Mystery by Moonlight Read online

  “Good for business,” Ned remarked. “Though it’s weird things are still washing up from last spring.”

  “I’m not complaining,” Tim admitted. “Hey, the lake’s got her moods, and now and then she gives up her secrets. Tourists jump at old junk supposedly dating back to before the creek was dammed up. Most of it’s more recent than that—just usual garbage.”

  “Do you remember the valley before it was flooded?” Nancy asked.

  “No, miss, that was before my time—I was born a couple of years after they created Moonlight Lake. But I have lived here my whole life.”

  “So I guess you’ve heard the ghost stories,” Bess said.

  Tim’s eyes twinkled. “Guess I have. Some folks around here think they’re just nonsense. Other folks swear they’re the honest truth.”

  “And you?” Nancy asked.

  Tim frowned. “Can’t say for sure.”

  Ned chuckled. “Sounds like people keep the stories alive just to make Moonlight Lake more interesting.”

  “There are no ghosts!” George said firmly.

  “Oh,” Tim drawled, “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Once upon a time I thought it was all just a lot of bunk. These days, I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t something to it. There’s been talk of ghosts around here longer than I can remember. And I’ve seen a few peculiar things in my time, back when I was young and sprightly enough to hike that fifty mile trail around the lake and camp out.”

  “What kinds of things?” Ned asked, frankly curious.

  “It doesn’t matter!” George insisted. “If we fill Bess’s head with more ghost stories, none of us will sleep tonight either! Besides, I’m starving. Let’s skip the sports store and go home for lunch.”

  “Hey, none of you looked too happy about that scream we heard again last night,” Bess reminded them as they walked back to the car. “Ghosts or no ghosts, something is definitely scary down by the lake at night.”

  “Like friendly dog-bears,” Nancy teased, reaching into George’s grocery sack and pulling out a bag of chips.

  “That too!” Bess laughed at herself as she took some of the chips and passed the bag to Ned.

  Nancy started driving toward the lake. Fifteen minutes later they were well out of town, and George pointed out a shortcut. “Up there,” she said, leaning over the backseat. “Make a left, then a quick right. The road’s rough, but you get some nice views of the lake. It takes you back to the cottage, and you save about ten minutes.”

  “This isn’t the way we came last night,” Nancy said, carefully turning onto the dirt road.

  “Too hard to find in the dark, until you know your way. The locals are the only ones who use it. I discovered it hiking last—”

  George’s words were cut off by Nancy’s scream and the squeal of brakes. A pickup truck came hurtling toward her out of a small side road. It was headed straight for Nancy’s Mustang.

  4

  Burgled

  Nancy pumped the brakes and gripped the steering wheel. She turned sharply to the right and left, zigzagging to avoid being broadsided by the oncoming truck. She managed to swerve clear, and stop her car on the shoulder of the road.

  After doing a complete 360, the pickup truck stalled out inches away from Nancy’s Mustang.

  Nancy sat numb and stunned. Ned grabbed her hand. “Whew! That was some impressive driving. You okay?”

  Nancy felt her heartbeat returning to normal. “I think so,” she said, then turned to George and Bess. “How about you guys?”

  Bess nodded. Before George could answer, a young man jumped out of the pickup’s cab and yelled, “Where did you learn to drive? Can’t you read signs?” he added, waving angrily at a sign warning, BLIND SIDE ROAD, TRUCK ENTRANCE.

  “Jim?” Bess gasped.

  At the sound of his name he looked past Nancy toward the backseat of the convertible.

  “If you don’t know these roads, you should stay off them!” he shouted.

  Ned unsnapped his seat belt and jumped out of the car. He marched up to Jim. “Man, you’ve got some nerve,” Ned said. “You didn’t even stop and look before you pulled out.”

  “So now it’s my fault?”

  Nancy quickly ran between Jim and Ned. She didn’t know a thing about Jim, but she wasn’t sure Ned realized he had a knife in his belt. Ned was beyond angry, and Jim looked fit to kill. “Bottom line is,” she said, her clear blue eyes fixed on Jim, “we’re all okay. It could have been a bad accident, but nothing happened. So let it go.”

  Jim shifted his gaze from Nancy to Ned. He shot one last angry glance at Ned, then heaved a deep sigh. Nancy could almost feel him struggling with his temper. “You’ve got a point,” he finally conceded, though his face was still stony. He turned on his heel and jumped back into the cab of his truck.

  As he drove slowly past them, Nancy glimpsed a tarp covering whatever was stowed in the bed of the black pickup. She didn’t get much of a look. As soon as he passed Nancy’s car, Jim floored the accelerator and raced down the road, trailing a cloud of dust.

  Nancy shook her head. “What is that guy’s problem?”

  “According to what Bess read in the paper, he’s got a beef with the whole northern part of the lakeside community,” George said. “He’s trying to get a coalition of Native American activists to sue the Community Association over setting aside an area of sacred ground.”

  “Gives him no right to try to run down people who live on this side of the lake!” Ned shot a dark look back down the road as he climbed back into the car.

  “He didn’t do it on purpose,” Nancy and Bess chimed almost in unison. “Besides,” Nancy admitted as she gingerly steered back onto the dirt road, “he’s right about one thing. I didn’t see that sign. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “He should have stopped, Nan,” Ned reminded.

  “That too,” she agreed. Then she punched the PLAY button on the car’s CD player, and Latin dance music blared from the speakers.

  A few minutes later they joined the smaller road that ran around the lake shore, and Nancy made a left turn down the long driveway.

  “There’s Emily!” Bess shouted over the music.

  The tall girl was hurrying down the back porch steps of the cottage. She jogged down the driveway toward them, shouting something, but the music was so loud that Nancy couldn’t make out a word. Nancy braked and turned off the car, and the music stopped.

  “Did you see him?” Emily gasped, running right up to the convertible and pulling open Nancy’s door.

  “Who?” Nancy asked. Emily looked pale and scared out of her wits.

  “A guy—I think. It was hard to tell. I was heading for the old boathouse when I heard a car pull up. I thought you guys were back, but when I looked, George’s van was parked where it is now, and some kind of vehicle was tearing up the drive like it was racing off to a fire.”

  “A truck?” Ned asked with a frown.

  Emily shook her head. “Can’t say. Maybe. Maybe an SUV. It was a dark color.”

  “Jim’s truck is black,” George murmured.

  Emily gripped Nancy’s arm, but looked right at George and Bess. “Well, I think you’ve been burgled.”

  • • •

  After a moment of stunned silence, George leaped out of the back of the car. “The cottage has been robbed?”

  “George, wait up,” Nancy said, running after her. “Don’t just rush in there; someone might still be hanging around.”

  “No one’s there,” Emily called out. “I just checked. But the door was open, and then there was that vehicle.”

  “Maybe we should call the cops,” Bess suggested. She and Ned joined Nancy on the porch.

  Nancy stopped George at the door. “Don’t touch anything. If we call the police, they might dust for prints.”

  Emily let out a low moan. “I already touched the doorknob and checked around inside! I probably disturbed things—but I was only here a minute before you guys pulled up.”

>   “Don’t worry. You were just trying to help,” Nancy assured her. She walked through the screen door. “When we left for town, did you lock the door?” Nancy asked Bess.

  Bess shook her head. “No. We never do. No one breaks into houses around here, at least not during the summer. That’s what Jason told us when he gave us the keys. They only lock up if they’re going to be gone overnight, and when the season’s over.”

  “Yeah,” George added, “and the lock’s not a very strong one. The way he put it, if someone wants to break in, no little lock is going to keep them out. But no one’s ever broken into this cottage.”

  “As far as I know, not into my house either,” Emily added.

  “The place looks pretty okay, doesn’t it?” Ned remarked as Nancy flipped on the kitchen light.

  “No more messed up than when we left,” Nancy noted, taking in the room at a glance. The breakfast dishes were still in the sink, and some plates and glasses were on the table.

  “Did you check upstairs?” George asked Emily.

  “I didn’t have a chance.”

  “Bess and I will look around up there,” George said, running up the wooden staircase.

  A loud car horn blared outside from the direction of Emily’s house. “Oh! I have to run—I have these guys coming in from town to renovate the old boathouse. Okay if I leave?” She hesitated at the door.

  “Sure, there’s nothing you can do. And thanks for checking the cottage for us,” Nancy said.

  Emily went out the door. Through the kitchen window, Nancy watched Emily cross the grass toward the white truck parked in the driveway. It was splattered with mud, and the sign on its side read, NORTH SHORE HAULING, EXCAVATING, AND LANDSCAPING. As Emily approached, two guys jumped out.

  Nancy turned her attention back to the countertop. Everything seemed to be in its place: the boom box, the blender, the toaster oven, and the small microwave—the kind of items petty thieves usually love.

  “Hey, Nancy, in here!” Ned shouted from the pantry.

  Nancy turned from the window and hurried over. “What did you find—” she started to ask, then she noticed the crowbar lying beside a partially pried-up floorboard. “Now, that’s weird,” she said, crouching down beside Ned. Nancy glanced up at the pantry shelves. The rows of glass Mason jars and canned goods seemed in order. Even the dust on the edges of the shelves seemed undisturbed.

  George clattered down the steps and came in through the kitchen. “I heard Ned call you,” she said. “Nothing seems to be missing upstairs. Did Ned find something?” she asked, then noticed the floorboard. She let out a low whistle.

  “Our burglar was probably in the middle of trying to find something beneath the floorboards here when something made him leave. Maybe he heard Emily outside.” Nancy tried to remember what Emily said she had been doing when she heard someone pulling out of the driveway.

  “Should we call the cops?” Ned asked, getting up.

  “I don’t know.” Nancy debated with herself a moment. “Nothing’s been taken—as far as we can see,” Nancy said. She turned to Bess and George. “It is weird, though, that he suddenly ran.”

  “Probably heard our car before we turned down the road,” Bess said.

  “No way. Just now a truck pulled up at Emily’s, and I didn’t hear it,” Nancy pointed out.

  Bess giggled. “True, but that truck wasn’t a convertible with the top down and with a CD blaring salsa, Nan. You could have heard us halfway back to Lost Valley.”

  Nancy laughed. “You’ve got a point.” She looked at the crowbar and the floorboard. “So we’re not calling the cops, at least not yet, so I won’t worry about fingerprints. I really want to see if something is beneath this board, though.” She shot a questioning look toward George. “Okay if I finish what the mystery man started?”

  “Be my guest,” George said and shrugged. “I think next summer Jen and Jay are going to redo the whole kitchen and pantry. Besides, we can nail it back down.”

  Nancy worked the crowbar carefully around the old plank. It came off fairly easily. She pulled out the small penlight she kept on her key chain, and aimed the narrow beam at the crevice. All she saw was the usual old house debris: a thick layer of dirt, bits of paper that had slipped between cracks in the floor over the years, dustballs, ancient peanut shells left by a mouse, and the remains of a mouse nest. She felt vaguely disappointed. “At least we know the burglar wouldn’t have found much of value here,” Nancy said.

  “I’ll go get a hammer and some nails, so we can put this back,” George volunteered.

  “Great,” Nancy said, starting to get up. Suddenly, she noticed something glinting in a patch of sunlight that was streaming through the open pantry door. She knelt down and let out a low laugh. “Now this is interesting.”

  Ned dropped down beside her and looked at the floor. “New nails on several boards. Which means—”

  Nancy finished Ned’s sentence, “Today’s not the first time someone’s been here looking for something.”

  “I don’t believe it. You mean the whole time we’ve been here someone’s been systematically burgling our house!” Bess cried in dismay.

  “Maybe, or maybe earlier. You guys have only been here most of August. Could have happened last winter, or in the spring when Jen and Jason are only around on weekends.”

  Nancy’s words calmed Bess down some. She added, “Look, Bess, whoever was skulking around today probably won’t be back for a long time. They almost got caught in the act.” Nancy stood up and stretched. “I’m going to see if Emily’s finished talking to those workmen. I want to see where she was when she heard the vehicle pull out of this driveway. I can’t believe we didn’t run into anyone on our way in.”

  “Except Jim,” Ned reminded her.

  Nancy frowned. “Right. Jim.” She thought about Jim a moment and made a mental note to find out if that road he pulled out of circled back in this direction. Still, it was hard to believe he rushed out of the house in time to have almost run into them. With a shake of her head she said, “We drove another five minutes or so before we got here. Emily seemed to think we should have seen someone pulling out of the drive.”

  “She didn’t exactly say that,” Ned pointed out. “She wondered if we saw someone on the way in. That could have meant on our way in from the main road.”

  “True,” Nancy conceded. “I’ll go ask her now. But in the meantime, maybe you guys should check things out a little more thoroughly. The burglar seemed interested in something beneath the floorboard, but he could have made off with some jewelry or something small we wouldn’t notice right away.”

  “Maybe it was a homeless person who wandered in,” Bess suggested. “Maybe someone hungry.”

  George opened the refrigerator and peered inside. “But none of the food seems to have been touched,” she said.

  “No, and I don’t think whoever was here came to steal something easy to grab,” Nancy said. “Whoever it was expected to find something tucked away in this house.”

  Outside, shielding her eyes from the sun, Nancy looked over at Emily’s driveway. The truck was still parked, but Emily and the two men were nowhere in sight. Nancy made her way down the hill toward the boathouse. Its stone and wood exterior matched both the main house and the Fayne’s cottage. As she walked past the garden shed, she heard Emily’s voice:

  “Time’s running out, guys. . . . ”

  Nancy looked around the corner of the shed.

  Emily was standing there talking urgently to the two workmen. As Nancy approached, both men looked up, startled. “Just a sec,” Emily said, handing the bigger man some cash.

  “I can come back later,” Nancy said, turning to leave.

  “No—Kevin and Dale here were just leaving.”

  “You bet!” the bigger man said, pocketing the cash. He mumbled something to Emily, then motioned for the other man to get in the truck.

  “See you tomorrow,” he called out the passenger window. He backed the truck in
to the turnaround, and drove up the long gravel drive.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Nancy said, looking around the lawn. The boathouse and shed were definitely in need of repair: broken shingles on the roof, cracked windowpanes, and a door half off its hinges—bravely secured with a shiny new padlock.

  “No bother at all.” Emily smiled as she watched Nancy take a look around. “I know. This place really is a mess,” she said with a sigh. “More than I bargained for when I took it on!”

  “Bess said you bought it only a few months ago.”

  Emily nodded. “I had my heart set on the place.” A determined expression came across her face. “And I’m going to make it work, even if I go broke doing it!”

  Nancy put her hand on Emily’s arm. “My dad always says that if you believe enough in your dreams, they do come true—with a little work.”

  “More like a lot of work and even more money!” Emily joked.

  “I wonder, did those guys see anyone on their way here?” Nancy asked.

  Emily shook her head. “I asked. They said there was a truck on one of the back roads a little earlier driving fast, but they didn’t say when exactly. They do lots of hauling and landscaping jobs on this end of the lake.”

  “Right. I have another question. It’s about the cottage. It used to be part of your property, right?”

  “My property?” Emily pursed her lips. “Never. I mean it was parceled off and sold ages ago, like in the nineteen-forties or fifties. It hasn’t been part of the big house acreage for years. I wish it were, though,” she said. “Of course, that would have made this place even less affordable!”

  A wistful note in her voice piqued Nancy’s curiosity, but before she could ask her more, she heard the crunch of gravel on the driveway. She turned to see a candy-apple red Volkswagen Beetle stopping in the turnaround. At the sight of the car, Emily’s face paled. As the door opened, she gasped. “How in the world did you find me here?”

  5

  The Uninvited Guest

  The driver climbed out of the car and spoke in a hurt voice. “Like, maybe you could look a little bit happier to see me!” He held his thumb and index finger about an inch apart. He wore a bright yellow oversized T-shirt with a pair of long, baggy khaki shorts. He was very handsome.