Foreword: I forgot to update yesterday, so I'll update now. As I said, Chapter 12 will be the last chapter in which the killer is not revealed yet. Think about the two murders for a while. Who could be the killer? And what could be the trick? How can a person move from place to place in a blink of an eye? All the answers will be answered in the next three chapters, but the epilogue leads to the next mystery, which I plan to publish the first day of January 2006. The title of the new novel is not yet known, and I'll be thinking about the title (but I already got the first chapter written down and is all set to get published).
Also, I've been thinking about writing a Sherlock Holmes fan fiction as well. Because Sherlock is not an amateur detective, his investigation will move a LOT faster than Nancy Drew and Hardy boys'. I plan to publish the new novel sometime in January as well in the Sherlock Holmes section. If you get the chance, you might also want to visit my blog, which is stated in my profile.
Read, enjoy, and review, please!
12
The Cat and Mouse Chase
The killer dragged Maria Voorhees, who was now unconscious, up the staircase and onto her bed in her bedroom. After that, he took out a small bottle of cyanide and poured some down the pianist's throat. He looked out the window.
He was done; the murder was finished, and he had nothing more to worry about. Now that she was gone, completely out of the picture, he could do anything he wanted. With a smirk in his face, the murderer turned and exited the premise.
Getting into his car, the killer drove away into the forest, which was still dark from lack of sunlight. The sun was rising, and he knew that his plan was a success. Driving away, he never looked back and never noticed that another person was staring at him from in front of the house.
He never noticed thatthe person was watching him.
"What?" Bess shouted in surprise. The two other hushed her, for they were all in a library, a place of peace and soundlessness. The blonde girl looked at the other two as they sat down onto a table in the library. A few of the patrons looked at the teenagers with angry looks, so they decided to move to some place less quiet. They decided to go to the teenage section. They were now hidden among rows and rows of shelves with books. Bess looked around, gave a nod of approval that nobody was eavesdropping, and asked, "Are you serious, Frank?"
Frank gave a single nod. "We're serious. We'll go into the Fontaines residence."
"Great, Frank," Joe said sarcastically. "You and your perfect plan to get us all in jail and locked up for a long time and then get yelled at by our Dad and get grounded for the rest of eternity. What a perfect plan, big brother."
Frank sighed. "Look. This is the only way we can get another lead. We'll have to search Mrs. Fontaine's house to see if we can get any new lead. In order to do that, we'll need to sneak inside when they're away."
"But how do we get in?" Bess asked. "As far as I know, Nancy's the only one with a talent for lock-picking!"
Frank smiled. "Well, ever thought that I could be good at it, too?"
Bess's eyes got wider. "No way!"
"Yeah. And I happen to be one of the best lock-pickers in Bayport."
"As if that's something to be proud about," Joe muttered sarcastically.
"Okay, so our plan is to call the Fontaines' residence and see if they're at home. Then, if they aren't, we should go there to search the house. Bess," he looked at the blonde detective, "you'll have to sit outside in your car to see if they came back or not. Just so we're alerted when Mrs. Fontaine actually comes back."
"Gotcha," Bess said, giving him the thumbs-up. "And you guy'll search the place? Fine with me. I'll have my cell phone ready to call you."
"But we need to call the house first," reminded Joe.
So they did. After five times ringing, the phone switched to the answering machine. Frank and Joe nodded to each other. "We'll go now," Frank said.
A few minutes later, the detectives were at the three-storied house. Looking at his watch Frank made a movement to go to the door. Ringing the doorbell a few times, the boys were sure that there wasn't a single soul in the place. Frank took out his tools and worked on the lock. He opened the door in two minutes.
Slipping into the house quietly, the detectives first went to the room where there was a computer. Joe quickly turned the computer on and saw a screen pop up.
"Curses. We'll need to get a password!"
Frank thought for a moment. "Well, people usually feel safe when their computer is at home. Therefore, they don't even bother to set up a real password. In other words, the password might be the simplest keyword you can ever get. In this case, try 'Matilda' or 'Fontaine' or 'Jennifer'."
Joe nodded and typed the three names. None of them worked. Looking up, Frank began searching for anyplace where the woman could've hidden her password. As his gaze went to the bookshelf, his attention was taken by one of the books.
"It's a copy of The Vagabond, a classic novel about a certain traveler who wanders around the continent in search of his love."
Joe made a face. "Yuck! I remember. Mom has been reading that book for ages! She says it's 'one of the most heartwarming tales ever told.' Blech!"
Frank opened the book and looked at the bookmark. "Bingo," he muttered. "I think we know what our password is: Mattie1963. I should've known. She's using the year of her birth in her password."
"Huh. A typical scenario," Joe murmured, typing in the letters and clicking "enter". The box disappeared, and the boys were redirected to another screen. Frank started by looking at the Internet history. He soon found that the woman erased all trace of where she went immediately after exiting that site. This woman proved to be more and more suspicious by the second.
Frank wondered, "Why is she erasing her history?"
Joe looked through the files but found none that seemed to be useful. After shutting down the computer, the boys started searching in other rooms. After an hour of investigation, the detectives were about to give up. But when they went to the kitchen, they saw a file placed on the countertop. Frank went and opened the manila folder. "Bingo again!" he muttered happily. "Here's something you should take a look at, Joe. We've been searching the entire house for it when it was right here under our noses!" What the Hardys found was the clipping of the article they were looking for that morning. It was the article about the death of a pianist named Maria Voorhees.
"It says here that she was found dead at her house in Maine. The case was believed to be suicide, says the officer in charge of the investigation. Because of the lack of evidence pointing to a possibility of murder, the case was closed as being a suicide," Joe read.
"And we have ourselves a prime suspect," Frank said, grinning. "Now all we need is the evidence pointing her to the crimes."
Bess was outside, yawning. She was staring at the gate of the house, but the Hardys hadn't been seen for nearly two hours, and she was getting tired and hungry. As Bess began to call the Hardys, someone knocked on the window next to her, and when she looked to her left, her blood almost ran cold as she saw Mrs. Fontaine standing there.
"What's the matter, Bess?" she asked with a concerned expression. "Is everything all right, dear?"
"Oh…I…ah…was waiting for Jenny! I wanted to talk to her about beginning to take violin lessons, since I'm very interested in starting violin."
Even though Bess knew that was a lame explanation, the woman nevertheless smiled pleasantly and said, "Well, Jennifer is taking her weekly lesson right now, and she would be back an hour later. Would you like to wait inside?"
"No, thank you. It's okay," said Bess, smiling uneasily back.
The woman left toward her house, and Bess immediately made a call. "Frank! Red alert! Mrs. Fontaine is back!"
Frank nodded as he got the message. "We'll need to get out of here," he said to Joe, who was still searching through the piles of files and papers.
The detectives escaped through the back window, which was unlocked from the beginning. They silently made to the backyard and left unnoticed. Mrs. Fontaine opened the door just as the Hardy boys were out of the house.
"We're safe now," Joe muttered as he and Frank ran toward their car which was parked at the side of the building.
Mrs. Fontaine closed the door behind her. As she walked to the computer room, she noticed that her copy of The Vagabond was on the floor. She immediately looked out the window and noticed the Hardys driving away in their car.
"I should've known," she muttered under her breath.
The detectives met at the hotel room which the Hardy brothers occupied. Frank and Joe told Bess the discovery they made. Bess listened intently and was surprised to find that Mrs. Fontaine had the clipped article of Maria Voorhees under her bed. "Do you think she's really involved in this case?"
Frank nodded. "It's hard to say that she isn't at this stage. Besides, I might even say that she might be involved somehow in the murder…"
Bess was astonished. "You don't say!" she muttered. "She is my friend's mother! Why would she even kill the two victims?"
Frank shrugged. "It's hard to look into her mind. But we need to find evidence. Any evidence at all. We still don't have a slightest idea how the solid alibis were created and why Katrina left ABEC on the keyboard."
Joe nodded in agreement. "We are still missing a lot of the pieces of the puzzle. We also need to investigate the case about Nancy's kidnapping. So far, the kidnapper hasn't called, and the cell phone was turned off when I last called."
The detectives decided to take a break and went around the city. It was six o'clock when Frank got the call from Nancy's cell phone.
"Hello?" he answered immediately. Joe and Bess were with him. "Who is this?"
"You know who I am," the caller said in a menacing mechanic tone. "And I'll be holding Miss Drew hostage."
"Why are you doing this?"
"The girl simply knew too much," the kidnapper said.
With a sudden gasp, the familiar voice of the girl detective shouted, "Frank! I'm kept in an abandoned warehouse thirty miles from Seattle! It's at the intersection of Craig Street and…"
Grunting, the kidnapper hit the young detective. Crying out for a short moment, the girl sleuth was silenced. Turning back to Frank, the kidnapper spoke: "You'd better not investigate any further into the case, detectives."
The line went dead.
Joe opened his laptop immediately. "Thirty miles from here… And there are just a few warehouses around that area, according to this map."
Frank cursed the phone. Then turning to Joe, he said: "Let's go. We've got no time to lose!"
As he went his car, the young detective stopped and faced his brother. "Joe, you and Bess ride in the same car. I don't think Bess can keep up with your driving."
Joe grinned. "No problem. I'll be in touch using my amazing cell phone."
The detectives departed. According to Joe, there were only two warehouses which were abandoned on Craig Street. "The first one is the Old Hermit Warehouse, abandoned ten years ago. Turn right at the next intersection and you should be there in an hour or so."
Frank nodded.
After an hour, when they got to the warehouse, they found nobody inside. "The kidnapper obviously decided to move out," Joe murmured.
Bess shuddered. "Then we have to move to the next warehouse. This might not be the right one after all!"
The detectives went to the other warehouse named Barnes and Co. Warehouse, located just half an hour drive away. At an intersection ten minutes away from the place, Joe and Bess went a hundred yards before Frank. When the signal light turned red after their car passed, Frank was forced to stop. As he did so, he noticed a black car with tinted windows.
Then, when the signal turned green again, he saw the car pass by and the window of the rear seat open slowly. The face that showed next belonged to none other than Nancy Drew!
Surprised, Frank stepped on the brake. Thankfully, nobody was around him, and he didn't smash into any obstacle. Noticing that it was a frantic SOS from the girl sleuth, he turned the car around immediately and went after the black van.
Frank thought about calling Joe and Bess, but he noticed that his cell phone was already out of battery. He grunted another curse at the cell phone as he saw the empty black screen. Then, he suddenly remembered.
After the concert, the detectives called Jack's house to see if he was all right. Jack didn't answer the phone, but the mechanical response did. Instead of leaving a message, the detectives decided to go to the house. But when they got there, the place was a shambles, and the receiver of the old-fashioned phone was thrown three feet away from the cradle.
That struck Frank as odd. He suddenly remembered that fact and gasped. How foolish it was for him to miss that fact!
Frank stepped on the gas and raced after the black car. The kidnapper, noticing that Nancy had opened the window using her chin, closed the window entirely and locked it. The captor also noticed that Frank was tailing behind and stepped on the gas as well.
After fifty minutes, the sky was turning dark, and the detective was still a few hundred yards behind the culprit. But as they drove through the busy streets of Seattle, Frank suddenly knew where the captor was heading.
Frank muttered, "They're heading to the concert hall."
Postscript: Why would the person be heading to the concert hall? Is Nancy safe? Can Frank save her in time? And who could the kidnapper be? Find out the answers in the next chapter!
Next update: December 16