Chapter Three

To their relief, Corbin Wain's voice came through the door.

"Miss Drew? The paramedics are here. The real ones this time; I made sure of that."

"Oh thank goodness," Bess declared as Nancy got up to open the door.

Peter still regarded the paramedics with a bit of unease and suspicion. Then again, Nancy mused, maybe he really just did not want to be examined.

He certainly was tense all through the examination. And he was highly displeased at the paramedics' feelings that he should go to the hospital with them for X-rays and other tests.

"It's not as though they hit me with a sledgehammer," he protested as he stood up from the bed.

"Maybe not, but you were unconscious for a while, Mr. Howard," Nancy put in. "You should probably go with them, just to be on the safe side. We'll be looking over your notes and talk with you about them when you get back."

Peter sighed, but in a resigned manner. "Well, if you're really worried about me, Miss Drew," he smiled. "Of course I wouldn't want to disappoint you."

"I just think it would be a good idea to make sure you're alright," Nancy returned, fixing him with a Look.

Peter shrugged. "I'll speak with you later, then. I don't have to tell you to keep those notes safe.

"Good evening, ladies!" He waved broadly to all three girls as he headed out of the room with the paramedics.

Bess looked to Nancy with wide eyes once they had left. "Nancy, he was flirting with you!" she exclaimed.

"You should know," George chimed in. "Since you're a champion at flirting."

Bess stuck her nose in the air. "I just know how to handle myself around men."

Nancy was only half-listening, already engrossed with Peter's notes. It was true; he was somewhat of a flirt. But, she was sure, it was mainly just something he did to get something he wanted. That was why he had tried to flirt with her on the cruise ship.

His evidence against Allan Parker was interesting. There were certainly circumstantial facts that seemed to incriminate Parker—strange comments on the telephone or to others in person, he or his friends being near the scenes of a couple of the attacks Peter had mentioned—but nothing so far that could prove any connection between him and the rumors about him.

"Seriously, Nancy, did you meet up with him more than I even knew about?" George cut into her thoughts.

"Huh?" Nancy mumbled. "Who?"

"Mr. Howard, of course!" George exclaimed. "On the ship!"

"Oh." Nancy forced herself back to the present long enough to reply. "Yes, I talked to him while we were waiting for Dad's information on Martin Carroll, when we thought Mr. Howard really was Mr. Carroll. And I saw him a couple of other times, too."

"He should have wanted to ask you to write a book!" Bess declared. "Nancy, you've had so many hair-raising experiences, it would be just as good as any mystery novel!"

"Better," George inserted.

"He'd heard about me," Nancy admitted, "but I think he thought all the stories were exaggerated. He was focused on getting the Okay on an autobiography of Mr. Addams—and on wanting me to help him get it. Although I have to admit, he was enough of a gentleman that he left me alone when I made it absolutely clear that I wouldn't be manipulated. By the end of the case, he said he was impressed with my skills in solving it, but he was mainly excited about Mr. Addams finally agreeing to the idea of an autobiography. And that's just as well; you two know I don't like publicity."

"We know," George nodded.

"But surely a little wouldn't hurt," Bess added. "Just think of all the handsome men you'd meet!"

"I already meet a lot of men, Bess." Nancy's gaze was drifting back to the notes again. "And some of them aren't really all that great." But before Bess could answer, Nancy let out an audible gasp.

George perked up. "What is it?" she demanded.

Nancy held up the notepad. "Mr. Howard claims that Mr. Parker threatened him—and that he has it on tape!"

Bess rushed over and grabbed the notepad to see for herself. "But that's ridiculous!" she cried. "Mr. Parker knows that Mr. Howard is a reporter. He'd be expecting a tape or a digital recorder or something like that. If he was going to threaten anybody—and he wouldn't, unless they were criminals—he wouldn't do it in a way that could be traced back to him!"

Nancy nodded. "It does sound far-fetched," she admitted. "But maybe that isn't how Mr. Howard has a copy. I'll ask him about it."

"It'd be weird if he had a copy some other way," George said.

"But it isn't impossible," Nancy returned.

Bess frowned. "If he copied all the notes, why didn't he copy the tape too?" she wondered.

"Maybe he did," George shrugged.

"Well, if he did, it isn't here," Nancy said, flipping through the rest of the notepad just to be sure there wasn't another surprise in hiding.

Bess sat on the bed next to her friend. "Nancy, do you like Mr. Howard?" she blurted.

Nancy lowered the notepad and stared. "What do you mean, Bess?"

Bess bit her lip. "Well, I know you said you didn't, but I wondered if you might change your mind. I mean, if you don't like him, that would give you more reasons to think maybe he's making up these awful things about Allan Parker."

"I still don't especially like him," Nancy said. "But you know I have to look objectively at everything to do with a mystery. Maybe he's making things up, but maybe he isn't. And someone certainly is after him for some reason."

"I know." Bess sighed. "I guess I just don't want to believe it's Mr. Parker. Actually, Mr. Howard is a very charming man." She blushed. "He was talking to me while we were waiting for you to come back from getting the notes."

"And what happened to wanting to find a man closer to your own age?" George teased.

Bess rolled her eyes. "I didn't say I wanted to date him or anything. But you'd have to be awfully stupid not to realize he's charming."

"Oh, he turns on the charm, alright," George said. "He probably gets a lot of interviews that way."

"That's just what I was thinking," Nancy agreed.

Bess hopped off the bed. "Well, he could be at the hospital for a while," she declared. "Why don't we go back downstairs and see if anything exciting is still going on?"

"You mean to see if there's still any cute guys around," George remarked.

"That's not a bad idea, actually," Nancy mused. "If Allan Parker's around, we should talk to him."

Bess froze. "Nancy, what would you say to him?!" she exclaimed. "Surely you wouldn't tell him that any of us are thinking he might be guilty!"

Nancy replied calmly, "I'd tell him that Peter Howard has been saying he's a fraud and that Mr. Howard was attacked tonight. Then I'd wait for Mr. Parker's answer and take it from there."

Bess folded her arms. "Well, I wouldn't mind doing some detective work in finding Mr. Parker, but I don't want to talk to him about this."

"I wouldn't expect you to, Bess," Nancy said. "Depending on what I find out, and how he acts, it might be a good thing for you to try to get close to him later and see what you can learn. Maybe you'd even find something that would exonerate him."

Bess perked up. "That would be wonderful!" she declared. She hurried to the door. "Let's see if he's around."

George lingered, looking to Nancy. "What if he isn't around, Nancy?" she wondered.

"Then," Nancy said, "we'll need to try to find out his room number."

xxxx

As it turned out, Allan Parker was not still around. And Nancy and the others had not managed to uncover his room number by the time Peter wearily trudged into the hotel, his suit coat slung over his shoulder.

Nancy, who had gone down to the lobby to wait for him, perked up. "So, the tests came back negative?" she greeted as she climbed out of the deep chair.

Seeing her, Peter smiled. "Oh, I'm quite in ship-shape," he said, gesturing with widespread arms. "But the doctor recommended I take it easy for a while.

"You really do work around the clock, Miss Drew," he noted. "I thought you would have been in bed long ago."

"Then you underestimated me, Mr. Howard," Nancy said. "I've been thinking about your notes on Allan Parker." She indicated the elevator. "Let's go up to your room and talk about them. Bess and George really are asleep," she added.

"Then of course we'll make it my room," Peter agreed, walking with her to the elevator. "We wouldn't want to wake them."

The elevator and the corridors were empty and they traveled to his room without incident. As Peter unlocked the door, he pushed it open and gestured for Nancy to enter. "Ladies first."

Nancy stepped back into the whirlwind of organized chaos. Peter followed, shutting the door behind them and hastening ahead to move several shirts off the couch. "I do hope you'll pardon the mess," he said. "I wasn't expecting company when I unpacked this afternoon."

"What were you expecting, Mr. Howard?" Nancy returned. She sat on the edge of the couch, the notepad in hand.

Peter sat on the other side of the couch, draping one arm across the top of it. "Oh . . . mostly I was expecting to finally get the goods on Parker and have my next big story," he smiled. "And to prove that I'm not at all a fraud."

"You mention here that Mr. Parker threatened you and you have it on tape," Nancy said, displaying the note in question. "Isn't that too incredible a coincidence?"

Peter barely glanced at the page. "Not really. Not when you consider that neither of us knew it was being taped."

Nancy raised an eyebrow. "Would you care to explain that in plain English, please?"

"Gladly. What happened was that I was standing in the lobby of a small newspaper office in Chicago, waiting for an appointment with the editor. Parker barged in and over to me without missing a beat. He said he was tired of me stalking him and questioning his friends and associates."

"Well, you can't really blame him there," Nancy said.

"Hmm. Maybe not, but don't tell me you haven't had more than a few people say the same thing to you, Miss Drew," Peter answered with a quirky smile. "In some ways, what we do isn't all that different."

Nancy bit back a retort. Their motivation was not the same, but she had to admit that she had definitely encountered a plethora of aggravated suspects and witnesses on almost every case. They had probably found her just as annoying as a reporter like Peter.

"It wouldn't even surprise me if you've had a number of death threats," Peter continued. "And that most definitely was what Parker made next. He got in close to me and said, quote, 'If you don't leave me alone, you're going to have a very mysterious and very fatal accident. And no one will be able to prove it isn't anything but.'"

"And somehow, something that juicy got recorded," Nancy frowned, still skeptical.

Peter nodded. "A reporter I know had left his equipment nearby and turned on, and it got picked up on that. That night, he discovered what had happened and sent me a copy on tape."

"That was convenient." Nancy looked to him. "How do you know it wasn't a recording of a couple of voice actors, mimicking you and Mr. Parker?"

"You're as sharp as ever," Peter said approvingly. "But don't you think it would be a lot of trouble for a random reporter to go through? If he was recording it to make a story out of it himself, why bother sending it to me? And anyway, he didn't make a story out of it. He won't, either. That sort of thing doesn't interest him. He likes more . . . unusual topics."

"Maybe so, but the tape should still be checked against yours and Mr. Parker's voice patterns," Nancy insisted.

"I'm nothing if not thorough," Peter said smoothly. "I have a friend who uses that kind of equipment. I had him check the tape against my voice and known recordings of Parker's voice. It matched."

Nancy leaned forward. "Then it's your best piece of evidence," she said. "Where is it now?"

"In the mail. Oh, but I did make a copy of it, too. I have it on this." Peter held up a Flash drive.

"I brought my laptop," Nancy said. "I'd like to hear it."

"I thought you would," Peter said. "But I have my laptop too. I'll set it up and you can hear it on that."

Nancy watched as he brushed two shirts away from the desk, revealing the laptop. "Mr. Howard," she said slowly, "you said you thought those men who were after you would look through your belongings. Do you think they could have come in here?"

"I suppose," Peter mused, sounding occupied. "If they did, they left almost everything exactly as they found it."

"And do you think they or whoever hired them would be aware that you have a copy of that threat and might upload it to your computer?"

"They shouldn't have any idea that I have a copy of the threat, since they don't have my notes," Peter said.

"Your reporter friend might talk, if they cornered him," Nancy pointed out.

"I don't know how they'd find out about him, but yes, I suppose that's possible." Peter sounded a bit impatient now. "What's your point, Miss Drew?"

"My point is, I don't think you should plug your Flash drive into your laptop until it's been scanned for viruses," Nancy said. "They might have planted something on your laptop that will infect or erase everything on your Flash drive the instant you put it in."

Peter paused in the process of lifting the laptop's lid. "You really think so?"

"I think it's a possibility," Nancy returned, getting up and walking over to him. "Mr. Howard, how did you get into Mr. Addams' cabin on the cruise ship? You were there as soon as we walked in."

"Oh, that was easy. The door was unlocked, probably left that way by that Adriane creature."

"I thought you'd probably bribed someone on the staff," Nancy frowned. "Well, anyway, that's what these people could have done. They couldn't have picked the lock, since it's activated by a cardkey."

Peter sighed, closing the lid again. "Alright. I suppose we'd better not take a chance. I'll take my laptop to a computer expert in the morning."

Nancy nodded in approval. "Good. I'll just go get my laptop and bring it down here."

Peter smiled. "I'll be waiting."

The corridor was still deserted as Nancy stepped out and pressed the elevator button. Apparently someone had used it after them; it was all the way on the top floor. Nancy frowned, tapping her fingers on the metal doorframe with impatience as she waited for it to come down.

She placed her other hand in her jacket pocket. Upon feeling something small and folded, she blinked in surprise. There hadn't been anything in her pocket earlier. What was this? And when had it been put there?

She withdrew her hand, unfolding the small scrap of paper at the same time. In red block letters, on a Post-It note, was written:

STAY AWAY FROM PETER HOWARD

OR YOU'LL BE DEAD ALONG WITH HIM.