Author's Note: Personal Confession Time: Aside from Nancy, I feel like Bess is my 2nd favorite character in Nancy's world, given how boy-obsessed and how she's smarter than she gives herself credit for, always jumping to conclusions that Nancy or Frank missed (like when she figured out Nick was mute first) and I love writing for her, but often times that means I forget to include George. Not that I don't like George, just she's kind of like Joe in that Frank is easier for me to write than Joe is, just as Bess is easier for me to write than George is, and a result both Joe and George are kind of characters that I tend to accidentally overlook, but the next 3-ish chapters are from Bess and George's POV, because they're about to run into our villains' goons, and I had originally wrote the encounter as a single chapter, but then it wound being like 20k words, so I decided to break it up into separate chapters, of which there are 4 of them before it reverts back to Nancy) since I have a personal rule to try to keep my chapters at the 3-5k range to make it easier on readers, and this is kind of my attempt to not forget to include Nancy's friends like I have done in past stories and make it up to Nancy's friends by giving them their own chapters when I can. Also, George's boyfriend is in this as a minor character. I think his name in the old ND books used to be Buck or something kind of weird, and when HER made the computer games, I think they confirmed George is dating a guy called Burt, who was a phone character in Sea of Darkness and was also Ned's roommate, so I've changed her bf's name to Burt for this. Nancy's friends are just as important in my mind as the detective herself. She can't do it all on her own, and sometimes our fave teen detective needs a little help from her friends!
Anyways, hope you enjoy as we near the final confrontation of the story!
Chapter Twenty-One
For a hot second, George Fayne wondered exactly what it was she had gotten herself and her boyfriend, who happened to be Ned's roommate, Burt, into, when she had agreed to look into this favor for Bess and Nancy and Frank.
"Ugh. What a nasty looking place. You'd think the city council could look into forming a restoration committee and renovate this part of River Heights," she growled, shifting her little black square canvas messenger bag towards her other shoulder to ease the ache from carrying slung across her shoulder like a crossbody for the last half hour.
Her bag wasn't very big, and was actually quite small, just enough to hold her essentials: wallet, cell phone, possible recorder in case they ran into unsavory types and they needed a confession on record, maybe a tube of her favorite pink berry lip gloss.
The bag, much to Bess's disdain, was more utilitarian in style and held way more than it looked, which the techie with a bright, promising future preferred.
She let out a groan for what felt like the tenth time tonight, though Burt had never complained. She couldn't really decide which was worse.
The fact that she hadn't stopped complaining, or the fact that her boyfriend had barely said two words to her on the walk down this crappy part of River Heights, and you usually couldn't get Burt to shut up for more than two seconds.
Either way, it kind of freaked her out and she didn't know exactly how to deal with the silence.
This was admittedly a part of River Heights the young teen was unfamiliar with, and it had to be going on near midnight.
Though it helped having Burt by her side, it didn't do much to stamp out the general feeling of skittishness and nervousness that rolled through her veins.
Honestly, given they were walking in a deserted street to check out the old warehouse where this supposed shipping company was rumored to be, thanks to Bess and the mute guy's information, anything could happen to the two of them.
The young nineteen-year-old with the dark brown pixie cut and pretty features and slim, athletic build that on a good day made a lot of guys turn their heads as she passed them all by in the streets, glanced down at her outfit, furrowing her delicately arched eyebrows into a slight frown, worried.
Her job on the Geek Squad at Best Buy had sent her to a tech conference, where gurus from all over the state of Illinois were lining up internships for college-age kids, and this was the outfit she'd worn to the event, proud to be a representative of her company, and also feeling kind of elated that she'd scored an internship.
George's outfit, at least in her mind, was nothing special, though Bess had picked it out, and had painstakingly gone through the effort to force George to wear makeup before leaving their house.
A little light foundation, some brown eyeshadow and mascara to bring attention to her dark chocolate eyes. Light pink lip gloss. And then came her outfit, which Bess had dragged her to the mall to pick out.
It was simple enough. A white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, her conference ID badge in its lanyard slung around her neck, black pants, black slip on Sketchers sneakers with no laces, and a black vest that brought attention to her slim and petite figure.
She hoped it still looked nice and put together, but not so much that it spoke to the thugs and low life scum of the streets who undoubtedly roamed this part of the district at night, just begging for one of them to walk up and mug her.
Just that thought was enough to send another chill of fear down George's spine, and she shuddered.
"Ugh. Why are we here?"
Burt, to his credit, didn't miss a beat in responding to his girlfriend's complaint, without even having to look at George. He was used to her complaining by now. "Bess asked us."
George scrunched her nose and pulled a face, sticking her tongue out at Burt, though with his back turned towards her as he walked ahead, he missed the rather rude gesture.
"But it's almost ten o' clock at night on a Friday. What does my dear cousin think we'll find in this old warehouse, if it even exists, huh, Burt? If this is Bess's idea of investigating, then it really sucks, and it's wrong! If these guys are as smart as Frank and Nancy thinks, they'll have covered their tracks. I'm telling you, Burt. This is a waste of our time, and we should just go back."
Burt turned and rolled his eyes at his girlfriend. "C'mon, George, don't be that way," he protested, though there was no mistaking the hardened edge to his voice.
George knew that tone well. He was getting annoyed with her, and rightfully so, she realized. Her heart sank as she realized she was kind of being a bitch to him, having done nothing but complain for the last thirty minutes or so on their walk.
She hadn't bothered taking their car, and Burt had met her at the bus stop after Bess's phone call, where they'd spent the better part of thirty minutes walking down various side streets of this strange part of town, in the dark, totally lost.
"Don't underestimate these guys, George," Burt snapped harshly, and George winced, hating hearing the harsh bark in his tone. "These guys aren't to be taken lightly, and even fi they did clean up evidence, maybe they got sloppy and left a piece of it behind that we can use against them. We won't know unless we go take a look," he grumbled, shoving his hands in the pocket of his jacket pocket. "Besides. These jerks are threatening Nancy. Don't you want to help your friend? I know I would if I were in your shoes, so quit whining…"
George rolled her eyes in response, not sure what else to say to her boyfriend's wisdom. She huffed and folded her arms across her chest, wishing she'd thought to bring a jacket.
"At least, then remind me, why we couldn't take your car?" George complained, sticking out her bottom lip in a slight pout and shifting her little black bag to her other arm.
"Because I didn't think we should draw attention to ourselves," Burt protested, waving his arms up in the air in exasperation. "How would it look if a car just randomly circled this same part of town over and over again looking for a building? Someone would have noticed us."
"They're probably noticing us right now because we're walking and lost!" George cried. She loved Burt, she really did, but sometimes, he didn't think things through. Now was one of those times. "And my feet really hurt!" she whined, folding her arms across her chest.
While her black Sketcher sneakers with no laces were padded with memory foam and comfortable, it was true that her feet did hurt, and she'd likely have blisters on her heels for days, given the shoes were brand new and she hadn't had the chance to break them in yet.
"Seriously, Burt, we've been walking out here for at least thirty minutes. It's late, I'm cold, and hungry. How much further is this place? Are you sure we didn't accidentally pass it?" she called out, and was surprised to see her boyfriend turn sharply towards George, his facial expression cold, not like him at all, and George clamped her mouth shut and stayed silent.
It had to be bordering on at least 9:45, maybe even later than that, and now the stupid swirling mist that had rolled into the streets made it difficult for George to see anything.
"At least if we could have taken my car, it has heated seats and a good radio," grumbled George under her breath.
The three-story homes and derelict little shops that should have gone out of business a long time ago, in George's opinion, were clustered close together, arranged down a single narrow street, though the reason for such proximity wasn't all together clear, given the street felt like it stretched endlessly in all directions.
Between the buildings that looked like they were decaying and were a decent health inspector from River Heights here, the subset of the town would have been undoubtedly condemned, or should have been long ago, George believed. The buildings lost more paint than they kept, ready to crumble.
"Burt, why don't we just call an Uber or a cab and go home? I don't even know what Bess thinks we'll find out here, so why don't we just head back to my house or better yet, find a Denny's or something, some place that's open late and get something to eat, and come back tomorrow and do this crap in the daytime when I can see and it's not so cold out? A-and Nancy should really be here for this, Burt. I—I'm not cut out for this kind of thing," George protested, unable to prevent the inexplicable chill of fear from traveling down her spine, and she shivered, clutching herself, as the temperatures were steadily starting to drop.
She wished she had thought to grab a jacket, at least. George watched as Burt turned towards his girlfriend and grinned, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards in a sly grin that resembled the guy she knew and loved, mischievous, and fiercely loyal to his friends, almost to a fault.
One day, George wondered if that unwavering loyalty was apt to get him killed.
"By my calculations, I'd say one apprehended criminal mastermind, and maybe even the mayor will give us a key to the city if we help Nancy nab this guy who set Jerry up."
George rolled her eyes and groaned, already feeling the beginnings of a splitting headache.
She thumped her palm down alongside her face, a look of exasperation on her face. "Ugh. Of course, that's what's gonna happen. I bet it'll just be another gunfight. Definitely a gun fight. All of these guys Nancy busts just love their weapons..."
It felt like chaos always tended to follow Nancy around, whether in the form of unfortunate accidents or in the last couple of cases Nancy had undertaken, a literal gun fight.
The mess of their time spent in Casston, Maine, still tended to flit through George's mind on occasion.
"Aw, c'mon, George, don't be that way," Burt protested, sticking out his lips in a fake little pout that George thought did not suit him at all. "You're a tough girl. Your parents would kill me if I let anything bad happen to you, and so would Nancy," Burt teased, only half-joking.
Burt let out a nervous laugh and swallowed hard at the idea of what George's parents would do to him if he even allowed so much as a hair on George's head to get hurt. He turned away as George cast a wary look towards the abandoned, decrepit looking buildings.
"Look, George," Burt sighed. "Just keep quiet and stop complaining. You'll feel better and we're not gonna help Nancy and Frank catch the bad guy by just standing around talking," he said.
As he turned back around, he missed his girlfriend scrunching her nose and pulling a face.
To distract herself from the cold, George knitted her brows together in confusion, and glanced around their unfamiliar surroundings in silence.
The sky was just a mass of black and gray, and the trees, what little of them lined this part of the downtown, were pretty much dead, their twigs and branches curled in a strange, distorted way, as if the trees were screaming in pain.
George decided she didn't like it and looked away. "What did Nancy say the name of that supposed shipping company on the receipt she found was called? Axelon Supply. Co?"
"Yup." Burt paused and turned to the right, craning his neck up to see where George was looking, and broke into a wide grin.
George's expression was grim. "Found it."
They'd found it, the old warehouse's sign's letters were beginning to peel off, but the address matched the slip of paper that George had hastily written it down on when Nancy had called earlier.
"Good eye, babe. See? I told you that we'd find it." He turned away and made to head towards a side door.
George watched Burt go and shook her head slightly in disbelief. The quarterback who played alongside Ned on the college's football team didn't give a crap about the well-being of his girlfriend's new sneakers, or the fact that she was freezing, and despite the fact that Burt had told George at least three times since they'd got off the bus stop near the edge of the River Heights city park and begun the walk to this place that she needed to bring a jacket or she'd get cold, she was not about to admit to her boyfriend that Burt had been right all along…well, kind of. George frowned.
She crept closer towards the front window for a closer look, cupping her hands around the window and squinting in.
With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she pulled away from the window. "Damn," she growled darkly. "Whoever used to set up shop here cleared out. That was fast! Creepy! Do you think they knew Nancy or someone else was onto them?" she questioned Burt.
"Maybe," Burt mumbled, sounding disappointed, and turned away. "C'mon, let's head on back. You're right. It's cold and we should let Nancy and the others know they're gone."
"We won't be able to find any evidence unless Nancy can find that accounting book," George sighed, slumping her shoulders in defeat, leaning against the cold brick wall for a rest.
The young techie drew in a sharp breath of cool air that pained her lungs. Something about all of this didn't sit right with her at all.
Maybe it was the fact that was just her and Burt possibly going up against a white-collar criminal mastermind with plenty of guys on his payroll, or the fact that Nancy and Frank weren't here to offer their little nuggets of wisdom.
George shuddered, really hoping she and Burt wouldn't be next on this Barreau guy's list of targets if they were to be discovered out here.
The fact that he had falsely accused Jerry of money laundering and credit card fraud and had managed to stay out of the limelight of the trial, from what Bess had told her, was incredibly suspicious. And no one really knew him or of him, which was almost even worse.
She sighed and brushed the bangs of her dark brown pixie cut out of her eyes, folding her arms across her chest as she stared out into the deserted street, thinking about whoever had framed Goldin had done so with a heart of stone.
Whoever had done it, seemed like they were the type of guy who just wanted to watch the world burn, and Jerry's life ruined.
"But why?" she spoke out loud, which earned her a quizzical look from her boyfriend. George quirked a delicately arched brow Burt's way. "None of this adds up, Burt." She scowled, thinking over the facts of Nancy's case. She knew that, when he had been arrested, the general public had seemingly formed their opinion of Bess's friend, Katie's brother.
Saying that he was guilty, but then again, the public had made some pretty bad decisions over the years too. George couldn't help but wonder if there was a part of this guy, if it was in fact, Café Atlantica's owner that was behind the money laundering scheme and card fraud, that was just wired differently. He had to be, to send an innocent man to jail for the crime.
"Maybe Jerry was getting too close to figuring out the truth, and he didn't like that," George mused out loud, not even realizing she was copying Nancy's behavior whenever the famous teen detective needed to mull over the facts of the case and often talked to herself.
George jumped as she realized Burt had called out to her over his shoulder and had moved away from the abandoned shipping supply company.
Dejected, she moved away from the wall. She'd been hoping to land and nail just one solid piece of evidence, a single scrap of paper that confirmed that this particular shipping company was in fact supplying the goods necessary for the casino, Café Atlantica's real money maker, but whoever had cleaned this place out had probably covered their tracks.
Their only hope now was for Nancy to find the owner's accounting book, which wasn't going to be an easy task. If the guy was smart, and George knew he was, he had to be, to stay out the public eye for so long and avoid the authorities, then he'd probably keep it close to his person to avoid suspicion and questions.
"Huh?" she asked with a furtive, guilty look on her face. "Did you say something?" Almost instantly, she regretted asking the question as it felt like when she inhaled another breath of cool air, like her lungs were filling up with water, as if there was just less space in them for oxygen. Inflating them was like pushing up against a lead weight on her chest, and it hurt.
George sucked in the air like it was her favorite Koko Kringle bar, yet she was walking with Burt on a deserted street in downtown River Heights at night, feeling really lightheaded. Why couldn't she breathe? Why? Why was it suddenly so damn hard for her?
Burt must have noticed George struggling, for he furrowed his thick brows into a frown and turned, a hand on her shoulder as he gave it a reassuring little squeeze.
"George?" At least there was some concern in his voice, so that was something. "You good? Do we need to stop a sec?"
"I—I'm good," she wheezed, doubling over, and clutching her ribcage. "Just…gimme a minute, Burt, and I'll—I'll be fine. We've been walking for like, forty minutes. I'm tired."
Burt looked doubtful at her claim that she would be fine. "You sure?"
"My feet are hurting," she admitted, suddenly realizing that she sounded like the spoiled brat that she was, having gotten used to a lot of attention from Burt in the few months or so that they'd been dating. "Will you carry me?" George asked, biting her bottom lip in a pout as the playful smirk returned to her dark brown eyes, though there was no mistaking the note of hope that had crept its way into the young woman's voice. "Pretty please, Burt?"
She batted her dark, heavily-lidded eyelashes. Such tricks always worked on Frank with Nancy, and he usually wound up carrying her whenever Nancy didn't feel like walking, claiming she was too much of a temptress for him to resist her charm, but George had never actually tried this on Burt before, and she felt her shoulders sag in disappointment when it didn't work on him.
Burt rolled his eyes and scoffed, shaking his head. "Just take off your shoes if your feet are bothering you. I think I was the one who told you to wear those shoes, wasn't I?" he smirked, pointing towards her slip on black Sketchers without the laces on them.
George frowned, scrunching her nose. "Yeah, but these are brand new, Burt, I—I haven't had a chance to break them in yet!" George whined, having regained her breath, and stomped her foot, a release of frustration. And then she realized the truth of Burt's suggestion.
The very fact and audacity that her boyfriend would suggest she take her sneakers off and get her socks dirty all over this nasty sidewalk, where who knows what had crawled all over it, was absolutely disgusting and was almost enough to make her gag.
Who knew what walked over this bloody sidewalk, or what had happened here, given she thought by now they had to be close to his territory. Barreau's. If he's really the guy, we gotta nail him, she thought wildly.
"No way, Burt!" she shouted, momentarily forgetting that they were supposed to be quiet for a moment, still keeping her arms folded tightly across her chest and vehemently shaking her head no, reaching up a hand to brush her dark bangs out of her eyes. "No way am I taking off my shoes and walking across that," she growled, gesturing towards the sidewalk, which in this dim light made it hard to see, and George couldn't quite tell for sure, but it was stained with something that looked suspiciously like blood.
"Well, I am afraid I'll have to disappoint you, George, because I'm not carrying you," Burt murmured, turning away, though not before rolling his eyes at his girlfriend first. She really was a piece of work at times, but if the quarterback was being honest with himself, he was just glad he had found a woman who accepted him for who he was, really.
"Fine," George grumbled, letting out a pained wince as her stomach let out a low growling noise, the kind where it was painful enough to hurt. She let out a sigh and dug into her little black messenger bag and pulled out the remains of her half eaten burger from earlier. "Still think we should have gone to Olive Garden or somewhere and gotten takeout, but no, instead we're wandering around lost in a nasty rundown neighborhood that really should just be demolished. People only probably come down this way for guns, drugs, or trouble, and since our guy that's framing Nancy doesn't seem like the type to be too into drugs, then that means he'd only be here for guns or trouble. Trouble that I'd like to stay as far away from as possible, Burt," George snapped, her hunger pangs getting the worst of her as she made to devour her leftover burger from lunch that she'd never finished thanks to a well-known computer programmer giving a symposium and she'd been so engrossed that she'd neglected to take advantage of the conference's free buffet bar. "You know how I love their breadsticks. We could have gotten pasta, extra breadsticks, and had a nice dinner at home. But thanks to me and my damn mouth and love for my friends, we're out here alone and starving." George stomped her foot in frustration and swiped her bangs out of her eyes.
Burt rolled his eyes in response. "We can still do that, George. After we're done here. Now c'mon. Eat the rest of your burger if you're hungry, and I promise, we'll get takeout."
George had just swallowed her bite and had been about to take another when she felt a strong man's hand, definitely a guy's, grip onto her shoulder and pull at her, tugging her backwards from behind her spot where she had stood, rooted to the sidewalk, which was uneven and cracked in parts, causing her to falter in her footing.
Thank God for her sneakers. If she'd thought to worn heels, the movement would have caused her to fall right out of them.
"HEY!" George shouted, loud enough to pierce the otherwise silent night air and twisted slightly, and with a surprised and pained wince, turned to look her attacker in the eye.
George would have probably fallen to the ground in surprise had the man's strong black-gloved hand not already been gripping tightly onto her forearm.
"What do you think you're doing?" she shouted, pouting as she looked up at the strange man who had grabbed her arm.
It was too dark in this dim light to make out any of his features, but as he moved underneath a streetlamp which flickered constantly, George felt a tremor of fear travel down her spine and a wash of cold come over her entire body, like she'd been doused in ice water.
"Damn," she swore through gritted teeth. "Frank and Nancy are going to kill me for this," she growled, but the minute she locked eyes with the strange creep who had grabbed her, she felt her inner strength and her resolve freeze. "Wh—what is this?" she squeaked breathlessly.
In front of George and Burt was a deranged looking man with two-day stubble gracing his jawline and chin. He had the look of a guy who had a little bit of muscle underneath his sweater, broad over the back and kind of thick in his neck, though now, and maybe this was a trick of the light, the creep looked entirely too thin, his pale cheekbones sunken in and hollow, giving him an emaciated look.
His tuft of wild red hair was fiery and slightly wavy, tousling a little bit in the cold wind, and seemed to have a mind of its own, though his bangs hung limp and straight in his eyes.
Whoever the guy was, he was young enough, close to Carson's age, in his early forties, but it was his eyes that scared George the most, and she considered herself a girl who didn't scare easily. George let out a little whimper of fear and lifted her chin to meet the guy's gaze.
But it was like there was nothing in his eyes to look at. Black eyes, an endless depth of ink, and…something else that she wasn't quite sure she could identify, and wasn't all that sure she wanted to, really.
George swallowed past the lump in her throat as her gaze drifted towards something that it had been too dark to notice before.
The guy was exceptionally well-dressed for a thick, in a black sweater, black jeans, and black sneakers, which would explain how this creep had managed to sneak up behind her.
"Hey doll, name's Max," he crooned, absently twirling a knife in his hands. "Where ya going, cutie?" he asked, and when George gave no answer, her lips parted slightly in shock, he smirked and looked towards Burt. "What a wimp. Why don't you ditch this jerk who doesn't even know how to treat you the right way and come spend time with a real man, honey?" he insulted, and just that insult was enough to cause George's temper to flare, but she bit her tongue, thinking it wouldn't do her good to start firing off insults at a guy who held a knife in his hands.
There's a time and place for everything. Now is totally not that time, her conscience advised her, and George froze, as a flash of white caught the corner of her eye. Oh, crap. It's the van, she thought wildly, recognizing that blue stripe on the front. The same one that almost ran Frank and Nancy off the road!
"Oh, damn," she whispered, hoping he hadn't heard her. She knew without a shadow of doubt as she met the man's lifeless gaze that she was looking into the soulless eyes of one of Thomas Barreau's hired muscle men, and she and Burt were their next target.
The guy in black who called himself Max had her and Burt cornered with nowhere to run.
And no help was coming for them.