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  “What’s going on?” I asked Bess and George.

  “It’ll be easier to show you than to explain. Let’s go to the room.”

  We headed upstairs in silence. I couldn’t help worrying about Frank and Joe, even though I knew they could take care of themselves. Still, I felt like I had let them down.

  When we got to the room, Bess went straight for the listening device we’d found in the couch. She tore it out of the fabric and tossed it out the window.

  “There, now we can really talk,” she said. She sat down on the couch, obviously waiting for something. I joined her.

  George went to her room and brought out a small black bag I hadn’t seen before. It looked heavy. Where had it come from? What was going on? I waited.

  “Remember when I went out to the swamp with Matthias?” George asked.

  I nodded.

  “Well, he gave me more than just a tour. He gave me a necklace. I didn’t think much about it at the time. I thought it was a silly piece of costume jewelry. I should have said something sooner, but I didn’t want you guys to make too much of it.”

  George looked embarrassed. She handed the bag to Bess.

  “Oh, George,” I said. “We wouldn’t make fun of you! It’s great that Matthias likes you.”

  Even if he is a creep, I thought.

  “No, Nancy. That’s not it,” she said.

  Bess opened the bag and poured the contents out into her hands. The necklace was made of three thick strands of golden metal braided together, with cut red glass studded all around. It glittered in the light. For a piece of plastic, it looked beautiful. But I still didn’t understand why they needed to talk to me right now.

  Bess looked at me expectantly. I shrugged. What did she want me to say?

  “Don’t you recognize it?” she asked.

  I shook my head no.

  “Argh! The two of you. George didn’t either. This is Jasmina’s necklace—it’s worth millions!”

  Speechless, I took the necklace from Bess’s hands. It was heavy, the way real gold should be. And if it was real gold, then it wasn’t studded with cut glass. They were rubies, a dozen huge rubies.

  “Are you sure it’s the same one, not a replica?” I asked.

  “Let’s check,” said George. She grabbed her laptop off the coffee table and started it up. Within a few seconds, she had pulled up a picture of Jasmina. We compared the necklace in my hands with the one she was wearing in the photo. There was no question. It was the same one!

  “But…how did Matthias get this?” I asked out loud, already knowing the answer. Matthias was behind the break-ins.

  “I should have known it wasn’t just plastic! I’m sorry, Nancy, this is all my fault.” George was nearly crying. I hugged her.

  “This isn’t your fault, George. Matthias had us all fooled. Including Frank and Joe. If you hadn’t gotten to know him, we probably never would have caught on.”

  I tried to comfort her, but George was pretty upset at herself. I hugged her close. Things started falling into place in my mind. Matthias must have known that Frank and Joe were in ATAC. That’s why he’d been trying to kill them when I first saw them in the swamp. And he must have been the one who searched our suite. He probably thought that we were in ATAC as well, since we knew Frank and Joe. When he couldn’t find anything that tied us to ATAC, he bugged our new room to make sure. He had rigged the balcony to collapse, knowing that Frank and Joe would be looking for evidence. I bet he had been listening in on them as well. He probably knew everything.

  I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Frank and Joe were in terrible danger, and they had no idea. Frantically, I called Joe.

  No answer.

  CHAPTER 15

  FRANK

  BETRAYED!

  I don’t know how long we stood in the dark, waiting for Nikitin to show up. The minutes before a fight always seem to stretch on forever. I could hear Joe and Matthias breathing near me. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I was glad we were finally nearing the end of this case.

  I heard the front door of the apartment open. My heart started beating harder, and I crouched down, getting ready to cut off Nikitin’s exit as soon as he walked into the bedroom.

  “Matthias?” He called out.

  “In here!”

  Matthias looked at me and Joe. We nodded.

  Everyone was in position. In a moment, this would all be over.

  Nikitin opened the door and went in a few steps before he noticed Matthias. He stopped dead in his tracks, and I slipped behind him to cut off his escape. We had him trapped now. Nikitin swung his head wildly, noticing me and Joe.

  “What’s going on?” he yelled. “Matthias?”

  Joe was approaching him slowly from the left.

  “Give yourself up now, Nikitin. We have all the evidence we need. We know you’re the one behind the break-ins.” Joe was talking quietly, trying to calm Nikitin down and keep his attention.

  “I thought we had a deal,” Nikitin said, looking at Matthias.

  Matthias said nothing, but he stepped toward Nikitin with his hands in fists, moving away from the bed. Nikitin started to take a step back, when suddenly he caught sight of Petrovitch, still tied up.

  “Petrovitch!” he yelled and surged forward, knocking Matthias out of the way with one arm. He tossed him aside like he was made out of tissue paper. Matthias landed hard, all the air leaving his lungs in a sharp whoof!

  Everything was moving too fast for me to follow. What did Nikitin mean by “a deal”? Something was wrong, but I didn’t have the time to figure it out.

  Nikitin leaned over the bed and started trying to untie Petrovitch. Joe leaped onto his back and grabbed Nikitin by the head. Nikitin reared up and shook. I tried to find a safe way to tackle him, but Joe was flying every which way and I was afraid I was just as likely to hurt him as Nikitin. Joe held on for a second, but Nikitin broke his hold and sent him flying across the room too. He landed in a heap, but he seemed to be okay. He was on his feet again a second later.

  Matthias was getting up, and Joe wasn’t out of the fight either. Nikitin looked around the room and realized there was no way he was going to win. Then he looked at me, the only thing standing between him and the door. I braced myself as he charged.

  It was like trying to stop a train. He ran right through me as though I wasn’t there. I blasted into the air, my entire chest filled with pain. I was going to be one big bruise in the morning. But our ATAC training had served me well. Even as I was tumbling through the air, I managed to snag one arm around Nikitin’s throat. With the other one, I grabbed the door frame.

  Nikitin went down like a tree, falling backward. My arm was nearly ripped out of its socket, but I managed to hold on. I leapt on top of him, hoping to pin him down for the crucial moment it would take Joe and Matthias to get out here and help me.

  We rolled over and over, knocking into tables and chairs. We were so close, it was hard to hit each other. Nikitin managed to get his arms around me, and I could feel him squeezing the air out of my lungs. I flipped around wildly, trying to break free, but his arms were like two steel coils.

  I spotted the horse statue Joe had picked up earlier on the floor near us. I grabbed it and hit Nikitin as hard as I could across the head. It was a bad angle, so it was only a slight blow, but it was enough to take him by surprise and make him let go momentarily. I slipped out of his grasp and struggled to my feet.

  Nikitin was on all fours, shaking his head and trying to get up. I put him in a sleeper hold, cutting off the blood to his brain. He tried to fight me, but soon he sank to the floor and fell unconscious.

  “Matthias! Joe! Call hotel security—Nikitin’s going to need an ambulance!” I checked his pulse. It was strong. He was out, but not in any danger, though he was bleeding from where I hit him. I wasn’t surprised. He was built like an ox. Hopefully he’d be out long enough for the police to get him in handcuffs.

  Where were Matthias a
nd Joe? I hoped they hadn’t been hit harder than I thought. I ran back into the bedroom.

  Joe was on the floor, unconscious. That’s strange, I thought. He was getting to his feet when I last saw him. Nikitin must have given him a concussion. We’d need to get him to the hospital as well. But where was Matthias?

  I felt a sharp prick at the back of my neck. I turned around and Matthias was standing there holding a needle.

  “What the heck?” I said. Or at least, that’s what I tried to say. My tongue was heavy and I couldn’t move my mouth properly. I tried to walk, but my legs gave out beneath me. I landed in a heap on top of Joe.

  I heard Matthias laughing above me. I tried to get the cell phone out of Joe’s pocket to call Nancy for help, but I could barely move.

  “Look at the perfect Hardys now. The golden boys of ATAC. Hope you’re ready for an early retirement.”

  Everything went black.

  CHAPTER 16

  NANCY

  RACE AGAINST TIME

  I dialed Joe again. And again. Nothing. It went straight to voice mail every time. The feeling in my stomach became heavier, like a brick sinking into a lake. Joe and Frank were in trouble.

  “George, can you find a detailed map of the Wetlands? We need to find out where Nikitin’s and Matthias’s rooms are.”

  “Sure, Nancy.” George started typing away on the keyboard, her hands flying over the keys. She sniffed a few times, but she’d mostly stopped crying.

  I placed the necklace back in the black velvet bag and hid it under one of the couches. Hopefully, Matthias wouldn’t come back to look for it. If he tore the place apart again, he’d find it. But if he had the chance to search our rooms, it probably didn’t matter anymore whether he found the necklace. At least not for us.

  Bess and I sat silently, our hands clenched, while we waited for George to find the information we needed. As the seconds ticked past, I could feel the tension mounting. What if Nikitin had overpowered Frank and Joe? What if they were on their way to Matthias’s room right now? What if, what if, what if.

  “Got it, Nancy,” George said finally. “Nikitin is in this building, Room four-seven-one. Matthias is over in the employee area. Bungalow 8, Room 7.”

  “George, you’re incredible!” Bess jumped with joy. If it had a chip in it, George could make it work.

  “All right, let’s head to Nikitin’s room first. Hopefully we’ll find them there.”

  We tore out of the suite and over to the elevator area. Everything seemed to be moving so slowly. The elevator, my feet. Everything, that is, except for time, which was flying by. Every second, I imagined Frank and Joe in danger. I kept remembering Matthias with the paddle raised over his head, ready to kill them. What if this time I didn’t make it in time?

  But I couldn’t think that way. It would drive me crazy. Frank and Joe were safe. I just had to find them.

  When the doors finally opened on the fourth floor, we took off running down the hallway. We hadn’t gone ten feet before I tried to dodge around a room service cart and tripped and fell.

  “Stupid high heels!” I yanked them off my feet and threw them across the hall.

  “You know, one day, Nancy, you’re really going to have to learn how to run in heels.” Bess kicked her feet up at me to show the dainty high-heeled sandals she was wearing. They were cute—but not the best footwear for a mission.

  Within a few seconds, we were running again. I felt much better in bare feet. We found Nikitin’s room. The door was open.

  “Hello?” I called through the door. “Frank? Joe?”

  Silence was the only answer.

  Inside, the room was a mess. Furniture had been overturned and books strewn across the floor. I had an eerie feeling of déjà vu, remembering back to our first suite. The cleaning staff at the Wetlands must be kept pretty busy. We split up to search the room, looking for anything that might indicate where the boys were now.

  “Oh no!” Bess cried out suddenly.

  “What is it?” George and I rushed over to her side, and then stopped. On the floor in front of her was a small puddle of blood, smeared around the carpet as though someone had rolled in it.

  “There’s not a lot of blood. There’d be more if…” I didn’t want to finish the sentence. I bent down to examine the blood, trying to keep myself from panicking. Breath, Nancy, I told myself. You can’t help them if you can’t think clearly.

  “It’s still wet. Whatever happened here, it was recent.”

  We crept into the bedroom and found more of the same. Mess, everywhere. It was clear there’d been a huge fight of some kind. But there was no sign of Frank or Joe. Or Nikitin, for that matter. Thankfully, there was no more blood either.

  On the floor behind the bed I found a needle. I picked it up carefully, making certain not to touch the sharp end.

  “What’s that?” Bess asked.

  “No way to know for certain, but I’d bet it contained some sort of sedative.” I pulled out an old plastic container from my purse. It had once been Hannah’s eyeglass case, but now I used it to hold evidence when I was on a case. Particularly sharp, possibly poisonous evidence.

  I inhaled deeply, trying to stay focused and calm. I doubted that Frank and Joe would have drugged Nikitin.

  We checked the closets, kitchen, and bathroom quickly, but came up with nothing. Frank and Joe had been here, but they were gone now, with no sign of where they were headed or if they had gone on their own two feet or been dragged.

  “There’s nothing else here,” I said. “George, can you lead us to Matthias’s room?”

  George nodded and we took off. I was careful to leave the door just barely cracked open—not enough that anyone would notice, but enough so that we could get back in if we needed to. I walked carefully past the room service cart this time. Then an idea hit me.

  I flipped up the white tablecloth. It was dark underneath, so I pulled my flashlight from my purse. I always carry one, just in case. Sure enough, when I turned on the light, I could see small drops of blood on the undercarriage of the cart.

  “Someone used this cart to carry the body—or bodies—out of the room and into the elevator,” I said. But why didn’t they take the cart? They must have been bringing them somewhere directly off the elevator…but where?

  Bess made a strangled noise at the word “body,” and we all tried not to think about what it implied.

  George led the way out of the main part of the hotel and over to the employee area. I had never been over there before, and I was glad it was dark so that no one stopped and asked to see our ID badges.

  After a few wrong turns, we ended up at a low bungalow, painted a tropical turquoise. We circled around it, looking for Room 7. It was the last one, and the door was right up against the wall that went around the outside of the resort. There was a window to one side, a streetlight above, and (unfortunately) a sensor pad.

  If it was a regular lock, I could have picked it. That was one of the tricks of the trade I had learned over the last few years of detective work. But I didn’t even know how these sensors worked, let alone how to disable one.

  Bess knocked but got no answer. There were no lights on inside, and it sounded quiet. Then she tried the door, hoping it might be unlocked. No luck.

  “I think we’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way,” I said. “George, can you get the light?”

  George reached up and unscrewed the light on the side of the building. The alley was plunged into darkness. I unzipped my purse and poured everything out onto the ground. Then I put my elbow inside it, as though it were an elbow guard. I glanced back at the front of the alley, to make sure no one was looking. Bess casually strolled in front of me, hiding me from view.

  Crash!

  The glass of the windowpane shattered as I slammed my elbow through it. The purse protected me from getting cut. I used it to knock away the sharp shards of glass left in the frame. Then I reached in and turned the doorknob from inside, while George pick
ed up the stuff from my purse and handed it to me.

  “Housekeeping!” Bess called out as we walked in. I stifled a laugh.

  Inside, the room was nearly the opposite of Nikitin’s. It was sparsely decorated, with nothing on the walls, no books on the shelves, and very few personal effects anywhere. In one corner was a very large television. It was spotlessly clean. At least, I thought to myself, that makes it easy to search.

  “Bess, you take the kitchen. George, the bedroom. I’ll look in here.”

  I checked under the chairs and couches, but there was nothing. Remembering the hidden listening device in our suite, I felt around for strange lumps in the cushions, but came up empty.

  “Bingo!” Bess called out. She walked back into the living room holding a large container marked FLOUR.

  “Evidence that he likes to bake?” I asked.

  “Or that he likes dough,” she said. She angled the can toward me. It was filled with cash, wallets, watches, and jewelry.

  “Take some photos of all that. I’m going to keep searching.”

  I looked around the room. Something wasn’t right. Then it hit me. The television was angled away from everything else. None of the chairs faced it. It would be impossible to watch anything on it. Who has a television that large that they can’t watch?

  I looked at it closely. There were little scratch marks around the frame, and all the screws had been removed. It looked as though it had been hollowed out.

  Sure enough, the glass on the front popped out easily when I pulled on it. Inside was a large cache of papers, photos, and DVDs. Everything had the ATAC logo on it. At the bottom of the pile was an ID card that identified Matthias as a member of ATAC!

  Could I have been wrong? Was Matthias working with Frank and Joe? Something didn’t add up. I flipped through the papers, looking at descriptions of old missions and various materials. Some of them looked different from the others, cruder, less polished. Most were addressed to Matthias, but a few had Frank’s and Joe’s names on them. There were also tons of photos, mostly of Frank and Joe, which seemed to have been taken by someone in hiding, using a telephoto lens.