Nancy Drew

by Micol Ostow

  An older one, now: Melanie, giving a brilliant smile and holding out her script.

  Suddenly, I heard a crackle—a leaf crunching, a twig snapping. I jumped up and whirled around, desperately scanning the area for any sign of life. But the square was still absolutely deserted.

  A ghost town. I shivered. Another one of those figures of speech.

  Crackle. I heard it again. Footsteps, I was sure of it.

  “Hello?” I called, feeling foolish. But not foolish enough not to do it in the first place. Paranoia has saved me more times than I care to count.

  Silence.

  Another caw of a bird, this one sending a flicker of memory through my mind, or was it just remnants of that horrible nightmare?

  Wide-planked floors. Deep-throated caws. The shadow of a broad, strong wingspan. The echo of a man’s voice, clear and commanding.

  What the hell was that? I could see it, hear it, even smell it—wood chips, manure—so clearly.

  But I couldn’t quite grab it in my mind, couldn’t put my finger on what, exactly, I was recalling. Or if it was even real in the first place.

  Wham.

  I tried to scream, but thick fingers closed over my eyes, my mouth.

  Darkness.

  Was this the last thing Daisy saw too?

  I bucked, trying to throw whoever it was off, straining to make a sound against the hands.

  “Whoa!”

  I recognized that voice.

  “Nancy!”

  Parker?

  Slowly, my pulse returned to normal and the adrenaline that had spiked through me seemed to dissipate.

  The hands unpeeled and turned me around, and then we were face-to-face. He looked baffled.

  “Nancy, it’s me. Sorry if I scared you.”

  “If you scared me?” I gave him a look, trying to keep it light. It wasn’t easy with my heart still thudding in my chest. “Creeping up behind me? What were you trying to do?”

  He flushed. “Um, I promise you, I wasn’t trying to … creep. Sorry about that. I swear, I thought it would be cute. I wanted to do the whole guess who? thing. But then you freaked out.”

  “Yeah, I guess I get a little jumpy when I’m alone in a deserted square overlooking a bluff, and my best friend’s been kidnapped,” I pointed out, hating the edge in my voice, even if it was totally warranted.

  He winced. “I hear you. It was a bad idea. Terrible joke, as far as jokes go. I promise you, I won’t ever try to be cute again.”

  He looked so woebegone, and my initial shock had already begun to wear off. It was hard to stay annoyed, even if he had exhibited profoundly bad judgment. “Well, that’s just it—you don’t need to try to be cute. You just are, naturally.” I showed him the Instagram feed I’d been stalking. “Look, there you are, being cute.”

  “Aw.” He smiled. “Forgiven, then?”

  “Forgiven,” I agreed, stepping closer to him. I took his hands and pulled him to me, kissing him gently.

  After we pulled apart, I looked at him. “Honestly, I’m just relieved it was you and not Caroline again. That was my first thought.”

  He frowned. “Caroline again?”

  Hmm. Did I not mention that to him?

  “Oh, you know.” I laughed, waving it off. “I was … out the other day, investigating a little bit… . It turned out she was following me.”

  “Wait.” His eyes narrowed. I could see the sharp set of his brow, even in the moonlight. “Caroline Mark was following you?”

  I shrugged. “Apparently. She confirmed it just this morning, as a matter of fact.”

  He grabbed me by the wrists, pulling me down to sit on the pagoda bench. “Nancy, what the hell?”

  I filled him in as quickly as possible—admittedly, trying to downplay the situation as much as I could in response to his panic.

  “I can handle Caroline Mark,” I assured him. “I’ve dealt with worse.”

  “I can’t say that makes me feel that much better,” he said.

  I tried to tell myself that it was sweet, the way he was so worried about me.

  But the thing is, Parker: It’s not my job to make you feel better about my investigations.

  I didn’t say it, though.

  “Maybe you should, I don’t know, back off from investigating for a while?” he suggested, tracing circles on the inside of my wrist with his finger.

  I felt a twinge in my gut. Was this shades of David—and the other friends and guys I’d lost over a mystery? “I love that you worry; it’s adorable,” I started.

  Is it, though?

  “But you have to understand, investigating is what I do.”

  “I understand. I do. But Caroline Mark obviously has some stuff to work through,” he protested. “She could be dangerous. Not to mention, whoever kidnapped Daisy and Melanie is still out there. It’s terrifying.”

  “I know,” I said. Did he not think I knew that? Daisy was my best friend. I was the most terrified of all. “Which is why I need to do everything in my power to solve the case as quickly as I can.” I looked at him. “Is that going to be a problem for you?”

  He sighed heavily. “I mean, they say the future is female, right?”

  I didn’t love the slightly joking tone to his voice there. “I think I saw that on a mug somewhere,” I replied carefully.

  “Girls who kick ass are hot, right?”

  “I like to think so.”

  “So, yeah: This isn’t a problem. Go forth and kick ass. Solve the case.”

  “I’m going to,” I said.

  He brushed my hair back from my face gently then, and leaned in for another kiss. I obliged, but even as my stomach swirled in excitement at his nearness, darker thoughts crowded my mind. Parker said I should solve the case, that he wouldn’t stand in my way. But I didn’t need his permission. And I knew too that there were plenty of girls out there who would have found his protective vibe super chivalrous. But deep down, I had to admit to myself: I wasn’t one of those people who thought that the “future” was female. We were here now. I was here now.

  And if Parker was going to be all alpha male about it?

  Well, maybe that wasn’t a problem for him. But I couldn’t say the same for myself.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Friday

  If the town square had been curiously empty the night before, then every single Horseshoe Bay resident was making up for it now. I had never in my life seen town hall as packed as it was for Chief McGinnis’s emergency meeting. Everyone was on high alert and taking the disappearances seriously. It was a relief to know we were all, finally, on the same page, even if it was a terrible page in a book I truly wished I weren’t reading. It made the chances of finding Daisy and Melanie soon, better. And maybe someone—anyone—would have another piece of information about the history of the Naming Day curse.

  Basically, the entire town had been crushed into the hall, my parents and me in the very front row, Mom to my right and Dad to my left, each holding one hand so tightly I thought they’d cut off my circulation soon enough. Mom’s eyes were red, and Dad’s jaw was tight. Both were deeply worried about Daisy. Lena was here too, with her parents, somewhere in the melee. Though I couldn’t see them, I knew they were just as upset. Parker as well.

  The room was hot, and the air was tense. A long table had been set up on the stage where the chief, Principal Wagner, and the mayor—a woman of about the same age (and the same demeanor) as the principal—all sat, a pitcher of water sweating condensation droplets all over the white tablecloth that had been spread on the table. Daisy’s parents were up there too, her mother’s eyes red-rimmed and welling with tears that constantly threatened to spill over. Her father looked stern, stoic, but I suspected he was hanging on by a thread. Mostly, the mere fact of their presence had set an ominous tone for this meeting: the black wool clothes, the drawn expressions, the gravity of their importance in Horseshoe Bay …

  And the fact that their daughter was missing.

  They weren’t the only on
es up on the stage. Another man and woman sat at the very edge of the table, both pale and gaunt. Melanie’s parents. A twinge of guilt bit at me. Just because Daisy’s abduction had an extra layer of resonance for me personally didn’t mean any less as far as these two and their suffering.

  We need to find the girls.

  I need to find the girls.

  The urgency came to me, a searing flash of actual, physical pain.

  Chief McGinnis reached for the microphone on the table in front of him. He tapped at it to be sure it was on. “Hello,” he said, to a burst of static. Everyone in the room reacted, squirming in their seats and flinching.

  “Thank you for coming out tonight,” he went on. “I know everyone’s very worried about recent events and our oncoming Naming Day Festival.”

  “Call off the festival!” someone shouted from the back of the room, prompting a wave of boos and other protests. It was hard to tell whether people were protesting the Naming Day Festival or the idea of canceling it. As much as no one seemed to want to admit anything about a curse, it was hard to imagine straight-up ignoring the letter that had shown up when Daisy went missing.

  “We understand people are emotional,” Mayor Johnson chimed in. Her voice was measured, almost regal, as though she’d somehow absorbed everyone’s emotional responses and synthesized them coolly to a more tolerable level.

  “Our children are in danger! Who knows who’ll be targeted next!” It was a small, mousy woman just a few seats behind me. I recognized her from a few school functions: the PTA treasurer. Her daughter was an equally mousy freshman who’d won the science fair with something to do with osmosis and solar energy.

  Onstage, Daisy’s mother went sheet white. Her father, meanwhile, slammed a fist down on the table more heavily than a judge banged a gavel. “Our daughter is gone!” he bellowed.

  “Ours is too!” It was Melanie’s mother now, her voice thick with sobs. “Funny how no one thought to call a town hall meeting until the daughter of a founding family vanished!”

  The booing grew louder now, building to a crescendo. From somewhere behind me, a crumpled ball of paper—the agenda for tonight’s discussion?—went soaring overhead. Mom squeezed my hand a little harder. I nestled up against her, grateful to have her here.

  The mayor stood, her expression strained now. She held her hand out in a calm down gesture. “Please,” she said, “we understand why you’re all upset. I assure you, we are just as upset, and just as committed to getting your children home.” She looked from Melanie’s parents to Daisy’s. “Both of your children.”

  “The mayor has asked me to be very clear in reiterating the specifics of what we know at present. We have distinct sets of incidents,” Chief McGinnis said. He was generally unflappable (if a bit ornery), but in the face of so many hysterical parents, it was clear he wanted to tread lightly. “First: A bird bearing a warning note flew into one of our high school classroom windows. Students initially dismissed the incident as a prank”—and somehow, even amidst the din and crowd, I felt his gaze find me, searing a hole in me like an ant in a magnified sun ray—“and it wasn’t reported to us immediately.”

  Indignant sounds echoed off the walls of the auditorium. I felt a flicker of shame in my belly.

  “Second, Daisy Dewitt’s locker was vandalized, as was the Masthead newsroom. The culprit in both of these incidents was later revealed to be another student at Keene High, who was, in fact, playing a prank. She was disgruntled because she hadn’t been cast in the reenactment.”

  Now a sprinkle of laughter broke out amidst the solemn murmurs. I had to feel for Caroline, wherever she was, out there in the auditorium. Even if McGinnis hadn’t called her out by name, she was hardly anonymous in this room. She had to be feeling pretty humiliated right about now.

  “But then immediately after the locker incident, Melanie Forest was reported missing. Last but not least, Daisy Dewitt was reported missing. A threatening note was found in her friend’s locker, and later we found a corroborating note with the exact same message in Daisy’s wallet, in her own locker, as well.”

  Another note? I sat up in my seat. Behind the chief, an overhead projector called up two side-by-side images, one of the note that Lena had found, and one of Daisy’s wallet—red, Kate Spade, a stain on the leather from a latte with a faulty to-go lid that she’d never been able to clean off, no matter how many expensive products she tried. It lay flat on a table next to an evidence bag, a note exactly like Lena’s just beside it.

  My throat tightened, and my head felt hot. I hadn’t realized that the chief had gone through Daisy’s locker, though of course it made sense, and whatever I’d been expecting to see tonight, it wasn’t that. I’d laid eyes on Daisy’s wallet probably at least once a day for the last … five years? If not longer. In this context, the sight was chilling.

  Mom must have read my mind—she was good at that—because she rubbed my back reassuringly.

  “Finally,” the chief concluded, “shortly before Daisy’s disappearance was reported, my officers got a tip about another incident of Naming Day–related vandalism out at the fairgrounds.” I felt his eyes on me again, this time more impassive.

  “What about the girl—I mean, the student,” someone piped in from behind me. “The one who was behind the vandalism?”

  “We’ve managed to eliminate that person as a suspect in the matters of the student disappearances, the bird incident, and the fairgrounds,” McGinnis said.

  I would have killed to know how definitively he’d managed to “eliminate” Caroline, but I didn’t think he was lying. I was ninety-nine percent certain that Caroline had had nothing to do with the disappearances, and she’d been straight with me about following me … and about other stuff too.

  Of course, even being definitive about those two incidents, we still had missing students to find.

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of leads on Melanie Forest’s disappearance,” McGinnis went on, prompting Ms. Forest’s face to turn a queasy shade of olive. “Though we aren’t ruling out the idea of a connection, the fact that Daisy’s abductor—”

  At the word “abductor,” Ms. Dewitt swayed in her chair. Daisy’s father wrapped a meaty arm around her, propping her up.

  “—left a note with a threat leads me to think there may not be one.”

  Now Melanie’s mother let forth with a guttural wail, and her husband swiftly escorted her from the stage.

  “Please,” the mayor said, taking a firm grasp on her own microphone, “we’re asking anyone who may have any information at all about the missing girls to please come forward. And do offer the Dewitts and the Forests your strength and support in this deeply trying time.”

  “Pray for us,” Daisy’s father said simply, his voice booming into his microphone and out into the crowd, a smooth baritone.

  “Hopes and prayers? Is that really the best we can do?”

  This time, it took no time for me to place the voice. It was Theo, of course, clearly downright horrified that the town was hesitating for even a moment on pulling the plug on Naming Day.

  “Mr. MacCabe,” McGinnis drawled. “You had another idea?”

  Theo extricated himself from the front aisle seat he’d been in and moved to the edge of the stage, positioning himself at just the right angle to be able to see the chief and everyone onstage as well as everyone in the crowd, too.

  “Call me crazy, guys,” he started, his usual sardonic tone rendered an octave or two higher than usual, “but what if we, oh, I don’t know … called off Naming Day?” He threw his hands up. “Someone out there sure wants us to! It definitely couldn’t hurt!”

  A few more balled-up programs flew toward him, which he dodged awkwardly.

  “You can’t let ’em win!” someone called out.

  Except you can, when your friend’s life is at risk.

  “But, actually? You can,” Theo said, echoing my thoughts. “It’s not ‘losing’ if we get our classmates back.” He scanned th
e crowd, pleading. “Please tell me I’m not the only one in the room who thinks the well-being of actual people is worth more than a dumb town festival?”

  I flinched. He shouldn’t have called it “dumb.” Around here, it wouldn’t go over well.

  “I’m with him.” Another voice rang out, and another lanky figure joined Theo at the stage. Parker. His eyes found me in the crowd and locked in. “History, tradition … whatever—it’s all important.” His voice caught on the word, like he was maybe, just maybe, implying that some of us in this town had histories that weren’t as important as we liked to think.

  Or maybe you’re reading into it.

  “But we could probably still stand to be a little cautious,” he went on, not taking his eyes from my face. “Actual people’s actual lives are at stake.”

  Okay. Point: Parker.

  But no. Coming back to my senses, I gave a sharp shake of my head. Didn’t he understand? The fact that Daisy’s life was at stake—that just meant I couldn’t afford to hold back, couldn’t afford a moment’s hesitation. I liked Parker desperately, but if I had to choose between him and an investigation, I knew what I’d choose.

  “Believe me, this is a matter we’ve debated at great length amongst those of us up here onstage right now,” Principal Wagner said. “We decided that the best course of action would be to take a vote. After all: This is your town. And these are your daughters.”

  From the wings, Daisy’s mother gave a small whimper.

  The chief stood. “A show of hands, please. All in favor of carrying on with Naming Day as planned.” I twisted in my seat. From just a cursory glance, it was clearly a landslide. Onstage, Melanie’s mother’s face crumpled, and my own mother’s arm tightened on my shoulder.