Foreword: This will be the longest chapter I've ever written! When I looked at the page number, I was surprised to see that it was nearly three pages longer than my usual chapters! The reason is that I thought of making two chapters but decided to make them combined to form one chapter. Therefore, this chapter will have a lot of things going on, and you should read to find out what. Anyway, the semester is nearly over, and I plan to enjoy the three-day weekend. I'm still working on the third chapter, and I'm sure it will be finished by next Friday or Saturday. Read, enjoy, and please REVIEW!

Chapter 2

The Engagement Ring

"What do you mean, 'haunted'?" asked Joe, surprised to hear that Chet's aunt's hotel was haunted.

"I mean exactly what I said," Chet said. "But first, read this."

Joe got the letter. He read it out loud:

"'Dear Chet:

"'Things aren't going as well as I planned. You know that I opened a hotel just a year ago, don't you? Well, the guests from the hotels are complaining about weird noised during the nights, lights moving from place to place outside with it is dark, and a woman's sobbing that seemed to come from nowhere!

"'And just a few weeks ago, someone trashed my lobby, but none of my employees know anything about who trashed it. I became scared. But before long, I woke up in the middle of the night and heard someone's footsteps. I slowly opened the door and saw a person wearing a black robe. Following him quietly, I noticed that he was heading to a certain part of the corridor that led to a dead end! I kept following him, and he disappeared just around the corner. I turned around that same corner a few seconds later, but he was gone! There was a solid wall there but no door! I felt a chill as I went to bed again that night.

"'I just wanted to know if you knew any good detectives around where you live because I'm still unfamiliar with this place and don't trust anyone here. It seems like there is an ominous present occupying the hallways.

"'Love,

"'Aunt Edna.

"'P.S. If you can, visit me during the first week of July, since I'll be hosting a Fourth of July gourmet dinner in my hotel, and I'm sure you'll like the dishes. Call me whenever you can.'"

Joe looked up at Chet. "So where is this hotel?"

"It's located right at a cliff," Chet answered. "Just like the spooky old house in which we investigated before."

Joe remembered. One of the earliest cases he, Frank, and Chet solved was The House on the Cliff, in which they broke up a drug-smuggling ring in an eerie old mansion on the cliffs overlooking Barnet Bay.

"What is the hotel's name?" he asked.

Chet thought for a moment. "I think it's called Hotel Piermont. She named it that because the first owner was a Quebecois magician named Piermont who died mysteriously in his house in 1920s." His voice went down to a whisper. "And rumor has it that the people who owned the house never lived for more than five years. Also, the residents have said that they had seen mysterious dark shadows walking around the mansion at night. The most recent resident was a very talented pianist named Maria Voorhees, who was said to have committed suicide."

Joe's eyes widened. He remembered Maria Voorhees from the most recent case he, Frank, and Nancy worked on. He knew that she lived in Maine before her demise, but didn't know where. Now he knew; she lived in the house that was now Hotel Piermont.

"I'd better call Frank," he said before saying goodbye to his friend. After Chet was gone, he called Frank immediately.

"What is it, Joe?" asked Frank as he answered the phone. Joe explained everything to his brother. Frank thought for a moment. "You know that there is no such thing as a ghost, don't you?"

Joe chuckled. "Well, you won't know unless you go there with me."

"Then should we invite Nancy over, too? I mean, she might be interested to find out that there's another mystery for her to solve."

Joe said yes. "I'll call her right away."

As Joe hung up, Callie looked at Frank. "Are you on a case again?" But before Frank could answer, she added, "I'll go with you."

"What?" Frank was astounded. "But…why?"

Callie smiled. "Because I want to help you investigate. If Nancy Drew can solve a case, so can I. Besides, I can pay my own airfare. Well? Is it all right?"

Frank looked at his girlfriend. "Well, I guess it's all right."

Callie hugged Frank as tightly as she could. Frank suddenly remembered that they were walking in the middle of the sidewalk. Several passersby were looking at them and wondering what they were doing. Frank blushed and pushed Callie away. After that, they headed straight to the auditorium. The concert was about to start in five minutes. But as they walked, Callie didn't let go of her arm that was holding Frank's. She had a mischievous grin on her face.

Nancy heard the phone ring right when she was getting ready to call Bess and George to see if they wanted to go shopping with her. She answered it, hopeful that it was either of them, but was pleasantly surprised to hear Joe's voice.

"Hi, Joe. What's up?" she said cheerfully.

Joe immediately asked, "You know a friend I have named Chet Morton?"

Nancy said yes. "I've never actually met him, but I've heard of him from you and Frank. What about him?"

"His aunt owns a hotel in Maine, and she says her hotel is haunted."

Nancy couldn't help grinning. "That's a typical case, actually. I've seen many 'ghosts' haunting hotels. But they all appeared as a hoax and were done by human beings who were either tricksters or hiding a treasure or something. Very typical."

"Well, you might not think so entirely when you hear the whole incident with the ghost," Joe said. "She said in the letter that one night, she saw a figure in black walking around a corner and disappearing when there was a dead end there."

Now the girl sleuth was interested. "That sounds intriguing," she said. "So are you inviting me to Maine or just boasting that you've got a case to work on? Well, for your information, I got a case for myself as well."

Joe chuckled. "But there's one thing to say before I answer: the previous owner of the mansion was Maria Voorhees!"

The titian-haired girl gasped. "Really? The Maria Voorhees who was killed in that mansion just a year ago?"

"Yeah. So how about it? Do you want to get involved in a mystery or just spend a typical summer vacation at home in River Heights?"

Nancy grinned. "You know my answer, Joe."

Joe then told her the address and said goodbye. Nancy immediately called Bess's house. George answered.

"George? I thought this was Bess's number!"

"It is," George Fayne, one of Nancy's best friends, answered. Despite the name George, she was a girl. "I just came over to discuss the trip we're taking."

"What? You're taking a trip? Where are you going?"

"To Shadow Ranch," answered the brunette.

"Really?" Nancy was surprised. Shadow Ranch was the ranch which Bess and George's uncle and aunt owned. Every summer, Bess and George would go there to help out for a week and also to have fun under the Arizonan sun. "That's a shame."

"What do you mean?" It was Bess. She was talking using another phone in her house.

Nancy explained to them everything she heard from Joe. After thinking for a bit, Bess suggested, "Why don't you invite Ned, then?"

George agreed. "He said he didn't have part-time job for a few days. Maybe you can take him there with you."

The girl detective nodded. Ned Nickerson was Nancy's boyfriend for a long time, ever since her meeting him two years ago. She then dialed Ned's cell phone number. To Nancy's delight, her boyfriend agreed to go to Maine with her. "It's about time you got a new mystery coming," he added, chuckling.

Nancy smiled and hung up. Turning around, she headed into her father's room. Mr. Drew was out of the house, so she was free to roam about the place. Opening the drawer, the girl detective saw something peculiar. The drawer was already halfway open, and there was a strange ring in it. Looking at it, she immediately knew that it didn't belong to her father. A sudden thought struck her. Could it have been left by the thief?

She took out her gloves from the drawer in her room and quickly went down the stairs and into the study. She took the ring and inspected it. The ring seemed quite ordinary and inexpensive. There was a pearl placed on a golden ring. The inscription was: "BP&IM."

The girl inspected the ring. It was quite small and seemed to be worn by a woman, since the finger that used to wear the ring was as slender as Nancy's. But from seeing the initials, the girl thought that it could have been an engagement ring.

"So the thief was a woman who was married or at least engaged?" she muttered to herself. But that didn't seem to add up. The police had told the Drews earlier that the shoes that the culprit wore were a pair with size twelve! And Nancy's shoes were barely size eight. That meant that the culprit must have had a larger pair of feet than her, but that made the thief more likely to be a fully grown man of a tall stature. Besides, when she had seen the thief that morning, she could have sworn that he looked like a man. But she also knew that this could have been a huge trap.

Maybe the thief wore size-twelve shoes to make the police think that she was a man.

Or maybe the thief was actually a man wearing size-twelve shoes, thinking that the police would think that the thief was thinking that the police would think that the shoes belonged to a man but actually belonged to a woman…

"Ugh," Nancy moaned. She had to admit one thing; logic wasn't actually her forte when she was studying geometry in junior high. She looked at the ring again. It seemed quite old. She could easily tell that someone wore that ring from around ten or fifteen years ago, since the inner part of the ring, which was gold-plated and not actually real gold, was turning silver. That indicated that the wearer of the ring used to put on and take off the ring quite often.

She then went to her room and used her magnifying glass to see the ring better. But she knew that the case wouldn't go smoothly if the mysterious BP and IM weren't identified. She needed the cooperation from the police. As she got up to get a cup of water, she heard a slight sound. That sounded like the bush next to the window was disturbed.

"What could it be?" she wondered aloud. The weather outside was peaceful and hot. There wasn't any wind present, and she had a bad feeling about something.

"Togo?" she muttered. No, Togo wasn't the one. He was staying in the backyard, and the noise came from the front part of the building. She went silently down the stairs. Afternoon in River Heights was always quiet and peaceful, since everyone was downtown. In fact, most of the tourist attractions and offices were located there, and almost nobody was left in the suburban part of the city.

The girl looked out the window. Nobody was there.

Then, she went to the backdoor and peered outside. Togo was there, staring at the squirrel climbing the tree and howling at it. Nancy couldn't suppress a giggle. After giggling for a short while, she went back to the living room, thinking that the noise was just from her imagination.

"Oh, darn," she muttered. She forgot to take the newspaper into the house, and the mail carrier already passed her home. Opening the door to get the mails and the newspaper, she stopped and stared at the bushes located next to the window. The window led to the study. She looked at the ground under the window. There was a set of shoeprints leading from the pavement in front of the garage to the bush and then back to the pavement. There were fresh tire tracks on the ground. Nancy shuddered.

She had been spied!

Nancy shuddered as she thought about how she had been watched. But who was it? Was it the thief?

The girl detective went back inside after taking the mail and went into the kitchen. She then took the phone and called her father.

"Dad? This is Nancy."

"Nancy! What's wrong? You don't usually call me when I'm at work."

"I think someone has been spying on me, Dad," muttered Nancy.

"Spying?" Mr. Drew's voice sounded even more concerned. Nancy explained how she saw the footprints outside near the bushes, and he sighed. "Did you call the police?"

"No, I don't intend to get the police into this. But Dad, I found a new lead."

Mr. Drew asked, "New lead?"

Nancy said yes. "I found a ring that seems to be an engagement ring. There are two initials: BP and IM. Can you do a little search to see if you can find a couple with those intials?"

Mr. Drew said he would get right to it and said goodbye. Nancy hung up. She sighed and went back into her room, where she stayed till Hannah came home.

The doorbell rang. Hurried, Nancy went and answered it. It was the Fourth of July, and every house in the neighborhood had the American flag hanging from the poles in the front yard. She saw who the visitor was and smiled broadly. "Hi, Ned!"

Ned smiled. "I came to pick you up," he said. "So do you have any luggage that you want me to carry?"

"I got only one suitcase, so no. Besides, I'm not like Bess, who brought four suitcases to a four-day trip," answered Nancy, chuckling.

It was two days after Nancy found out the ring, but Mr. Drew still hadn't found any clue. He said he would continue his search when Nancy and Ned are having fun in Maine. Nancy said goodbye to Hannah and Togo as she got into Ned's car. The car went down the driveway, and Nancy watched until Hannah and Togo disappeared from sight when Ned turned around a corner.

Nancy and Ned headed to Wiscasset Airport in Maine. In the plane, Nancy wondered about Frank and Joe. She had never seen their friends before because she actually never went to Bayport. Frank and Joe had met Bess and George often enough, but she had never seen Frank's girlfriend Callie, Joe's girlfriend Iola, or Frank and Joe's best friend Chet.

The airport was crowded with people. Nancy and Ned managed to go through the crowd and out of the airport without being pushed around. The girl detective saw the weather outside, she groaned. It was raining slightly, but by looking at the dark gray clouds over the airport, she knew that it was going to turn into a storm soon. As the couple went outside, Nancy heard someone calling her name. Turning around, she saw Frank and Joe standing next to a bus with a grin on their faces. Next to Frank stood a girl with her blonde shoulder-length hair curled inward toward her face. Nancy and Ned went to them.

"That must be Nancy," the blonde girl said to Frank with a smile. Frank nodded.

"Nancy, this is Callie Shaw, my girlfriend," Frank introduced. Nancy shook hands with Callie.

"So how do we get from here to the hotel?" asked Ned.

Joe pointed toward the bus. "We use that. The bus goes to the hotel twice every other day. In other words, the bus leaves at ten in the morning and at three in the afternoon today, but the next bus after that won't come until July sixth."

"You mean we're going to be stuck there for two whole days?" asked Callie, surprised.

Frank laughed lightly. "Well, I don't mind much. I heard the hotel has a great view."

At that moment, Nancy felt a slight tug on her shoulder. A moment later, her bag slipped down her shoulder and away from her arm. Alarmed, the girl detective turned around. She saw a man running away from her. He was carrying her purse.

"Thief!" Nancy shouted. Frank and Joe looked at her and then at the man running away. Frank started, but Joe ran faster.

The blond detective ran toward the thief, who was then thirty yards ahead of him. The pickpocket ran fast, but Joe was a little faster than he was.

The man ran across the crosswalk and to the other side of the crossroad. Joe immediately followed, but he failed to notice that the signal was now blinking. Just a second before Joe got to the crossroad, the signal turned red.

Joe, too busy trying to get the thief, didn't notice that there was a truck heading toward him. When he got to the middle of the crosswalk, he heard the beeping of the truck. Surprised, he turned his head to the right. It was then that he saw the truck heading into his way!

"Joe!" Frank called when he and the others ran after Joe. "Run!"

The truck driver stepped on the pedal, but the truck was too huge and too fast to stop in a short period of time. Its speed decreased, but it still smashed into Joe.

Callie screamed. Joe was then on the ground with a small puddle of blood around his head.

"Nancy, run!"

Mrs. Drew's voice came into the girl detective's mind. She remembered the time when her mother died. She was hit by a car, just like Joe. She had a puddle of blood around her, just like Joe. It was raining when that happened, and it was raining now. Nancy's eyes got wider as Mrs. Drew's death came over her mind.

"Mom…"

Ned turned around to see Nancy. To his surprise, she was very pale and had a horrified look on her face. Her eyes were no longer glittering; it was rather clouded and dark.

Nancy's mind was filled with the vague images of her mother. Her face, her voice, her death… Everything seemed to swirl around her, and the next second, her mind went black.

Postscript: Another thrilling cliffhanger! Will Joe survive the blow? What happened to Nancy? Who was the mysterious pickpocket? And why did the man steal Nancy's purse? More about Joe will be disclosed in the next chapter!

P.S. I decided to update once for every five reviews I get. Because I didn't get as many reviews as I wanted for Out of Tune, I will update once a week if I get at least five reviews. If not, I'll update once every two to three weeks.