J.M.J.

Author's note: Thanks so much for reading! We're in the home stretch now. I can't say exactly how many more chapters there will be (yeah, I have a bad habit of posting as I write instead of getting something completely written before I start posting it), but there definitely won't be more than three, or four at the very, very most.

Chapter XIV

Findings

George tapped her foot on the floor of the hospital waiting room, compulsively checking her phone every few minutes. There had been no word from Nancy, and George was starting to worry. What if something had happened to Nancy and Ned? Even if nothing had, they were wasting time that they could spend looking for Bess.

Burt was sitting next to her, twiddling his thumbs uncomfortably as they waited for some news – about Nancy and Ned, or about Bess, or about Norden, or anything. They had followed the ambulance to the hospital to give Eliot a ride, but after Norden had been whisked into the emergency room, they hadn't heard another word. The police had already questioned Burt and his friends, although they were still talking to Eliot in low voices on the other end of the waiting room.

Dave, meanwhile, was pacing nervously back and forth. He kept thinking about how, if he had only not let Eliot distract him, he would have been right there with Bess and she would have never been kidnapped. He paused. Eliot had distracted him to tell him about some vague, dire concerns for his professor which somehow had turned out to be well-founded. Not only that, but he had also been involved in splitting their group up with his insistence that they go check up on Norden, just in the nick of time to rescue him. What if all of that hadn't been coincidence? What if Eliot knew more about all this than he was saying?

"Guys, we need to talk about something," Dave whispered as he slid into the other seat next to George.

"What?" Burt asked as they all huddled closer so that they could speak quietly.

Dave explained his suspicions of Eliot, while Burt and George listened closely.

"That makes sense," George agreed after taking a moment to think it over when Dave had finished. "If it's true, then Nancy and Ned are probably in trouble. Maybe we should go look for them."

"But then Eliot will get away," Dave protested. "He probably knows where Bess is."

George looked up toward Eliot and considered her options. "I'm going to tell the police about this. They'll be able to keep Eliot here and send some people to help us look for Nancy and Ned."

She stood up and approached the nearest officer, whose name was Brady. He listened with interest to the theory.

Officer Brady nodded when she finished. "I'll call for more officers to go with you down to the river. We'll make sure Eliot doesn't leave until we've heard what you find out."

NDNDNDNDND

The temperature was dropping below zero rapidly and it was nearly four in the morning. The police car, with two officers in the front seat and George, Burt, and Dave in the back seat, crawled along the road down to the river slowly. They had nearly reached the place where the friends had parked before when Burt pointed out a car parked along the side.

"That's Ned's car," he said. "They must have parked here so they could sneak down to the river without being seen."

The officer driving the car, Officer Hendrix, pulled up behind Ned's car and parked. He and his partner, a woman named Officer Montoya, got out and waved down the police car that was following theirs. The two officers in it also climbed out.

Officer Montoya quickly spotted the prints from Nancy and Ned's snowshoes. "We'll follow these," she announced. "If we lose the trail, then we'll still have Ms. Fayne's tracking app."

"Right, so we get to come along?" George asked.

"If your friends are in trouble, we can use all the help we can get," Officer Hendrix replied. "Now let's get going."

It was simply enough to follow the tracks. It hadn't snowed at all, and so they were clear and crisp. As the search party expected, they led down to the river and out onto the ice. The moon was still casting enough light for them to see by in any places that were no overshadowed by trees, and so their attention was immediately captured by the jagged hole in the ice just ahead of them.

After staring at it in horror for a second or two, George went dashing down to the ice. Burt and Dave only hesitated a moment before following her. George would have run straight to the edge of the hole, but Burt caught her arm and slowed her down so that they approached the hole at a more cautious pace.

"Someone must have fallen through here," Burt said, stating the obvious.

"You don't think…" George began, hardly daring to say the words.

"No, I don't think," Officer Hendrix interrupted her. He and the other officers had caught up by this time. "Someone fell through, that much is clear, and that's serious enough on its own. But if you look at the tracks, I'd say someone pulled them out. It looks like that person then helped them along. We'd better hurry. Unless they got to shelter quickly, the person who fell through wouldn't last very long in this cold."

That was all the group needed to hurry on their way. They continued following the tracks up the hill and into the trees, and to the front door of the cabin. Officer Hendrix stepped up to the door and knocked. There was no response at first, and so he knocked again and called, "Police."

"I'm coming," Ned's voice called from inside. He opened the door a minute later. "Am I glad to see all of you."

"Thank goodness you're all right," George said. "What about Nancy?"

There was no need for Ned to answer this question, because at that moment, Nancy came into the main room. The officers, Burt, Dave, and George entered the cabin, and they all sat down.

"What happened?" George demanded. "You never called, and we saw that huge hole in the ice. Did one of you fall through?"

"Uh, yeah," Ned admitted, a little sheepishly. "That was me. If it hadn't been for Nancy and Jack…Wait a minute. Where's Jack?"

Nancy sprang up from her seat on the couch and went to the bathroom door to knock. There was no answer, so she pushed open the door, which was already standing ajar. "He's not in there," she announced, "and he's not in the bedroom. Maybe he went for help after all, but I don't know why he wouldn't have told us."

"Who's Jack?" Dave asked.

"He's a kid who helped pull me out of the river and showed us this cabin," Ned replied. "He said he was going to stay here."

"He didn't even tell us his last name," Nancy added, "so we don't have any way of even contacting him, unless you officers know him. He said he used to live around here, but it doesn't sound like he still does."

"I don't know him right off," Officer Hendrix said, "but I'll make inquiries about him. I'm curious about this kid myself."

"In the meantime, there's something I need to show you." Nancy led the party into the bedroom and showed them the electronics equipment in the dresser drawer and how it had been used to manufacture the "ghost". "Jack said that this cabin belongs to people named Rodgers."

"As in Liam Rodgers?" Burt asked with one eyebrow raised.

"It could be," Nancy said. "I think it's worth looking into, anyway."

"And the sooner, the better," Dave added. "If Liam has something to do with that ghost, he must know where Bess is. Let's go."

Officer Montoya was already on her radio, calling in to headquarters both to report their findings at the cabin and the possibility that Jack was lost in the woods. Nancy supplied a description of Jack. "There's a road fairly close in back of here. We can call an ambulance and have them pick you up," she offered Ned.

"I'm fine," Ned assured her. "I just needed to warm up, really, and I have."

"I think you'd be better off having a doctor confirm that," Officer Montoya insisted.

"Besides," George spoke up, "going back to the hospital wouldn't be such a bad idea. We can check up on Norden and find out if Eliot is in cahoots with Liam."

"What?" Nancy asked. "Norden's in the hospital and you're suspecting Eliot of having something to do with it?"

The others explained what had happened to Norden and about Dave's suspicions concerning Eliot. Nancy and Ned listened with both interest and concern, and in the end, Ned agreed to go to the hospital, although he insisted that calling an ambulance was not necessary and that he could walk back to where his car and the police cars were parked.

When they arrived at the hospital, Officer Brady was still detaining Eliot and asking him some pointed questions. Eliot was clearly uncomfortable and was trying to squirm out of the interrogation.

"What is this?" he asked when he saw the newcomers. "I'm starting to think you guys think I'm the one who tried to kill Norden and who kidnapped Bess."

"Are you?" George asked with her arms folded.

Eliot gave her an incredulous look. "I was with you guys the entire time both those things were happening."

"It doesn't mean that you weren't still involved in it," George insisted. "Maybe you were supposed to be distracting us."

"Hold on," both Nancy and Officer Montoya warned George at the same instant. They looked at one another, and Nancy nodded to Officer Montoya to continue talking.

"We don't have any proof that you're involved in any way, yet," Officer Montoya said. "However, if you are involved, we have some leads that should prove that in a matter of hours. Considering that a man has nearly been murdered and there is still a young woman's life hanging in the balance, I would encourage you to do the right thing and tell us anything you do know about it. If you're involved, the court will certainly take your decision right now into consideration."

"But I don't know anything," Eliot insisted. "What little I do know, I already told this officer here." He pointed to Officer Brady.

Officer Brady gestured for Hendrix and Montoya to step to the side with him. Nancy lingered just close enough to hear what they said.

"His story holds together," Officer Brady told them. "I think he's telling the truth. Anyway, we don't have anything to hold him on."

They conferred for a few more minutes, and in the end, Montoya and Hendrix must have agreed with Brady, because they informed Eliot that he was free to go and that they had no further questions for him.

"Thanks for that," Eliot replied sarcastically, "but if it's all right with all of you, I'm going to stay right here until I can talk to Norden. That doctor said he was out of surgery and that it would be a good thing if a friend was around when he's able to start having visitors."

Officer Hendrix turned to Nancy and her friends. "You know this Liam Rodgers whom you suspect of being involved in this?"

"He's in the same fraternity as Burt, Dave, and me," Ned replied.

"Then, Burt, Dave, why don't you come along with us so we can hopefully find him and start questioning him," Hendrix requested. "Since you seem to know the most about all of this, Nancy, it might be helpful if you come along as well."

Nancy glanced uncertainly at Ned.

"It's fine, Nancy," Ned assured her. "It will only a minute for a doctor to look at me and say I really am fine anyway."

"And when he does, I'll give Ned a ride to wherever you guys are at, unless the doctor says he needs to stay in bed," George offered. Even though she was eager to actively join in searching for Bess, she also thought it would be better if someone stuck around the hospital to keep an eye on Eliot.

Nancy, Burt, and Dave followed Officers Hendrix and Montoya to their car and climbed into the back seat as Officer Hendrix headed toward the college.