The Clue in the Camera Page 8

  “I can’t believe you let her get away,” she heard the crane operator say disgustedly.

  Nancy ran out into the mass of slow-moving cars, dodging between the vehicles. The fog was heavy but definitely to her advantage. She could hear the two men behind her but knew they were having trouble seeing her. However, dodging both the traffic and the thugs was no simple matter.

  Nancy decided to run straight through the onslaught of vehicles. “Hey, whatcha doin’?” a man yelled at her. He honked his horn.

  Nancy listened and suddenly became aware that her two followers had split up and were coming at her from opposite directions. Once again, she had to make a quick decision. By jumping at the last possible moment between two cars, she managed to escape. But the second car barely missed hitting her.

  “Watch out!” the driver yelled.

  A horn blared, and a van rear-ended the car that had almost hit Nancy. The owners of both vehicles jumped out and began to argue.

  “I couldn’t help it,” Nancy heard one driver say. “There was a girl in my way.”

  “Sure there was, Mister. There was a unicorn, too.”

  The voices faded as Nancy darted along the side of the roadway. She used the moment of confusion to her advantage. A pickup truck going in the direction away from the accident slowed down to take a look at the situation. Nancy quickly jumped over the barrier dividing the lanes of traffic, hoisted herself up, and climbed into the back. Then she flattened herself against the bed of the truck. And just in time. She heard heavy footsteps run and was sure they belonged to one of her pursuers. Nancy held her breath and willed herself to become invisible.

  The footsteps stopped right behind the truck.

  “I think we’ve lost her,” Nancy heard a voice say.

  “How could we have lost her? Someone’s going to pay for this one, Joe. And I think it’s us. Come on. Let’s keep looking. She’s got to be around here somewhere.”

  “Yeah. Hey, maybe she got into one of these cars.”

  Nancy felt the fear return. Her heart began to pound, and perspiration ran down her back despite the fact that it was quite cold outside.

  Just then, she felt the comforting lurch of the truck starting. It wasn’t until the vehicle was moving at a steady pace that she felt her heart slow down. That one was too close for comfort, she told herself.

  Nancy crouched in the back of the truck and forced herself to breathe deeply. After several minutes, she dared to peek out the back of the truck and take a look at her surroundings. She recognized the Presidio army base she had passed the day she went in search of Peter Stine.

  Soon she felt a lurching motion and heard the gears of the truck grinding, a certain indication that the truck was now in stop-and-go traffic, which meant traffic lights, which meant she was back in the city.

  When the truck halted once again, Nancy took another peek outside. The truck was nearing the wharf district. Here the traffic thinned. She made up her mind. This was her best bet. As soon as the truck slowed for the next stop light, she would jump out.

  The wait seemed endless. Finally, Nancy felt the vehicle slow and then heard the sound of the driver down-shifting the gears. It was time.

  The driver of the car behind the truck beeped his horn when he saw Nancy jump from the rear of the pickup truck. His lights momentarily blinded Nancy.

  She turned away, waited for her vision to clear, and then tried to determine just where she was. Suddenly, Nancy realized something. Something important. She hoped her discovery would shed some light on the case.

  What she needed now, she decided, was a phone. The search for one took her running down a lonely, narrow street. It was a place of bustle and high activity during the day, but at night it was a no-man’s land.

  Nancy ran for two long blocks before she found a telephone.

  She dialed the hotel. “George, it’s me.”

  “Nancy, are you all right? Hannah and I have been worried sick. I was about to call the police.”

  “I’m fine. I’ll tell you all about it later. I don’t have time right now. Can you and Hannah meet me right away? It’s important.”

  “Of course. Where are you?”

  Nancy explained to George how to find her.

  “We’ll be there as soon as possible,” George assured her.

  “Thanks. We don’t have much time.”

  Nancy was pacing impatiently when, twenty minutes later, George and Hannah arrived in a cab.

  “This is kind of a creepy area, Nancy,” Hannah said nervously. “The cabbie kept saying, ‘Are you sure you want to get out here?’ ”

  “I know, Hannah. But this is important. Listen. I think I understand now what the numbers on the slip of paper stand for. It hit me as I was running along the wharves after I jumped out of the pickup truck.”

  “Pickup truck? What pickup truck?” George asked.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Nancy said. “Anyway, the wharves are numbered. The wharf where Emily and I were almost hit by the crates is thirty-seven!”

  “Let me see that paper,” George said. Nancy pulled the worn scrap from the pocket of her jeans. “Fits,” George agreed. “But what about the other numbers?”

  Hannah suddenly looked at Nancy sternly. “Young lady, you’re missing a shoe! What did you do with your other one? Imagine, running around without a shoe.”

  “I’ll tell you about that later, too, Hannah,” Nancy said hurriedly.

  “What about the other numbers?” George asked again. “Four, eleven, and twelve?”

  “Four-eleven just might stand for today’s date, April eleventh.”

  “Let me guess,” Hannah said. “And the twelve is the time. Right?”

  “I hope so.” Nancy looked at her watch. “And if it is, we have only about an hour to find Emily before something big happens.”

  “Then let’s get going!” George exclaimed.

  “I’m all for that,” Hannah agreed.

  “I think you’d be most helpful, Hannah, if you called Lieutenant Chin to tell him what we’ve learned. Convince him that he should get here as quickly as possible. If I’m right about this, we’re going to be needing all the help we can get.” Nancy swiveled her head. “I saw a—yes, there it is.” She pointed to a lighted sign, “24-Hour Diner,” about a block away. “You can make the call and wait for Lieutenant Chin there, Hannah. Do you want us to walk—”

  “No,” Hannah interrupted. “I can do it—for Emily.” She gave each girl a brief hug and walked briskly away.

  The two girls headed for wharf thirty-seven and began searching.

  They walked around the outsides of the warehouses that fronted the wharf. All were locked up for the night, and security guards were posted in front of several. The girls cautiously avoided being seen by them.

  “No need to let anyone know we’re here,” Nancy whispered to George from the shadows.

  Because time was running out, the girls decided to separate when they reached the last warehouse on the wharf. They would investigate the building from opposite directions.

  “Meet you back here in five minutes,” George said to Nancy. “If one of us doesn’t return on time, the other will go looking for her, okay?”

  Nancy nodded in agreement. Then she set off. She noted that this storage building was similar to the others they had checked. Huge sliding doors on the dock side of the building allowed for easy loading and unloading of goods. She saw no windows and no other doors in the warehouse.

  The girls met at their appointed spot in less than three minutes. “Well?” George asked.

  “Nothing,” Nancy said glumly. “What about you?”

  “The same.”

  “I wish I knew what we were looking for.”

  “Even where to look would be a step in the right direction.”

  Just then, Nancy noticed a figure approaching the warehouse entrance. She nudged George, and the girls pressed themselves into the shadows.

  “Could be just a security guard on
his rounds,” George whispered.

  Nancy shrugged. From the safety of their hiding place, they continued to watch. The figure disappeared in the darkness and then was illuminated for a moment by a streetlight. The figure, a man, turned, glanced around, and was swallowed up by the blackness.

  George and Nancy looked at each other, disbelief on their faces.

  “That was no security guard,” Nancy said, her voice barely above a whisper. “That was Emily’s rival, Peter Stine!”

  14

  Everything in Focus

  Nancy and George remained frozen in the darkness, waiting until they were sure Stine was not going to pass them. Then Nancy said urgently, “Come on, George, let’s see where he went.” They moved out of the shadows. “Look!” Nancy whispered in George’s ear.

  Stine was standing in front of the huge sliding doors on the dock side of the warehouse. They watched him reach forward. A small door set into the sliding doors swung open, and Stine stepped quickly inside.

  I should have realized that door was there, Nancy thought, even if I couldn’t see it in the dark. She wondered about Stine. He’d opened the door as if he were confident it wouldn’t be locked.

  “He’s been here before!” Nancy hissed as she tugged George’s arm. The girls ran to the door but slowed as they neared it. Neither wanted to be heard by Stine.

  The door opened readily with only slight pressure from Nancy. She was glad to find a few lights on in the warehouse, covering any light spilling from the street when she and George slipped through the door.

  Inside, Nancy paused to get her bearings. She looked around the cavernous room filled with shelves and racks. The shelves were crammed with cardboard boxes, all neatly labeled. She moved closer. The labels were printed in an Asian language. The tall racks, arranged in a broad maze of aisles, were painted the same dull gray as the cold walls and distant ceiling.

  Nancy scanned the room for Stine. “I wonder what this warehouse is for,” she whispered to George. What products could possibly be part of the mystery that they were caught up in? Glancing at George, Nancy raised her eyebrows. “Where do you think Stine is?”

  George, just as puzzled, shrugged her shoulders as she answered in a barely audible voice, “Who knows? I just hope we see him before he sees us!”

  Nancy spotted an open box on a nearby shelf and stepped over for a closer look. The box was full of plastic bags, each holding tiny, thin boards with electronic circuitry printed on them. “George, look at this!”

  But George was waving her over to another, larger box, filled with more plastic bags.

  “Microchips!” George’s voice was louder than she’d intended.

  “Shh!” Nancy hissed. “Microchips and electronic circuitry,” she whispered. “This warehouse is full of specialized computer parts!”

  Nancy caught a flash of movement across the room. “There’s Stine!” She pointed.

  Peter Stine was threading his way silently through the room, zig-zagging from one aisle to the next as if it were all very familiar to him.

  “Here goes,” Nancy said.

  Nancy and George followed Stine through the giant room, keeping a safe distance behind him. Stine reached a door marked “Boiler Room,” opened it, and stepped inside, barely slowing his pace.

  Nancy paused again. She heard a slight noise from inside the room, but she opened the door anyway. There was no sign of Stine. And no other door leading out of the room.

  “Where could he have gone?” George whispered. One or two old, rusted tanks sat in the room. But there was no place for Stine to have hidden. “Nowhere!” Nancy said in puzzled frustration.

  The girls cautiously began to explore the small space. A few moments later, Nancy pointed to a dim outline in the dust on the floor. Then she pointed to a recessed handle. It was a trapdoor.

  Signaling George to move to one side, Nancy tested the handle. One gentle tug, and it moved easily. She raised the door.

  A flight of stairs led down and into a dim passageway.

  “I don’t know, Nancy.” George peered at the harshly lit passageway.

  “It must be a secret tunnel,” Nancy said in a low voice.

  Stine was nowhere to be seen. Nancy listened for a moment for any noises in the tunnel. “I think we’d better follow Stine. If we don’t, we might miss a chance to find Emily.”

  “You’re right. I don’t like the looks of that tunnel, though,”. George answered.

  Nancy nodded in agreement, still listening intently. Hearing nothing from below, she swung her legs over the edge and lowered herself onto the steps. “Glad we’re wearing jeans?” She grinned up at George.

  The girls crept down the stairway. When they reached the bottom, they met a new challenge. They were faced with not just one underground tunnel but several. “Oh, great,” Nancy sighed. There seemed to be no particular pattern to the way in which the dimly lit tunnels angled away from the corridor by the stairwell.

  “This is like a maze, Nancy.” George shook her head in dismay.

  Nancy finally chose what looked like the main corridor, and she and George walked slowly along it, looking around at every step for Stine. But all was quiet, and they saw nothing.

  “How could he have disappeared so fast? . . . Wait!” Nancy pointed toward another corridor. She could see light streaming through an open doorway at its end. “Let’s try this way first.”

  The girls crept silently toward the doorway. They distinctly heard the sound of voices coming from the room beyond.

  The room appeared to be large, although most of it was out of Nancy’s line of sight. Gradually, she inched closer. Suddenly, a man paced by the doorway. Nancy recognized the balding head fringed with reddish hair. It was Arnie Blane, the thief who’d stolen Emily Foxworth’s camera.

  Blane’s attention was focused on what he was saying so, fortunately, he didn’t look out into the hallway. Instead, he turned to argue with someone in the room.

  “Harold, you’re nuts. Don’t you understand? It’s all off. The guy stiffed you, or he will soon. You’ve got to leave now!”

  Blane paced back to the center of the room, while the voice of another man, deep and resonant, answered.

  “What do you want me to do, Blane? Cut and run like a nervous kid? No. People know me.”

  Nancy inched still closer, huddling into a bend in the tunnel wall, trying to get a look at the second man. What she saw made her blood freeze. The man was Harold Kesack, the one Emily thought was dead! His hair and beard were trimmed differently, but the Buddha on the chain around his neck was unmistakable.

  Nancy discovered two small alcoves near the door that would let her move even closer to the room and still remain in the shadows. She crept into one, and George entered the other to scan the room from that angle.

  Nancy hoped they would spot Emily in the room. But neither girl could see anyone, except Blane and Kesack, who Nancy assumed was Blane’s boss. Kesack slumped wearily into a large armchair near the middle of the room. Blane continued to pace the floor anxiously.

  George stepped back into the alcove to avoid being seen by Blane, and her foot kicked a small rock. The rasping sound was loud in the silent tunnel. She froze, but neither man seemed to have heard the noise.

  “I’m telling you, Harold. You’re not safe. Not here. We gotta get moving,” Blane continued. “Anyway, I have to get something from storage.” He left through a door at the back of the room.

  Nancy waved to George, indicating that they should go back down the passageway. When they’d crept as far as the main corridor, Nancy stopped. “The police must be with Hannah by now,” she whispered to George. “Let’s go tell them we found Kesack.”

  But the girls hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps toward the stairwell when loud footsteps echoed behind them, and Blane’s voice stopped them.

  Apparently, he had snaked through some connecting passages in order to cut off the intruders. “So it’s you, is it?” He strode toward the girls and made sure tha
t they saw the small revolver in his hand.

  “Looking for your trouble-making pal Foxworth?” he snarled.

  “Yes,” Nancy answered.

  “You won’t find her here.” Blane jerked his thumb toward the room where Kesack waited. The girls reluctantly returned through the passageway.

  When they entered the room, Kesack stood up nervously. “Who are these two?” he demanded.

  “Friends of Emily Foxworth,” Blane spat back.

  “What are you doing here? How did you get here? Who told you I was here?”

  The man’s rapid-fire questions told Nancy that he was angry—but, more than that, scared.

  “Where’s Emily?” she asked.

  “I don’t have her,” Kesack snapped. But then he slumped wearily into the armchair again. While the girls stood under the watchful eyes of Blane, Kesack began to talk about Emily.

  “She’s good, you know. Fast with that camera of hers. Too fast sometimes. But honest. Her pictures were always true, not glamor stuff or exaggerated.”

  “She had some good shots of you,” Nancy prompted him. To her relief, Kesack kept on talking.

  “Toughest thing about planning my fake death five years ago was knowing that Foxworth might show up with her camera. She was smart. I thought the plane crash was the only thing that would work.” He paused.

  Nancy gave a slight nod, not wanting to stop the flood of words that might give her a clue to where Emily was.

  “I’m sick of hiding, though,” he went on. “You can’t live when you have to stay hidden.” Kesack seemed genuinely unhappy.

  “What are you going to do, then?” Nancy asked.

  “I’m going to strike a deal with the feds. I figure the government’ll be fair with me if I talk, tell ’em what I know about all this.” He waved his hands expansively, as if Nancy and George knew what the tunnels and warehouse were part of and would understand what he meant.

  “So, what does Emily have to do with . . . all this?” Nancy waved her hands as Kesack had done.

  “The mob. The mob. You know, I think they suspected I wasn’t dead. And then that woman shows up with her camera and starts taking pictures and gets some of me before I know it.”