Suddenly George clutched Nancy’s sleeve. “Nancy! I saw somebody run behind that building over there!”
Nancy turned to see a blur of movement behind one of the rickety wooden sheds only a few yards away.
Linda gasped. “It’s Max!” she cried when the figure stepped out and started toward them. “He’s coming to kill us!”
Chapter Sixteen
“LET’S GET HIM!” Tod shouted.
“Watch out,” Mike cautioned. “He’s got a club.”
“That’s okay,” Tod said, his eyes narrowed to slits. “We can handle that.”
“Wait,” Ned said. “I think he just wants to talk.”
But Tod and Mike ignored Ned and advanced threateningly toward Max.
“Hold on,” Max rasped. He kept walking toward them. His shoulders slumped wearily, and he seemed to be dragging one foot. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. All I want is to talk to Nancy.”
“Then put that club down,” Ned said reasonably, stepping forward and holding out both hands to show that they were empty. “Nobody’s got any weapons here. Nancy will talk to you if you throw your weapon away.”
“Not on your life,” Max said with a gesture toward Tod and Mike.
He lifted the stick, and Nancy could see that he had driven a giant, lethal-looking spike into the end of it. “Stay back!” he rasped when Tod moved closer. “Where’s Nancy Drew? It’s a matter of life and death!” A shadow of pain crossed his face, and he began to cough.
“Here I am,” Nancy said, stepping forward beside Ned. She could hear Max’s harsh, labored breathing. “What do you want?”
For an instant, distracted by Nancy’s voice and by his own coughing, Max lowered the stick. Mike and Tod rushed him. Mike tackled him around the knees, bringing him down, and Tod tried to pin his arms behind his back. Max fought back with the strength of a madman, and the three rolled on the dusty ground in a silent, violent tangle. But after a moment, the two were too much for Max, and Tod managed to get astride him. He put his hands around Max’s neck, trying to throttle him.
“Ned!” Nancy screamed, running toward them. “Stop him! We’ve got to hear what Max has to say! He may be our key to this mystery!”
Ned jumped in with the skill that made him Emerson’s star quarterback. He grabbed Mike by the collar and tossed him several feet away. But as he reached for Tod, Tod jumped up and picked up the club Max had dropped.
“Now I’ve got you!” Tod shouted down at Max. “You’re not going to get away with killing Paula!” He poised to strike, the spike glinting viciously at the end of the stick.
Suddenly Nancy lashed out with a hard, flying kick at the small of Tod’s back. As she struck him, the club was knocked out of his hands and he fell to the ground, gasping.
Max had raised himself to his hands and knees, trying painfully to push himself up off the ground. Blood oozed out of the corner of his mouth. The gash over his right eye had opened up again. His other eye was already puffed and swelling where Tod had hit him. Max crouched and fell forward.
Ned took off his canvas belt and bent over Max, hauling him up to a sitting position. “I’m not going to hurt him, I’m just going to make sure he doesn’t get away,” he told Nancy. He pulled Max’s arms behind his back and looped the belt twice around his forearms, before he pushed it through the buckle and cinched it tight.
Helplessly, Max dropped his head between his knees. Nancy leaned over him. It sounded as if he were trying to say something.
“It wasn’t me!” he said, sucking in his breath with a hollow, whistling sound. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t kill Paula!”
“What?” Nancy and Ned said together.
Max coughed again. “It . . . it was the other way around,” he gasped, attempting to pull himself up straight. “She . . .” His eyes glazed over, and he fell heavily to his side in the dirt. “Be careful,” he whispered to Nancy, his voice fading. “She’s after you!”
“After me? But why? What are you trying to say, Max?”
“She’s trying to kill you. She’s not . . . she’s not . . .” Max’s head fell back limply.
Ned felt for a pulse. “He’s passed out,” he said grimly.
Nancy stared up at Ned. “Do you suppose he was telling the truth?” she asked. “That he didn’t kill Paula?”
“Max!” Bess came running up. She had ripped off the tail of her blouse and soaked it in water from the canteen. She knelt down beside Max and began to wipe the blood off his face. “Is he going to be all right?” she asked fearfully.
Ned stood up after freeing Max’s hands. “It’s hard to say,” he replied, looking down on Max’s unconscious face. “He’s probably got some internal injuries—maybe some broken ribs, maybe worse.” He scowled at Tod and Mike. “The beating didn’t help any.”
Tod hung his head. “It looked like he was going to try to get away. We were just making sure he didn’t.” Tod glanced up again. “What did he mean when he said he didn’t kill Paula?”
“Maybe there was somebody else up there with them?” Mike said. “I don’t know—do you suppose somebody else pushed Paula over the cliff?”
“And what about his warning to you?” Ned asked Nancy, with a puzzled look. “When Max said that Paula is out to kill you, he was talking like she’s still alive!”
“That’s impossible,” Tod scoffed. “We saw her fall from the cliff and into the water.”
Nancy shook her head, frowning. “We’ll have to wait until Max regains consciousness to be sure that’s what happened. Then we can ask him some more questions.”
“There’s a shed over there,” Ned said, pointing toward a group of weathered, ramshackle outbuildings. “And I see a folded-up tarp just inside the door. Let’s put Max on the tarp and move him into the shed, where he’ll be out of this sun.”
It took a few minutes to move Max. The others stood silently, watching, as if they were afraid Max might come to and attack them.
When Max was lying on the floor of the shed, Mike straightened up and dusted off his hands, looking at his watch. “I’m going to go up to the tower and send off that message,” he said. “It’s nearly three o’clock now. If we don’t let the rangers know right away that we’re here, they might not be able to get us out before dark.”
Nancy, Ned, and Bess decided to stay with Max while the others climbed the tower with Mike. They had been gone for five minutes or so when Max began to stir.
“Max,” Nancy said urgently, bending over him. “Can you talk? Who pushed Paula over the cliff? Was somebody else up there with you?”
Max didn’t answer. After opening his eyes he just stared, then lapsed into a delirious sleep.
“Oh,” Bess moaned, twisting her fingers anxiously. “He looks like he’s going to die.”
“I’m going to go after Mike and tell him to ask the Forest Service to send a doctor with the helicopter,” Nancy said suddenly, scrambling to her feet. She pulled out the tiny notebook and pencil that she always carried and handed it to Ned. “If he says anything you can understand—even if it sounds like nonsense—write it down.”
“Okay,” Ned promised.
Nancy started across the dusty yard of the ranger station toward the tower. She was deep in thought. Max had said that he didn’t kill Paula. “It was the other way around,” he had said. But that could only mean one thing: That Paula had tried to kill him!
The wind picked up suddenly, moaning around the tower.
Nancy began to climb the stairs. She was partway up when she caught a flash of movement below her. A slight figure dashed out of the dense woods that surrounded the ranger station and ran across the yard toward the tower. Staring unbelievingly at the runner, who had already begun to take the stairs toward her, two at a time, Nancy gripped the steel railing.
“Paula!” she gasped.
Chapter Seventeen
“YES, IT’S ME,” Paula said, panting and out of breath. She clattered up the stairs toward Nancy. Her long hair was matted and
full of twigs and brambles, her cold amber eyes wild and staring. In that instant, Nancy realized that Paula was insane.
“What do you want?” She held Paula’s eyes with her own as she gingerly backed up the stairs.
“I want you,” Paula said over the roar of the wind. “You’re the one I’ve been after all along. I’m going to kill you!”
Nancy sensed that if she could keep Paula talking, she might be able to distract her. At least she could stave off an attack for a few minutes until Paula was in a position where she could be overpowered.
“Why are you trying to kill me?” Nancy said. “I don’t even know you.”
“Are you sure?” Paula asked, baring her teeth in a smile. Her amber eyes glittered like the eyes of the rattlesnake. She came up another step. “Does the name Peter Hancock mean anything to you?”
“Peter Hancock?” Nancy was genuinely puzzled. “No,” she said. “Why should it?” And then she remembered. Suddenly she knew where she had seen those strange amber eyes.
Peter Hancock was the name of an embezzler who had worked as an accountant at a bank in New York. It had been Nancy’s careful detective work that had uncovered his fraudulent activities and sent him to prison.
Menacingly, Paula stepped closer. “Peter Hancock was my father. You sent him to prison, and now he’s dead!” Paula’s eyes were gleaming. “He escaped a few months ago. But he died—in this very wilderness. And you’re going to die here, too!”
“So,” Nancy said quickly, “you rigged this whole thing to get me here.”
“That’s right,” Paula replied, brushing a strand of her matted hair out of her eyes. “There wasn’t any contest—just like there wasn’t any White Water Rafting, Incorporated. Both those tricks were part of a plan to get you on the river, where I could teach you a lesson, once and for all.”
“So you picked your winners at random?”
“Yes,” Paula bragged.
“Well, that was smart,” Nancy said, stalling. If only the group on top of the tower could hear her above the wind! “People are always putting their names into a box for one contest or another. I guess you figured they’d think they’d just forgotten about entering this one.”
“You got it, Nancy Drew.” Paula sneered. “You’re bright, all right. Too bad you’re not bright enough to get yourself out of the mess you’re in now.”
Nancy ignored her. “And you sent the letter to George because you knew that she’d be enthusiastic about a white water rafting trip,” Nancy prompted.
“Of course I knew it. I’ve been doing my homework. I know all about you and your friends. It was a sure thing that George Fayne would ask you to come on this trip with her.”
“The map? The missing barricade?”
“They were easy,” Paula said scornfully. “You know, you would have made a lot less trouble for me if you’d sailed off that cliff.” She sighed. “But I’m glad those tricks didn’t work. It’s going to be a lot more fun to watch you die.”
“What about the slipped mooring line?” Nancy asked before Paula could make a move. “Was that another one of your clever tricks?”
“I figured it would be interesting to watch the expressions on your friends’ faces when we fished your body out from under the falls,” Paula explained. She stepped up closer to Nancy. “But I’m getting tired of all this talk.”
Nancy retreated a step higher. Just three or four more steps and she’d be on the tower’s lower platform. If she could lure Paula up there, she might be able to maneuver her into a more vulnerable position. “Max—” Nancy said, “was he in on your plan?”
Paula gave a disdainful laugh. “Not at all—at least not until he began to figure out what was going on. Of course, I didn’t count on his capsizing the raft—”
“I guess that was a stroke of good luck for you,” Nancy put in. “It put one of the rafts out of commission. When that happened, you probably thought it would be a better idea to get me off into the woods and kill me there.”
“Very impressive brainwork, Detective Drew. When the first raft was destroyed, I had to finish off the other one, too—to keep you from going downriver the next morning. And I nearly did get you in the woods.”
“You certainly did. If it hadn’t been for Ned—”
“The boulder would have crushed you,” Paula finished. She smiled cruelly.
“You know, I’ve got to admire you,” Nancy said, grudgingly. “We actually thought you were dead—that Max had killed you and was out to kill us, too. I bet I know how you arranged that,” Nancy said.
“I don’t care if you know or not,” Paula snapped, her face twisting. She lunged for Nancy, surprising her.
Nancy took two steps up and back but couldn’t escape Paula’s grasp on her arm. They fell together onto the wooden deck of the platform. Nancy felt Paula’s elbow dig into her side. She rolled onto her back and raised her feet, catching Paula’s shoulders. Then she shoved as hard as she could.
With a howl of rage, Paula launched herself forward from the railing. “I’m going to kill you!” she shouted, but this time Nancy was ready for her. As Paula rushed with full force, Nancy sidestepped adroitly and tripped her.
For an instant, Paula’s arms flailed wildly. Then she crashed against the weather-beaten wood. There was a splintering sound as the railing gave way under her weight. She tried to catch herself. Then, in a clumsy slow-motion swan dive, she fell over the edge, screaming.
The scream broke off, and Nancy looked over the splintered railing. Paula was sprawled faceup and motionless on the concrete apron at the foot of the tower, one arm bent under her, eyes staring up at the sky.
The wind had died down. The air was perfectly still.
From the contorted position in which Paula lay, Nancy knew Paula was dead.
“Hey! What’s going on down there?”
Nancy looked above her and saw Sammy peering down at Paula’s sprawled body. Sammy looked as if she were seeing a ghost. “Is Paula really dead?” Sammy asked.
Bess was kneeling next to the body, feeling for a pulse. “I think so,” she called up soberly.
Nancy leaned weakly against the solid part of the railing until Ned streaked up the stairs and pulled her into his arms. After clinging together for a moment or two, they followed the group, who had just raced down from the lookout tower.
“I don’t understand,” Linda said. “How did Paula survive the fall from the cliff?”
“She never fell off the cliff. Max did—or, rather, he was—”
“Pushed.”
It was Max’s voice. Nancy looked up. Max was leaning against the doorjamb of the shed.
Ned and Tod hurried over to Max and helped him walk across the yard.
Bess approached him anxiously. “Are you sure you’re up to this? The helicopter is bringing a doctor in a little while.”
“I’m all right,” Max said weakly, but his breathing came in jagged gasps.
“Paula pushed you—is that what you’re saying?” Ralph asked in astonishment. “But we heard Paula shout. . . . And we saw . . .” He stopped. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Paula faked it—the shout and everything.”
Ned’s arm had been around Nancy. “You’re trembling,” he said to her. “Are you cold? Do you want to borrow my jacket again?”
Nancy gave one last nervous shiver. Then all at once she smiled at Ned. “No, thanks,” she said, as if she had a secret. She turned to Max. “But that’s what Paula did, didn’t she, Max—give you her jacket?” Max nodded weakly and tried to talk. “Let me tell it,” Nancy said.
“When you got to the top of the cliff, you confronted Paula with what you knew, and then you got into a big argument. She distracted you and knocked you over the head with something—a rock maybe?”
“Yes,” Max said, fingering the gash over his eye.
“And when you fell,” Nancy went on, “that’s when we heard the thump. The jacket—now that was a clever move on Paula’s part, since she knew I’d be on my guard a
gainst her every second if I thought she’d pushed you off the cliff. That’s why she had to make believe she was the victim.
“And until I remembered that Ned had loaned me his jacket, she almost had me fooled. It took me a while, but suddenly I realized how easy it would have been for her to put her jacket on you—it was big enough.”
Max coughed and spoke. “The trick boomeranged, though. Her jacket is what saved my life. It was so big, air got trapped in it and helped keep me afloat until I could grab on to a limb and pull myself out.”
Wincing in pain, he sank to the ground. “But I think I broke a couple of ribs in the fall.”
Bess knelt beside him and wiped away the beads of sweat on his forehead.
Sammy looked from Max to Paula’s body. “But why did Paula do it? Was she responsible for holing the raft and stealing the crystal out of the radio?“.
“Paula was responsible for everything,” Nancy said. “She invented the contest—”
“Invented the contest?” Mike exclaimed.
“Yes, it was a trick to get me here.”
“See?” Linda said smugly to Ralph. “I told you the whole thing had to be a joke.”
“Some joke,” George said bitterly. She turned to Nancy. “But I don’t understand why Paula did all this.”
“Revenge,” Nancy replied simply, and she told everyone the story of Peter Hancock.
“So she didn’t care who else got hurt in the process,” Tod put in, shaking his head.
“You’re right,” Max said, sounding the slightest bit stronger. “On the cliff, she said she was going to kill me because I knew too much. And she told me she’d kill everybody else if she had to—just to get to Nancy Drew.” He turned to Nancy with a lopsided grin. “That’s what I was trying to tell you when I pulled you into the woods this morning. I didn’t mean to knock you out. I just wanted to warn you about Paula.”
“I wasn’t sure about the mooring line,” Max went on, “but I saw her push the boulder down on you yesterday—”
“You did?”
“Yeah, and when I saw you walking by yourself, I figured it would be a good time to let you know about the danger you were in.”