with anticipation. Connie’s bracelet was still there, along with a recent article from the school newspaper that carried a picture of Walt Hogan being brutally tackled during a game. The headline read, “The Hunk Gets Hit—He’s Down But Not Out.” The story went on to explain that if Walt missed the upcoming All-State Championship game because of injury, his badly needed football scholarship—and his ticket to the pros—might be in jeopardy. But Walt pooh-poohed the injury, claiming that nothing would stop him from playing in the All-State game.
At the bottom of the box, folded in half, was a wad of official-looking papers. As Nancy opened them she recognized them at once, without even reading the heading. They were SAT exams. There was just one difference between them and the ones she’d once toiled over—the set of exams in Jake’s locker already had the answers marked in.