Hot Tracks (3 page)

“Come on. While you're standing there, some kid could be joyriding in your car. If we leave now, we may even catch him.”

Bess's outlook brightened. “You think so?”

“Well, there's always a chance.”

“Then let's go!” Bess grabbed Nancy's arm and pulled her toward the side lot where the Mustang was parked. “Just wait till I get hold of the creep who stole my car,” she said angrily. “I'll—”

“Call the police?” Nancy suggested.

Bess giggled. “Probably.”

Nancy unlocked the car doors, and she and Bess slid in. “So did you and Dirk make up?” Nancy asked.

“Yeah. In fact, he invited me to lunch tomorrow. I think he knew I was a little bent out of shape about Kitty.” Bess's smile faded as she added, “But believe it or not, my mind's not on Dirk right now. I only want to find my car.”

Nancy drove out of the parking lot and up the winding road away from the river to the main highway. After rolling down the window, she propped her elbow on the door. Warm spring air blew into the car and ruffled her reddish blond hair.

“Let's think. If you were a kid joyriding in a
hot Camaro, where would you go?” she wondered.

“I'd head straight for the action,” Bess said without hesitating.

“And where's the action in River Heights?” Nancy asked Bess.

“The mall!” they chorused together.

“So let's try there first. We're only about five minutes away,” said Nancy. She checked her watch. “It's nine. The mall closes at nine-thirty, so the parking lot should be starting to thin out.”

Bess crossed her fingers. “Let's hope whoever took my car just left it there.”

“Yeah, let's hope.” Nancy was glad they had decided to search for the Camaro. It was better than doing nothing, and it seemed to have lifted Bess's spirits. Deep down, Nancy knew the chances of finding the car were pretty slim, but she just didn't have the heart to tell Bess.

As Nancy pulled the Mustang into the mall's huge parking lot, Bess rolled down her window and stuck her head out. The two girls scanned the cars as they cruised slowly up and down each row.

Twenty minutes later Bess let out a breath in a loud sigh of frustration. “This is crazy,” she grumbled. “My neck's got a kink in it, and there's no sign of my car. I think we're on a wild-goose chase.”

“Do you want to give up?” Nancy asked.

“No. It's just that—Hey, look over there!”
Bess straightened up and pointed out the front window of the Mustang. A yellow Camaro was backing out of a parking space.

“Hold on!” Nancy said, stepping on the gas.

The Camaro started to pull forward just as Nancy swung her car around, blocking its path. She then stomped on the brakes. The car had barely stopped before Bess opened her door and jumped out.

“Bess!” Nancy called, throwing open her own door. “Be careful. The person could be dangerous!”

Her warning came too late. In two strides, Bess had already reached the driver's side of the Camaro.

Nancy raced after her—then did a quick double take as the window on the Camaro was slowly cranked down. A white-haired woman was in the driver's seat. Not only that, but the Camaro's interior was blue instead of brown.

“Is something the matter?” the elderly woman asked in a quavering voice. There was a puzzled expression on her wrinkled face.

“Uh . . .” Bess stammered. “We're looking for—It's just that—”

“My friend thought you were her grandmother,” Nancy fibbed. “Sorry—our mistake.”

The woman nodded. “That's all right.” She waved cheerfully before putting the car in reverse and stepping on the gas. With a squeal of the tires, the Camaro whipped back into an
empty parking space. Nancy and Bess jumped out of the way as the Camaro lurched forward again, narrowly missing them before it sped down the aisle away from the Mustang.

“See the way she's driving?” Bess sputtered. “She can't be an elderly lady. She's a thief in disguise—and you're letting her get away!”

Nancy laughed. “Relax. That wasn't your car. It had blue seats. Plus the window wasn't broken.”

“I knew that,” Bess retorted with an embarrassed laugh. “I just got carried away.”

“Next time be a little more cautious before charging up to a car,” Nancy said as they climbed back into the Mustang. “If that had been the kid who stole your car, he might've been dangerous.”

Bess nodded thoughtfully. “I didn't think about that. You're right. Well, where should we go now?”

Nancy started the Mustang again and headed down the last row of the parking lot. “I hate to say it, but how about home? It's getting late, and I'm kind of beat.”

Seeing Bess's disappointed expression, Nancy quickly added, “Not that I'm giving up or anything. It's just that—”

“There's no way we're going to find my car,” Bess finished dejectedly.

“It is pretty unlikely,” Nancy admitted. “How about if we check out the Loft and Commotion on the way home?” she suggested,
hoping to cheer Bess up. “They're hot high-school hangouts. Maybe a kid took your car so he could party at one of those places.”

Nancy pulled out of the parking lot and headed for Commotion. She stopped at the first traffic light just as it was turning red. A yellow car waiting on the right side for the light to turn green caught her eye. It was a yellow Camaro.

Nancy nudged her friend. “Look. Check out the plates when it passes by us.”

Bess leaned forward as the Camaro drove under the traffic light and continued straight. Nancy and Bess couldn't read the faint tags, but they could tell that they were black and white, like Bess's dealer plates.

“That's got to be my car!” Bess said excitedly.

Nancy's light turned green, and she flipped on her left turn signal. “Let's follow it.” She made a sharp turn and almost caught up to the Camaro. There was a light blue sedan between the two cars.

“We've got to get beside it, to see if the window's broken,” Bess said determinedly.

“Maybe you can see what color the seat covers are,” Nancy added.

Just then the light blue sedan turned off the road. Nancy sped up until she was right behind the Camaro. Then she glanced into the left lane of the two-lane road.

“There are no cars coming,” she told Bess.
“I'm going to pull up beside the Camaro. You check it out—but do it quickly!”

Stepping harder on the gas pedal, Nancy shot into the left lane and zoomed up next to the Camaro. Bess stuck her head out the open window. Nancy looked over just in time to see the driver turn his head and stare at them in surprise. He was a guy about their age, with red hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“Mud brown! That's my car!” Bess called out.

At the exact same time the Camaro's motor gave a loud roar, and the car burst ahead of them. Nancy angled back into the right lane and tried to keep up with the yellow sports car.

“The dashboard and seats were definitely brown,” Bess said excitedly. “I couldn't tell about the window. It was rolled down.”

“That guy wasn't too pleased that we were interested in him, either,” Nancy added, her eyes still on the car up ahead. “Let's keep following and find out where he's headed.”

Just then the Camaro did a quick U-turn, its tires squealing as the rear end fishtailed.

“Hey, careful with my car!” Bess yelled out the window. Then she steadied herself against the dashboard as Nancy cut the wheel hard to the left.

“Hold on!” Nancy shouted, swinging the Mustang around. “I don't want to lose him.”

She could see the yellow Camaro about a quarter mile ahead. Fortunately, there wasn't
any traffic, so Nancy went the speed limit trying to catch up to the yellow Camaro.

Soon they were driving into an area with which they weren't very familiar. Large warehouses loomed over the dark streets, which were illuminated only by an occasional street lamp.

“Where are we?” Bess asked worriedly.

“The industrial section of town,” Nancy replied. “Lock your door.”

Up ahead, the Camaro made an abrupt right turn. Nancy flicked on her blinker and wheeled the Mustang after it.

“Nancy, look.” Bess pointed to a sign as they turned the corner. “It's a dead end. We've got him now!”

Nancy's heart sank a moment later. She could see to the end of the street, but the Camaro was nowhere in sight.

Slowing her Mustang, Nancy cruised down the street. Both sides were lined with huge warehouses with loading docks jutting off them. Stacks of empty crates and boxes were piled high against the walls of several of the buildings. Except for two large tractor trailers parked beside one ramp, the area was empty of cars and trucks.

At the end of the street, which was bordered by a chain-link fence, Nancy turned the Mustang around and stopped.

“I don't get it,” Bess said, gazing back the way they had come. “Where'd my car go?”

“I don't know. There aren't any alleys or side streets, and it certainly looks as if everything's closed for the night.” Nancy shook her head in frustration. “If I didn't know better, I'd say your car disappeared into thin air!”

H
OW COULD
my car just disappear?” Bess asked.

Nancy thoughtfully studied the rows of dark warehouses. “I bet the driver pulled into one of these buildings.”

“He disappeared so fast, though,” Bess said.

“Which means he knew exactly where he was going and the door must have been open,” Nancy guessed.

Bess's blue eyes widened as she realized what Nancy was getting at. “You think the chop shop is in one of these buildings?”

“Could be. The question is, which one?”

“Well, we'll just search them all and find out,” Bess said firmly. She opened the car door, but Nancy caught her arm and pulled her back.

“Not so fast. Auto theft is big business, Bess. If anyone catches us snooping around, we might find ourselves in a whole lot of trouble.”

Shivering, Bess closed and relocked the car door. “So now what?”

Nancy stepped on the gas and began driving back down the dead-end street. “We find out exactly where we are now, then call the police,” she told Bess.

The girls didn't see any street signs at the intersection. “We can use the Pacific Trucking Company and Illinois Overseas signs as landmarks,” Nancy suggested, pointing to the buildings on either side of the intersection. She turned left, heading back the way they'd come.

“Look. That street sign says Twelfth, and there's Fourteenth,” Bess added. “So the dead end must be about Tenth.”

They drove until they were once again on the main highway, busy with late-night traffic. At a well-lit gas station, Nancy spotted a phone booth. They parked next to it and got out of the car.

“Let's hope they'll let us speak to someone in auto theft,” Nancy said, dialing the River Heights police. She told the dispatcher that she had some information about a stolen car and asked to speak to Detective Quinones, the man Officer Jackson had said was in charge of auto theft.

The dispatcher told her that the detective wasn't available and instructed her to come in first thing in the morning to file a report.

“In the morning!” Bess wailed after Nancy hung up. “By then my car will be in a hundred pieces!”

“Maybe not.” Nancy tried to reassure her. “It's late, and all those warehouses seemed deserted. Probably the guy with the red ponytail just drops off the cars he steals at night. The Camaro might not get worked on until tomorrow.”

“Let's hope so,” Bess said, “because I'll be furious if all they recover tomorrow is my ugly brown dashboard!”

• • •

“This
is the office of the auto theft unit?” Bess whispered dubiously to Nancy the next morning. The two girls had paused outside a small, dingy room on the top floor of the River Heights police station.

“This is where the desk clerk sent us,” Nancy said, glancing around as they stepped inside.

The room was divided into two cubicles. Two desks piled with papers were jammed into the cubicle closest to the door. The other cubicle had a desk with a computer and printer and a rubber plant with three dusty leaves.

“Can I help you girls?” a man's voice said from the hall behind Nancy and Bess.

Nancy whirled around to see a paunchy, middle-aged guy in a rumpled tweed sports jacket, holding a jelly doughnut.

“Uh, yes,” Nancy said. She introduced herself and Bess, then asked, “Is this auto theft?”

The man waved his doughnut around the room's two cubicles. “This is it.” He walked past the girls, taking a bite of the doughnut as he passed. “Now, what can I do for you?” he asked, sitting at one of the two desks in the room's outer cubicle. “I'm Detective Stan Powderly.”