The Eskimo's Secret (6 page)

The price of Carson Drew’s freedom was finding Alana, and Nancy obviously wasn’t going to be able to do it here. But where could she begin?

“Tod!” Nancy realized. She looked at her watch, feeling it must be nearly midnight, but it was just after seven P.M. TWO quick phone calls located him at the nearby hospital. Not giving herself time to think ahead, Nancy hid the notebook in her suitcase, then picked up her purse and keys and hurried out of the hotel.

The hospital was fairly busy as visiting hours were ending, but Nancy had no trouble finding Tod’s room. The door stood open, but she knocked anyway. His face was a mass of scrapes and bruises, but his grin seemed real enough.

“Nancy Drew, what are you doing here?” he asked.

“Well, since you missed our meeting this afternoon, I thought I’d come here and talk to you,” Nancy began, feeling suddenly out of place and uncomfortable.

“You might be better off staying away from me,” Tod said, his grin fading. “Either that or stay off the streets. Don’t you know what happened to me?”

“Who did this to you?” Nancy asked. And why, Tod?”

Tod began shifting in the bed, his eyes evading hers. “How would I know? It was an accident. Someone wasn’t watching where he was going and I was cutting across the middle of the block. Just an accident.”

“That’s not what the officer told us,” Nancy said.

“What officer? When?” Tod stopped his squirming. “What are you talking about?” “There was a . . . someone got into the Steele mansion while I was downtown waiting for you. They searched Alana’s room and mine. Do you have any idea what they were looking for?” Their eyes locked for a moment and Nancy had the strong feeling Tod was trying to decide something.

“Probably Alana’s notebook,” Tod said at last, “if she didn’t have it with her when she disappeared.”

“Why would anyone want the notebook?” Nancy asked.

Tod shrugged. “I haven’t the foggiest idea. Why would anyone steal an art object that

would be impossible to sell legally or even show publicly?”

“Have you ever seen the notebook?” Nancy forced herself to sound casual, aware that she could frighten Tod off the subject.

“Only every day since we got the Tundra,” Tod answered. “She cataloged it, then she started trying to research its history. The girl was really hooked on that piece.”

“But do you know what was in the notebook?” Nancy asked.

“Not really. I mean she never told me or showed it to me. Why?”

“Then why do you think someone was after it?” Nancy had to ask.

Tod’s face grew cold. “I think you should leave,” he said.

“Talk to me, Tod,” Nancy cried in desperation. “Help me find Alana. She called me asking for my help, but I can’t do anything without help from you.”

“Ask her uncle where she is,” Tod growled. “I wasn’t the inside man and I don’t believe that Alana was, so that just leaves Clement Steele himself.”

“So where is Alana?” Nancy asked.

Tod shook his head, then winced. “Go away, Nancy Drew,” he said. “I can’t help you.”

“Can you tell me anything about what Alana was doing?” Nancy asked, controlling her panic and frustration with a firm hand. It was much easier to be a detective when she was just trying to solve a puzzle; knowing that her father’s safety depended on her actions made it much harder. “Is there somewhere she might have gone? I think I remember her mentioning something called the Firebird.”

Tod’s eyes flickered to her face, but Nancy could read nothing more than surprise in them. “She wouldn’t go there,” he said.

“Why not?” It took all her control to keep her voice light, only mildly curious.

“That lodge is really run-down now. She must have been talking about the old days when it was a special place to stay. It’s not even open to the public anymore as far as I know.” He frowned. “What made you think of it?”

“The name I guess,” Nancy answered casually. “It stuck in my mind. It sounds sort of special.” She swallowed hard. “What about friends, Tod? Is there anyone who would hide her?”

“If you talked to her this afternoon, why didn’t she tell you where she was?” Tod demanded, his eyes suddenly full of suspicion. “Why is it so important to you tonight?”

Nancy hesitated, longing to tell him the truth, longing to share her fears for her father with someone; but she couldn’t trust him. As long as her father was in danger, she couldn’t trust anyone. “Alana told me to forget her, to leave town before I became a victim,” she answered honestly.

Tod’s face grew grim. “She gave you good advice, Nancy Drew,” he said. “Keep asking questions and you could end up like this ... or worse!”

Nancy caught her breath but before she could speak again, a nurse came to tell her she had to leave. She murmured a few words of polite farewell, then felt a chill as Tod simply looked at her. “Be careful,” he warned, unsmiling. “They aren’t playing games, Nancy.”

Night had deepened to darkness while she was inside and in spite of the lights and people in the parking area, Nancy felt very much alone. She drove back to the hotel, stopping in the lobby only long enough to ask about the Firebird Lodge.

“It’s located outside the city,” the desk clerk said. “An old-fashioned place. Used to be quite well known, but it fell on hard times and I believe it’s a kind of rooming house now. Were you planning on going out there?”

“I think someone there might be able to help my father and me with a case we’re working on,” Nancy said. “I just thought I’d get the address and perhaps a map of the area for my father.”

“Is your father coming in tonight?” the desk clerk asked.

“Probably not till very late,” Nancy said, wishing that the words were true, that she was expecting him to arrive. “I’ll want you to hold the room, anyway, just so it will be ready for him.”

The clerk nodded. “I’ll get a map of the area and show you where the lodge is located,” he said.

Nancy watched his drawing and listened attentively to what he said, but all the time she kept wondering if it was important. Tod hadn’t seemed to think so, yet Alana had mentioned something about the secret of the Tundra being found at the Firebird. It was the only clue she had.

“I’ll check it out in the morning,” she told herself as she got into the elevator. At the moment she was so tired she wasn’t sure she could make it down the long hall to her room. It had been an endless day.

And there was still the notebook, she reminded herself. Though she’d gone through it once, she realized that she hadn’t known what she was looking for, so she might have missed something. Sighing, she unlocked the door and stepped inside, flipping on the light.

She gasped in horror at the sight that greeted her: the contents of her suitcase lay in a shambles. “I should have taken it with me,” Nancy chided herself as she picked up the sweater within which she’d hid the notebook. The notebook was gone, of course.

Tears of frustration welled up. For a moment she was furious enough to call the authorities to report the break-in, but then she remembered the cold voice on the telephone and she knew she couldn’t risk it.

“All right, you’ve won this round,” she murmured to the empty room, “but I’m going to win the fight. I’m going to find Alana and learn this secret and then I’m going to get Dad and the Tundra back.”

The words were brave, but they echoed in the empty room, underlining how alone she was. Nancy looked around and knew she couldn’t stay.

Her eyes went to the map she still held. Could she find the place at night? She looked at the phone, then rejected the idea of calling ahead. “I hope you left me some clues, Alana,” she said as she pulled on a jacket and prepared to leave the hotel again.

When she stepped out into the hall, however, she hesitated, suddenly realizing something. For anyone to have searched her room, they had to know she’d left the hotel. Were they watching her? She looked up and down the hall. It was empty and quiet. Someone in the lobby? That seemed more likely.

Nancy moved away from the elevators, following the hall to the far end where the stairs were located. She used them and smiled as she stepped out at the side of the hotel only a few yards from where her car was parked. “Now all I have to do is find Firebird Lodge,” she told herself. “I just hope the desk clerk knew what he was drawing on this map.”

The drive through Victoria was calming and gave her time to do a little thinking about all that had happened; The trouble was, her thoughts weren’t very conclusive. Everyone seemed to have secrets. Alana, her uncle, Tod— they had all asked her to help; yet none of them had trusted her with the whole truth.

But what about her father? Nancy asked herself. Why kidnap him? She frowned at the night beyond her car windows. Obviously, he had been abducted before she went to Victoria; otherwise he would have arrived at the Haggler Estate.

Suddenly Nancy became aware of headlights behind her in the darkness. At first they were approaching quickly, then they seemed to slow until they were maintaining the same distance between their car and the rental one she was driving.

“Well, well, well, they must have been watching the car instead of the lobby,” she murmured, wondering if they had followed her to the hospital, too. It would have been impossible to tell in the city traffic.

Nancy allowed the car to slow, trying to decide what to do. She couldn’t just lead them to the lodge.

Should she return to the hotel? Her heart sank at the thought. She spread the map out next to her and studied it in the light from the dashboard. There were a number of roads in the area and some of them seemed to be connected. She had to lose the car that trailed her!

Nancy began watching for the road signs and when she spotted the one she was looking for, she sharply turned down the road, cut her lights, and drove as quickly as she could through the dark woods. For a moment there were no lights behind her and she felt a flash of joy. But then the lights appeared again.

Nancy turned her lights back on and pressed down hard on the accelerator. It was a mad race through the forest. The road twisted and turned, climbing and dropping, making the small car bounce over the rough spots. It became a nightmare of trees rearing out of the darkness and sudden squeals of tires as she veered around hidden curves.

Still the lights remained behind her, and it was obvious that her small rental car simply did not have the power to escape her pursuer.

The same thought seemed to occur to the driver of the chase car, and the lights loomed larger and larger as the driver closed the gap between them. Nancy looked around desperately, seeking a side road, anything; but the darkness was complete.

“You don’t have me yet,” she shouted as the big car pulled up alongside. She tried to accelerate, but her car simply couldn’t go any faster. The bigger car loomed beside her and as she watched, the driver began to pull toward her, obviously trying to cut her off, to force her off the road and into the trees.

Terrified, Nancy gripped the wheel until her knuckles gleamed white in the light from the dashboard. Then the driver of the other car jerked his wheel sharply. Nancy hit her brakes hard, letting her lighter car skid as the bigger, heavier car shot past her and sailed off the road to their right, past the trees and into a small open area.

Fighting the wheel, she managed to hold the car on the road as it lurched to a stop. Only then was she able to look to see what had happened to the other car.

The silence of the night was broken by motor sounds and as Nancy slowly turned her small car around, her lights shone on the bigger one. Relieved, Nancy began to laugh nervously.

The clearing was a boggy area, and the car had sunk to its fenders as the driver raced the motor and spun the buried tires.

Still shaking from the ordeal, Nancy drove slowly back the way she’d come. Whenever she saw a sign, she stopped to read it, checking her map until she came upon a sign overgrown with vines that said it was two miles to Firebird Lodge. She turned onto the rutted road.

“The way things have been going, the place will probably be closed,” she told herself grimly.

The road wasn’t promising. Weeds grew in the middle and the trees were so thick and tall

they met overhead, creating a dark, menacing tunnel. Still, she eventually reached the end of the road and a hulking building with lights on waiting to greet her.

Not sure what she was going to say, Nancy parked in a row of three cars and turned off the motor. For the first time since she’d discovered she was being followed she relaxed. She leaned against the seat and smoothed back her hair from her damp forehead as the door of the lodge opened.

To Nancy’s amazement, Alana Steele stood in the path of the light. Feeling as if she were in a dream, Nancy opened the car door and stepped out, then leaned weakly on the fender.

“Nancy, Nancy, is that you?” Alana called. “How did you find us?”

“Us?” Nancy was suddenly aware of the young man standing behind her friend, and she felt a chill of apprehension. He must have been the one who placed Alana’s call to the Steele mansion.

“Are you all right, Nancy?” Alana gasped, hurrying forward.

“I think so,” Nancy replied. “There was a car chasing me. They tried to force me off the road, but they ended up in a bog.”

“Come inside, please,” the man said. “You can ask each other questions there. I think your friend could use some hot tea or maybe cocoa, Alana.”

Nancy nodded, allowing Alana to take her arm and lead her up the steps and into the large front room of the old log building. She said nothing until she was seated on an old, worn couch and holding a warm mug in her still-cold hands.

“How did you find me?” Alana asked.

“You mentioned the Firebird,” Nancy explained. “The last time you called, you said you’d found the secret of the Tundra here. I didn’t know where else to start.”