Danger in Disguise

  Williams smiled, his gold tooth glinting in the sun.

  “Ah, yes. A little plastic surgery, a change of hairstyle, and a move to the big city go a long way,” he said cheerfully.

  “Why didn’t you get your tooth fixed while you were at it?” Nancy asked, curious. “Do you know that people call you ‘metal-mouth’?”

  “Funny you should ask.” Williams chuckled. “You see, this gold tooth has great sentimental value to me. I took my first hit job to make the money for this. I like to say my teeth were killing me.

  Serkin roared with laughter. Nancy shuddered. These men were truly evil.

  “Now, where were we?” Williams murmured.

  Swallowing her fear, Nancy pressed on. “After a year or so you resurfaced and supposedly went into legitimate business. You obviously worked as hard at it as you did at your previous occupation.”

  “I had important people looking after things for me. It’s easy to find that kind of help when you can afford it.”

  “People like the ones who spotted Franklin Turner when he got too close?” Nancy asked.

  “Jethro was on to Franklin from the beginning. Activity in computer files shows up. It showed Franklin up.”

  “And now he’s in jail.”

  “Franklin has been convinced there are advantages to his present position. He made a stupid mistake, leaving that copy in the machine. Realizing his stupidity, he stopped his petty blackmailing. Now he’s realized how crucial it is that he not be stupid again.”

  “And Kathy Novello? Would you call her stupid also, Mr. Williams?” Keep him talking, she thought.

  “You misjudge me if you think I caused that poor young woman’s death.” Williams leaned back and crossed his legs. “Kathy Novello was simply unlucky. She felt threatened, though Franklin was only trying to find out if she had the missing paper. She fled and apparently fell while running down the fire escape. It was an accident.”

  He said it so nicely, he almost made his excuses for causing a death sound reasonable.

  “Franklin Turner is going to be taken care of,” Serkin added. “We won’t need to worry about him. Mr. Williams doesn’t like loose ends.”

  Did that mean Franklin was going to be killed? If so, why had he volunteered that confession that Nancy now understood he’d made to protect Williams?

  “Franklin will be so grateful to be alive he’ll never think of repeating past mistakes.” Williams answered Nancy’s unspoken question. “And he’ll be in Chicago where the exciting new job I have planned for him will quell his need for extracurricular activities as well as his need for funds.”

  “You’re forgetting, Mr. Williams, that there’s evidence against him,” said Nancy, “and witnesses. Franklin Turner won’t be in Chicago. He’ll be in prison. Do you think your promises will be enough to keep his mouth shut there?”

  “You are clever, Ms. Drew.” He laughed. “But one must be crafty as well. That evidence you speak of will disappear. And as for the witnesses, there won’t be any—not living witnesses anyway.” His smile was more charming than ever.

  “Especially not the two of you.”

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  HOW ARE YOU planning to dispose of us?” asked Nancy. Keeping up her cool facade was more of a struggle with every second.

  “You’ve no doubt noticed how isolated we are here.” Williams gestured toward the dense foliage just beyond the lawn. “I’ve always appreciated the peace and quiet, and sometimes it suits my business purposes as well. This is one of those times.”

  “My friends will know something is wrong when they can’t get in touch with me.” It was already past noon. She had been gone several hours. They were sure to suspect something was up when she wasn’t ready for the party.

  Williams frowned thoughtfully. “A dedicated worker like Ms. Fayne will attend the worker party. And when she and Ms. Marvin get here they’ll understand why they haven’t been able to find you this morning.” Williams was smiling at his cleverness.

  “Jethro has fueled up the cabin cruiser on the lake. When your friends arrive, they will hear that you and Michael went for a short ride. Unfortunately, you had a terrible accident.”

  This is too neat, Nancy thought. She searched for some way to convince Williams that his plan wouldn’t succeed.

  “Everyone knows I can handle a boat,” she said. “They’re sure to think it wasn’t an accident.”

  “But, Nancy, you allowed Michael to pilot the boat. An error in judgment with a fatal result.” Williams looked up at Serkin. “That’s how it happened. Right?”

  Serkin smiled. Gus chewed on a fingernail. Williams stared at her, as if challenging her to think her way out this time.

  Michael’s temper began to flare. Nancy could tell he’d been trying to keep it under control, but Williams’s smug attitude was obviously too much to bear.

  “You three will be prime suspects,” he fumed. “There’s no chance you’ll get away with this.”

  Nancy took his lead. “My father is a very smart man, with friends in the police department. He’s coming back to River Heights tonight, and this accident you’re planning won’t go uninvestigated.”

  “You must realize by now that I am beyond the reach of your father and his police friends.” Williams laughed.

  “Mr. Williams is an upstanding businessman,” Serkin added. “No one would ever suspect him of any of this.”

  “Franklin’s confession made sure of that,” Williams added.

  Nancy remembered Chief McGinnis’s reluctance. Charging Turner had been enough for him. Without any evidence, McGinnis would see no reason to reopen the case.

  Williams went on, “Besides, my day will be spent talking with Councilman Terry about campaign contributions. An airtight alibi, I would say.”

  With a veranda full of witnesses, Nancy thought. “You seem to have everything worked out,” she said.

  “Except for one thing,” Michael said. “Now that Franklin Turner is in jail, Tim Terry will be watching his campaign for crooks like you. He’ll be on guard.”

  “Terry is more naive than you might think,” said Williams. “Franklin showed us that about him. By the time the councilman realizes he has compromised himself, it will be too late.”

  Too late for what? Nancy thought. Suddenly she saw the links that drew Serkin, Williams, and Turner’s blackmailing victims together.

  “Access to the oversight committee! That’s what you’re after!” said Nancy. “You want to control the councilman so your companies will get city contracts.”

  “You’re quite the detective after all. River Heights will no doubt mourn your—disappearance.”

  Nancy glanced at Michael. Solving the mystery hadn’t really solved anything. They were still in very serious trouble.

  “It’s quite simple,” Williams concluded. “The real Michael Mulraney never got out of the construction business.”

  Williams smiled at his little joke, then signaled to Gus. “I think we’ve chatted long enough. Would you please take our guests down to the dock now?”

  Serkin and Williams started down the veranda steps, talking between themselves as they walked away.

  When they were halfway across the lawn, Nancy nodded at Michael. It was now or never. The two of them threw themselves at Gus, toppling him to the flagstones. The gun clattered from his hand and slid under a table.

  Nancy delivered a deftly aimed kick to his right knee, and he howled in agony. When he tried to struggle to his feet, Michael smacked him down again.

  “Good work. Now let’s get out of here.”

  They headed for the opposite end of the veranda. There had to be another way out besides the one Williams and Serkin had taken.

  They had obviously heard the commotion. Williams was running back toward the house. “Stop them!” he cried.

  Serkin was already up the stairs ahead of him. Nancy and Michael had nearly made it across the veranda when Serkin grabbed Nancy from behind and motioned
Michael to halt at gunpoint.

  “That was very stupid,” said Williams as he joined Serkin. “You take care of them, Jethro. Gus obviously can’t get the job done, but I’m sure you can.”

  Nancy’s skin crawled. She was sure he could too. As if to prove her right, Serkin took turns nudging her and Michael with the gun barrel all the way to the dock.

  The cruiser was clearly a very rich man’s boat, with its sleek modern look and solid teak interiors. Serkin gave them a tour.

  “You might as well get a good look,” he said as they walked along the starboard side. “After all, it’s the last thing you’ll ever see.”

  He pointed out that the cruiser could reach very high speeds. “You’ll notice the modern technology here in the bridge. Automatic pilot. Sonar. Radar. Two engines in case one should fail.”

  How convenient, Nancy thought.

  Serkin led them down into the cabin, which was lavishly furnished. There was even a leather sofa facing an entertainment center. Set into the ceiling” of the cabin were little round bits of colored glass in a mosaic style reflecting the light above.

  Throughout their tour, Nancy searched for a means of escape. She hadn’t seen any tools or anything heavy enough to knock out Serkin.

  He grabbed the two of them, pushing them into captain’s chairs overlooking the boat’s port side. “This is an expensive accident that you’re going to have,” he said as he tied them to the maple chair arms. “Everything on this boat is custom-made. Even these chairs have been designed to withstand high seas. That’s why they’re bolted to the floor.”

  Nancy had already noticed.

  Serkin finished up by roping their legs to the rungs. “Have a wonderful trip,” he said.

  Nancy waited until he’d gone up the ladder to the bridge. “We’ve got to think fast,” she said to Michael. “Any chance you’re carrying anything sharp?”

  “I already thought of that. Gus frisked me when I got to Serkin’s office. There’s nothing left.”

  The boat had begun to move. They were leaving shore, heading for a bend in the lake.

  “We need to loosen these ropes.” Nancy tried to will her heartbeat to slow down. “Move your legs back and forth slowly. Try to get some slack into the knots.”

  She and Michael struggled for several minutes. The cruiser suddenly took a sharp starboard turn, slowing slightly. Then Nancy heard another engine, less powerful than that of the cruiser, start up and move off into the distance.

  The engines of the cruiser were roaring now, and they’d begun to pick up speed. The boat surged forward with a sudden jolt that threw Nancy back in her seat.

  The same force had knocked Michael clean off his chair onto the floor. “Hey!” he yelled. His weight had broken the chair. That meant his arms were free. His hands were still tied in front of him, but not as tightly as they had been when the rope was stretched around the chair arms.

  “Untie my legs,” Nancy cried.

  The cruiser was moving faster now, but all Nancy could do was watch while Michael picked at her knots with his tied hands.

  At last he had untied her legs. “Hurry, Nancy. Don’t wait for me,” he gasped as he worked at his own bonds.

  Nancy didn’t bother answering. She flew out of the chair and stumbled to the ladder. She pulled herself up from rung to rung with her tied hands, then flung herself over the edge of the hatchway onto the bridge.

  They were moving very fast now, at full throttle she would guess—breakneck speed straight ahead. She pushed herself up from the deck and stared across the bridge in disbelief.

  There was no pilot at the wheel.

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  THEY WERE ALREADY out of Sight of Williams’s estate, headed like a shot for the other end of the lake. And what lay at the other end was cliffs. Nancy knew that from her previous visits here, even if she hadn’t been able to see those cliffs looming ahead each time the slamming prow of the racing cruiser dipped down.

  It was obvious now what Williams had planned for them. Serkin had put the cruiser on autopilot—that must have been his dinghy’s engine Nancy had heard earlier.

  At this speed, the cruiser would come apart like a pile of matchsticks when it hit those rocks, and she and Michael would come apart with it.

  Michael had stumbled up beside her and, between buffets of the bow smacking the water then bounding up again, he was pulling at the knots that still held Nancy’s wrists.

  “The throttle’s jammed,” she said when he had her free and she’d inspected the mechanism. “We have to get it back to a slower speed.”

  Her wrists burned where the ropes had been, but she didn’t stop to rub them. They struggled with the throttle, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Somebody rigged this as skillfully as they rigged that limo,” Michael shouted over the roar of the powerful engines. “And look at the wheel!”

  Nancy nodded as he pointed at the helm. She’d already seen the chain holding the steering mechanism on its course.

  “What are we going to do?” shouted Michael, and Nancy could hear the beginnings of panic in his voice.

  They didn’t have much choice. “We’ll have to swim for it,” she shouted back as she headed for the rail.

  “No!” he screamed, grabbing her arm. “I can’t swim.”

  Now he tells me! Nancy thought, dismayed. She looked around for life preservers, but there were none. She didn’t remember seeing any in the cabin either. Serkin had probably had them removed just in case she and Michael did get loose.

  “I’ll tow you,” she said.

  “That won’t work.”

  He was yelling at her, and she could tell that it wasn’t just because of the noise of the engines. He was near full panic now. She had to calm him down.

  “I’m a strong swimmer,” she shouted. “We’ll make it.”

  She was doing her best to sound reassuring, though she had her doubts that she could actually get them both through the treacherous current to safety.

  “I’m telling you it won’t work,” he insisted. “I lose my head in the water. I’ll pull us both down.”

  Michael’s brogue was so thick now that she would have had trouble understanding him even in quieter surroundings. Still, she knew one thing: A panicked person could be deadly in the water. She could knock him out and tow him, but she wasn’t sure that would work in this current.

  She glanced through the spray-spattered windshield at the rapidly approaching shoreline. Clouds retreated over the looming cliffs. I will get us out! she told herself.

  “Let’s check the engine,” she shouted. “Maybe we can stall it somehow.”

  Serkin had pointed out the engine room during his tour. The door was locked, of course. But Michael flew at it with a force she wouldn’t have thought possible for a man of his size.

  On his third run, the door splintered and fell backward in response.

  Inside, the heat was nearly overpowering. Steam pulsed from huge pistons, and the roar was deafening. There was no way they could talk to each other in there, not even at shouting volume. Suddenly Michael had Nancy by the arm and was pulling her back outside and toward the bridge deck once more.

  “What are you doing?” she protested, but he was hauling her along too forcefully for her to slow their progress much.

  “I know a little bit about engines,” he shouted once they were far enough from the engine room that she could understand what he was saying. “We couldn’t so much as lay a hand on those machines now. They’re too hot. They’d sear our skin off in a second. And there weren’t any tools around to use either.”

  Nancy saw immediately the truth of what he was saying and stopped trying to resist as they stumbled up onto the bridge.

  “Besides, there are two of them,” he went on. “Even if we could shut one engine down, there’s no way we could disable two in time to keep from hitting those rocks.”

  The cliffs were closer now. Nancy knew Michael was right.

  ?
??We have to think of something else,” she hollered, trying not to sound as bereft of hope as she suddenly felt.

  “There’s no other way,” said Michael, looking resigned to his fate. “We have to jump.”

  “Maybe we can find something that will float,” Nancy shouted. “Something less obvious than a life preserver.”

  Michael looked skeptical, but she’d already pulled herself free of his grasp and was stumbling toward the cabin.

  “Check the port side,” she shouted. Seeing his confusion, she added, “Around to the left,” and pointed at the opposite rail.

  He nodded and weaved away.

  They were running out of time, and Nancy knew it. A few minutes more and they’d have to jump for it no matter what the risk to either of them. She stared through the hatchway into the cabin, trying desperately to think of a way out of this.

  Then she saw it. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? She was down the ladder in a flash, falling on the last step and picking herself up, hardly even noticing she’d fallen.

  She stumbled to the bench that ran along the cabin wall and began pulling at one of the cushions. Fancy boats were most often furnished with flotation cushions. She hoped with all her heart that this cruiser was no exception.

  The ties that held the cushion tore loose, and she staggered toward the ladder with her cumbersome burden. The cushion would lose its awkwardness in the water—unless it wasn’t a flotation device at all. In that case, it would waterlog very fast and sink like a boulder. Nancy tried not to think of what would happen if Michael was clutching it at the time.

  He had finished his circuit of the portside deck and was back at the hatchway as she emerged and handed the cushion up to him.

  “We have to hurry!” she shouted. The cliffs were really close now. “If we’re lucky this cushion will float. Then you just hold on tight to it, and we’ll get you to shore.”

  They were at the rail now. She saw the fear flicker in Michael’s eyes. Then it was gone, and she knew he was going to jump without further question when she told him to. She admired him so much for that she would have hugged him if there’d been time. Instead, she climbed onto the rail and motioned for him to do the same.