The world went white. A searing pain spread across my face. My eyes! I couldn’t see anything. By the smell, I could tell he had thrown chlorine or some other pool chemical at me. I felt him shove me hard as he ran past, his footsteps retreating off into the distance. I screamed in pain.
NANCY
“Frank? Frank! What’s happening?”
I heard him scream in the background. He must have dropped his phone, because everything had become muffled and far away.
“Call 911!” I told Vijay. I didn’t want to hang up on Frank, but they needed help now. I only hoped the police would be fast enough.
“Nancy?” Frank’s voice, soaked with pain, suddenly reappeared on the line.
“Frank, what happened? Are you okay? Is Scott?”
“He threw something at me. I can’t see anything, and he’s getting away. I’m trying to find Scott now.”
Damn! I thought. If he got out of the house, our chances of catching him were slim. I slammed my fist down on the desk, making the monitors jump.
The monitors!
“Vijay, pull up all the cameras in Scott’s house, now! Frank, can you move?”
“Yeah. But if I can’t see anything, what good will it do?”
“You put cameras in every room of the house, right?”
“Pretty much.”
“All right. I’m going to be your eyes.”
By this point, Vijay had all the cameras live. I could see Alex in the kitchen, rifling through the shelves. What is he doing? I wondered. Then, when he pulled out the paper towels and matches, I realized it.
“Frank! He’s in the kitchen. He’s planning on burning down the house, with you and Scott in it. Can you get Scott out?” I could see from the monitor that Scott wasn’t moving.
“No. He’s alive, but he’s unconscious, and I can’t carry him like this.”
“All right. Listen to me. Seventy feet in front of you is the door to the hallway. It opens into the pool room.”
“I’m heading for it now.”
“After the door, it’s about twenty-five feet to the stairs.” As I spoke, I watched the little figures on the screen: Frank, making his way slowly out of the training room, one hand on his phone, the other rubbing his red and tearing eyes; and Alex, moving quickly throughout the house, making small piles of paper towels. There wasn’t much time.
“Now I want you to go ten more feet, and turn right. There’s going to be a small—”
“Ow!”
“Table. Sorry about that, you’re moving faster than I expected. There’s a bronze statue of a swimmer on the table. Pick it up.”
“What’s Alex up to?”
“He’s approaching the hallway you’re in. Five feet beyond the table, you’ll find a doorway. The door should be open. Duck inside it.”
FRANK
I could feel the smooth metal of the statue in my hands, but if Nancy hadn’t told me it was a swimmer, I’d never have been able to tell. How did blind people learn Braille? Or do anything? The pain had begun to recede, but I still couldn’t see a thing. I held still and waited. I could hear Nancy’s breathing on the phone. There would be only one chance at this. I couldn’t fight Alex blind, and once he finished placing the little piles of paper around the house, it would be the work of thirty seconds to run around, light each of them, and leave Scott and me to burn to death.
I heard the muffled progress of footsteps coming down the hall toward me. It was hard not to jump out. They sounded so close. Surely he had to be in front of me now. But I waited.
“Now, Frank!” Nancy yelled on the phone.
I leaped forward, swinging the statue in front of me at what I hoped was head height. I hit something hard, and heard the sound of a body slumping to the floor.
“Nice shot!” Nancy yelled. “He’s down for the count. You did it!”
CHAPTER 18
GOING FOR GOLD
JOE
“And Scott Trevor takes the gold! That’s his third gold medal in this Olympics alone, and he is now officially the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, breaking the record held by one Alex Smothers. And that’s a whole other story right there, isn’t it, folks?”
Amid the cheering in the hotel room, I switched off the sound on the television. The last thing we needed was another recap of the footage of the police bringing a blind Frank and an unconscious Scott and Alex out of Scott’s house. The media couldn’t get enough of the story. Or of Isabelle’s attempt on Lexi’s life—and a traffic helicopter’s footage of the high-speed chase that followed, starring yours truly. One paper had dubbed them “The Gold Medal Murders” after both Lexi and Scott had taken the gold in their first events.
“Scott! Scott! Scott!” Nancy, George, Bess, and Frank were chanting. Frank’s eyes were still red from the chemical burns Alex had given him, but his sight had mostly returned and the doctors said he wouldn’t have any lingering effects.
“Anybody else hungry?” I asked.
“Yes!” Nancy yelled.
“Let’s go back to the Moonbeam, one last time,” added Bess.
We’d gone to the Moonbeam nearly every day since we’d wrapped up the case. It had become our regular hangout. And since our case had very nearly gotten Bess and George killed, ATAC had been eager to pay for all their expenses afterward. Just one more perk of being a superspy: free lunch. Which reminded me, I had a surprise for them.
“I’ll call a cab,” said Nancy.
“Wait, Nancy—catch!” I pulled a small box out of my pocket and tossed it to Nancy. Across the room, Frank smiled.
“What’s this?” said Nancy.
“A thank-you from ATAC.”
Nancy pulled the ribbon off the sky blue box and popped the lid. She lifted out a key.
“Joe,” she said in an excited voice, “is this—”
“A key to your new sky blue convertible, paid for by ATAC? Yes.”
“It’s a hybrid, too. Just like your old one,” Frank chimed in.
Nancy screamed with joy. Losing her car had been one of the worst parts of this case, and I knew she’d been dreading explaining it to her father. ATAC was so grateful for her help, though, that it hadn’t been hard to talk them into replacing it for her. It wasn’t quite as cool as one George and Bess had fixed up by hand, but it was the best I could do.
“All right,” Nancy said, “you boys take the gold in classiness. Let’s go get some food.”
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