DISCLAIMER: Again, like always... I wish I owned them, but sadly I don't...

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello again, boys and girls! I'm back and (I'm hoping) better than ever! Enjoy! I promise to update soon. Read and review please!

Chapter 18

Mr. Drew paused, giving her daughter a look and she fidgeted.

"Come one, dad!" Nancy whined. "Cut the melodrama."

Carson laughed. "Okay, okay. Well, I told you before that I had a case about Raybolt, right?"

Nancy nodded.

"Raybolt had basically stolen Arnold Simpson's improvement to an automatic elevator. Anyway, turns out that Simpson was one of the many people who believed that Raybolt had things way too hot here. He is convinced that Raybolt took off, disappeared because things had gone sour here."

"Okay," Nancy said, a little confused. "That's great and all, but how does this help…?"

"I'm getting to that. Simpson is married, lives in Mapleton, and a couple of days ago she says that she had stopped at a gas station, you know, one of the ones with a quickie stop? It was just outside of Mapleton. Just as she was coming in, a beat up hunk of junk was pulling out. She said that the person driving was about as beat up as the car. She only caught the driver in a side-glance, but she is absolutely positive that it was Felix Raybolt."

"No way!" Nancy cried, surprise, a smile coming onto her face. "The jerk is using some stupid disguise. What a-" she was about to say something else, but caught herself when her father gave her a stern look and smiled sheepishly, "-rotten, rotten man."

Carson nodded. "I thought so. Anyway, Mrs. Simpson asked about him in the store. The attendant had no idea who the guy was, but he said he bought a bunch of canned foods. Things like bread in tins and all that kind of stuff."

"Camping stuff it would seem."

"Yes. Of course, she could be wrong. It could be that it's not Raybolt at all. The clerks had never seen him before, said he just came in, got what he needed and got back out quick. But I thought it would be worth a shot at checking out."

"Hell yeah! I'll go to the store tomorrow morning and see what I can find out," Nancy agreed.

"Not without someone. Bess and George probably. Of course… you could recruit more apt protection…" Mr. Drew started with a teasing grin pulling at his lips.

"Dad…" Nancy warned.

"What? All I'm saying is that I know a certain person who wouldn't mind driving to meet you… I think he's a football player at a college maybe? God, what was his name?"

"Dad…" she warned again, more menacing.

But Mr. Drew wasn't finished putting on his charade. He tapped his chin and looked like he was thinking hard. "Ted… Red… oh, yes. That's it. Ned Nickerson."

"Shut up!" Nancy replied, laughing and pushing her father who laughed with her.

Nancy called the two girls to ask them to come with her. George agreed enthusiastically. Bess was a little more cautious.

"You really think we should go up and try to find some desperate, and might I add, creepy guy in the middle of nowhere?" she asked. "Not exactly appealing."

"Come on, don't be a baby. Come with me, please?" Nancy begged. "Besides, we have George, the judo master. She can totally take out Raybolt if need be."

"Yeah, okay. George thinks she can take down a full grown, angry male grizzly. Look, I don't care what George thinks she can do, I just want to come home alive… and preferably in one piece."

"You will, I promise."

"Yeah, yeah. Fine. See you tomorrow you big jerk," Bess mumbled and hung up before Nancy could answer.

The next morning they headed up to the store. George was sleeping in the back and Bess and Nancy were talking in the front seat. It was idle chitchat, the kind you make when you don't really have anything to talk about, but you still talk anyway.

"So," Bess said, looking out the window. "You have Ned as your delivery boy now. You're hot as hell delivery boy, might I add."

Nancy gave a wide grin, flashing her teeth. "Hotter than hell."

"You're a bitch, man," Bess laughed. "You're totally using him."

"What? No I'm not. Why do you say that?" Nancy asked, pouting.

"Because. You're taking advantage of the fact that the guy has the major hots for you and would walk barefoot on hot coals for you."

"He doesn't have the major hots for me…"

"Oh my God. Can you say 'denial?' Please? You float the man's boat, you are the bee's knees, and I'm sure he'd like you to tickle his pickle." Nancy hit her playfully as she laughed. "The guy is head over heels. 'I'll go visit Swenson to cheer him up. I'll take his family to see him. I'll help you decorate your high school prom. I'll drive two hours to come down and see you every other day.'"

"He doesn't come every other day," Nancy retorted, blushing.

"Practically," Bess replied, rolling her eyes.

"He's just… considerate," Nancy said.

"My ass," George piped in from the back. She was resting against the door, arms crossed and her eyes stilled closed as if she was sleeping.

Nancy glared at her quickly and pulled into the gas station. There was a large 7-eleven continence store, a mini-grocery store. The girls got down, George yawning, and walked in to talk to the clerks. After they had made sure they were the same ones that Mrs. Simpson talked to, Nancy started asking questions.

"Have you seen that guy again?"

"The bum with all the canned stuff? Nope. Never came back," one of the teens replied. He was acne ridden and had stringy black hair.

The other boy was pretty good-looking with surfer boy blond hair and sleepy looking hazel eyes. He gave a little smile. "He never had to. That dude bought enough food to last him about a month. Dude looked like he had serious problems."

"Like if he had a bunch of pissed off clients wanting to lynch him?" George asked.

"Like if… what?" the surfer-dude asked, squinting and confused.

"Do you know which way he went?" Nancy asked. "I mean, when he drove off?"

"Sure, down that way," acne-guy replied, pointing. "Had a piece of shit car that coughed up so many fumes we could smell it in here."

"Why do you girls care? He a boyfriend that skipped out or something?" surfer-dude asked.

"Oh, please," Bess scoffed. "Not in this lifetime."

Surfer-dude smiled at her. "So, you don't have a boyfriend?"

Bess gave a coy smile and leaned forward. "Not at the moment."

"Really? Because, you know, I-"

"Okay, we gotta go," George said loudly, bodily yanking Bess out the door with her.

Bess yelped in protest and followed her friends angrily to the car. "You suck. Dip-shit."

George just snorted and got in the car beside Nancy. They girls drove in the direction the boys had pointed. They looked for a sign of something, anything.

"All right," Nancy said after a while. "If you were a dickweed trying to get out of a bad deal, where would you go?"

"If I knew about that creepy-ass cabin in the woods near Stanford, probably there," George answered.

"Creepy-ass shack?" Bess repeated, leaning forward.

"Yeah, but we were at the creepy-ass shack after Raybolt disappeared and it was empty. And empty for a while," Nancy said, shaking her head.

"Again, creepy-ass shack?" Bess said again.

The other two ignored her. Nancy chewed on her lip.

"Where else would Raybolt hide?" she asked, more to herself than anyone.

"Well if he's not in the first 'creepy-ass shack,' how about a different 'creepy-ass shack'?" Bess muttered under her breath.

"Bess, you're a genius!" Nancy exclaimed.

"Wait, what? No! No, no, no! I didn't mean let's go hunting for creepy-ass shacks. Shit," Bess wailed, leaning back in her seat unhappily.

Nancy's driving had slowed to a crawl along the narrow road. She stared fixedly on the road in front of her for a long while, George and Bess confused.

"Uh… we know you're a little reckless behind the wheel and all, but this is taking it to the other extreme, don't you think?" George commented, raising her eyebrows at her friend's caution.

Nancy slammed on the brakes suddenly, throwing the girls forward in their seat. Bess and George grunted, the wind knocked out of them. They gaped at Nancy who was staring at a spot on the side of the road.

"Look!" she said, pointing.

It took the girls a little while before they saw what Nancy was pointing at, but finally they noticed to faint lines in a little used road. They were tire tracks. George met Nancy's gaze and reciprocated her gung ho grin. Bess looked from one to the other, appalled.

"No way! You guys are freaking crazy!" she cried, but Nancy was already turning into the small road. Bess changed her tactic. "You'll screw up your car forever going down that way."

To her surprise and George's Nancy sighed. "Yeah, you're right."

She drove on a little further, Bess smiling smugly and George gaping horrified at Nancy. But the expressions soon changed as Nancy pulled under a hidden knot of overhanging tree limbs and parked the car.

"Yes!" George hissed.

"No!" Bess wailed.

Nancy got out of the car, oblivious to both remarks and locked the doors. She pocketed the car keys and waited until her friends had joined her. Bess was angry and scared, George was beaming brightly, anxious to get started. They headed back to the little road and started walking up it, following the car tracks. The going was rough and Bess began to whine. George snapped at her. Finally, Bess got so persistent, the girls stopped halfway up to rest. George, annoyed, plopped down on the grass ad fumed to herself.

Bess was still pouting. "It's creepy out here."

George glared up at her. "Oh… is witty bitty Bess scawed? Poor wittle baby."

"Shut up, ass-face!"

"God, both of you stop it already," Nancy interrupted. She sighed and after a moment of silence added, "It's really quiet here. Kind of peaceful. You could almost- holy hell!"