When Nancy reached room 207, she checked to make sure she was still alone, then put her hand on the doorknob, expecting it to turn easily.
The knob didn’t turn at all. The door was locked.
Great, Nancy thought, just what I don’t need—an efficient hotel. She didn’t have her credit cards with her, so she couldn’t force the lock that way. She rummaged through her beach bag, trying to find something thin and made out of metal.
No luck. The only hardware she had was the small hook in the top of her extra bikini.
Well, why not? she thought. It took five minutes, but finally Nancy had the metal hook free of the cloth. She spent another minute unbending it, and at last she held a thin metal probe about as long as her little finger. If this works, she told herself, you will have set some sort of record for ingenuity.
Grinning, Nancy gently slid the “pick” into the keyhole.
Suddenly the knob turned, and the door started to open. Nancy was about to congratulate herself when she realized that she didn’t have anything to do with it. Someone—who probably didn’t belong there—was inside Kim’s room. And Nancy and the intruder were about to come face-to-face.
Chapter
Three
QUICKLY NANCY dropped her pick into her beach bag, stepped away from the door, and put on a confused expression, as if she were having trouble finding her room.
The door opened a little more, and a young man stuck his head out. In his left hand he held a very long pointed screwdriver. When he saw Nancy, his jaw hardened and his blue eyes turned icy. Nancy considered asking him what he was doing in the room, but his look stopped her. He might be involved in Kim’s “accident,” and if he was, Nancy didn’t want him suspicious of her.
“Oh, hi!” she said casually. “Can you tell me where room three-twelve is?”
Opening the door just wide enough to let himself out, the guy gave Nancy a long, cold look, then finally raised his chin and glanced at the ceiling.
Nancy looked up too, pretending she didn’t understand what he was trying to tell her. She noticed that he was wearing dark green pants and a matching shirt, the kind of uniform maintenance people wear. He must work for the hotel, Nancy thought, which was why he’d been in Kim’s room. He’d probably just fixed the lock.
“Oh!” she said, as if the light had finally dawned on her. “I’m on the wrong floor, huh?”
Nodding briefly, the guy pulled the door shut behind him, and then stood there, obviously waiting for her to leave.
Nancy heard the lock click and was glad she’d been prepared. Smiling brightly, she said, “No wonder I couldn’t find three-twelve! Thanks!”
“Mr. Friendly” glared at her again and finally headed for the stairs, so Nancy stood in front of the elevator, pretending to push the button. When she heard the last echo of his footsteps, she rushed back to room 207, fished out her pick, and went to work.
In just a couple of minutes, Nancy was inside Kim’s room.
It was a total disaster. Clothes were everywhere—hanging out of drawers, strewn across the floor, even spilling from the wastepaper basket. Postcards, paperbacks, makeup, and skin lotion were ripped, scattered, or overturned. The sheets were on the floor, and the mattress was half off the bed.
It was not the mess made by someone who was having too good a vacation to bother picking things up. It wasn’t even the mess made by a slob, Nancy thought. It was the kind of mess made by somebody who was looking for something.
Nancy didn’t have to wonder who had searched the room. It must have been handsome “Mr. Friendly,” the stone-faced maintenance man. No wonder he’d given her such a dirty look when he found her lurking outside the room. Obviously he didn’t work for the hotel, but just who did he work for? Ricardo? Rosita?
For a moment, Nancy was tempted to go after him, but then she decided it would be a waste of time. People who trashed hotel rooms didn’t wait around to answer questions. Mr. Friendly was long gone. She hoped.
The thing to do was figure out what he’d been looking for.
Afraid that somebody might be watching the hotel room, Nancy left the shades down and the lights off. The fluorescent bulb in the bathroom was enough to see by. Not even sure where to begin, she started wading through the piles of clothes and paperbacks on the floor. A piece of newspaper caught in her sandal; as she picked it up she noticed the headline of a story about illegal aliens.
The story had been circled in red ink, and Nancy figured Kim had done it. Kim was like that—always interested in the underdog. If I keep my eyes peeled, Nancy thought with a smile, I’ll probably find a letter she wrote to the editor, saying what a rotten situation the illegals are in.
But Nancy wasn’t getting anywhere. She tossed the paper toward the wastebasket and headed for the bathroom. Medicine cabinets were such obvious hiding places, maybe Mr. Friendly hadn’t bothered to look there.
No luck. The “maintenance” man had pulled out every jar, bottle, and tube, and left them piled in the sink. Even the toothbrushes were out of their holders, lying like two pickup sticks on the fake marble vanity top.
Nancy was halfway out the bathroom when it hit her—two toothbrushes. She walked back in and took another look. Right, two of them—one blue and obviously well used; the other red, without a single bent bristle.
Kim didn’t have a roommate, she reminded herself. Or did she? Nancy looked more carefully at the countertop. One bottle each of shampoo and conditioner. One tube of toothpaste, one can of deodorant. Two hairbrushes, one full of light brown strands, the other with several strands of long black hair caught in it.
Okay, Nancy thought. Kim might have bought a second toothbrush, but there was no way she could have used that other hairbrush. And if she hadn’t come to Florida with a roommate, then she’d invited some girl to stay with her once she got there.
Nancy walked back into the main room, looking for more evidence of that roommate, and she found it in the wastepaper basket. A skirt and blouse—cotton, homemade, no labels, muddy, and wrinkled. They must have been pretty once, but Nancy knew they didn’t belong to Kim. For one thing, they weren’t her style. Kim would never have worn them. For another, Kim hated sewing; she’d wait until every last button had fallen off a blouse before picking up a needle and thread.
Nancy was frowning at the skirt and blouse when she heard footsteps in the hall. When they stopped outside the door, she sank down behind the bed as quietly as possible, listening. Was it the maintenance man? Had he gotten suspicious of her and come back? The footsteps shuffled around, then faded away.
As Nancy let her breath out, her head dropped, and she found herself staring at a strip of photo-booth snapshots lying on the rug at her feet. Picking it up gingerly, as if it might suddenly disintegrate, Nancy studied the strip of photos. The first was of Kim alone, mugging for the camera; the second was of Kim and another girl. All the rest were of the second girl, who was very pretty, with long black hair, but who never smiled and who looked into the camera with frightened, suspicious dark eyes. “Rosita,” Nancy whispered to herself. “She has to be Rosita.”
Nancy examined the photograph intently, as if by staring hard enough she could bring Rosita to life and ask her all the questions that were spinning through her mind. How did you meet Kim? Why did Kim share her room with you? Who’s Ricardo? Who was that phony maintenance man? Just exactly what did Kim mean when she lay in the street and whispered, “It was Rosita”?
Frustrated, Nancy stood up and began pacing the hotel room, still holding the strip of photos. Where was she going to find the answers to those questions? Who was she going to ask? Kim was still unconscious, and the only other person she thought might be involved was Mr. Friendly. She could hardly ask him, if she ever saw him again.
Well, at least she had something to go on, she thought, looking at the photograph. If she had to, she’d wander up and down the beach, asking anybody and everybody if they’d seen that girl. I’ll find you, Rosita, Nancy thought. And when I do
, you’d better have some good answers.
Dropping the strip of photos into her beach bag, Nancy took one last look around the torn-up room and then headed for the door. Her hand was on the knob when she heard footsteps in the hall again.
Nancy dropped her hand, figuring she’d rather not be seen, no matter who was out there. The footsteps came closer and then stopped right outside room 207. Nancy stepped backward, her eyes on the door. It could be somebody who really does work for the hotel, she told herself. A maid, maybe, coming to clean up the room. The doorknob jiggled. Then Nancy heard the sound of a key sliding slowly into the lock. No maid would unlock a door like that, Nancy thought. Besides, a maid would knock first. Whoever was unlocking that door was probably looking up and down the hall, making sure no one was watching. Whoever was out there didn’t want to be seen.
The doorknob turned. In three quick strides, Nancy was across the room and in the closet, hiding behind the few clothes that were left hanging there. Just as the outer door swung open, Nancy pulled the closet door closed, leaving a half-inch crack to see through.
Because the room was so dim, all Nancy could glimpse at first was a tall, shadowy figure silhouetted against the pale wall. It stood there for a few seconds, obviously sizing up the situation. Then, slowly, it moved away from the door and into the center of the room. Nancy held her breath as it passed the closet and walked cautiously toward the bathroom.
Whoever it was didn’t turn on any lights, and Nancy knew she’d been right—the person didn’t work for the hotel, even though he or she had a key, and definitely didn’t want to be discovered.
For an instant, the figure was framed in the bathroom light, and Nancy saw it from the back: It was the figure of a dark-haired boy, wearing a black bathing suit and a T-shirt, and carrying what looked like a small canvas bag. Nancy opened the closet door a little wider, hoping to get a better look, but by then, the boy was out of the light. In that instant, though, Nancy decided that he looked uncomfortably familiar. Something about his build and the way he held his head reminded her of the handsome boy at the scene of the hit and run, the one who’d smiled so mysteriously and then disappeared.
Was the intruder really the same boy? Nancy wondered. Then she realized that it didn’t matter, not at the moment. What mattered was that the boy, who had walked all around the room, and had been in and out of the bathroom, was headed for the closet in which Nancy was hiding. His hand was outstretched, reaching for the doorknob.
Chapter
Four
NANCY STAYED ABSOLUTELY still, not even daring to breathe. At the last second, the boy shook his head, apparently changing his mind about the closet, and returned to the bathroom.
Nancy exhaled a long, shaky, silent breath. She had gathered one more important piece of information. The intruder was definitely the same handsome boy she had seen after Kim’s accident.
Nancy could hear him rummaging around in the bathroom, picking things up and putting them down again. Were he and the maintenance man working together? Had the maintenance man seen Nancy enter Kim’s room and told the boy to follow her?
Silently Nancy eased back into the darkness of the closet. She couldn’t let herself get caught, and she wished her heart would stop beating so hard.
The boy left the bathroom, dropping a few things into the canvas bag. They clattered against each other as they landed, and Nancy thought they must be jars. Makeup? Lotion? What would he want with Kim’s makeup and hand lotion?
Again the intruder stepped toward the closet. Nancy took her hand off the knob, afraid she might shake the door, and held her breath again. What would he do if he found her? What would she do?
The boy stopped in front of the closet, and Nancy gripped the strap of her beach bag, figuring she could swing it at his face and make a run for it if she had to. Her hand was sweaty and a muscle in her leg started jumping. She wished he’d do whatever he was going to do so she could move. Anything was better than waiting.
Finally he did move. But not to the closet. Nancy heard a strange shuffling sound, and she peered through the opening.
The boy was bending over, grabbing a few pieces of scattered clothing and stuffing them into his bag. As Nancy watched, he straightened up, his back still to her, and then swiftly walked to the door, opened it, and stepped outside.
Nancy forced herself to count slowly to five. She wanted to give him enough time to reach the stairs or the elevator and think he was safe. Then she’d follow him and try to find out who he was and what he was doing in Kim’s room.
At the count of five, she let herself out of the stuffy closet, crossed the room, and opened the door. The hall was empty. The elevator was stopped on the third floor. Nancy raced for the stairs and paused, listening. Two flights below, she heard a door open. Noises from the lobby drifted up to her before it closed again.
That’s him, Nancy thought, rushing down the stairs. He won’t be any farther than the street door by the time I get there. On the ground floor, she shoved open the door, nearly collided with a bellboy, and dashed across the lobby and out to the sidewalk.
The street looked almost the same as it had earlier that day, bright with sunlight and busy with vacationers heading for the ocean. Nancy glanced quickly in both directions, thought she saw the black-suited intruder turn onto the main avenue that ran along the beach, and swiftly made her way through the happy, suntanned crowds.
At the corner, Nancy stopped short, looking wildly in every direction. The main street was packed, the beach was packed. She counted at least fifteen guys in brief black bathing suits and was standing there wondering which one to go after first, when someone called her name.
“Nancy! Nancy, over here!”
Nancy looked across the street and saw Bess and George waving to her from the edge of the beach. Only a few hours had gone by since they’d all been together, changing into their swimsuits, but it seemed like days. She took another look at the crowded beach. Suddenly it seemed as if every boy was wearing a black bathing suit. Shaking her head, Nancy crossed the street and joined her friends.
“I thought you said you’d solve your ‘case’ in ten minutes,” George teased. “What happened, couldn’t you find Kim?”
“I found her,” Nancy said. “Kim’s—”
“Well, it’s about time you got here!” Bess broke in. “We thought you’d decided to spend your entire vacation indoors. Nancy,” she went on with a big smile, “meet Dirk Bowman. He owns a boat, and he’s promised to take us all along on a midnight cruise. Doesn’t that sound fantastic?”
Nancy turned and smiled distractedly at Dirk. She hadn’t noticed him at first, but she should have guessed that Bess would have found someone by then.
“I don’t actually own the boat, I just work for the lady who does,” Dirk explained as he smiled back at Nancy. He was a fabulous-looking guy—sandy blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a perfect tan on a nearly perfect body. “But the invitation for the cruise is good. You have my word.”
“It sounds great,” Nancy told him. “But I don’t think I’ll be able—”
“Oh, come on, Nan,” Bess protested. “We came down here to have fun, right? What could be more fun than a midnight cruise?”
“Really, it sounds great,” Nancy said again, “but—”
“What is it, Nancy?” George asked. “You hardly look like somebody who’s having a terrific time.”
Nancy brushed her hair back and took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m not having a terrific time,” she said. “But I’m afraid Kim’s having a worse one.” She glanced at the three of them and then went on to tell what had happened to their friend that morning.
“Oh, how awful!” Bess said in a horrified voice. “What kind of creep would run over somebody and keep on going?”
“I don’t know,” Nancy replied. “But I plan to find out. I don’t think it was just some jerk who hit Kim and then panicked. I think it was deliberate. I think Kim got mixed up in something dangerous down here a
nd she nearly paid for it with her life.”
“What could she have gotten mixed up in?” George asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Nancy admitted. “But I plan to soon. Some very strange things have been going on.” She told them about Kim’s hotel room and the mess it was in, about the phony maintenance man, the snapshots of the pretty girl, and the guy who’d broken into the room and taken some clothes.
As she talked, Nancy noticed that Dirk Bowman was becoming extremely interested in what she was saying.
“Sounds like your vacation’s not exactly turning out the way you expected,” he commented when Nancy finished.
“Not exactly,” Nancy agreed.
“Well, from what Bess and George have told me about you,” he went on, “I’d bet you’re not going to give up until you have all the answers.” He smiled at Bess, and Nancy noticed that he had a dimple just to the left of his mouth. Bess looked enchanted. “Don’t worry,” Dirk went on, “they didn’t talk about you that much. They just said that you’re a detective, and you don’t give up without a fight.”
“I guess I don’t,” Nancy said. “And I sure won’t give up on this case, not when one of my friends is lying in a hospital.” She turned to Bess and George. “Kim’s mother is flying down later today. I think we ought to be at the hospital when she gets there, don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” George said, and Bess nodded and sighed. “Poor Kim,” she exclaimed. “I just can’t believe it!”
“Listen,” Dirk said to Nancy, “if there’s anything I can do, I wish you’d let me know.” He put a hand on Nancy’s shoulder and flashed his dimple at her. “I know my way around Fort Lauderdale pretty well. Besides,” he added, “I’m sort of a mystery nut. I’d really like to help you.”
“Well, thanks.” Nancy was aware that Dirk still had his hand on her shoulder, and she tried to shrug it off, but it stayed put.
005 Hit and Run Holiday Page 2
