Hot Pursuit

by Carolyn Keene

  “He’s crazy!” Courtney screamed. “Get him away from me.”

  “Let me go!” Ricky struggled in Woody’s and Tucker’s arms, but they managed to hold him back and away from Courtney.

  “Where did you get those earrings?” Ricky hissed at her.

  Her brown eyes were wide with confusion, and she touched the white stones in her earlobes. “They’re new,” she answered. “I just bought them at the hotel gift shop this morning.”

  Nancy had to admit she shared Courtney’s confusion. Why was Ricky so uptight about a simple pair of earrings?

  “I don’t believe you!” Ricky snapped. He glanced back at his friends. “She’s lying.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” Bess cut in. “I was with her when she bought them.”

  His eyes still glued to the earrings, Ricky refused to back down. Woody and Tucker did manage to calm him enough to lead him to an empty table on the other side of the terrace from Courtney and Gibbs. Nancy, Bess, and George followed.

  Sinking down into a chair, Ricky hung his head in his hands. After a long moment he lifted his eyes, and the helpless look in them tugged at Nancy’s heart. “I know you think I’m out of line,” he said, “but I’d recognize those earrings anywhere. They were hand-carved in the Philippines, made of rare white jade. They’ve been in my family for years.”

  “How can you be sure?” Woody asked, touching Ricky’s arm sympathetically. “There could be hundreds of pairs just like them.”

  “No,” Ricky insisted, shaking his head somberly. “That design is very unusual. Courtney Brooks is wearing one of my family’s heirlooms. They belong to my twin sister, Maria. Just before my mother died, she gave the earrings to Maria.”

  Nancy had gotten the impression from Courtney that Ricky didn’t have any relatives, and she was surprised to hear about his sister. Turning to him, she asked, “Where’s your sister now?”

  “She still lives in the Philippines. When I saw Courtney wearing those earrings, I knew—” Letting out a deep sigh, he looked anxiously around at them. “I knew that Maria must be in trouble.”

  Nancy was more confused than ever. What was he talking about? And how could he possibly identify a pair of earrings when he probably hadn’t seen them for years?

  Apparently Tucker shared her doubts. “I don’t know, man. You left the Philippines when you were, what—eight years old, right? That means you haven’t seen those earrings for twelve years, and you think you’d still recognize them?”

  “Yes,” Ricky said firmly. “I emigrated with my grandfather when I was eight, but I went back to visit my sister last year. She was wearing the earrings when she saw me off at the airport. They’re very distinctive. The design resembles a cluster of flowers—or a serpent, depending on how you look at it. You’ll find my great-grandmother’s initials engraved on the back of each post, J.A.—for Juanita Angeles.”

  Nancy rose from her chair. “Wait here a second,” she said. “I’ll go ask Courtney if she’ll lend us the earrings so we can check.”

  She returned a few moments later with the earrings clutched in one hand.

  “That’s them,” Ricky said without hesitation.

  Up close the earrings were truly remarkable. Nancy was intrigued by the twofold design of flowers or a serpent, depending on the perspective of the viewer. Turning one delicate earring over, she examined the gold post. Sunlight twinkled on a rough spot, and when she looked more closely, Nancy saw the initials J.A. engraved in tiny letters.

  “The initials are here, just as Ricky said!” she exclaimed. She checked the other earring and found the initials engraved there, too. Nancy’s head was spinning. What were Ricky’s sister’s earrings doing at Pineapple Grove?

  Turning to Ricky, Nancy asked, “Do you have any idea how Maria’s earrings got here?”

  For a second Nancy thought she saw a glimmer of fear in his eyes, but then he looked stonily down at the ground. “None. I just know that if she . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “What?” Nancy prodded.

  Ricky raised his eyes up at her, then shook his head and mumbled, “Nothing.”

  Why had he clammed up so suddenly? Nancy wondered. “Is there a way you can contact your sister?” she suggested. “Maybe call her on the phone and ask about the earrings?”

  Again Ricky shook his head. “She lives in an isolated village—the nearest phone is miles away.” He stood up to leave. “I’m beat. This whole thing has zapped my energy. I guess I’ll head back to the room and crash for a while.”

  Woody watched sullenly as the bass player disappeared down the path. Turning to Nancy, he said, “Ricky’s been like a zombie ever since we got here, but he won’t talk about it, says he’ll feel better once we finish the video. And now this happens. We’re supposed to shoot part of the video in the gardens tomorrow, but if he’s still like this, it’ll be a total disaster.”

  “Do you think you can track the earrings down?” Tucker asked Nancy. “Find out how they got here? It might make Ricky feel better.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Nancy promised. Right then there were far more questions than answers in this case.

  • • •

  “What’s the old saying about getting dragged into a situation?” Bess asked as she and Nancy walked through the main lobby. “ ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’? That’s sort of what’s happened to you on this case. First we were curious about the Hot Rods, then we thought something weird was going on here at the resort, then we got caught between the guys, Courtney, and Steven Gibbs. And now we’re trying to figure out how Ricky’s sister’s earrings got here.”

  The girls left the lobby and walked down a shaded path that led to an airy, stucco building where there were a number of boutiques. George had decided to join a snorkeling excursion for the afternoon instead of going with Nancy and Bess to the gift shop where Courtney had bought the earrings.

  “I’m not sure if any of these things are related,” Nancy admitted. “But those earrings are very important to Ricky, and he’s definitely afraid that something terrible has happened to his sister.”

  “I’m glad you got Courtney to agree to give the earrings back to Ricky,” Bess commented. Then she snapped her fingers. “Hey, I wonder if Maria is the mysterious woman Ricky was asking Steve Gibbs about the other night?”

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” Nancy said.

  As the girls approached the gift shop, the glass door opened with a whoosh, and Nancy and Bess stepped inside.

  “Can I help you?” asked a slender black woman behind the jewelry counter.

  Nancy showed her the earrings, and the woman nodded in recognition. “Ah, the white jade posts,” she acknowledged, glancing up at Bess. “And you were with the young lady who bought them this morning. Did the customer change her mind?”

  Nancy explained that they were trying to track down the origin of the earrings. “Can you tell us when they were added to the shop’s inventory?”

  “We just acquired them last week,” the woman answered. “I remember because Mr. Fitzroy—he owns the shop—boasted that they would sell quickly.” She smiled. “He was right.”

  “Where did the earrings come from?” Nancy asked.

  The woman tapped her nails on the counter as she thought. “I’m not sure. We get some of our jewelry from a U.S. distributor on the mainland, and some of the pieces are made by craftspeople on the island. But I’m only a salesclerk. Mr. Fitzroy buys our merchandise.”

  “Can we speak with him?” Nancy asked.

  “Not today. He’s taking care of some business in Saint Thomas. But he’ll be here tomorrow.”

  Nancy thanked the woman and told her she’d be back the following day to speak with him.

  As she and Bess stepped out into the sunny tropical day, Nancy paused to let the sun wash over her. “Mmm, this is perfect beach weather.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” Bess said, grabbing Nancy’s arm and pulling her toward the building where th
eir room was.

  Twenty minutes later the girls were settled in lounge chairs on the beach at one end of the cove, Bess in a yellow bikini she had bought the day before, Nancy in an aquamarine tank suit.

  “Now, this is my idea of a vacation,” Bess said, sipping a tall frosted glass of lemonade as she stared out over the blue-green water.

  “It is great,” Nancy agreed, “but I can’t seem to really relax.”

  “Oh, Nan,” Bess said with a yawn. She finished her lemonade and set the glass carefully down in the sand, then stretched out on the lounge chair and closed her eyes. “Once you start a case, you can never think of anything else!”

  As Nancy watched a flock of herons circle the bay, she explained her plans to Bess. “I won’t be able to go back to the gift shop until tomorrow.”

  “Thank goodness,” Bess murmured.

  “And then there’s that maintenance hut, the one where the camera was,” Nancy continued. “I want to go back and check that out again, but I have to wait until no one else will be there.”

  Glancing to her left, Nancy noticed that Bess had dozed off. Well, at least one of us is able to relax, she thought, laughing to herself. She swung her legs to the ground and stood up to take a walk on the beach. Strolling past the thatch-roofed refreshment stand, she climbed a small dune that had been created by the shifting tide, picking up shells as she went.

  Nancy paused to look out at the water. It would be great if Ned were there to enjoy the resort with her, she thought. But Pineapple Grove was still a pretty terrific place, she reminded herself, and she had plenty to keep her busy.

  She was just reaching down to pick up an unusually thick purple and orange seashell when something just beyond the dune made her pause. It was a man, she realized, dressed in the turquoise and white uniform of the resort’s employees. He was sprawled in the sand under a cluster of palm trees. At first Nancy thought he was catching a nap, but as she moved closer, she could see that his legs were twisted in an unnatural position.

  Her pulse quickening, Nancy ran over to the man. A trickle of blood ran from a cut on his forehead down to the collar of his shirt. He was either unconscious or—She gasped when she saw his face.

  It was Vincent!

  Chapter

  Ten

  NANCY RUSHED up to the man and pressed her fingers against his throat. His pulse was weak, but he was still alive.

  After jumping to her feet, Nancy ran down the beach to find a waiter. She quickly told the man what she’d found, and he rushed off to get help. Then Nancy raced for Bess, and together they hurried back over the dunes to where Vincent lay.

  An ambulance was just arriving when they got there. As the girls watched, a nurse checked on Vincent and then spoke in low tones to Daniel, the burly staff member who had helped out on the bike trip.

  “He’s unconscious. Looks like a concussion or skull fracture. From a falling coconut, maybe, but we won’t know for sure till a doc checks him out,” the short, wiry nurse explained to Daniel as he and another medic lifted Vincent into the ambulance.

  Daniel seemed to be nervous as he ordered, “Keep me posted.” Then the nurse climbed in, slamming the rear door of the ambulance, and it drove off.

  “Nailed by a coconut—imagine that,” Bess said, whistling under her breath.

  Nancy raised her index finger. “That’s just one theory,” she said meaningfully.

  Daniel wandered up to them just then. His pudgy, usually jovial face was stony. “Vincent is lucky you found him, Nancy,” he told her. “I am sorry your vacation was interrupted by such an unpleasant incident, but you may have saved our Vincent’s life.”

  “Nancy’s great in an emergency,” Bess boasted. “That’s one of the reasons she’s such a successful detective.”

  “Detective? Well, thank you, Nancy. I don’t want to keep you from your vacation any longer.” Daniel took her and Bess each by an arm, taking several steps back toward the beach and their loungers. It seemed as if he wanted to get rid of them. But there was something Nancy had to find out first.

  She disengaged her arm, turned to Daniel, and asked, “Do you really think a falling coconut could have hurt Vincent?”

  “Without a doubt. It happens all the time.” He pointed up at one of the coconut palms. “Those coconuts should have been harvested weeks ago. We usually pick them before they become overripe and fall. This tree must have been overlooked by our groundskeepers.”

  Nancy stared down at the dune. “But where is the coconut?” she wanted to know. All she could see was half of a hollow coconut shell and a dried palm frond.

  “Maybe one of the guests picked it up,” Daniel said irritably. He turned abruptly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must make a report on Vincent.”

  “He didn’t have to get so huffy,” Bess said indignantly. “You were only trying to help.”

  Nancy frowned. “And I’m going to keep on helping, whether he wants me to or not. Come on. Let’s talk to the other people on the beach. Maybe someone saw something.”

  They questioned everyone in the immediate area, but no one had seen a thing. For the rest of the afternoon, Nancy tried to relax on the beach, but she couldn’t get the case, whatever it was, out of her mind. Now Daniel was acting as if he were hiding something, too. The Hot Rods, Vincent, Daniel, and maybe Steven Gibbs. They’d all been acting weird. Wasn’t there anyone at Pineapple Grove who didn’t have something to hide?

  • • •

  Nancy woke up early the next morning, eager to return to the gift shop. After a quick breakfast, she left George and Bess in the dining area and went to the stucco building that housed the boutiques. A pale, balding man was just unlocking the shop door when she got there.

  “Mr. Fitzroy?” Nancy asked. When he nodded, she asked about the white jade earrings.

  Fitzroy remembered them right away. “They were rather unusual, weren’t they? I bought them from a resort employee. Normally I don’t buy jewelry from people on staff, but the white jade was so special, I couldn’t resist.” With a quick flip of his wrist, Fitzroy turned to a page in the store’s record book. “Here it is. I bought them from a man named Vincent Lanchester.”

  Nancy’s blue eyes widened in surprise. Vincent! How did he get his hands on Maria’s earrings? Nancy couldn’t forget his connection with the maintenance hut, nor her feeling that he was involved with some kind of funny business being conducted there. The question was, how did Maria’s jewelry fit in? Or did it?

  Nancy thanked Fitzroy and left. Was it a coincidence that Vincent had gotten knocked out shortly after selling the earrings to the shop? Nancy supposed Vincent’s injury could be unrelated to the earrings—or the weird activity in the dark hut—but her intuition told her that wasn’t the case. The problem was, Vincent was the only person who could answer her questions about the earrings, and he was no longer around.

  Nancy remembered promising to keep Ricky informed about the earrings. The guys had mentioned that they’d be taping this morning, so Nancy headed there to give Ricky the latest news.

  As soon as she got to the location, Nancy could tell something was wrong. Tucker and Woody were standing at the edge of a fountain, arguing with several members of the crew.

  Spotting Bess and George, who were sitting on a nearby bench, Nancy went over to them. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why aren’t they taping?”

  “World War Three just broke out!” Bess said, grabbing Nancy’s arm. “One of the camera operators got spooked by Ricky’s bike accident, and he says he’ll quit unless they pack up and finish the video in L.A. The other cameraman wants to leave, too. After Gibbs almost punched him, I guess he’d be happier in L.A. than here in paradise.”

  “I can’t say I blame them,” Nancy said. “It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for the video crew since they arrived.”

  “But Ricky flatly refuses to leave the island,” George added, “and Tucker said that the whole film crew should be fired. The poor director’s trying to smooth t
hings over so they can keep shooting.

  “Anyway,” George continued, “the rumor is that one of the Hot Rods wants out of his contract so badly, he’s sabotaging the video! But no one knows which band member it is.”

  Looking over, Nancy saw that although Woody and Tucker still looked harried, they were now talking calmly to the director and cameramen. Ricky was sitting a few yards away from them on a stone planter, tuning his electric bass. He wasn’t looking at anyone, but the tension in him was obvious in the way he plucked at his guitar strings.

  “What’s up?” he asked as Nancy went over and sat down beside him.

  “I found out who sold the earrings to the gift shop.” When Nancy mentioned Vincent’s name, she was met with a blank stare.

  “Lanchester?” He shook his head. “I don’t know who he is—do I?”

  Nancy explained that Vincent had been one of the guides on the bike trip, and that she’d found him unconscious on the beach. Ricky’s expression became grimmer, but he shook his head and said, “Still doesn’t ring a bell.”

  He seemed to be telling the truth, but Nancy had the feeling that Ricky was holding back something important about his sister. She said, “Ricky, we have to try to figure out how he got hold of Maria’s earrings. Has she ever visited Pineapple Grove?”

  Ricky glanced away quickly. “I don’t know how her earrings got in that guy’s hands.”

  Again, Nancy had the feeling that he was hiding something. Before she could ask more, though, the director stood up, clapped his hands and shouted, “Okay, people, we’re going to tape now. Take your places for the fountain scene.”

  “Got to run.” Ricky looped his guitar strap over his shoulder and stood up. He seemed relieved to have an excuse to end their conversation. “Hey, Nancy,” he added, “let me know when Vincent’s available to talk. I’d like to speak to him.”

  Ricky pushed through the crowd to join the other two musicians on the edge of the fountain. Water spurted in arches behind them, making a glittering backdrop for them to be photographed against.