005 Hit and Run Holiday (8 page)

N
ANCY STEPPED BACK
from the towel-draped body. “Are you sure it’s Ricardo?” she asked.

“Hey, I helped pull him out of the water,” the boy replied. “And I’ve talked to him every day since I’ve been here. I know what he looks like.” The boy paused. “Hey, you look sick. Were you a friend of his?” he asked.

Nancy shook her head. “No, but I knew who he was.”

“Yeah, well, it’s too bad, huh? And you want to know something? He didn’t drown—he was shot.” The boy held up his hand. “And, yes,
I’m sure. I pulled him out of the water, remember?”

Stunned, Nancy pushed her way through the crowd and stumbled back up the beach, trying to figure out what had happened. Why had Ricardo been shot? Had he lost Maria, and had the people he worked with killed him for it?

When she reached the street, Nancy heard the wail of a siren in the distance. The police, coming to investigate Ricardo’s murder. She knew she should talk to them, but what would she say? The last time she saw him, he was with a girl named Maria, but she had no idea where Maria was. She had no idea who Ricardo worked for or who killed him. You don’t really know anything at all, Nancy told herself. Your main suspect is dead, and you’re back to square one.

The Surfside Inn was just across the street, and Nancy decided to go there first, to shower and change. Then she’d return to the beach and talk to the police. But after she got the key from the desk and let herself into the room, Nancy realized she was too tired to take a shower. She was so wiped out, she was actually staggering. Her eyes were playing tricks on her, too. Instead of two single beds, she saw four, then two, then four again. Stumbling across the room, she bumped into the cot that Bess
used, fell onto it, and was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

• • •

“Look at this!” a voice was saying. “There’s a body on my cot!”

Nancy burrowed her face deeper into the crook of her elbow. “Go away,” she mumbled.

Another voice said, “Look, she didn’t even bother to change. How’s that for lazy?”

“Please,” Nancy groaned, “not so loud.” She yawned and tried to slip back into sleep, but someone sat down on the cot, making it jiggle back and forth.

“Hey, Nan,” Bess said, laughing, “I don’t mind if you sleep here, but don’t you think you’d be more comfortable without my makeup kit poking you in the neck?”

Nancy moaned and shook her head, but it was too late—she was awake. She opened one eye and peered up through her tangled hair. Bess and George were staring down at her, looking extremely amused. “What’s happening?” she asked.

“Why don’t
you
tell
us?”
George suggested.

“Yeah,” Bess said, grinning. “We thought we had a wild night, but it looks like yours was wilder. Couldn’t even bother to take off your clothes before you fell asleep, huh?”

“Wild night?” Nancy croaked. Her throat was bone dry, and her tongue felt too big for
her mouth. Swallowing, she pushed herself up on her elbows and turned onto her back. “It was wild, all right.”

When Bess and George saw how scratched and bruised she was, their teasing grins disappeared and their mouths dropped open.

“Nan, what
happened
to you?” Bess cried in horror.

“That must have been some battle,” George said. “Are you okay?”

“I will be, once I shower and eat and drink about a gallon of water.” Nancy sat up slowly and rubbed her neck. “You’re right, George,” she remarked, “it was some battle.”

“Well, tell us!” Bess demanded.

George went to the vending machine in the hall and brought back a soda and a package of peanut butter crackers. Nancy ate first, then told them everything that had happened the night before.

“We heard about Ricardo when we got in,” Bess told her. “That’s all anybody’s talking about on the beach.”

“It looks like he wasn’t a bad guy after all,” George said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he was an illegal himself.”

Hmm, thought Nancy. Just like Maria.

“Yeah,” Bess said, “the police tried to check up on him and found out he’d been working with a fake green card ever since he reached
Florida. And it seems that a lot of people around here knew about it.”

George nodded. “One of the other lifeguards told me that Ricardo tried to help other illegals—you know, get them cards and find them work, stuff like that.”

“So he must have been helping Maria all along,” Nancy said. That explained why he’d smiled when Kim got hit, she thought. It was a smile of anger—he’d been challenged and he was ready to fight. “But why did he have it in for me?” she wondered aloud, remembering the satisfied look on his face when she’d stepped on the man-of-war.

“Why shouldn’t he? He didn’t know who you were,” Bess pointed out. “Kim didn’t know you were coming down, and she probably never even mentioned you. He probably thought you were going to turn him over to the authorities or something.”

“Right,” Nancy agreed. “He didn’t trust anyone.” She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. “Boy, I’m really stuck now. I don’t have the vaguest idea what to do next.”

Bess took Nancy’s hand and pulled her off the bed. “Take a shower and then put something in your stomach besides soda and crackers,” she told her. “Once you feel human again, you’ll be able to think.”

Nancy couldn’t help noticing that Bess was back to her old friendly self. Dirk must have
made all the right moves, she thought. Then she thought of something else. “Kim!” she cried. “I completely forgot!” She quickly told Bess and George about Kim’s condition while she dialed the hospital room. The line was busy.

Ten minutes and three calls later, it was still busy.

“Look,” George said, “go shower. We’ll keep trying the hospital. Anyway, who knows? Kim might have recovered. She could be running up a long distance phone bill right now.”

“Let’s hope so,” Nancy said, and headed for the shower. Even though the sharp spray stung every cut and scratch, the water felt wonderful, and Nancy thought she might never come out. She was soaping her hair for the second time when Bess walked in.

“Nan?” she called. “I just wanted to apologize for the way I acted about Dirk. I was really mad at him, not at you. I hope you know that.”

“It’s okay,” Nancy called back, over the hiss of the water. Then she poked her head out of the shower curtain and grinned. “I take it you two got together again last night?”

“We sure did!” Bess ran a brush through her hair and laughed. “He’s absolutely incredible!”

“Well, I’m glad somebody had fun,” Nancy joked. “Did you meet Lila Templeton?”

Bess nodded. “She was really nice. She asked why you weren’t there, but I just said something had come up.”

“That’s for sure!” Nancy ducked back in the shower and started rinsing her hair.

“I wouldn’t mind being in Lila’s shoes,” Bess went on with a giggle. “Everybody who works for her is tan, male, and gorgeous! And when they drop the partiers off at the island, she gets to take off in that boat with ten beautiful men!”

Nancy laughed and poured some conditioner on her hair. “Sounds great!”

“It is,” Bess agreed, “but I’m starting to feel a little guilty.”

“Guilty? What for?”

“Well, I mean, there we were, cruising along in the
Rosita,
having a terrific time, while you were tied to that piling, fighting for your life, and—”

“The what?” Nancy turned the water off and stuck her head out again. “What did you say?”

“I said I was feeling a little guilty about having such a good time when—”

“I heard that part,” Nancy interrupted. “You said you were cruising along in the . . . the what?”

“The boat,” Bess said, looking confused. “Lila Templeton’s boat—the
Rosita.”

I
MISSED IT!”
Nancy said. “I completely missed it!” She stepped into her new yellow drawstring shorts, pulled on a stretchy, yellow-striped tank top, and reached for the blow-dryer. “Kim said, ‘The . . . it was . . . Rosita.’ I kept thinking she meant a girl, and all the time she meant a boat!”

“You really think Lila Templeton brings people in illegally?” Bess asked.

“I think she does more than that,” Nancy said over the whine of the blow-dryer. “I think she brings them in, takes their money, and then ships them off to her family’s orange groves to work for nothing.”

“Cheap labor,” George remarked.

“The cheapest,” Nancy agreed. “No wonder she’s got so much money. No wonder the
Rosita
is just a big water toy to her. Except it isn’t really a toy,” she added. “It’s a perfect front for what she’s doing.”

“You mean while everybody’s partying on the island,” Bess said, “Lila takes the boat, picks up the immigrants, and hides them somewhere on the boat until she gets back to Fort Lauderdale?”

“Why not?” George asked. “The
Rosita’
s big enough.”

Nancy turned off the dryer. “I don’t think it’s just Lila, though,” she said. “Remember the guys I told you about—the ‘maintenance’ man and the one who dropped off the flowers at the hospital? When I was out on that pier, I thought I’d imagined them. But now I’m positive they were there.”

“You think they work for Lila,” George said.

“Right. It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Nancy asked. “That maintenance guy was as phony as a three-dollar bill; I just didn’t know what he was doing there. But he was probably checking the room to make sure there wasn’t any evidence against Lila. And the florist guy must have been checking to make sure Kim wasn’t spilling the beans.”

“I’ll bet they followed you around last
night,” George told her. “And you led them right to Maria and Ricardo.”

Nancy nodded. “Lila’s got a whole fleet of gorgeous men doing her dirty work.” Her feet still sore, she limped over to the cot and, wincing, slipped on a pair of thongs. The sandals she’d worn the night before were lost forever on the beach. “And, Bess,” she said, “remember what happened when you first introduced me to Dirk?”

“How could I forget? He practically tripped over his own feet to stand next to you.” Bess rolled her eyes and shook her head. “The minute he met you, it was like I didn’t exist.”

“Not the minute he met me,” Nancy reminded her. “It was the minute I started talking about Kim.”

“That’s right,” George said. “He said he was ‘sort of a mystery nut’ and he’d like to help you.”

Bess shook her head again. “What a line!”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t using that line because he was interested in me,” Nancy said. “The only one he was interested in was Kim, and that’s because—”

“Because he works for Lila Templeton,” Bess finished with a groan. “How come I always fall for the wrong guy?” she asked, plopping down on one of the beds. “This time I really, really thought I’d found somebody
special, and he turns out to be a creep,
the
creep!”

Nancy couldn’t help laughing. “Don’t feel too bad, Bess. I fell for him, too.” Grinning, she told them about the broken pole on her windsurfing sail. “I mean I really fell for him!”

“Well, now that we’ve got it all figured out,” George said, “what are we going to do about it?”

“Good question,” Bess remarked. “The only one who can prove anything is Maria, and who knows where she is?”

“Kim could prove it,” Nancy said, “if she’s still . . .” Instead of finishing the awful thought, Nancy reached for the phone and dialed Kim’s hospital room. “Now there’s no answer at all,” she reported.

“What could that mean?” Bess asked.

“I don’t know.” Nancy suddenly jumped up and headed for the door. “Come on, let’s get to the hospital and find out.”

• • •

Half an hour later, Nancy, Bess, and George were standing nervously outside the door to Kim’s hospital room. They looked at each other for a moment; then Nancy took a deep breath and pushed it open.

Kim was gone.

The bed was empty and freshly made, ready for a new patient. The only reminders of Kim
were two flower arrangements—one was dried and drooping, but the second looked as if it had just been delivered.

Bess’s eyes filled with tears. “We’re too late,” she whispered.

George bit her lip. “I can’t believe she’s—”

“Wait a minute,” Nancy broke in. “This doesn’t have to mean she’s dead. Maybe they moved her to a different room or took her for tests or X rays or something. Come on!”

The three friends dashed out of the room and headed down the hall. As they turned a corner they heard a loud commotion at the nurses’ station.

“I never authorized any such thing!” a voice cried. “How could you possibly think I would?”

It was Kim’s mother, but she didn’t look grief-stricken. She looked furious.

“Mrs. Baylor?” Nancy rushed up to her. “What’s going on?”

“I’d like to know myself!” Mrs. Baylor exclaimed. “I leave my daughter’s room for all of twenty minutes to get a cup of coffee in the cafeteria and what do I find when I come back? An empty bed, that’s what I find. With no daughter in it!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Baylor,” the nurse said nervously. “But the doctor who signed her out said you wanted her taken back to River Heights as soon as possible.”