Authors: Carolyn Keene

Tags: #Mobilism

006 White Water Terror (13 page)

BOOK: 006 White Water Terror

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“So,” Nancy said quickly, “you rigged this whole thing to get me here.”

“That’s right,” Paula replied, brushing a strand of her matted hair out of her eyes. “There wasn’t any contest—just like there wasn’t any White Water Rafting, Incorporated.
Both those tricks were part of a plan to get you on the river, where I could teach you a lesson, once and for all.”

“So you picked your winners at random?”

“Yes,” Paula bragged.

“Well, that was smart,” Nancy said, stalling. If only the group on top of the tower could hear her above the wind! “People are always putting their names into a box for one contest or another. I guess you figured they’d think they’d just forgotten about entering this one.”

“You got it, Nancy Drew.” Paula sneered. “You’re bright, all right. Too bad you’re not bright enough to get yourself out of the mess you’re in now.”

Nancy ignored her. “And you sent the letter to George because you knew that she’d be enthusiastic about a white water rafting trip,” Nancy prompted.

“Of course I knew it. I’ve been doing my homework. I know all about you and your friends. It was a sure thing that George Fayne would ask you to come on this trip with her.”

“The map? The missing barricade?”

“They were easy,” Paula said scornfully. “You know, you would have made a lot less trouble for me if you’d sailed off that cliff.” She sighed. “But I’m glad those tricks didn’t work. It’s going to be a lot more fun to watch you die.”

“What about the slipped mooring line?”
Nancy asked before Paula could make a move. “Was that another one of your clever tricks?”

“I figured it would be interesting to watch the expressions on your friends’, faces when we fished your body out from under the falls,” Paula explained. She stepped up closer to Nancy. “But I’m getting tired of all this talk.”

Nancy retreated a step higher. Just three or four more steps and she’d be on the tower’s lower platform. If she could lure Paula up there, she might be able to maneuver her into a more vulnerable position. “Max—” Nancy said, “was he in on your plan?”

Paula gave a disdainful laugh. “Not at all—at least not until he began to figure out what was going on. Of course, I didn’t count on his capsizing the raft—”

“I guess that was a stroke of good luck for you,” Nancy put in. “It put one of the rafts out of commission. When that happened, you probably thought it would be a better idea to get me off into the woods and kill me there.”

“Very impressive brainwork, Detective Drew. When the first raft was destroyed, I had to finish off the other one, too—to keep you from going downriver the next morning. And I nearly did get you in the woods.”

“You certainly did. If it hadn’t been for Ned—”

“The boulder would have crushed you,” Paula finished. She smiled cruelly.

“You know, I’ve got to admire you,” Nancy said, grudgingly. “We actually thought
you
were dead—that Max had killed you and was out to kill us, too. I bet I know how you arranged that,” Nancy said.

“I don’t care if you know or not,” Paula snapped, her face twisting. She lunged for Nancy, surprising her.

Nancy took two steps up and back but couldn’t escape Paula’s grasp on her arm. They fell together onto the wooden deck of the platform. Nancy felt Paula’s elbow dig into her side. She rolled onto her back and raised her feet, catching Paula’s shoulders. Then she shoved as hard as she could.

With a howl of rage, Paula launched herself forward from the railing. “I’m going to kill you!” she shouted, but this time Nancy was ready for her. As Paula rushed with full force, Nancy sidestepped adroitly and tripped her.

For an instant, Paula’s arms flailed wildly. Then she crashed against the weather-beaten wood. There was a splintering sound as the railing gave way under her weight. She tried to catch herself. Then, in a clumsy slow-motion swan dive, she fell over the edge, screaming.

The scream broke off, and Nancy looked over the splintered railing. Paula was sprawled faceup and motionless on the concrete apron at the foot of the tower, one arm bent under her, eyes staring up at the sky.

The wind had died down. The air was perfectly still.

From the contorted position in which Paula lay, Nancy knew Paula was dead.

“Hey! What’s going on down there?”

Nancy looked above her and saw Sammy peering down at Paula’s sprawled body. Sammy looked as if she were seeing a ghost. “Is Paula really dead?” Sammy asked.

Bess was kneeling next to the body, feeling for a pulse. “I think so,” she called up soberly.

Nancy leaned weakly against the solid part of the railing until Ned streaked up the stairs and pulled her into his arms. After clinging together for a moment or two, they followed the group, who had just raced down from the lookout tower.

“I don’t understand,” Linda said. “How did Paula survive the fall from the cliff?”

“She never fell off the cliff. Max did—or, rather, he was—”

“Pushed.”

It was Max’s voice. Nancy looked up. Max was leaning against the doorjamb of the shed.

Ned and Tod hurried over to Max and helped him walk across the yard.

Bess approached him anxiously. “Are you sure you’re up to this? The helicopter is bringing a doctor in a little while.”

“I’m all right,” Max said weakly, but bis breathing came in jagged gasps.

“Paula pushed you—is that what you’re saying?” Ralph asked in astonishment. “But we heard Paula shout. . . . And we saw . . .” He stopped. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Paula faked it—the shout and everything.”

Ned’s arm had been around Nancy. “You’re trembling,” he said to her. “Are you cold? Do you want to borrow my jacket again?”

Nancy gave one last nervous shiver. Then all at once she smiled at Ned. “No, thanks,” she said, as if she had a secret. She turned to Max. “But that’s what Paula did, didn’t she, Max—give you her jacket?” Max nodded weakly and tried to talk. “Let me tell it,” Nancy said.

“When you got to the top of the cliff, you confronted Paula with what you knew, and then you got into a big argument. She distracted you and knocked you over the head with something—a rock maybe?”

“Yes,” Max said, fingering the gash over his eye.

“And when you fell,” Nancy went on, “that’s when we heard the thump. The jacket—now that was a clever move on Paula’s part, since she knew I’d be on my guard against her every second if I thought she’d pushed
you
off the cliff. That’s why she had to make believe
she
was the victim.

“And until I remembered that Ned had loaned me his jacket, she almost had me fooled.
It took me a while, but suddenly I realized how easy it would have been for her to put her jacket on you—it was big enough.”

Max coughed and spoke. “The trick boomeranged, though. Her jacket is what saved my life. It was so big, air got trapped in it and helped keep me afloat until I could grab on to a limb and pull myself out.”

Wincing in pain, he sank to the ground. “But I think I broke a couple of ribs in the fall.”

Bess knelt beside him and wiped away the beads of sweat on his forehead.

Sammy looked from Max to Paula’s body. “But why did Paula do it? Was she responsible for holing the raft and stealing the crystal out of the radio?”

“Paula was responsible for everything,” Nancy said. “She invented the contest—”

“Invented the contest?” Mike exclaimed.

“Yes, it was a trick to get
me
here.”

“See?” Linda said smugly to Ralph. “I told you the whole thing had to be a joke.”

“Some joke,” George said bitterly. She turned to Nancy. “But I don’t understand why Paula did all this.”

“Revenge,” Nancy replied simply, and she told everyone the story of Peter Hancock.

“So she didn’t care who else got hurt in the process,” Tod put in, shaking his head.

“You’re right,” Max said, sounding the
slightest bit stronger. “On the cliff, she said she was going to kill me because I knew too much. And she told me she’d kill everybody else if she had to—just to get to Nancy Drew.” He turned to Nancy with a lopsided grin. “That’s what I was trying to tell you when I pulled you into the woods this morning. I didn’t mean to knock you out. I just wanted to warn you about Paula.”

“I wasn’t sure about the mooring line,” Max went on, “but I saw her push the boulder down on you yesterday—”

“You did?”

“Yeah, and when I saw you walking by yourself, I figured it would be a good time to let you know about the danger you were in.”

Nancy looked at Max curiously. “When did you realize what was going on?” she asked. “Was it before you saw Paula take the compass?”

“I guess it was when I began to suspect that she was the one who holed the raft,” Max answered. “You see, when you told me you were a detective, I suddenly remembered I’d seen your picture in the local newspaper after Peter Hancock’s trial.

“I realized then that you were the person who’d blown the whistle on Paula’s father. And yesterday morning, when Paula made the crack about the ‘famous girl detective,’ I began to suspect that she had it in for you.”

“Hmm,” said Nancy. “You didn’t suspect Paula till yesterday? Then you couldn’t have been the person who made the phone call warning me not to take this trip, could you have, Max?” Nancy turned slowly to Mercedes. Mercedes stepped forward wearily. “You were trying to protect Paula, isn’t that right?” Nancy asked her gently.

Mercedes broke into tears. “If you’d known her before her father died, you would understand—” She looked up. “I’m so sorry, Nancy. I never wanted you to get hurt—or anyone else, either. Really.”

“How did you know what Paula was planning?” Nancy asked.

“Well, I knew how unbalanced Paula had been since my uncle Peter died—you know, they found his body only a few miles from here. Anyway, I found your name on the list of ‘contest winners’ that Paula gave me when she told me about the trip.”

Nancy frowned. “Didn’t you question her?”

“Sure I did, but she said she just wanted to teach you a little lesson. I called you just in case, I guess. I thought the call might make you bring along some extra protection.”

“Ah,” Nancy said. “That’s why you were snooping around in my pack—you were trying to see if I had a weapon or something, to scare Paula with it if I had to.”

Mercedes nodded tearfully. “Sort of. But I don’t know what I would have done if I’d found one. I wanted to protect you, but I wanted to protect Paula, and after she was dead, I didn’t think there was any point—”

“—in dragging up the past,” Nancy finished.

Ned got the tarp out of the shed and covered up Paula’s body. “She must have been crazy with grief over her father’s death,” he said grimly.

“She was,” Mercedes said, sobbing heavily. “She was.”

• • •

“I think we were
all
a little crazy,” George said later that afternoon as they boarded one of the helicopters that came to pick them up.

“Maybe next time you’ll listen,” Bess said, trying to comb the tangles out of her hair with her fingers. “We could have been sunning ourselves for the last three days.” Then she brightened. “But I think I’ve lost five pounds.” She glanced toward the front of the helicopter where Max was lying on a stretcher. “And I’ve met Max. So it wasn’t a total loss.”

Ned settled himself next to Nancy. “It wasn’t a romantic holiday,” he said softly to her, “but at least I had you in sight the whole time.”

Nancy sighed, thinking of how scratched and bitten she must look. “Yes, and
what
a sight.”

“Well, you know what they say about love,” Ned said, laughing.

“No, what’s that?” Nancy asked, raising her voice over the clatter of the helicopter engines.

“Love is blind,” Ned shouted into her ear, and leaned over to kiss her.

“It’s a good thing!” Nancy exclaimed, and kissed him back.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.