005 Hit and Run Holiday (10 page)

T
URNING SLOWLY
, N
ANCY
found herself face-to-face with Lila Templeton, her silk robe billowing gently in the breeze, her green eyes glittering as brightly as the barrel of the gun she held in her hand.

“I said,” Lila repeated, “are you looking for someone?”

Nancy didn’t bother to answer. “I have a question too,” she said, keeping her eyes on the gun. “Is that the same gun that killed Ricardo?”

Lila laughed softly. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I suggest that you be careful, or it just might kill
you.
I also
suggest that you be cooperative,” she went on. “I want you to turn around and walk slowly and calmly back to the main deck.”

“Then what?” Nancy asked.

“I guess you don’t understand,” Lila told her, stepping so close to Nancy that she felt the gun barrel pressing against her stomach. “I’m in charge. You don’t ask questions, you don’t make comments. You just do what I tell you. Now move!”

Nancy turned, raised her hands above her head and started walking. Behind her, Lila hissed, “Put your hands down!” and when Nancy felt the gun prodding her in the back, she decided not to push Lila any further. She lowered her arms and walked slowly around the bow, heading back to the main deck.

The music and laughter were still going strong, and for a second Nancy was tempted to break away and try to lose herself in the dancing crowd. But then what? she wondered. It wouldn’t get her any closer to Kim and Maria, or to Bess and George, wherever they were. If she let Lila call the shots for a while, she might learn something. Besides, with a gun at her back, she figured she didn’t have much choice.

“The galley,” Lila ordered.

“I thought it would be off limits,” Nancy quipped, figuring that that might be where Kim and Maria were hidden.

Lila laughed again. “Not for you, Miss Drew. Consider the
Rosita
your home. The last home you’ll ever have.”

With the gun barrel nestled between her shoulder blades, Nancy went down the steps and into the narrow galley. But Lila didn’t stop there. She urged Nancy through it and past some bunk beds. At last Nancy stopped, thinking there was nowhere else to go.

But Lila shoved her roughly aside and, still aiming the gun at Nancy, dropped to her knees, took hold of a brass ring on the floor, and pulled up a section of the floor. Looking down, Nancy saw a steep metal staircase leading to the bottom of the boat.

“After you,” Lila said.

Nancy lowered herself through the hole, found her footing, and stepped backward down the staircase. When she reached the bottom, she looked up, hoping that Lila would back down too, so she could grab her ankle and get the gun. But Lila came down facing forward, holding the gun in front of her, aimed at Nancy’s chest.

They were in a very narrow, dimly lit passageway, with two doors on each side. Obviously not first-class accommodations, Nancy thought. “Look, I know all about your operation,” she said to Lila. “I know you bring in illegal aliens, and then force them to work on
your family’s farms. They don’t have any ID cards, not even fake ones, and they don’t have any money, because you charged them so much to bring them into the country. If they escape you, they get caught by the immigration police. They’re trapped.”

“That’s right,” Lila agreed. “They’re trapped, and so are you.”

“Then you admit it?” Nancy asked.

Lila shrugged. “Why not? You’re not going to tell anyone. In a few hours, you’ll be food for the fish.” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a key and slid it into the lock on one of the doors.

“One of my boys will be down soon to take care of you,” she said, opening the right-hand door. “Until then, I suggest you and your friends enjoy the time you have left.”

My friends? Nancy barely had time to wonder whether she meant Kim and Maria or Bess and George, before Lila shoved her inside and slammed the door shut.

“Nan!” Bess raced across the small, stuffy room and hugged her friend. “Thank goodness you’re okay!” She pulled Nancy farther into the room. “Come on, join the party!”

Nancy looked around the dim room and couldn’t help smiling.
All
her friends were there. George, Kim, and Maria were sitting on storage crates, a single can of soda on the floor
in front of them. With a slight grin, George pointed to it. “We’ve been passing it around,” she said. “Help yourself.”

Nancy shook her head. “Some party,” she joked.

Everyone laughed, and the tension was broken for a moment. Then Nancy crossed the room and looked closely at Kim, who was wearing Bess’s baggy pants and print shirt. Bess, she noticed, looked much more comfortable since she had stripped down to the bikini she’d brought along—for fun on the island. “Are you all right?” Nancy asked Kim gently.

“Physically, I’m okay, except for this,” Kim replied quietly, holding up her plaster-casted arm. “Mentally, I’m terrified.”

“That makes two of us,” Nancy admitted. The room was incredibly hot, so she slipped out of her caftan, and instructed George to do the same. If they ended up in the water, Nancy didn’t want them bogged down by unnecessary clothing. Feeling slightly cooler in her bikini, she sat down on a crate and took a sip of the soda. “Kim, why didn’t you tell me what was going on when I came to your room the other day?”

“I didn’t think there was time,” Kim said. “I was freaking out—Maria was gone, and Ricardo was yelling at me to meet him. I just panicked.”

Nancy nodded. “Did George and Bess tell you what happened to Ricardo?”

Kim took a deep breath and lowered her eyes. “Yes,” she said softly. “I still can’t believe it. I feel terrible about it. We weren’t in love,” she admitted with a sigh, “but he was special.”

“How did you get involved in all this?” Bess asked.

“By the time Maria escaped from Lila, Ricardo and I were good friends,” Kim explained. “He’d told me all about himself—how he tried to help illegals—and he knew I was sympathetic. So when Maria needed a place to stay, I was the obvious one to ask.”

“How come you didn’t go to the police?” George asked.

“I wanted to,” Kim told her. “I knew Ricardo couldn’t because he was an illegal too, but there was nothing to stop me. He didn’t trust the police, though. He asked me to wait, and I did. But I should have gone anyway.”

Maria, who had been quiet until then, brushed her long hair back from her face and spoke rapidly in Spanish.

Kim nodded. “Maria wants me to tell you that she’d tried to get Ricardo to talk to you. I’d told Maria about you when she was hiding out in my hotel room. I guess I said something about having a friend who was a detective and
wishing you were here,” Kim said with a smile. “But Ricardo wouldn’t listen to her. He just didn’t trust anyone. He didn’t let her talk to you until last night.”

“We really can’t blame him for that,” Nancy said softly.

“I don’t think we should be talking about blame at all,” Bess pointed out. “I think we should be talking about how to get out of here.”

Nancy laughed. “You’re right. It’s a good thing the five of us are here, too, because we need all the brainpower we can get to figure this one out.”

Springing to her feet, Nancy started exploring the room, which took her all of two minutes. “There’s not even a closet to hide in,” she remarked. “Not that hiding would do us any good.”

“How about the crates?” George said. “Is there something we could do with them—hide in them, block the door with them?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Nancy said.

“They’d find us anyway,” Bess told her. “I mean, nobody but Lila and her crew knows we’re in here. So what if we blocked the door? They’d just wait until everybody’s partying on the island and then break it down. We’re trapped!”

Nancy knew that Bess was right. Hiding or
blocking the door would only postpone whatever was going to happen. It was a stopgap, and they needed an escape hatch. But Lila had made certain they didn’t have one. She’d backed them into a corner, and she was closing in fast.

Suddenly Nancy felt a change in the rhythm of the
Rosita;
it seemed to slow down. The five girls steadied themselves as the boat began rocking from side to side.

“What’s happening?” Kim asked.

“We’ve almost reached the island,” George said. “The
Rosita’s
too big to go all the way to shore, so they take everybody in on little speedboats. We’ll be stopping any minute.”

“And after everybody’s ashore, the
Rosita
sails away,” Bess continued. “With us on it.”

“Yeah,” Nancy said with a grim smile. “Then Lila’s private party begins.”

The girls looked at each other fearfully; they knew what was going to happen, but they didn’t know how to stop it. At that moment, the door handle clicked. Everyone jumped, and then Bess gasped.

Standing in the open doorway was Dirk Bowman, a dimpled smile on his face and a shiny revolver in his hand.

I
N A FLASH,
Bess darted across the room, stopping just a couple of feet in front of Dirk.

“Listen to me, Dirk! Please listen!” she cried. “I know what you think, but it’s not true, it’s really not! I don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t know
anything,
and even if I did I wouldn’t tell. You have to believe me!”

“Wait a minute,” Dirk said, frowning.

“There’s no time to wait!” Bess interrupted frantically. “I know what Lila plans to do with us, and you have to get me out of here. Please, Dirk, I’ll do anything you want, I’ll say anything you want, if you’ll just let me go!”

As the other four listened in amazement, Bess kept on pleading with Dirk Bowman to save her. Kim and Maria stared at her in horror; obviously, they thought she was so panicked that she was willing to say anything to save her own neck.

Nancy was amazed too, but for a different reason: She knew that Bess was acting—and it was working. Dirk couldn’t get a word in edgewise; he’d try to say something, but Bess would immediately interrupt him, pleading, whining, shouting, whispering, doing anything to distract him. From the look on George’s face, Nancy could tell that she hadn’t been fooled either. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, the two of them might have started clapping. It was a beautiful performance, and it was up to Nancy to take advantage of it.

Slowly but smoothly, Nancy moved closer to Dirk Bowman. Bess was saying something about how she and Dirk could spend the rest of their lives together. “It’ll be fantastic, just the two of us, I promise you!” she pleaded, her voice almost cracking. Dirk was completely distracted. He didn’t notice anything but the near-hysterical girl in front of him.

Nancy was less than a foot away from him; it was time to make her move. Without warning, she pivoted into a powerful spinning back kick, her heel hitting Dirk’s hand. The gun went flying upward, and Nancy moved in
slamming her shoulder into Dirk’s stomach, pushing him across the room and into a stack of storage crates.

“Somebody get the gun!” Nancy shouted, scrambling off of Dirk.

“Got it!” George called triumphantly, holding the revolver up. “Nice work, Nancy!”

“You taught me that move, remember?” Nancy said. Turning to Bess, she grinned. “I think you missed your calling. You should go on the stage.”

Bess laughed. “I just hope I don’t have to give any encores. I’ve never been so scared in my life!”

Kim and Maria were standing over Dirk. “He’s out cold,” Kim reported. She put an arm around Maria and hugged her. “We’re free,” she said.

“Yeah, but now what?” George asked.

“What do you mean?” Bess said. “Now we split!”

“No, wait.” Nancy thought a minute. “It’s not such a great idea for all of us to go trooping up on deck together. I think I’d better scout around first and see what’s happening. Maybe I can figure out a way to get us off this boat.”

“What about him?” George asked, pointing to Dirk.

“Sit on him if you have to,” Nancy replied. “And don’t forget, if anybody comes knocking, you’ve got the gun.”

Nancy drew in a deep breath and pushed the door open. She checked the hall, then gave the others a thumbs-up signal and slipped into the empty corridor. She ran silently up the metal stairs.

The
Rosita
had come to a complete stop. Nancy could feel it. She hoped that meant that everybody was gathered on one side of the deck, waiting to be taken to the island. If someone was in the galley, Nancy knew she’d be a sitting duck when she raised that trap door, but there was no way to tell. She’d just have to take her chances.

Cautiously Nancy pushed the door up about half an inch and waited. Nothing. She pushed some more until the opening was big enough for her head. From a distance, she heard the laughter and shouts of people waiting for the launches, but she didn’t see anyone in the galley.

It’s now or never, she thought, and pushed the door up until the opening was wide enough for her to crawl through. She lowered the door as quietly as possible and then crouched on the floor, waiting.