Very Deadly Yours (9 page)

“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 bruised, 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 Mus
tang 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.

N
ANCY 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.

“So he just opened the door and walked away,” Nancy muttered. “It's as simple as that. Well, my friend, you're
still
not going to get away.”

She jumped to her feet. The rain had started up again. A misty haze rose from the pavement and the strip of field bordering it. Beyond the field was the straggly edge of a forest whose trees loomed pale and ghostlike above a tangled mass of underbrush.

Nancy sighed. If the mysterious driver had somehow managed to hitch a ride, she'd never find him. She did decide to try looking for him in the woods before she went back to her car. She jotted down the wreck's license-plate number on a small pad in her purse and stepped gingerly into the cold, sodden grass. Instantly her heels sank into the mud. I
would
be wearing pumps, she thought.

By the time she had squelched her way across the strip of field, Nancy's shoes were clammy and her clothes were clinging to her in damp folds. The rain was coming down harder now, and it was getting dark. Nancy was glad there was a flashlight in the first-aid kit. She'd need it.

Now she was standing on drenched leaves at the edge of the woods, peering uncertainly into the trees. A rivulet of water trickled off a branch overhead and dripped right down her collar. Shivering, Nancy pulled out her flashlight and played the beam back and forth.

All it revealed were tree trunks, vines, and shadows. Well, what did you expect? Nancy asked herself. She pulled her blazer closer around her and stepped forward into the darkness.

A branch snapped in the dark ahead of her. Was it a footstep? As she struggled along through the heavy piles of fallen leaves, Nancy was suddenly sure someone was watching her.

Then a man stepped out from behind a tree into her path.

“Bill Stark!” Nancy exclaimed, surprised to see one of the mailroom employees from the
Record,
the one who had acted so scared during the bomb threat.

He laughed. “Nancy Drew!” he answered mockingly.

His pale eyes were glittering in the flashlight beam, and he was shivering uncontrollably. His hands were behind his back as if he were hiding something—a gun? He took another step toward her, but Nancy stood her ground.

Her mind was racing. How much did Bill know
she
knew? She had better try to sound as ignorant as she could—as though running into an acquaintance in the middle of the woods by an express ramp could happen to anyone.