Over the Edge Read online

  “You’re wrong about photos.” Bess spoke up from where she knelt by the fireplace, poking through the ashes. “Crazy. But he seems to prefer burning them.”

  “What do you mean?” Nancy hurried over to Bess’s side. Kneeling, she reached in and pulled out a partially burned photo.

  The half that was left showed a kind-looking man, his arm out, holding hands with someone. The seven-year-old Marva, Nancy guessed, but she couldn’t be sure because all that was left of the little girl was a small, slender arm and the tiniest glimpse of a kid’s sneaker. In the background some hikers were sitting and resting, their faces mainly out-of-focus blurs.

  Nancy handed it to Bess and George. “I’ll bet you anything this is the photo that was taken from Marva’s office tonight,” she said. “But why would Uncle Al want to destroy this old picture?” she asked, almost to herself. It just didn’t make any sense.

  “Isn’t that the trail to the top of Devil’s Rock?” George asked, tapping the photo with her finger.

  “Probably. Marva did say that’s where it was taken,” Nancy answered, looking at the photo again.

  “Hmmm—maybe Uncle Al’s got a thing about that place,” Bess joked. “You know, Devil’s Rock. Evil stuff. All that.”

  “Bess, this isn’t the time to be—”

  “I don’t think it’s smart for us to hang around here much longer,” Nancy interrupted. “This photo’s only half burned. Maybe Al was in the middle of destroying it. Which means he might be on his way back right—”

  A heavy tread made the front porch creak. All three girls turned toward the sound and held their breath. Three more steps in quick succession proved for certain that Al Hunt had returned.

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  NANCY POINTED. George was the first to follow her direction and move toward the bedroom and the low window to safety outside. Bess, her eyes round and staring, was rooted to her spot, but she finally budged when she heard the jingle of keys.

  Nancy was right behind Bess on her dash to the bedroom. At the last second she veered off and darted into the open kitchen directly opposite the front door.

  She dove for cover behind the counter just as she saw Al Hunt standing framed in the doorway. Since he didn’t make a move toward her, Nancy could only guess he hadn’t seen her.

  It was foolish to stay, but she had to have a solid piece of evidence. Still hunkering low, Nancy saw what she needed—a glass on top of the counter beside the sink.

  Before she could grab it, Nancy saw Al’s feet moving toward her. Nancy was ready for him. He might have the advantage of size, but she had the advantage of surprise.

  Nancy held her breath, waiting for the right moment. Several seconds passed. Nancy kept her eyes on Al’s feet from around a corner of the counter. Then, for some reason, Al stopped short of the counter and turned toward the fireplace.

  Peering out from behind the counter, Nancy watched as he picked up the poker and disturbed the ashes. Checking to make sure the picture was all burned, Nancy thought. Satisfied that it was destroyed, Al headed for the bedroom.

  When she saw he had closed the bedroom door, Nancy darted back across the kitchen floor and snaked her hand up to retrieve the solitary glass.

  Still keeping an eye on the bedroom door, Nancy walked softly across the living room, casting one last look at the fireplace. There was a lot about Al Hunt she didn’t know, Nancy thought as she silently let herself out the front door.

  Once outside, she stared at the glass in her hand. With any luck there’ll be some good prints on this, she thought as she looked around for Bess and George.

  “There you are,” she heard Bess whispering from the darkness. “Over here.”

  Nancy’s eyes adjusted to the night and she turned to where she’d heard Bess’s voice. Then, out of nowhere, George appeared at her side.

  Nancy grabbed on to George and dragged her over to where she’d heard Bess’s voice coming from. The three of them quickly stole away from Al’s cabin.

  “Excuse me for asking,” George said to Nancy when they were a safe distance away and heading toward their own cabin, “but we’re out in the boonies, here, remember. Just where are you planning to have those fingerprints checked?”

  “Tomorrow morning we’ll take them into Portland,” she said.

  “We?” Bess asked. “Listen, Nancy, after tonight’s little escapade, I’m not sure I like this case.” Bess had been chattering the whole way back from Hunt’s cabin about what could have happened if they’d been caught.

  “Calm down, Bess,” George said. “Nancy needs our help, and she’s going to get it. Besides, what can happen in Portland, far away from Club High Adventure?”

  Bess rolled her eyes, then sighed. “I guess you’re right.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Nancy said, laughing.

  They had reached their cabin. “I think we should all get a good night’s sleep,” Nancy said, yawning. “We need to be as alert as possible for what we have to do tomorrow. See you in the morning.”

  • • •

  “All right, now give.” Bess wadded up the wrapper from her sausage-and-biscuit breakfast sandwich and stuffed it into the jeep’s litter bag as they roared down the highway toward Portland. “I’m ready to listen.”

  “Me, too,” George said, gulping the last of her orange juice.

  “I didn’t realize what the case was really about until we found that photo in Uncle Al’s cabin.”

  “But why do George and I have to go to Portland with you?” Bess had dug into her tote and was now putting on fresh lip gloss. “It doesn’t take three of us to take a set of prints to the police.”

  “I’m going to drop you two at the library. I’d like you to read old newspaper stories from the time that Marva’s mystery photo was taken. Since Marva was about seven, that would make it eighteen years ago.”

  “What are we looking for?” George asked.

  “A link. Anything that might have happened at the club eighteen years ago to make Al Hunt destroy a picture,” Nancy explained.

  “I don’t get it,” Bess complained. “What link could there possibly be?”

  “I think it can involve only one person. Only one person has been connected with the club for the past eighteen years.”

  “Marva!” Bess gasped. “But what’s the link? You can’t believe she’s behind these attempts on people’s lives.”

  “No, I honestly don’t think that, Bess.” Frustrated, Nancy drummed her fingers against the steering wheel. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “What about Larry Quinn?” George asked. “Do you think he might know who tried to kill him?”

  “I don’t think so,” Nancy said. “I’m pretty sure he did consider his threat as only a childish hoax.”

  “Someone did try to kill him,” George pointed out.

  “But it wasn’t necessarily Quinn that the killer was trying for. He should never have been on that trail in the first place. Uncle Al told me that trail is only for staff members and guests if they’re with a staff member. Marva was right behind Quinn when he had his accident—”

  “Which could mean that the accident might have really been meant for a staff member. It might have been set for Marva,” George concluded, thinking out loud.

  Bess spoke up excitedly. “Also, Marva likes to hang glide. So Lisa’s accident could have been meant for Marva, too.”

  “And then again . . .” Nancy shrugged. “It could all be a smokescreen. I don’t know. There are still too many unanswered questions.”

  • • •

  Once they arrived in Portland, Nancy dropped Bess and George at the public library, then drove to the police station. She had called that morning and spoken to Detective Claudia O’Keefe, describing what she needed and giving her father as a reference.

  Inside the one-story building, Nancy told the desk sergeant who she was and almost instantly an attractive, auburn-haired woman in her early thirties came out to greet her.
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  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” O’Keefe said, shaking Nancy’s hand. “Chief McGinnis back in River Heights said you’re quite a detective.”

  Nancy smiled. “Well, I’ve solved a few cases.” She handed O’Keefe the glass she had found in Hunt’s cabin. “Here’s the evidence I told you about.”

  “Let’s hope we can get to the bottom of what’s happening up at Club High Adventure,” O’Keefe said, taking the glass. “I just wish Ms. Phillips had asked for our help earlier. But better late than never. Come back later and I’ll let you know what, if anything, I’ve been able to come up with.”

  Nancy thanked O’Keefe and left the station to help Bess and George in their search at the library.

  • • •

  “I’ve had it,” Bess complained wearily, an hour after Nancy had met them at the microfilm readers. “I’ve skimmed so many articles my eyes are crossed.”

  “I’m ready to call it quits, too,” George said, looking up. “I haven’t run across a single . . . Wait a minute,” she cried loud enough to annoy three people at a nearby table. “Nan, I think I’ve found something.”

  George pointed at the screen on which a portion of a newspaper page was projected. “Take a look at that.”

  Nancy’s eyes scanned the article. Then she read the fine print under a headline. “Eighteen years ago this month,” she said, thinking out loud.

  “What is it, Nancy?” Bess asked, leaning over Nancy’s shoulder.

  “Something that can’t be just a coincidence, Bess,” Nancy said, and she read the caption out loud:

  “ ‘Gruesome Murder at Club High Adventure, on Top of Deadly Devil’s Rock.’ ”

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  BESS BENT OVER her friend’s shoulder to get a better look at the microfilm screen.

  George slid out of the chair, letting Nancy take her place. “Here, sit down, you can see better.”

  After skimming the first few lines again, Nancy began excitedly to read the story aloud.

  Seattle computer entrepreneur E. Raymond Jensen was killed in a 190-foot fall yesterday morning during an ascent of Devil’s Rock, a popular climber’s landmark eighteen miles south of Newport. Jensen’s business partner, Alden Hunsfield, has been arrested on suspicion of murder. The 43-year-old entrepreneur may have been pushed to his death.

  Lincoln County Sheriff’s deputies have Hunsfield, of Britebyte Corporation, in custody. The two men had been vacationing at Club High Adventure, a luxury resort catering to lovers of risky sports.

  An eyewitness to the fall was the club owner’s seven-year-old daughter, whose name is currently being withheld.

  “If the little girl hadn’t seen the whole thing, we would have written this off as just another climbing accident,” Sheriff Mike Parker said.

  Jensen and Hunsfield were scaling the final cliff face before the summit when the young witness says she saw Hunsfield loosen a piton holding his partner’s safety line. Hunsfield, according to the girl, then attacked Jensen, causing the victim to plummet to a ledge nearly 200 feet below.

  Hunsfield has denied the charges, claiming that the piton was coming loose under the strain of Jensen’s weight and that he was trying to save the man when he fell.

  “Marva Phillips!” George and Bess chorused in unison. “The little girl was Marva.”

  “It says here that the murderer’s name was Alden Hunsfield,” Nancy added. “Does that sound familiar? Alden Hunsfield and Al Hunt sound too much alike to be a coincidence.”

  Quickly Nancy wound the microfilm forward. “There’s got to be more on this. Something about the trial. What happened—” The spool of film had ended.

  “Here—this is the next one in order,” George said, yanking a spool from the pile beside the machine.

  Nancy inserted the new spool, and the three friends leaned forward. “Here’s something,” Nancy exclaimed. “This article mentions the results of the trial. Hunsfield was convicted of murder, but the charge was reduced to second-degree. Which means he could be paroled by now.”

  “But if Uncle Al’s really this Alden Hunsfield, what’s he doing back at the camp?” Bess wanted to know. “That’s really stupid.”

  “Haven’t you heard?” George answered her. “The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.”

  “Only if he’s got unfinished business,” Nancy said in a grim voice. “If Hunsfield is Hunt, he’s at the club for only one reason. To get revenge against the one witness who sent him to jail. And that explains why he burned the photo—he and his partner must have been in it.” She leapt up. “There’s one way to know if the two men are one and the same.”

  “The fingerprints,” George cried out.

  “Right!” Nancy grabbed her purse. “Come on. Back to the police station.”

  Nancy left Bess and George in the car as she hurried inside to see Detective O’Keefe.

  “Hope this information helps. It came in over the FAX line from Washington, D.C., just a few minutes ago,” O’Keefe said, handing Nancy the report.

  Nancy glanced over the sheet of paper and nodded grimly. “I think you’d better get some officers up to Club High Adventure—fast. This man is a murderer, and I think he’s about to become one again.” She filled O’Keefe in on the details.

  The detective agreed with Nancy’s theory and told Nancy she’d have several cars on their way immediately.

  “The prints matched,” Nancy said to Bess and George as she climbed into the driver’s seat of the jeep a few minutes later. “There’s no doubt. Uncle Al is Hunsfield.”

  “Nancy,” George said. “I just remembered. Al’s taking a class of advanced climbers up Devil’s Rock this afternoon, and I heard Marva say she was going to join them.”

  “When is the class?” Nancy asked, shooting a glance at her watch. “It’s one-forty now.”

  “Oh no!” George exclaimed. “The class is supposed to leave the clubhouse at three. That’s only an hour and twenty minutes from now.”

  “But it’s an hour-and-a-half drive back to the club,” Bess said, her eyes wide in despair. “We’ll never make it back in time.”

  Nancy reached for the ignition key and switched it on.

  “We have to,” she said, quickly throwing the jeep into gear. “It’s the only way we’re going to stop a second murder from taking place on Devil’s Rock!”

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  EVERYTHING’S CLEAR NOW. Marva’s been Al’s intended victim all along,” Nancy said, pulling away from the police station.

  “Do you think we can make it?” George asked, worried. “Most of the trip is along that mountain-coast road. And we can go only so fast.”

  “Don’t forget those awful rocky cliffs,” Bess moaned. “Isn’t there a different road we can take? Something quicker? Something safer? Like this nice, wide freeway?” She made a grab for the metal roll bar as Nancy whipped the jeep up the on-ramp and into the afternoon traffic.

  “I wish we could,” Nancy called over to Bess, the wind stirring her hair around her face as she maneuvered the jeep into the fast lane. “But there’s only one way to get back—the coast road.”

  “Do me a favor, Nancy,” Bess shouted over the rush of wind. “Make your next case one back in good old River Heights. It’s safer there.”

  Forty minutes later Nancy left the westbound freeway to take the winding mountain road over which they’d driven hours earlier.

  The road dipped and climbed, swung back and forth in sharp curves as it followed the natural line of the terrain. Fortunately the jeep was the perfect vehicle for rough driving, and Nancy handled it expertly. The road was nearly deserted. Encountering an occasional slow-moving log truck, its long trailer loaded with huge redwood trunks, Nancy would bear down on the horn until the driver pulled over enough to let them slip by.

  “We’ve got to be near the coast road by now,” George said with an anxious glance at her watch. “We don’t have much time to get there. We’re r
eally cutting it close.”

  “I think I can smell the ocean,” Bess said in a hopeful voice. “I remember that huge grove of pine trees up there on that ridge.” She pointed to a sharply rising hill just in front of them. “Look, Nan. Is that smoke? Do you think it’s a forest fire?”

  Nancy looked away from the road long enough to see what Bess was talking about. “Oh no. I don’t believe it.”

  “What?” George leaned forward from the backseat. “What are you talking about?”

  “Fog.” Nancy pointed to the thick white mist sliding between the trees and slipping down the side of the fern-covered hill. “Let’s hope it’s just a patch that we can get through in a hurry.”

  By the time they’d topped the ridge, then made their way down the other side in first gear, the fog was so thick that their headlights couldn’t penetrate more than a few feet in front of them.

  “All I can do is follow the line in the center of the road and just keep creeping along until the fog clears.” Nancy clenched the wheel, her voice heavy with frustration.

  All three sat on the edge of their seats, as if peering hard into the blinding white mist would help get them through it faster.

  Nancy was not able to drive the jeep faster than ten, sometimes fifteen, miles an hour. Other cars came at them on the other side of the road, crawling along equally slowly, their headlights blurred halos.

  “Maybe they’ll cancel the climbing class,” Bess said hopefully. “I mean they wouldn’t go rock climbing in this stuff, would they?”

  “Devil’s Rock is a lot higher than this ground fog.” She paused. “Wait a second, I think it’s lifting now.”

  “You’re right,” George said, brightening. “And, look, there’s a car without any headlights on. We must be nearly out—” She abruptly stopped talking as the jeep slid suddenly out of the fog. Ahead of them the road lay clear, the sun bright overhead.

  “All right!” the three chorused at once.

  “Let’s move it!” Nancy called as she clamped her foot down hard on the gas pedal.