005 Hit and Run Holiday (9 page)

“That’s ridiculous! Why would I have her moved at such a crucial time?”

“You mean Kim had gotten even worse?” Nancy asked.

“No, she was getting better! Just a couple of hours ago, she actually woke up,” Mrs. Baylor explained. “She didn’t say anything, of course, she was too weak. But she knew who I was—she smiled at me before she went back to sleep. The doctors said it would be just a matter of days before she’d be back on her feet.” She turned to the nurse again. “They also told me it was very important to keep her quiet and calm,” she said accusingly. “It would be the most ridiculous thing in the world for me to take her back to River Heights right now!”

The nurse started to say something, but Mrs. Baylor didn’t give her a chance. “I’m going to see your supervisor right this minute,” she told her. “And you’d better hope she has some answers for me! If she doesn’t, heads are going to roll around here!” Without a backward glance, Mrs. Baylor strode to the elevator and furiously punched the button.

When she was gone, the red-faced nurse puffed out about a gallon of air. “This is definitely not my day,” she complained. “I’m new here and all I did was follow a doctor’s orders, and now my job’s on the line!”

Nancy barely heard her. “If we’d just gotten
here an hour ago, this whole thing would never have happened,” she muttered.

“What are you talking about?” Bess asked.

“Those flowers,” Nancy said, pacing back and forth in front of the desk.

“What flowers?”

“In Kim’s room, remember? One of the bouquets was drooping and the other was fresh. I’ll bet you a brand-new string bikini that they were both sent by the same person.”

“Lila?” George asked.

“Lila.” Nancy stopped pacing and shook her head. “Lila Templeton has been one step ahead of me ever since I got here. That tan hunk who works for her probably delivered those flowers so he could find out what shape Kim was in. When he realized she was recovering, he called Lila. That’s why the phone was busy. And Lila decided that Kim better disappear.”

Nancy thought for a moment, then suddenly turned to the nurse. “That doctor,” she said, “the one who signed Kim Baylor out. Who was he?”

“It wasn’t a he, honey,” the nurse replied. “That doctor was a she, and she had two of the cutest orderlies with her that I ever saw in my life.”

“Lila Templeton,” Nancy said again. “The doctor had blond hair, right?” she asked.

“Blond hair and big green eyes,” the nurse replied. “She was real friendly, smiled a lot.”

“A great bedside manner, huh?” Nancy asked with a wry smile. Without waiting for an answer, she looked at Bess and George. “We’ve got to get going,” she said.

“Where?” Bess wanted to know.

“To the
Rosita.”

“You think Lila has Kim on her boat?” George asked.

“Kim
and
Maria,” Nancy said. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? They’re the only two people who can point a finger at Lila. She knows she has to get rid of them, and the
Rosita
is a perfect way to do it.”

Bess’s face turned pale under its tan. “You mean she’ll kill them and dump them in the ocean?”

Nancy nodded. “Don’t forget Ricardo,” she said. “Lila Templeton has killed before, and unless we stop her, she’s going to kill again.”

A
T SEVEN-THIRTY
that night, the
Rosita
sat peacefully at the dock, swaying slightly in the breeze. It was a beautiful boat, sleek and trim, but with enough deck space for close to fifty people to dance on. Its rails were strung with brightly colored lights, and from somewhere on board, powerful speakers blasted rock music into the evening air. It was scheduled to leave at eight o’clock, and already the decks were filling with laughing, joking people, eager to party the night away.

As Nancy, Bess, and George joined a crowd of kids heading for the gangplank, Nancy raised her eyes and scanned the crew on the
small upper deck. “I just spotted my friend the maintenance man,” she whispered. “The florist is up there, too.”

“And there’s Dirk the Jerk,” Bess hissed. “Is it my imagination, or does he look nervous?”

Dirk Bowman, wearing white cotton shorts and a muscle-hugging T-shirt, was standing at the rail, his eyes roving over the approaching partiers.

“I’d be nervous too,” George said, “if I had Kim and Maria hidden away in the hold somewhere.”

“Lila probably ordered them all to keep an eye out for me,” Nancy said.

“But she thinks you’re dead,” Bess reminded her.

“She can’t be sure,” Nancy told her. “If she sent one of her goons to check, all he would have found is the sash from my sundress. Until she hears about my body being washed ashore, she can’t take any chances.”

“We’re
the ones taking a chance right now,” George remarked. “If Dirk spots the three of us together, he’s going to see right through our ‘disguises.’ ”

Nancy nodded. She wished they really could have disguised themselves, but after all, they had to wear clothes that were right for a party to nowhere. George had on a long striped caftan with a hood that covered her hair and shadowed her face. Bess, whose figure was a
dead giveaway, especially to Dirk, had reluctantly decided on a pair of baggy cotton pants, rolled to the knees and topped with an oversized shirt patterned with gaudy palm trees. “I look like a tourist,” she’d complained, tucking her blond hair under a wide-brimmed straw hat.

Nancy was wearing a caftan too, but it didn’t have a hood. She’d wrapped her hair in a bright paisley scarf, like a turban, and put on so much makeup that her face itched and her eyelids felt weighted down. She knew she and her friends looked completely different, but she also knew they had to be careful. “You’re right,” she said to George, “we’d better split up. As soon as the
Rosita
gets going, we can meet somewhere—how about the bow?—and start looking for Kim and Maria.”

The minute the three friends parted, Nancy felt a hand on her arm. “Hey,” a voice said in her ear, “want some company?”

Nancy turned and found herself looking into the brown eyes of a boy wearing a fish-net shirt, a gold neck chain, and a self-satisfied grin that didn’t attract her at all, but she smiled at him anyway. “I sure do,” she said softly. “I don’t know anybody at all, and I was starting to feel a little lonely.”

“Well, now you don’t have to, because you know me. And I have a feeling that before the
night’s over, we’ll be real close friends.” He squeezed her hand and grinned again.

Nancy forced herself to laugh, and as they walked up the gangplank she glanced over her shoulder. George, tall and mysterious-looking in her hooded caftan, was in deep conversation with two guys, and Bess had attached herself to a group of giggling, dateless girls. She must be miserable, Nancy thought, smiling to herself.

“Welcome!” a sultry voice called out. “Welcome aboard the
Rosita!”

It was Lila Templeton, dressed in a long robe of shimmering sea green silk that opened in the front to reveal an extremely small bikini. Her honey blond hair spilled over her bare shoulders like a lion’s mane, and she was flashing her toothpaste-ad smile to everyone coming up the gangplank. “If there’s anything my boys or I can do for you, just let us know,” she called out, “because we want each and every one of you to have the most fantastic night of your lives!”

Each and every one of us except two, Nancy said to herself, thinking of Kim and Maria. Turning to her “date,” she flashed a smile of her own, ducking her head and pretending to be fascinated with whatever he was babbling about. That got her safely past Lila, but she knew she’d still have to be careful of Lila’s
“boys,” who were patrolling the deck like sentries.

Fortunately, the party to nowhere was booked solid, and Nancy soon found herself on the jam-packed deck, trying to dance and make conversation with her new friend, whose name she still didn’t know. She was hot and sweaty, and she’d lost sight of Bess and George, but at least she was inconspicuous.

At eight o’clock, a cheer went up as the
Rosita
pulled smoothly away from the dock. In twenty minutes, they’d left the lights of Fort Lauderdale behind and were moving swiftly through the water under a starlit sky. Nancy decided she’d better start exploring. It wouldn’t take long to reach the island, and she knew she had to find Kim and Maria before then, or it might be too late.

“Listen,” she said when there was a break in the music, “I’m going to collapse if I don’t get some breathing space. I think I’ll just wander around a little bit, okay?”

“Aww, come on,” her date said, “the party’s just getting started.” Grabbing her hand, he pulled Nancy close to him as a slow number began playing. “I thought you and I were going to spend the whole night together,” he whispered in her ear.

“You thought wrong,” Nancy whispered back. She slipped down out of the circle of his arms and turned him around until he was
facing another girl. “Sorry, but I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding a partner.”

Obviously not heartbroken, the boy immediately asked the other girl if she wanted to dance, and Nancy left them together, threading her way quickly through the crowd until she reached the deck rail. Then she craned her neck around, trying to find Bess and George.

She spotted George standing near the entrance to the galley, which was roped off, sipping a can of soda and watching the dancers. Bess was still attached to the group of unattached girls, tapping her foot to the music and looking frustrated. Lila was nowhere to be seen, but her boys were all over the place, carrying trays of drinks, mingling with the crowd, and keeping their eyes wide open, Nancy noticed.

Casually Nancy raised her hands above her head, as if she were stretching. Bess and George both caught the movement, and just as casually, started making their way toward the
Rosita’s
bow. Nancy lowered her hands, pretending to be adjusting her turban, but instead of the silk of the scarf, her hands came down on her hair.

What had happened to her scarf? Nancy’s reddish blond hair was as big a clue to her identity as a fabulous figure was to Bess’s. With her telltale hair swirling around her shoulders and her thick makeup dissolving in
sweat, Nancy knew she’d be recognized by anyone who’d spent even five minutes with her. And that includes Lila, Dirk, and at least two more of Lila’s boys, she thought frantically.

Nancy realized it was too late to go searching for her scarf. It must have come loose when she broke free from her date’s arms, and had probably already been trampled by at least eighty feet. She grabbed her hair in both hands and swept it back, tying it in a loose knot that she knew wouldn’t hold for long, but it was the best she could do. Hoping to get lost in the crowd, she moved into the mass of dancing bodies, and that’s when she saw Lila’s “maintenance” man.

He was heading straight toward Nancy, one hand in his pocket and both eyes on her face.

Whirling around, Nancy grabbed the hands of the nearest boy, not caring if he was with anyone else or not, and started dancing with him. When she sensed that the maintenance man was drawing close to her, she spun around again so that her back was to him. By that time, she’d lost her dance partner, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that the maintenance man had recognized her. She was sure of it. Just keep dancing, she told herself; at least it’s rock and you can move fast.

With a few quick dance steps, Nancy reached the other side of the
Rosita.
Only then
did she dare look back. She expected to spot the maintenance man somewhere in the crowd, but she found that was impossible. There were too many people bouncing, clapping, and swirling around the deck.

Nancy took a deep breath, tightened the knot in her hair, and headed toward the bow. The water was becoming rougher, and she clung to the rail, bumping into a few romantic couples on the way, but finally she reached the bow.

The deck was narrow there, and in spite of the lights on the rail, it was dark. Nancy stepped into the shadows, expecting to find Bess and George waiting for her.

No one was there. Nancy edged her way around the bow, toward the other side of the boat, but before she reached it, a voice—throaty and sultry—called out, “Looking for someone, Miss Drew?”