But where was Patrick now?
Nancy's mind was racing. Each time Patrick had plundered a new place, he'd done something to lure Nancy away from the scene first. If he'd called her to his house—and then disappeared— it must have been a ploy to get her away from the next place he planned to visit.
What if the next place was her own house—
with Wendy inside, all alone? If Patrick was the culprit, then he was the one who had been terrifying Wendy with those phone calls. And that meant—
"He's going over there to kill her!" Nancy gasped.
Chapter Fifteen
Mr. and Mrs. Emmons, I've got to go," Nancy said abruptly. "I'm awfully sorry about all of this, but perhaps you should call the police."
Patrick's parents were staring at her. "What's going on? Is Patrick all right?" asked his mother.
"I'm afraid not, but I can't explain right now," Nancy answered.
"He's been hurt!" Mrs. Emmons gasped.
"I don't think he's been hurt, Mrs. Emmons," Nancy said gently. "I just think Patrick played a few 'pranks,' and now he's in over his head. I'm so sorry," Nancy said again, then she rushed downstairs and out to her car.
When she reached her own house it looked reassuringly normal—so normal that Nancy felt a momentary qualm. Had she made a terrible mistake? Had she gotten Mrs. Emmons all upset for nothing?
The lights were on downstairs in the living room. Wendy must have come down. Nancy peeked into the living room window and smiled. Wendy was curled up on the sofa watching TV. She had obviously calmed down after Nancy left!
Nancy unlocked the front door and rushed in. "Oh, thank heaven, you're all right!" she called from the front hall as she ran toward the living room. "I was so afraid Patrick was coming over here—"
"Nancy. He was here, but I think he left." Wendy's voice was a tiny thread of its usual self. "Help me."
Nancy rushed into the living room.
"Help me," Wendy begged again. She couldn't even turn around to look at Nancy.
She'd been tied hand and foot to the sofa.
"He made me get comfortable before he tied me." Wendy whispered. "He wanted to make sure I'd look normal so you wouldn't be scared to come inside."
"Oh, Wendy!" Nancy was already working on the knots. Wendy had been tied up with clothes-line, and it must have hurt terribly. There were red welts all over her wrists as Nancy untied them. "But where is he now?" she asked Wendy.
"Waiting for you, Nancy. Why don't you just have a seat?"
The voice, light and pleasant, came from behind her.
Nancy whirled around. Patrick was standing in the doorway. There was a broad grin on his face, another roll of clothesline looped around his arm—and a pistol in his hand.
"You're wasting your time untying her. Neither of you is going anywhere."
Still training the gun on both girls, Patrick walked over to an armchair next to the sofa and plunked himself down. "Really, Nancy, I meant it—sit down," he said, waving the gun casually in the air. "Let's just reminisce about the old days, shall we?"
"What's there to reminisce about?" Nancy asked in as casual a voice as she could manage. "It's not that long ago." Wendy was looking at her as though she were out of her mind, but Nancy was hoping she could get Patrick to talk. If she could, she might be able to distract him— and get the gun away from him.
"Remember when we were all so happy together?" Patrick asked. "Especially Wendy and me.
Although I don't expect you can remember that far back, Wendy. You've gone on to better things, I know."
Now Wendy looked indignant. She struggled to sit upright on the sofa, but it was no use—she had to flop back down again. "Why are you mad at me, Patrick? You broke up with me, remember? How can you blame me?"
"I broke up with you because you weren't paying enough attention to me!" Patrick exploded. "You didn't care about me! All you thought about was cheerleading! You never had any time for me!" His voice had become an ugly whine.
"And you've never forgiven her," Nancy said quietly. "You wanted someone who'd devote every minute to you."
"Of course I did! I wanted someone who cared. That's the least a guy like me deserves, don't you think?"
"Oh, of course," Nancy said politely.
"Don't humor me!" Patrick shouted. "What did my mother tell you? Did you talk to her?"
"Yes, I did," answered Nancy. "I think you can guess what she told me, Patrick. That you wouldn't be going back to school."
"Not going back to school? But why not?' Wendy asked. She sounded as shocked as Nancy had felt when she'd heard the news.
Patrick thrust out his chin. "It was ridiculous there!" he said. "No one could survive that kind of competition. Why didn't someone warn me about it in high school? Around here I was popular and everything was easy, but in college the pressure never let up!"
"So you flunked out?" Nancy asked.
Patrick winced. "Well, that's probably what they'd call it. Not that there was anyone there who offered to help me get my grades back up. They just didn't care about me, I guess. But it was really more my football coach's fault. He just wouldn't let me play enough. If he'd kept me on the team I wouldn't have had so much extra time on my hands. You know what it's like when you get bored." He chuckled sheepishly, and for a chilling second he looked exactly like the sweet-faced, popular guy he'd been until just a couple of hours ago.
"I don't understand what you mean," Nancy said carefully. "Did you get in some other kind of trouble, too?"
Patrick gave an elaborate sigh. "No, I did not get in some other kind of trouble," he said, mimicking her. "I was just borrowing that stuff they caught me with. But try to explain that to the dean of students!"
Nancy didn't dare press Patrick too hard. There was no need for him to be more specific, anyway. It was obvious he'd screwed up in a major way at college—and just as obvious that he wanted other people to suffer with him.
He stood up suddenly. "Okay, enough reminiscing," he said. "Wendy, you're getting tied up again."
For a minute Nancy's hopes flared into life. How could Patrick tie Wendy and hold a gun at the same time? He'd have to put the gun down for a second, at least!
But Patrick just grinned at her as if he knew what she was thinking. "I'm not as stupid as you think I am," he said. "I'm going to make you tie her up, Nancy." He watched closely as Nancy retied Wendy's hands. Then he double-checked the knots while keeping the gun aimed at Nancy.
"Now, you're going to be a little more complicated, Nancy," Patrick continued when he'd finished with Wendy. "With your background and all, you probably know more tricks than she does. Let's see . . ." He stood for a minute, pondering. The gun he was pointing at Nancy never wavered.
"Why don't you go and stand in the corner with your face to the wall," Patrick suggested. "That way I can do your feet first. Don't think you can kick the gun out of my hands, either."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Nancy said, and she meant it. There might be time to think of an escape later, but for now she didn't dare do anything to provoke him.
So she just stood quietly while he tied her feet with more clothesline and then fastened her hands tightly behind her back. "Great!" he said when he was done. He gave her a friendly slap on the shoulder. "Now just stay put—not that you have much of a choice."
He walked to the center of the room. "I'm afraid I have to leave you lovely ladies now," he said. "I've still got so much to do. Thanks for everything."
"You're taking off?" Nancy asked.
"Yeah. It's time for me to get out of here." He started to walk slowly away—and then stopped.
"By the way, I'm going to make a stop in your garage first. I've got to get the stuff I need to burn this house down. With the two of you inside, of course."
Chapter Sixteen
Patrick sauntered out, whistling, and slammed the front door behind him. Nancy heard him lock it, and then she heard him opening the garage door. Then all she could hear was a muffled c
langing as he started looking through the garage.
What would he find in there? Frantically Nancy tried to think. The barbecuing equipment? Gasoline? Cleaning fluid? It would all be there, she guessed. Nancy was sure that at any minute he'd be back. . . .
Why didn't I call Bess or George or Ned before I left for Patrick's house? she asked herself. Why didn't I tell his parents where I was going? Someone could have been here by now! But Nancy knew that no one was coming to the rescue this time.
Wendy gave a stifled sob, and Nancy turned around. "He's going to roast us alive!" Wendy cried. "Can't you do something, Nancy?"
She'd have to try. "I'm going to get these ropes untied," Nancy said, "and then I'll untie you. We'll get out of here."
Or will we? she asked herself grimly. Patrick had tied her hands so tight that he'd cut off most of the circulation. Nancy could hardly move her fingers. Desperately she flexed her wrists, hoping to stretch the clothesline. It wouldn't budge.
"Hurry! Hurry!" Wendy begged in a shrieking whisper.
"I don't think I can— Wait! There we go!" At last the cord was giving a little. Nancy began twisting her wrists back and forth as hard as she could. They hurt so badly she wanted to scream, but she couldn't stop now. The cord was getting looser—looser. And finally Nancy slipped her swollen hands free.
"There!" she gasped, rubbing her bloodied wrists. "Now for the feet."
Untying her feet was easier, but it still took precious seconds to do it—seconds they didn't have. By the time Nancy had finally stepped out of the twisted coil of clothesline, the garage had become strangely silent. Was Patrick on his way back?
No time to think about that. Nancy rushed over to the sofa and began picking at the knots on Wendy's ankles. "There we go," she said at last. "Now sit up and rub your ankles. You've been tied up for so long that—"
Suddenly she froze. What was that noise?
A tiny click. The smallest sound imaginable, but Nancy knew instantly what it was. "He's coming in the door!" she whispered.
Wendy's face turned utterly white. "It's all over," she whispered. Nancy didn't answer. She couldn't. She knew Wendy was right.
Then the front door swished open, and Patrick strode back into the house.
"I thought so. You seem to have this mania for untying Wendy," he said coldly. He looked down reflectively at the gun in his hand. "Anyway, I couldn't find any gasoline, so I guess I'm just going to have to shoot you both."
He took a slow step toward them.
Nancy yelled, "Run, Wendy!" She tore up the front stairs with Wendy stumbling behind her.
A bullet whistled past Nancy's head and buried itself in the wall. Then another—and Wendy fel to the ground. "My feet!" she wailed. "I can't gc fast!"
Nancy reached down, grabbed Wendy's bound hands, yanked her up the last two stairs, and dragged her behind one of the beds in the spare bedroom.
Silence.
Nancy silently untied Wendy as they listened to Patrick pace up the carpeted stairs.
Nancy's heart was hammering so fast it almost choked her. There was no way they could escape now. In a few seconds it would all be over.
Slowly Patrick's measured tread advanced toward them. Now he was halfway up—now two-thirds of the way. Now on the landing. "Come on, be sensible! You're just making it worse by trying to stall things," he sang out. "I know where you are."
Maybe he's just bluffing, Nancy thought feverishly. Oh, if only he is! He'd just started walking the wrong way down the hall. It was completely dark on the second floor, and maybe that would slow him down. If they could just manage to keep quiet, maybe he wouldn't find them.
But then Wendy scrambled to her feet and ran to the open window.
"Help!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "Somebody, please help! He's going to kill us!"
"Shut up!" Patrick bellowed. With a muffled curse he thundered down the hall toward the spare room.
There was no time to think. Nancy had to stop him now.
She jumped to her feet and pressed herself into the wall by the doorway. The instant Patrick loomed into view, she scissored her leg up and caught him on the chin. He doubled up and fell to the ground without so much as a sigh.
The first pink light of dawn was creeping into the house when the police arrived and took Patrick away.
"How is Patrick doing now?" Mojiica Beck-with asked.
Nancy shook her head sadly. "Not great. This time there was no explaining away what he'd done. He couldn't take it and collapsed completely."
It was early the next evening. Nancy had accompanied the police to the station that morning when they'd booked Patrick.
After spending a couple of hours filling them in, she'd gone home to take a nap. She was still exhausted, but she was determined to wrap this case up once and for all. So she called all the people who had been involved in the case and invited them over to fill them in on what had happened—Wendy, Monica, Celia, Don, Ned, and of course Bess and George.
Only Judd wasn't there, but he was expected to be leaving the hospital the next day. The blow to his head had given him temporary amnesia, and he still couldn't remember being attacked. Other than that, he was fine. Nancy had filled him in with a long talk on the phone that morning.
"Patrick says he planted the newspapers in your office when he brought his car in," she told Judd. "Didn't you see them there?"
Judd laughed. "If you really want to know the truth, it never occurred to me to keep tabs on my wastebasket. You're the detective, not me. I guess I should apologize," he added. "You did know what you were doing. And if it hadn't been for you, who knows when someone would have found me? I take back everything I said."
Now it was Nancy's turn to laugh. "Oh, you don't have to do that. I'm glad your memory's back. And I'm really glad you weren't guilty. Good luck with everything, Judd."
"So, Nan," George was saying now, "how did Patrick manage to figure out the timing on all those robberies and things?"
"Well, he is smart," Nancy said, "and once he'd established a pattern, it wasn't that hard for him. Wrecking Wendy's room at the beach house was probably the easiest, since all he had to do was go upstairs when no one was looking. He didn't even have to use the ladder the police were sure had been used—the marks it had made were
probably there already. And then, of course, Patrick knew no one would suspect him when he'd been a victim, too."
"You mean he set up that trick with the charcoal starter himself?" Don asked in a startled voice.
"Yep."
Bess shuddered. "I don't know how anyone could go that far."
"And go that far twice, no less," Nancy said. "He practically had to beat himself up after he'd broken into Don's house, to make it 'look as though someone had banged into him."
"So Patrick came to the party planning to cause all that trouble?" Celia asked.
"Yes," Nancy replied. "He took a big gamble that no one would see him carry that stolen stuff out of the house."
"But no one would have suspected him—even if he'd carried the stuff out on his head," Monica said.
"I'm sure he could have come up with some kind of believable explanation."
"Still, it's amazing that no one saw him break into any of the houses," Ned observed.
"I know. He used the back door at Monica's and Wendy's, but still ... I guess it was because he looked so squeaky clean that it never occurred to anyone that he was breaking in. Or maybe it was just beginner's luck—if you can call it that.
Once he had the stuff, he didn't even bother trying to find a good hiding place for it. The police found it under a tarp behind his parents' garage.
"Still, the stealing wasn't what Patrick was trying to do," Nancy went on. "He just wanted to get revenge on anyone doing better than he was. The attacks got more personal and nastier as he went along and got angrier."
Nancy shook her head. "And, boy, did I help him. He just followed me around. Then, when I'd go to investigate whatever clue he had droppe
d off for me, he'd be able to get into the place I'd just left."
She smiled ruefully at Don. "He kept pointing out how weird it was that you were on the scene so often. I never noticed that he was on the scene even more often."
"I still don't understand why he attacked Judd," Ned said. "Wasn't Judd your main suspect then? What was the point of getting him out of the way?"
"Well, he told the police he didn't plan to attack Judd at all," Nancy said. "He just wanted to use the phone there. For the privacy. But then he decided to make Judd seem even guiltier and turned on the radio, so I'd guess he was at the garage. But Judd caught him in the act, and Patrick picked up a crowbar and hit him over the head."
"This is all so creepy!" said Monica. "Poor Judd!" She shivered. "I guess I'm luckier than I thought. At least I didn't get hurt."
"Well, I did," said Celia, "but you know, I can't be as mad at Patrick as I should be now that I know the whole story. I mean, you can't help feeling sort of sorry for him."
Wendy had been pacing restlessly in front of the window for the last part of Nancy's explanation. Now she finally spoke. "I don't want to sound self-centered," she said haltingly; "but it does seem to me as if he was maybe trying to get at me a little more than everyone else—"
"You're absolutely right," said Nancy. "He's mad at all of us, but he's furious at you. You meant the most to him. I guess he's never gotten over being angry that you wouldn't spend more time with him back in school. All the stuff at college must have unbalanced him, and your party was the last straw. I think he became obsessed with you—that's why he spent so much time trying to scare you. And when he suddenly saw his chance for a final revenge, he took it."
Wendy looked thoroughly shaken. "I should have known. I should have known," she said. "I feel as though it's all my fault. Maybe I could have said something to him back then that would have kept this whole thing from happening!"