Nancy Drew tried to open her eyes. Her lashes refused to cooperate, and her head was pounding. With her fingers she found a tender spot just behind her left ear, wincing as she probed it, and slowly, tortuously, her eyes opened.
The walls were covered in coruscating rainbows.
She immediately glanced down at her fanned fingers, but her engagement ring was still there, although there was no way it was responsible for the patterns shimmering on the walls. She sat up, clutching the musty blankets to her chest, and directly through the window she could see a waterfall, utterly gorgeous, pouring down over the rocks and splashing into the air. It was just another breathtaking sight on a vacation that had been full of them.
The trailer she was in, though, was anything but. Nancy was still in the white gown she had worn for the rehearsal the night before, but the hem was torn and dirty, and the right strap had come loose. The blankets smelled like they had been shut up in a closet for years, and, making a face, Nancy kicked them down and slid out of the bed. The sheets were washed to threadbare patches over a slender, sagging mattress.
The last time she'd slept on something like that had been summer camp, and it hadn't been easy. The back of her throat tasted like bitter cotton. She was sure she'd been drugged.
The other windows in the room had been halfheartedly tacked over with elderly burlap, and while the waterfall made for a great view, it didn't tell her much. She'd spent time in Hawaii, but not memorizing the landmarks. She hadn't meant to for this trip, either.
Today was supposed to be her wedding day.
Nancy sighed and checked her watch, glancing around for her shoes on the carpet, which had probably been mustard-colored early in its existence, but now felt gritty and almost damp under her bare feet. No shoes. No purse. No cell phone. By now she would have been almost bored if she'd actually found any of the three. Not that this was much of a challenge, either.
The cardboard-thin door was shut, but not locked; Nancy wandered out into a hallway that had been carpeted in some nauseating pattern of alternating burgundy and oatmeal at some point. The stove was coated in the grime of a hundred meals and the refrigerator looked like a PSA for supervising children's hide-and-seek games; it was a huge, hulking monolith a good ten years older than she was, avocado green, the vertical latch-handle pitted with rust.
It would have been a nightmare. But the rainbows still came through, from rips in the brittle canvas, blinking on the grease-discolored walls. Her husband-to-be was somewhere waiting for her.
Ned. The last thing she could remember was his face, his expression clouded with anger, her hand wrenched from his grip as vise-like arms closed around her.
Most of the reason they'd come to Hawaii was to escape this. The threats had begun a week before; notes shoved under the door, hushed menacing warnings left on the answering machine at her father's house. Nine months of planning had all been undone for a leisurely ceremony in a picturesque church in view of the ocean. And Bess had gushed about how romantic it all was.
How romantic. How romantic to be shut in a musty ancient trailer on the morning of her wedding day.
Nancy studied the main entrance, then the back, debating over which was more likely to be watched or booby-trapped. The back entrance faced the waterfall, and she was unsure how steady the ground would be on that side; she pried off a good strip of the canvas, working underneath the tape with her fingernails, and saw rocky ground, a sheer drop, and a pool far below, with no indication of how shallow it might be. Remembering the slippery rocks around another waterfall, Nancy shrugged and turned her attention to the front door. She doubted that Ned would be the one waking her if she made a false step and tumbled into the pounding path of the waterfall.
The lock on the front door was the only new feature she'd found. The door might be two flimsy pieces of aluminum with a pane of safety glass between, and the frame itself might be as sturdy as a reed, but that deadbolt was going to hold up. Nancy would have risked a well-placed kick, but her bare toes curled at the thought of missing her aim.
Five minutes later, Nancy was unscrewing the bolt housing with the thin edge of a butter knife when a key slid into the lock. Immediately she dropped the knife onto the counter and backed up until her legs were against the deteriorating couch, her wary gaze on the door.
"So," Nick Alves said, glaring at her as he shouldered the door open. "You're awake."
Nancy glanced at her watch, a useless gesture, and immediately asked, "What time is it?"
He nodded at the wide face and glistening band at her wrist. "Your watch stop?"
"It's still set on my timezone."
Alves stepped closer, his female conspirator lingering by the door, keeping her distrustful gaze on Nancy. "Like it matters. You just need to stay quiet for a few more hours."
Calm. She was calm. She shouldn't have been. Nancy made her lower lip start to tremble, and a thin, gleaming rim of tears slowly grew above her lower lashes. "Like you're going to let me go back," she choked out, clenching her fist. "I'll never see Ned again."
"Can it, blondie."
Alves cut his accomplice off with a sharp look and turned his attention back to Nancy. "We're just gonna let you talk to your dad for a second, and then this can all be over."
Nancy let her eyes widen as she saw Nick take a rather elderly cell phone out of his pocket, and the woman by the door took a threatening step in her direction. Nancy made herself slump, watching as Nick placed a call, made a few lame threats, and handed the phone to her, drawing a wicked knife out of his pocket, his intention clear. If she screwed up, he'd hurt her.
The only reason I'm not kicking it out of your hand is that I don't want to be all bruised up on my wedding day, Nancy thought angrily in his direction as she took the phone, fighting back the urge to wipe her fingers on her dress after they touched his.
"Nancy?" Her father's voice was preternaturally calm, too.
"Yeah, Dad, it's me," Nancy said, making her voice shake.
"Can you stall for another couple minutes?"
"I'll try, but the place they have me is—"
"That's enough," Nick snarled, jerking the phone out of her hand. Nancy collapsed to the couch in mock defeat, lifting her bare feet off the carpet. She'd probably have to scrub the soles of her feet for a good ten minutes to get all the grime off.
Whatever else Nick had done, at least he'd given her a good story for the grandkids.
"I think we need to dose her again," the woman said, rooting around in a battered handbag.
"No, no, please don't," Nancy begged tearfully, startling Nick when she threw herself at his feet. "I promise I'll be good. I will. Just promise me you'll let me go. I have to see Ned again. I love him so much. Please tell me you didn't do anything to him."
"Just shut up!" Nick said, trying to kick out and dislodge her, but the sight of Nancy on her knees, gazing up at him, was obviously doing something to Nick, and making the woman just as jealous as he was interested. She had to be careful. Nancy backed off but stayed on her knees, her hands clasped.
"You didn't hurt him, did you?"
"Just tell her what she wants to hear."
Under that thin veneer of fear and terror, through the layers and protection of her faith and self-confidence, Nancy felt the first trickle of true, real doubt slide like acid down her heart. Surely they hadn't done anything to Ned. They'd find her standing over two bleeding, broken bodies if they had.
"He's fine. You promised you'd be good. So you just stay here, get on the couch, and don't try anything. Like telling your father where you are. You're too smart for your own good." Nick glared at her.
Nancy slowly climbed back onto the couch, trying not to think about her knees. Bleach. She'd just scrub herself with bleach. That would be sure to set the mood. "If you guys are so desperate to get ransom for me, how'd you come up with the money to get to Hawaii?" she asked in genuine curiosity.
"You kidding? With all the dough we can get out of your old man, a couple plane tickets to Hawaii were nothing."
"Plus, when it's a stolen credit card anyway..."
You bought your tickets to Hawaii with a stolen credit card. Wow. This is pitiful. Nancy nodded encouragingly, keeping her expression troubled.
The woman took another few steps closer. The light had caught the ring on Nancy's finger, and she was drawn to it, to the chips of refracted light thrown on the walls between the waterfall's reflections. "How 'bout you give me that," she said, gesturing at the ring. "And that watch."
The ring was expensive, and a family heirloom, and it was never coming off her finger. The watch looked expensive too, but not anywhere near as expensive as it had been, she was sure.
"Yeah, about that," Nancy said, and her voice was hard, and her eyes were clear. "No."
The woman glanced at Nick, who shrugged, his eyes alight with mild interest. As far as he was concerned, he might see a catfight in a minute, and he had no problem with that.
"You want to have a nice scar down your cheek when you walk down the aisle?" the woman threatened, pulling out her own knife, which looked like a dime-store knockoff of a Swiss army knife.
Nancy stood up, neatly balancing on the balls of her feet, settling into a defensive stance. "Do you really think my dad hasn't already traced the call you were stupid enough to make?"
"You can't trace a five-second call," Nick scoffed. But she could hear that very faint doubt in his voice.
"You can now. We were tracking you from the second you got off the plane. We've just been letting you dig your own graves, since then. You're going away for a long time, Nick."
The woman and Nick exchanged glances. "Get rid of that cell phone!" she screamed, and Nick wrenched open the back door, pitching it into the falls. He turned back, panting.
Just in time to see a police officer in full SWAT gear dart through the open door, an impressively large gun in his hand, followed by three teammates, Carson, and Ned.
"Nancy!" Ned said it, but immediately she was wrapped in the arms of both her fiance and her father, like some breathing human shield. She closed her eyes and stood up on her tiptoes, and the male scent of Ned's aftershave and the comforting familiarity of her father's cheek made her sigh in relief. It was going to be all right.
"What took you so long?" Carson demanded.
Nancy looked between them, to where Alves and his girlfriend were being led down the steps in handcuffs. "They drugged me," she said. "Honestly, I'd been awake for two seconds when I hit the button."
Carson picked up Nancy's hand, peering at the silver watch he'd given her the previous Christmas. The GPS signal it emitted was strong enough to be tracked all over the island, and she'd long before stopped noticing its weight on her wrist.
"Best money I ever spent."
Nancy smiled in response, then turned her face back to Ned, his warm brown eyes lit with concern as he gazed down at her.
"Please tell me you think we can get through the rest of this holiday without anything else happening."
Nancy leaned up and kissed Ned on the cheek, then breathed into his ear, "You sure you want me to make that kind of promise?"
Ned chuckled, looping one arm around her waist and drawing her up close to him, before letting her go. "We have four hours, babe."
"I'm glad they were so accommodating to our schedule," Nancy drawled, leading the two men in her life to the door. Bess and George waved excitedly.
If only they were all this easy.
Bess clucked over Nancy's dress as soon as she was within earshot. "That thing was so pretty. Oh my God, did they keep you in some kind of serial killer hideout?"
"More like an elderly-white-trash-relative trailer," Nancy sighed, rubbing a bruised elbow. "You know what's funny? I doubt I would have gotten a full night of sleep last night, otherwise."
"Way to be optimistic, Nan," George said, laughing.
Nancy glanced back in time to see Carson catch Ned's arm, make some comment to him, and pass a small piece of paper over. Bess started experimentally arranging Nancy's hair, then gasped in horror when she saw Nancy's bare feet, her careful French pedicure ruined.
"So what was that?" Nancy asked, sliding her arm through Ned's as he walked by, gently shrugging off Bess's histrionic ministrations.
Ned chuckled. "Your dowry," he said, patting his pocket.
"The deed to four chickens and a milk cow?"
"The transmitter code to your GPS watch." Ned grinned broadly. "He said it was about time."
"Worried I'm gonna wander off, Nickerson?"
Ned glanced down at her bare feet and a second later had her swept into his arms, before she could even squeak in protest. "Not so much worried as convinced," Ned told her with a mock-long-suffering sigh. "Most girls, when they get cold feet, don't get them quite as cold as you do."
"These are not cold feet," she told him indignantly, but settled against his chest anyway. "Besides, I'll never be out of your sight. Not after today."
"You're such a gorgeous liar," Ned smiled, leaning down to give her a kiss.