Without a Trace

  My heart pounding at the thought of catching the vegetable vandal red-handed—or green-clubbed, as the case might be—I put on another burst of speed. Behind me I heard a flurry of footsteps. Jacques seemed to be catching up to me. I just hoped he would keep quiet for another few seconds.

  I leaped for the steps down into the yard. There was no handrail, so I forced myself to slow down a little as I took the first step down.

  Suddenly I felt my feet fly out from under me. The night sky tipped upside down as I found myself falling. . . .

  Then everything went black.

  Stalking the Truth

  I awoke to the sound of gentle beeping.

  That’s strange, I thought as I lay there with my eyes closed, drifting in a cloud of blissful near-sleep. My alarm clock doesn’t usually sound like that . . .

  “Nancy?” a familiar voice said from somewhere very nearby. “Nancy, are you awake? I think she’s waking up!”

  “Ned?” I croaked. “What are you doing—uh, here . . . ?”

  My voice trailed off in surprise as I opened my eyes. Instead of the familiar yellow-and-white striped walls and solid wood furniture of my bedroom, I saw institutional green paint, white sheets, and stainless steel. My mind clearing slightly, I realized I was in the hospital.

  In a flash I remembered what had happened to land me there. “I was running,” I said, my voice hoarse and unfamiliar. I cleared my throat. “The steps—I heard Jacques behind me—then I fell, I guess. . . .” I willed myself to remember more, but everything after that was a haze.

  Ned put a hand on mine. “Shh,” he said gently. “It’s okay. Don’t try to remember too much. The doctors say you hit your head pretty hard.”

  I sighed and relaxed against the comfortable hospital pillow. “I hit my head,” I repeated, the truth of that statement impossible to deny as I noted the dull throbbing at my temple. I put my hand up and felt my face. There was a bandage covering much of my forehead. “What happened?” I asked Ned. “How did you find me?”

  “Jacques came running back to the party,” Ned explained. “He said you’d slipped on some steps and hit your head. We all ran out and found you conked out in Mr. Geffington’s front yard. In fact, by the time we got there, half the neighborhood was rushing out to help. Jacques was yelling pretty loudly as he ran to get us.”

  I grinned, then winced as the throbbing in my head suddenly increased. “That’s me,” I said hoarsely. “Always making a scene.”

  “Luckily Mrs. Zucker had her cell phone in her pocket,” Ned continued, squeezing my hand gently. “She called an ambulance. Ms. Thompson was there too—she’s a nurse, you know—and so she sort of took over until the ambulance arrived.”

  “That was nice,” I said, feeling decidedly woozy as my head settled down again. “Where are the others now? Did someone call my dad?”

  “They would only let one person come along in the ambulance, so I was elected.” Ned reached over and gently pushed back a stray strand of my hair. “Bess and George went back to Simone’s; I promised to call them as soon as you woke up. And your dad is on the way. He was out having dinner with a client, so I guess it took the nurse a while to track him down.”

  I closed my eyes, too tired to take in the information as fast as Ned was giving it. But even in my groggy state, something was bugging me about what had happened. My eyes popped open again and I stared up at my boyfriend questioningly.

  “Ned,” I said, my voice still sounding raspy and strange. “How did it happen? I’m not that clumsy—how could I wipe out like that? Did I trip over something? Or what?” I remembered that stupid skirt I’d been wearing. But that wasn’t enough to make me actually fall down the stairs. Was it?

  Ned shook his head. “Sorry, Nancy,” he said. “You’re the detective, not me. I don’t think any of us even looked at the steps. We were too busy worrying about you.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.” I sighed, putting a hand to my throbbing head.

  Ned smiled. “Don’t be silly,” he said softly. “You have nothing to be sorry about. You’re just lucky Jacques was right there to go for help.” He frowned slightly. What were you and Jacques doing over at Mr. Geffington’s, anyway?”

  “I thought I saw something moving over there,” I explained. “I was going to see if it was the zucchini smasher—”

  “Nancy!” My father’s voice boomed out as he rushed into the room. “There you are. What happened?”

  Ned stood up, allowing Dad to sit down beside my bed. I smiled weakly up at him. His handsome face was creased with worry.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” I said. “I’ll be all right. We Drews have hard heads, remember?”

  Ned and I quickly filled him in on the basics of what had happened. “The doctor says she’s going to be fine, sir,” Ned continued. “He wants to keep her under observation for a day or so, but he says it’s really just a precaution. She should be as good as new in a few days.”

  “What a relief,” Dad said, leaning down to plant a kiss on my forehead. “Now, Nancy, what was that you were saying when I came in? Don’t tell me that investigating that silly zucchini thing actually got you hurt?”

  “Not really,” I assured him quickly, concerned by the alarmed look on his face. The last thing I wanted was for him to get worried enough to insist that I drop the case. “It was just my own clumsiness. I was moving so fast that I guess I tripped over my own feet.”

  “Hmm.” Dad looked only half convinced.

  “Anyway,” I added, “I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet, but I have another case I’m working on as well.” Dad had left early that morning for a golf game, so I hadn’t had a chance to share the story of Simone’s theft with him.

  Now I wanted his input. Did anything I’d learned at the party mean anything? I thought about Pierre’s extreme reaction to my “accusation” of his friends. Did he know something I didn’t know? And what about Jacques’s weird behavior a little later. Had I really fallen down those steps all on my own?

  But before I could say anything else, a nurse bustled in. “All right, you two,” she said briskly. “You can see that she’s still alive. And she’ll still be here tomorrow, so you can finish catching up then. For now, I’m afraid visiting hours are over.”

  For a moment I thought Dad was going to argue. He can be pretty convincing when he wants to be; if he wanted to extend the visiting hours, he probably could.

  But he just sighed and bent down to kiss me again. “Get some sleep, sweetheart,” he told me.

  “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The next morning a nurse brought in my breakfast.

  “When do visiting hours start?” I asked as she set the tray on the table beside the bed and started arranging my covers.

  “Not for a few hours, I’m afraid, dear,” the nurse replied cheerily. “But don’t worry, I’m sure your loved ones will be here as soon as they possibly can.”

  I was disappointed. My head was feeling much clearer and immediately upon waking up I’d started thinking about Simone’s case. There were a few things about it that still didn’t make much sense, and I really wanted to discuss them with someone.

  The nurse picked up the tray and set it in front of me. “Can I make phone calls before then?” I asked her.

  “Of course!” The nurse gestured to the phone on the bedside table. “But eat your breakfast first, okay, dear? You need to get your strength back up so you’ll be ready to leave tomorrow.”

  I smiled and took a bite of scrambled egg. But as soon as the nurse left the room, I pushed the tray aside and grabbed the phone.

  When George picked up, she sounded very happy to hear from me. “How are you feeling?” she asked. “When are they letting you out of there?”

  “Better, and I’m not sure,” I replied. “They said probably tomorrow morning sometime. I was hoping it would be today, but the doctor really wants me to stay one more night just in case.” I sighed loudly. “That means I’m going to lose another whole day of
trying to track down who took that egg. I’m afraid the trail is going to get cold.”

  “Maybe,” George said. “But if you want, Bess and I could try to do a little more investigating for you today.”

  I hadn’t thought of that possibility. “Really?” I said, feeling a little wistful. I still wished I could be out there investigating myself, but having my friends do it seemed like the next best solution. “You guys would do that? That’s great! I was really hoping to find out more from Pierre’s friends last night. Maybe you guys could talk to them. We don’t want them to know we suspect them, though. Not after that little scene with Pierre last night. Do you think you could find an excuse to hang out with them?”

  George laughed. “Come on, Nancy,” she chided. “These are guys we’re talking about. We won’t need an excuse as long as Bess is there looking cute and smiling at them.”

  I giggled. “Good point!”

  “Besides, Pierre already called me this morning to see when we could stop by again,” George added. “Guess what: He and the other guys are pooling their money to send you a big bunch of flowers. They picked it up this morning.”

  “How sweet!” I said.

  George laughed. “It is—but you might not say that if you’d heard them arguing over the price last night after you left for the hospital,” she said. “Poor Jacques just about fainted when he heard how much it was going to cost for the kind of bouquet the others wanted to get you. I guess he doesn’t have much money. In fact, René told Bess that he and Thèo had to chip in on Jacques’s plane ticket to the U.S.”

  “Really?” I poked at my scrambled egg as I recalled my conversation with Jacques the previous evening. “Then how did he afford the car he just bought?”

  “Car?” George said. “What are you talking about?”

  I told her what Jacques had said about his new purchase. “He made it sound like he’d just bought it,” I added. “Like, he paid in cash right away or something. I didn’t really ask too much about it, because I didn’t think it was important at the time.”

  “It’s probably not.” George sounded disinterested. “Maybe he was just showing off. Bess said she thought he had a little crush on you.”

  “Really?” I blushed, wondering if that was true. I’m pretty observant about most things, but I don’t always notice when a guy shows interest in me that way. Call it a blind spot. “Well, never mind that. It’s still sort of weird—about the car, I mean.” I filed away the question about Jacques’s financial status for future thought. “I guess you should put extra effort into finding out more about Jacques.”

  “Definitely,” George said. “We all think it’s a little strange how you happened to fall down those stairs, Nancy. That’s not like you.”

  “I know.” I popped a grape from the breakfast tray into my mouth. “But I was wearing that funny skirt. I could hardly walk in it, let alone run down those steps.”

  I could almost hear George shaking her head skeptically. “I’m not buying it,” she said. “You hit your head pretty hard. That wouldn’t have happened if you had just tripped. Even without a handrail, you still would’ve caught yourself with your hands or something. You might have ended up with a broken wrist, but not a concussion.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying the fall couldn’t have been that simple,” George replied. “There had to be something weird about it. I mean, you were tripped or pushed or something.”

  “Are you saying you think Jacques shoved me down the steps?” I had to admit, it wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to me. Just how close behind me had those rushing footsteps been? I tried to think back, to relive the moment, but I just wasn’t sure. The entire memory was still a little fuzzy. I didn’t remember feeling a shove, but I didn’t remember hitting my head, either, and obviously that had happened.

  “What else could it have been?” George replied to my question. “I mean, you two disappear outside, and five minutes later he comes rushing in saying you slipped and knocked yourself out.”

  “How did he describe the fall, anyway?” I asked curiously, shifting the phone to my other ear and wincing as it grazed my injured temple. “Did he offer any explanation for it?”

  “Not really. He just said your feet flew out from under you halfway down the steps, you fell backward and sideways, and then hit the side of your head on the stone.”

  I touched my aching temple. “Well, that last part certainly matches the evidence,” I said wryly. “But even if Jacques is lying, why on earth would he want to hurt me?”

  “Weren’t you questioning him about the disappearance of the egg?” George asked. “Maybe he heard what Pierre said earlier—about you accusing his friends, I mean. Maybe Jacques figured you were getting too close to some answers.”

  “But I wasn’t getting close to any answers at all,” I exclaimed.

  “If he has a guilty conscience, all that matters is whether he thought you were figuring things out.”

  I had to admit she had a point. “I guess we still can’t rule anything—or anyone—out at this point,” I said. “I really wish I could be out there with you guys today. If someone in this group does have a guilty conscience, he might be getting antsy, especially after my accident. Maybe the best thing to do, on second thought, is to watch these guys from a distance and see if one of them makes a move.”

  “Bess and I will do what we can,” George promised. “After all, we’ve learned from the best! We’ll just go out there and ask ourselves, ‘What would Nancy Drew do?’ We’ll stop by later during visiting hours and let you know how it goes.”

  I giggled. “Okay,” I said. “Good luck. And be careful!”

  I spent the rest of the morning reading and watching TV—and trying not to think too much about my cases, since I couldn’t do anything about them at the moment anyway. When visiting hours started, Dad and Hannah came by with some new magazines and some of Hannah’s fresh-baked cookies. While they were in my room, the bouquet from Pierre and the other guys arrived, along with more flowers from Simone and a few cards from other neighbors.

  Eventually Dad and Hannah left, and I found myself waiting impatiently for news from my friends. Had they found out anything important? Were they figuring things out without me?

  The seconds seemed to tick by at the speed of glacial melting. For a while I was afraid visiting hours were going to end before my friends got there. But finally I heard Bess’s familiar giggle out in the hallway. A second later George appeared in the doorway of my room.

  “Sorry we’re late,” George said. “And Bess might be a few more minutes. She found a cute young medical resident to flirt with out there.”

  Bess hurried in and gave her cousin a shove. “I wasn’t flirting,” she insisted, her cheeks flushed so deeply that they almost matched the hot-pink jacket she was wearing. “I was just being polite. What did you want me to do, ignore him when he said hello?”

  George rolled her eyes. I laughed and gestured for them both to come closer.

  “How are you feeling?” Bess asked me, hurrying over with a look of concern and sitting down carefully on the edge of my bed. “Does your head still hurt?”

  “A little, but it’s getting better,” I said. “But never mind that. Shut the door so we can talk, okay?”

  George nodded and turned back toward the door. “She must be feeling okay—she’s giving us orders,” she quipped.

  “So?” I asked as soon as she pulled the door shut. Luckily I had a private room, so we didn’t have to worry about being overheard. “Did you have any luck today?”

  Bess and George exchanged a glance. “Well, sort of,” Bess said at the same time that George said, “Not exactly.”

  “Tell me,” I said, settling back against my pillow.

  George sat down in one of the visitor’s chairs beside my bed and crossed her legs. “After I talked to you this morning, I called Bess.” She hooked a thumb in her cousin’s direction. “She was still getting dr
essed, so I figured I had about two hours to kill—”

  “Stop!” Bess protested, shooting her a dirty look. “She’s just being silly. I left to pick her up almost right away.”

  “True,” George admitted. “Looking back, I guess I should’ve given her more time to choose an appropriate wardrobe for a stakeout. But more about that in a minute.”

  I cast a curious glance at Bess’s outfit. In addition to the hot-pink cotton jacket, she was wearing a matching pink-and-white-striped T-shirt, white capri pants, and cute pink sandals. It wasn’t exactly an inconspicuous outfit, especially on someone who was already as eye catching as Bess. George was dressed much more discreetly, in jeans and a dark T-shirt.

  “Anyway,” George went on, “while I was waiting for her to pick me up, I went online to see if I could find out anything interesting about our suspects.”

  “Great idea!” I said, wishing I’d thought of it earlier. George has been the information systems manager for her mother’s catering business since junior high. She spends more time online than anyone I know. If there’s something you want on the Web, she’s the one to track it down. “So what did you find out?”

  “Not much,” George admitted. “I barely had time to log on before Bess got to my house. But I’m planning to do more checking when I get home.”

  “Cool,” I said. “So then what did you guys do?”

  Bess took over the story. “We drove over to your neighborhood and parked in front of your house, since we figured that would look less suspicious if anyone was paying attention.”

  “See? We have been learning from you!” George interrupted with a grin.

  I laughed. “Good plan,” I said. “Then what?”

  “We walked over toward Simone’s house,” Bess continued, smoothing out a wrinkle in my bedspread. “We found a good spot behind some shrubs across the street, hid ourselves, and waited.”