“Let me out of here!” he moaned, trying to force his way to the front of the line. “We’re all going to die!”
Abruptly the bell stopped ringing, but Bill didn’t stop panicking. He was struggling so fiercely to get down that he knocked one woman over. “I’ve got to get out of this place!” he moaned again.
“Stop that, Bill!” Nancy ordered as he came abreast of her. She grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to look at her. The others stared at this small drama, shaking their heads as they continued to file down the steps.
Bill was struggling against her hands. “It’s no good,” he whimpered. “We’ll die like rats in here! We’ll be buried alive—”
Nancy gritted her teeth. She gripped his shoulder even more tightly, so he couldn’t get away. “It’s probably just a threat, not a real bomb,” she said. “You’re just making it harder on everyone.”
“Sorry,” he muttered after a minute.
“It’s okay,” Nancy said in a friendlier voice. “Can you make it down okay now?”
“I—I think so. Thanks, Nancy.” He seemed embarrassed. Head down, he slipped back into line without saying anything more.
There were four flights to walk down from the newsroom, and then they were outside. Walking into the fresh, misty air felt like stepping out of prison. Nancy turned her face gratefully toward the sky to meet the light rain, and smiled. They’d made it!
“Nancy, there you are!” came Bess’s voice at her elbow. George was right behind her cousin. “We were worried sick about you! When we got here, the security guards wouldn’t let us in, and they wouldn’t tell us why, either. We kept badgering them and badgering them until one of them finally told us what was going on. Then we were sorry we’d asked. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I don’t think I’ve blown up yet,” Nancy assured her, smiling. “But listen, Bess. This bomb scare may actually be a blessing in disguise. With everyone on the staff outside here, it’ll be easier to see if you recognize anyone. Let’s sort of stroll around.”
Casually the three girls began walking through the different clusters of Record staffers.
Now that people felt safer, the atmosphere had turned festive despite the light rain. People stood around in little groups, laughing and talking as though they were at a party. “This is like being let out of school early!” Nancy heard a woman say as she walked by. “You’re right,” another woman answered. “Now I wouldn’t mind seeing the place blow up.”
The arrival of a bomb squad, two wailing police cars, and a fire engine only seemed to heighten the excitement. “Stand back, please. Stand back, please,” the police kept saying patiently as they tried to push their way through the crowds that were trying eagerly to see what was going on.
When several dark-suited figures had disappeared into the building—with two German shepherds panting and straining at their leashes —an expectant silence fell over the crowd. In a few minutes a man with a megaphone came out to the front door.
“The building will be closed for the rest of the day,” he announced. “Mr. Whittaker has asked me to tell you that all nonessential personnel are free to go home. The printing of the paper will take place at our annex across the street.”
There was a murmur from the crowd. “Hmmm. I wonder if I’m essential,” joked Lucy Price, who was standing near Nancy. “I don’t think I’ll wait around to find out.”
Already the crowd was thinning out. Nancy turned to Bess. “Any luck?” she asked.
“Not yet. I keep thinking I recognize people and then realize it’s because I saw them here yesterday. I might as well keep trying until everyone’s left, though.”
The crowd had thinned out so fast that almost everyone was gone. “I’m sorry, Nan,” Bess said at last. “I just don’t see Mr. Wrong.”
Nancy sighed. “That would have made things too easy, I guess. Thanks for trying, though.”
“How’s Ned doing?” George asked.
“Oh—” Nancy poured out her story once again. “I’m just so happy he’s regained consciousness. He looks pretty bad, and the doctor’s not sure whether he’ll be able to play sports this fall. But I’m sure the worst is behind him. I wish I felt as optimistic about the case.”
“I’m sure you’ll get a break soon,” Bess said comfortingly. “I just wish I had never answered that dumb ad. If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would have happened.
“On the other hand,” Bess said more cheerfully, “if I hadn’t answered the ad, some sicko would still be out there scaring people—only he wouldn’t have Nancy Drew on his trail. Someday, when you’ve caught him, River Heights will thank me for having been so stupid.”
Nancy had to laugh at that.
“Bess said you were going to look through the files in the morgue,” said George. “Did anything turn up?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe. But—I almost forgot in all this excitement—I got the most incredible phone call just before we came down! Bess, I think I may have heard from the girl you were supposed to be.”
“You’d better be careful,” Bess said soberly when Nancy had described the strange message she’d received upstairs. “What if this girl did somehow cause the Glove’s death?”
“That’s what I hope I’ll find out,” said Nancy. “I’m going to meet her tonight.”
“Want some company?” George asked. “You’d better say yes because this could be dangerous. It just doesn’t make sense for you to go alone.”
“Okay,” Nancy said. “Well, I’ve got the rest of the day off—and I guess I can’t give you a tour of the place. So let’s go get something to eat.”
• • •
“Uh, Nan?” said George later that night. “I don’t see a coffee shop on Fortieth and East. Are you sure that’s what that girl said?” George slowed down and pulled over to the curb.
“Absolutely. I wrote it down while she was talking.” Nancy peered out of George’s windshield. It was true. There wasn’t a coffee shop in sight. “She must have made a mistake! My first real break in this case, and it gets messed up like this!”
“Should we head back home?” asked Bess hopefully.
“No. Absolutely not,” replied Nancy. “I’m going to wait here. She may still show up.”
“Unless she gave you the wrong address, and now she’s waiting at a coffee shop somewhere else,” George pointed out.
“Oh, no. You may be right.” Nancy paused for a minute. “Well, look,” she said, undoing her seat belt. “I’ll wait here for half an hour. You guys drive around and see if you can find a coffee shop on any other corner around here. If you do—and especially if you see a blond girl dressed in white at one of them—come right back and get me.”
It’s a little hard to believe there’s a coffee shop anywhere around here, she thought as she positioned herself in the middle of the sidewalk. Fortieth and East was squarely in the middle of the warehouse district. There was nothing around but empty, dark buildings and cars parked like silent spectators in rows along the curb.
It was dark now. And Nancy was starting to feel conspicuous standing alone in the middle of a sidewalk at night. But after ten minutes she heard the welcome sound of a car driving toward her. She squinted toward its headlights. Then she heard footsteps behind her.
Before Nancy could turn, something smashed into the back of her head.
The blow knocked her out instantly. She didn’t even feel it as someone dragged her to the edge of the road and draped her, facedown, over the curb.
Chapter
Eleven
BESS, I’M OKAY,” Nancy protested for the fifth time. “I had a good night’s sleep. I had breakfast and lunch in bed. The swelling’s down. I feel great!”
“I still think you’re crazy,” said Bess. “Why don’t you just spend the rest of the day in bed?”
It was Wednesday afternoon, the day after Bess and George had found Nancy in the street, and they were checking to see how she was doing. Although her face was still br
uised, and the back of her head felt tender, Nancy had decided it was time to get out of bed. When her friends got to her house, she had just finished taking a shower.
When Bess and George hadn’t found a coffee shop in the near vicinity the night before, they had come back to see how Nancy was doing. When they’d reached her corner, she was just starting to struggle to her feet.
Of course there’d been no sign of her assailant. There was no way of knowing whether it had been the girl in white or someone else. Nancy had insisted that she was well enough to go home. “I don’t have a concussion,” she’d said, and after a horrified Hannah had checked Nancy’s eyes to verify she didn’t have a concussion, Nancy collapsed into bed. Now all she wanted to do was get back on the job.
“If I spend any more time ‘recovering,’ I’ll lose my mind,” she told her friends. “I just want to head back to the paper for a couple of hours. I want to go through the files again, and the morgue closes at six.”
“We’d better let her do it,” George told Bess. “She has that look in her eyes. Just call us when you get back, Nan.”
“You know what you could do for me, though,” Nancy said, “is to stop in and see how Ned’s doing. I’d do it myself, but I don’t want him to see me all bruised like this. The doctor doesn’t want me reminding him of the case.”
“Where do you want us to say you are?” asked George.
“Tell him—tell him—oh, just tell him I’ve been delayed. Tell him I promise I’ll call him tonight. And give him my love.”
“Sure,” said George with a grin. “We’ll take him some kind of potted plant, too. A nice spidery potted plant is just the thing for an invalid.”
Nancy laughed. “I can see you’ll do a better job of cheering him up today than I possibly could.”
• • •
A light rain was falling as Nancy emerged from the lobby of the Record building a couple of hours later. Her second search through the paper’s files had made her more suspicious than ever that “the Glove,” John Engas, had robbed First Lincoln in Chicago.
“How could you leave the Glove to die?” the man in the restaurant had asked Bess. Obviously he thought the girl he was looking for was some kind of suspect in Engas’s death. And a robber, too? Nancy wondered. If she’d somehow killed Engas and made off with the haul from the bank . . . But how could she have organized a car accident like the one that had killed him?
Nancy was still puzzling it over as she got into her Mustang and headed for home. But as she pulled out of the parking lot, she noticed a car speeding away from the building in the opposite direction from the way she was going.
A dark blue sedan with a dented front fender.
That’s the car that hit Ned! Nancy thought. I’ve got to catch it!
With a squeal of brakes she turned the Mustang around and took off after the sedan. For about five seconds she thought she had a good chance of catching up to it. Then she reached the main road.
“I don’t believe this,” Nancy muttered. It was four-thirty. What with the beginning of rush hour and the rain—which was now falling more heavily—traffic was unbearably snarled. She could just see the dark blue sedan two blocks ahead of her. It was moving as slowly as her Mustang—but if it managed to break free of this jam before she did, she’d never catch up.
A red light. Nancy tapped the steering wheel in frustration. In the car next to hers, a man was happily bopping his head back and forth to the beat of his radio, oblivious to the mess of cars around him. He caught her eye and winked, still twitching to the music. Nancy looked away.
Green light. The Mustang inched forward through the intersection, its wipers swishing monotonously back and forth. Past a group of girls laughing on the sidewalk, a baby being pushed along in a stroller with an umbrella over it, a dog sniffing idly at the curb. Taking advantage of the stalled traffic, an old woman threaded her way across the street between the cars. She gave Nancy a pleasant wave as she passed in front of the Mustang. Nancy waved back, but she was feeling too edgy to smile.
Was the dark blue sedan pulling out of traffic up there? It was! It had managed to break free of the pack and was turning left onto Sycamore Street. Nancy was still trapped behind two intersections—and there was another red light ahead of her. But she couldn’t let the other car get away!
Nancy thought quickly. Sycamore Street, she knew, led to Monroe Avenue, which in turn led to the expressway. It was safe to assume the other driver was heading that way—he’d be too easy to catch if he stayed in street traffic. If Nancy could make a left turn herself at the next intersection, she could get onto Monroe and—just possibly—catch up with him. But how?
She glanced quickly into the oncoming lane, switched on her emergency flashers, and leaned hard on the horn. Then she pulled out of her own lane and started driving down the middle of the street.
“Get off the road, idiot!” a burly man in the car ahead of her yelled furiously. Cars on both sides of her were honking and swerving to get out of her way. Nancy’s palms were damp on the steering wheel, but she stared resolutely at the yellow divider. Traffic was moving so slowly that none of the cars around her was in any danger, and she had to make that turn. Just a few more feet, and she’d reach the intersection.
There she was—and fortunately, the light was still red. Holding her breath, Nancy inched out into the intersection. One car from the left passed in front of her, then another—and then there was a space. She floored the accelerator and whipped the steering wheel to the left, cutting just in front of a truck. Its horn blasted angrily, but Nancy didn’t care. The road ahead of her was clear. She still had a chance to catch the blue sedan!
In a second she had reached Monroe. She turned right—and breathed a sigh of relief. She could see the car just one block ahead. And it was stopped at a red light.
Monroe Avenue had four lanes. Nancy cut into the left lane and drove as fast as she could. “Thank you,” she murmured under her breath as the light turned green. She sped across the intersection into the same block as the sedan.
All she had to do was shift lanes twice, and she was just two cars behind the dark blue one. It went so smoothly that Nancy was sure the other driver hadn’t even spotted her car. Maybe she was about to get lucky.
Nancy nosed the Mustang forward until it was almost tailgating the car ahead of her. When the light changed, she followed as closely as she dared. There was just one more light before they reached the entrance ramp to the expressway, and she was determined not to lose her quarry again. But would the sedan take the ramp going east, or the one going west?
The driver didn’t signal. Maybe he had spotted her after all. He just made an abrupt left, narrowly missing an oncoming van, and darted onto the ramp heading east. With a sickening squeal of brakes the van swerved out of the way—and Nancy swooped onto the ramp in front of it, following the blue car.
Now I’ve got you, she thought, beginning to accelerate as she prepared to enter the expressway. Then she saw the orange sign.
ROAD LEGALLY CLOSED PROCEED AT OWN RISK STATE LIABILITY LIMITED
No wonder there were only the two of them on the ramp. Well, at least that meant there wouldn’t be as many other drivers to worry about. And chasing a car—any car—on the open road would be nothing compared to what she had just gone through.
No, that wasn’t true.
Just as it was about to reach the expressway, the dark blue car made a U-turn and screeched back down the one-way ramp. It was heading straight toward her. Then it was passing her on its way back down the ramp. Things had happened so fast that Nancy hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of the driver.
But meanwhile she hadn’t slowed down at all, and in another second, she’d be on the expressway! Should she make a U-turn, too?
No. As desperate as she was to catch him, Nancy knew she couldn’t risk it. The danger of causing an accident was just too great. Instead, she’d pull over on the shoulder, get out of her car, and try to chase this creep on foot. She
switched on her left blinker and pulled smoothly onto the expressway.
And then she heard it—a massive crash, behind her on the ramp. Nancy’s stomach lurched. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
The dark blue sedan must have hit something. The chase was over, and she didn’t want to see the final outcome.
Suddenly Nancy felt as if she were in a speeded-up movie. She pulled over onto the shoulder of the expressway, grabbed her purse, and jumped out of the car. Should she lock her door? No, she’d need to get into the car quickly if she had to go for help. Her first-aid kit, though—she’d better get that—and the blanket. They were both in the trunk. Nancy yanked them out, slammed the trunk closed, and dashed back toward the entrance ramp.
What was left of the dark blue sedan was lying in a crumpled mass on its back about a hundred feet ahead of her. By some miracle there were no other cars on the ramp. The sedan must have hit the guard rail, ricocheted across the road, and flipped over.
Nancy was running as fast as she could toward the car, but her legs felt like lead. “Where is everyone?” she moaned to herself. “I know this road is closed, but it is rush hour!” If anyone could have survived that crash, how would she be able to help him all alone?
Now she was next to the wreck. Heart pounding, Nancy threw herself down on her hands and knees to peer inside the shattered window.
The car was empty.
Chapter
Twelve
NANCY STARED AT the empty car. Then she slowly rose to a standing position again and looked around her. “Where did he go?” she asked incredulously.
Had the driver somehow been thrown clear of the car? There was no sign of anyone on the road, and the car’s windshield, though cracked, was still in place. Nancy bent down to look into the car again, just to be certain.
Then she noticed that the door by the driver’s seat was slightly open. She leaned forward and gave it a gentle tug. From its upside-down position it opened as obediently as if the car had been brand-new.