09 The Clue at Black Creek Farm (11 page)

THE VOICE WAS JULIE'S.

Uh-oh.
I struggled to push my overtired, overworked brain into action.

“Is that Waikiki?” I asked, pointing to the photo of a smiling Julie and Jack on a beach that served as the computer's desktop. “Because it's so weird, but I could
swear
I was on that beach last year.” I took a step back from the computer and gave an awkward laugh, looking around like I was just realizing I was in Jack and Julie's room. Julie watched me, a little crease of confusion forming between her eyebrows.

“
I'm sorry, I know I'm being nosy,” I went on. “I just spotted that photo from the hall and it brought back all these memories of this great vacation I took. . . . I think I'm a little loopy from lack of sleep!”

Julie's eyes warmed with sympathy, and she stepped into the room. “I can relate,” she said with a little smile. “Actually, that's Costa Rica, not Hawaii. It's beautiful, isn't it? Jack and I took a vacation there last year and stayed in this gorgeous little eco-resort. We slept in a hut right on the beach. It was
amazing
.” She sighed, looking at the photo, then shook her head. “Of course, that was before I lost my job, back when we had disposable income.” She laughed a bitter little laugh.

“What?” I asked.

Julie shrugged. “Oh, I lost my job as an investment banker last year. You know—they keep saying the recession is over, but for bankers, is it really?” She smiled, like she was making a joke, but when I didn't laugh, the humor left her face. “Anyway . . . finances have been a lot tighter lately. In fact, Jack and
I originally came out here to look for houses in the area. We're thinking about selling our apartment in Chicago.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You can't quite afford it anymore?” I asked, filling in the blanks.

Julie nodded, then shifted her eyes uneasily. “
And
we'll need more room for the baby,” she added. “
And
it won't exactly hurt to have Jack's parents just a few minutes away. Abby's such a peach, she's offered to watch the baby a few days a week for me if and when I find a new job.”

Money problems?
It seemed Jack's potential motivation to destroy Black Creek Farm went even deeper than I thought.

Julie smiled brightly. “Anyway,” she said, “I came upstairs to look for you because Sam just came back. He says someone vandalized the chicken coop and killed three of the chickens! Can you imagine?”

I shook my head, then caught myself. “Yes,” I said. “I mean, no, I can't imagine
wanting
to do that. But it doesn't surprise me that it happened. I actually saw
the person out there. . . .” I couldn't help shuddering, remembering that tense moment when the intruder had looked up and seemed to spot me peeking around the coop.
What would have happened if I hadn't been able to outrun him? Or her,
I reminded myself.

Julie was watching me with sympathetic eyes. “How horrible,” she said. “I'm so glad you got back to the house safely.” She paused, shaking her head. “Honestly, I can't
believe
what's been going on at the farm these past few days! I thought coming to the country would be
relaxing
. But this is more stressful than the city!”

I smiled ruefully and nodded. “Maybe you'll need to go back and, like, listen to car alarms going off for a while to relax,” I suggested.

Julie laughed. I noticed then that her eyes looked tired; she must have been telling the truth when she said she hadn't been sleeping well lately. “Well, I think I'm going to take a shower,” she said, gesturing to a door that opened off the rear of the room—a private bathroom, I guessed.

“
Oh, of course,” I said, moving toward the door to the hallway. “I'm sorry to keep you. I should get downstairs to hear the latest, anyway.”

Julie smiled as she brushed past me. I paused in the doorway, watching her flip on the light and push open the door. Just as she ducked inside I saw it, thrown over a towel rod.

A black hoodie.

I had to bite my lip to keep from letting out a gasp.

“NANCY, WHY ARE YOU DRIVING
like a maniac?” Bess grabbed the handle on the passenger-side ceiling of my car and gave me a horrified look as I just barely missed the bumper of an old Chevy, skirting around to pass it on the right.

It's your fault for going so slow,
I thought when I saw the driver glance up in alarm, and then scolded myself.
Stop it, Nancy. Don't be the kind of driver you hate.

“I'm sorry, Bess,” I said. “I just really need to get home and talk this out with you and George.”

Bess raised her eyebrows. “So you have a theory?”

“
I do. And it took so long to make our report to the police and get out of Black Creek Farm, I was beginning to think I'd never get to share it with you.”

Bess grinned. “Well, do tell! I always love hearing the latest deductions of Nancy Drew, Super Sleuth.”

I smirked at her. “You know I can't tell you without George here”—Bess pretended to scowl—“but I can't wait to tell you guys what I'm thinking. More than anything, I want to figure out our next step!”

Bess glanced out the windshield. “Well, I'll give you this, Nancy,” she said. “When you want to drive fast, you really do drive fast! We're nearly at your house already.”

Minutes later I pulled into my driveway, and we piled out and ran into the house. Pausing only to grab two oatmeal raisin cookies from the cookie jar on the counter (
Thanks, Hannah!),
we hightailed it up to my room, where I pulled out my own laptop.

I pulled up the home page for my e-mail program and logged in, then opened up my in-box to start sifting through the messages I'd forwarded from Jack.

“
What are you doing?” Bess asked. “Or can't you tell me that, either, till George gets here?”

I rolled my eyes at her. “No, I'll tell you. I forwarded myself a bunch of e-mails that Jack's sent in the last three weeks. I'm going through them now, looking for anything suspicious.”

“Jack,” Bess said simply. Her blue eyes sparkled with excitement.

I looked over at her.
Darn, did I just give away my whole theory?
“Um . . . yeah. Jack.”

Bess nodded slowly, tapping her chin. “He
was
very rude at the buffet,” she said. “And then with what Lori told us . . .”

I had turned my attention back to my computer screen, where suddenly something caught my eye. “Oh my gosh!”

Bess jumped up from my bed and darted over to my desk to look over my shoulder at the computer screen. “What is it?”

It was an e-mail from Jack, sent, according to the time stamp, at around four o'clock that morning.

Dude . . .

Look, what we're doing is having no effect. There's more fun planned for tonight, but I'm not sure it will work. S is too hardheaded.

We need to talk about sending a clearer message.

Maybe if S had an “accident” . . .

Meet me at Coffee Cabin in River Heights this afternoon at three.

J

I looked up at Bess. Her mouth was hanging open.

“An ‘accident,' ” she said slowly. Then she made finger quotes.
“ ‘Accident,' ”
she repeated.

“I know,” I said.

“Do you think he's going to hurt Sam?” Bess asked.

“I don't know. But it sounds like that's on the table.”

Bess looked horrified. “Three o'clock . . . what time is it now?”

I glanced at the clock on my computer screen. “It's one thirty.”

Just then George breezed through my bedroom door. “
Was that you I saw driving like a woman in labor?” she asked, looking at me like I was out of my mind. “It couldn't be, right? Aren't you always telling me that just because I
can
drive the speed limit doesn't mean I
should
go that fast? What were you in such a rush for?”

I gave George a matter-of-fact look. “I think I've figured out who's behind all the shenanigans at Black Creek,” I said, “and if we don't stop him . . . Sam is going to get hurt!”

I PEEKED OUT OF THE
kitchen at the Coffee Cabin, watching the door as I adjusted the volume on the microphone I'd hidden under table four. Table four was the most popular table in the place, according to George, and very centrally located. If I was really lucky, Jack and his accomplice would take a seat there to have whatever sordid conversation they were planning to have, and I'd get a crystal-clear recording that I could bring to Sam to show him the ugly truth. If I was only a little bit lucky, they'd sit somewhere else in the Cabin, but
still close enough to the mic for me to hear what they were saying.

I worried that we'd already used up our luck allowance, though—because it was
crazy
lucky that Jack had decided to meet this person in the one coffee shop in the area that employed my amazing friend George.

“It's not too busy today,” George murmured, sidling up next to me in the crisp white shirt and black apron that served as her uniform. “That's lucky. It'll make ‘Dude' easier to spot.”

I nodded. “I already have, like, three potential ‘Dudes' picked out,” I whispered. “The bald guy at table one, the redhead at table eight, and the biker guy sitting at the bar.”

George surveyed my candidates with interest. “The biker guy ordered a strawberry mocha dream-a-chino,” she whispered back, “just in case that takes him off any kind of ‘potential criminal' list.”

I shot her a horrified look. “George, criminals drink all kinds of coffee drinks!”

“There's no coffee in that,”
George corrected me. “But there
is
a mountain of whipped cream.”

I looked back at Biker Dude just in time to watch him put down his mug, revealing a huge whipped-cream mustache. I glanced at George and couldn't help giggling.

“George, did you wipe down table seven?” George's boss, Lydia, interrupted our giggle-fest. She leaned over from her desk just inside the kitchen, frowning.

“I'll get right on it,” George replied, shooting me a
sorry, but she pays me
look. Lydia hadn't exactly been thrilled when we'd explained that we wanted to turn the Coffee Cabin into a recording studio. She'd nixed Bess having any part in it, so Bess had headed downtown to get her much-craved manicure—but not before we promised to keep her updated via text. Meanwhile, Lydia had been staring daggers at my back since I'd arrived, sarcastically asking how our “little detective game” was going.

When George left to wipe the table, I looked to the doorway as the bell jingled, indicating a new customer.
When an older woman walked in, I felt myself deflate a little.

I looked out the window, across the street, where a River Heights police cruiser idled. I'd had quite a hard time getting the River Heights Police Department to take me seriously when I'd gone into the station to tell them everything I knew about the Black Creek case. They told me the only crimes actually committed (the vandalism and contamination of the crops) had been outside their jurisdiction, and that a meeting of two potential culprits didn't warrant sending an officer to the scene. It took a gentle reminder that the noted attorney Carson Drew would be
very upset
if anything were to happen to his darling daughter to get them to agree to send Officer Bailey over to wait outside the café in his squad car, “monitoring the situation.” He still looked pretty unhappy about it, with his folded arms and grim expression. He glanced over at the coffee shop, and I waved brightly. I swear he rolled his eyes before giving an exaggerated yawn.