J.M.J.

Author's note: As always, thank you for continuing to read, and especially if you have left any reviews. I hope you're enjoying the story!

Chapter XV

Another Victim

It was a long, dull wait for George in the waiting room of the hospital. It was made all the longer by the fact that George would check the time on her phone every ten minutes or so, it seemed, only to find that it had only been a fraction of that time. She was worried for Bess, and she really would have rather gone and looked for her than stay here, but she realized that she would be the least helpful of any of her friends for confronting Liam Rodgers, so she had elected to stay here, where she could be of some help once Ned was discharged.

The one thing she hadn't expected was that there would be any developments in the hospital itself. However, after she had been waiting there for a little more than fifteen minutes, a red-haired girl came running into the emergency wing, calling for help as she held a cloth against her head. The receptionist and Officer Brady, who was still on duty waiting for Norden to wake up and be able to tell what had happened to him, rushed to assist her. George considered doing the same, but she realized that she would only be in the way of the more professional help.

"What happened, miss?" the receptionist asked, helping the girl to sit in one of the chairs.

"Someone hit me over the head," the girl explained after taking a deep breath or two to calm herself. Her voice sounded familiar to George, and as she remove the cloth from her head, George realized with a start that she was none other than Hadley Bowen. "I must have been knocked out for a long time. I don't know exactly. When I woke up, I was tied up in this cellar. There were some glass bottles on a shelf. I knocked them down and they broke. I used the broken glass to cut the ropes and since the window wasn't locked, I was able to climb out. I grabbed this cloth on the way since my head was still bleeding and came straight here."

George and Eliot had gravitated toward the group by this time. "Did you see anyone else?" George asked, as at the same instant, Eliot asked, "Are you okay?"

Hadley looked up a little uncertainly at them. "What are you guys doing here?"

"It's a long story," George replied.

Officer Brady motioned for her and Eliot to back off a little. Then he told them in a low tone, "We'll take care of this."

"But she's a friend of mine," Eliot protested.

"And she's mixed up in this whole case somehow," George added. "It's pretty coincidental that she got kidnapped the same night as Bess. The same person might have kidnapped them both."

"That's possible," Officer Brady admitted.

Hadley groaned. "I feel terrible. I think I'm going to be sick."

The receptionist waved over a doctor who was passing by and explained the situation to him. He had Hadley taken to a room. Officer Brady requested to follow, explaining that Hadley might have information pertinent to a kidnapping case.

George tapped her foot impatiently as she watched Officer Brady enter the emergency room. While she was waiting, Ned came out of the room where he had been getting treated.

"The doctor says I'm completely fine," Ned announced. "Nancy and Jack did just fine taking care of me."

"Good," George replied. "I suppose you are supposed to go right back to your fraternity house and go to bed, though."

"Well, that is what he recommended," Ned admitted. "But I wouldn't be able to get any sleep until we hear from Nancy and the others. Have you heard anything?"

"Not from them, but there was a development." George explained about Hadley's entrance and what she had told about her abduction.

"That does sound like we should stick around to hear," Ned agreed, " although if it was the same person who kidnapped both her and Bess, why wouldn't they have been put in the same place?"

George shrugged. "It's hard to say. Besides, if we stay here long enough, maybe we can learn what happened to Norden."

As it happened, both pieces of information came at nearly the same time, with Officer Brady relaying both to George and Ned, as well Eliot, who hovered near enough to hear. Norden was out of surgery and stable with the doctor pronouncing him out of danger. His story was short enough. He denied that anyone had threatened him, and he claimed that he hadn't seen the person who stabbed him. Officer Brady shared the doubts of George, Ned, and Eliot regarding this, both in view of the message that Eliot had found as well as the fact that Norden had been stabbed from the front and must have been conscious as the time since he had no other injuries save a few bruises that were probably the result of falling. He also refused to talk about his deceased wife or any other questions that Officer Brady posed to him, and the doctor insisted that the officer let him rest.

Hadley's story was far more colorful. She repeated her account of her abduction and subsequent escape, adding that she had left the dance shortly before that in order to avoid Liam Rodgers whom she was already suspicious of him. She was also able to give the address of the house where she had been held, and she affirmed that she had never seen her attacker nor any other person, although she highly suspected Liam. She said that these suspicions stemmed from the fact that Eliot had told her about the threatening message to Norden. Later, at the dance, she had overheard Liam talking on his phone and he had mentioned Norden's name. Hadley had come closer to listen, and had heard Liam saying that Norden was going to pay for the past. Liam had caught her listening, but Hadley had pretended that she hadn't heard anything of importance. She tried to relay the information to Bess, but Liam had interrupted them. A few minutes after that, she had snuck out of the dance through the back, but she must have been followed, because she had hardly gotten fifteen yards away before she was struck.

"This definitely confirms that Liam is part of the plot," Ned commented, "but he must have some accomplices. There was the one he was talking to and probably more besides. I don't think just two men could carry out everything they pulled tonight."

"They also had to have kidnapped Bess," George said. "They might be holding her at the same place as Hadley, just in a different room or something."

"Right," Officer Brady agreed. "I'll call for backup and we'll head out there immediately."

"I'll call the others and tell them," George added. "Liam probably isn't even at the fraternity house." She called Burt's phone, and he picked up right away. Immediately, George began telling him what they had learned, beginning with, "Liam is definitely in on the plot."

"Yeah," Burt said. "We kind of gathered that from what we found in his room."

NDNDNDNDND

Earlier, the police car stopped in front of the Omega Chi Epsilon fraternity house. Nancy, Burt, Dave, and the two officers climbed out and approached the mostly dark building. Only a few of the bedrooms had lights on.

"That's Liam's room," Dave said in an undertone, pointing toward one of the darkened windows.

"Okay," Officer Hendrix said. "Montoya and I will go first. If any of the other men in the fraternity ask any questions, you three talk to them. We can't have anybody alerting Rodgers before we get to his room."

"Hopefully his light being off means that he's asleep and not that he's gone," Officer Montoya observed.

Burt unlocked the door, and the group headed inside. It was strange to be sneaking around these hallways, which were so familiar. Fortunately, though, they only met one other Omega Chi Epsilon boy, who was more than willing to comply to the request for silence as soon as he saw Nancy and the police. Within a few minutes, they were standing outside Liam's door.

Hendrix gestured for Nancy and the boys to stand down the hallway a long way. Then he drew his gun and nodded at his partner as he took up a position on one side of the door. Montoya nodded back and took up a position on the other side of the door, drawing her gun as well. Then she reached over and gave the door a sharp rap with her knuckles.

"Open up! Police!" she shouted.

There was no response from inside. After waiting a minute or so, she tried the handle. It was locked.

"Is there anyone who would have the key to this door?" she asked Burt and Dave.

"No one we could get very fast," Dave replied. "Just go ahead and kick it down. I'll pay for the door if need be."

"Should we?" Officer Montoya asked her partner.

Officer Hendrix hesitated, but then he must have decided the situation warranted speedy action because he nodded. He put his gun back in its holster and then stepped in front of the door. With a swift, precise kick, he hit it just so that the lock broke and the door flew open. He shone his flashlight into the room, but it was still and empty.

The hall, on the other hand, was soon flooded with boys who had been roused by the sound of the door being kicked and were now asking what was going on. Hendrix and Montoya asked Burt and Dave to keep them out while they examined the room. Nancy followed them inside.

Liam was one of the fortunate boys who had his own room. At first glance, it looked like an ordinary college boy's room, with a few posters on the wall, some dirty clothes on the floor, a sloppily-made bed, and several electronics mixed in with the textbooks on the desk.

"We've got probable cause, so go ahead and start looking around," Officer Hendrix told his partner.

Along with Nancy, they began opening drawers and notebooks without finding anything out of the ordinary. Then Nancy opened the door to the closet and paused in surprise.

"You'd better take a look at this," she told the officers.

The closet was small and shallow and completely empty of clothes. The back wall had an enlarged map of the campus taped to it with several red markings and pins which formed a path. There were also pictures of Norden with various notes scribbled on them.

"It looks like something you'd find in a TV conspiracy theorist's room," Nancy observed, "or a stalker's."

"This definitely settles it that Rodgers was stalking Norden," Officer Hendrix agreed. He peered more closely at one of the pictures, one of the few that didn't have Norden in them. "What's this? A headstone? It's too far away to read what's on it, though."

"A headstone," Nancy repeated. "That's funny…"

Before she could speak her thought, Officer Montoya held up a planner that had been lying on Liam's desk. "There's an entry for this morning at five. That's in about fifteen minutes. It says 'Review at J.D.' Any ideas where that could be?"

"One," Nancy replied. "It's just a hunch, but if I have a feeling it's right."