Ghost Stories, #2 (Nancy Drew) Page 9

  "Yes, I do," she replied. "But I'm ready to take you up on it. I'm tired of having him stand in my way, keeping me from doing exciting things!"

  Bess and George exchanged a sharp glance.

  "He called her Lilith!" George whispered. "That's the missing woman!"

  "That's right!" Bess said. The girls were so excited by

  Nancy Drew Ghost Stories 2

  their discovery that they paid no attention to the two people in the house for several moments. Then they heard a noise behind them and whirled around. They gasped when the doctor shone a bright flashlight into their faces!

  The morning sun poured through the hospital window as Lisa poked her head into Nancy's room. **How are you doing this morning?" she asked in a cheery voice. 'Tt looks like you ate well!" she added, as she noticed Nancy's empty plate.

  "I feel great!" Nancy said. "Breakfast was fabulous, and it's a beautiful day. Besides, I found some clues last night! Sit down, and I'll tell you about them while Mrs. Greenfield is in the shower."

  *T'm all ears," Lisa replied, straightening her pert white nurse's cap. She sat on the edge of Nancy's hospital bed.

  'T went into the haunted room," Nancy said. **I saw the ghost—or whatever it is. Dr. Edinburgh was talking to it! I also saw stacks of hospital charts. They were hidden in the closet."

  "What!" Lisa exclaimed. "I can't imagine why charts would be in that room. Did you look at any of them?"

  "Yes. Do you remember a patient named George Knipp? His was one of the charts I read. Something struck me as odd. Would you mind describing his condition when he was in the hospital? It says he was discharged a few days ago."

  Lisa's expression grew serious. "That was another one of Dr. Edinburgh's sad cases. He took out the man's

  The Phantom of Room 513

  gall bladder." She lowered her voice. "Between you and me, I don't think the man needed the surgery. But Dr. Edinburgh operated, and Mr. Knipp became terribly sick afterward. All kinds of complications set in. He had a raging infection, his blood pressure was too low, and his pulse was weak. He finally recovered, but he'll never be as strong and healthy as he was before surgery."

  Nancy's blue eyes flashed. 'The chart says that he did fine after the operation!"

  "It couldn't," Lisa said. "I did some of the charting myself!"

  Nancy nodded her head. "I know. Your name is signed in several places! But Edinburgh falsified the information."

  Mrs. Greenfield walked back into the room. "Good morning. Nurse!" she said to Lisa. "It's so nice to see you young people chatting. Well, don't let me interrupt. You just go on talking. Being in the same room with Nancy has made me feel young myself!"

  The detective blushed. "Mrs. Greenfield has been so nice," she said. "Lisa, if Mr. Knipp had such a hard recovery, did he sue the doctor?"

  "That poor Mr. Knipp!" Mrs. Greenfield exclaimed. "Oh, he wanted to sue all right. He should have, if you ask me. Changed his mind at the last minute. I knew he should have used a different lawyer. If only I'd known him before I let Dr. Edinburgh operate on me!"

  "What do you mean?" Nancy asked.

  "I hear that there's a lawyer named Melvin Smith who takes malpractice cases," Mrs. Greenfield replied,

  Nancy Drew Ghost Stories 2

  "but lots of times, he talks his clients out of suing. Says they don't have a good enough case. If you ask me, that doctor paid him to prevent the lawsuit!"

  Just then, Bess and George entered the room. *'I was about to call you," Nancy said. '*! was starting to worry!"

  "With good reason!" Bess said.

  "He saw us," George told Nancy. "He caught us hiding in the trees outside his lake cabin. Did we have some fancy talking to do!"

  "Go on!" Nancy urged. She explained to Mrs. Greenfield that the cousins had followed Dr. Edinburgh the night before.

  "He didn't go to his home," George continued. "He went to a little house outside of town. A woman was there, and he called her Lilith!"

  "Lilith Edinburgh!" the others echoed.

  George nodded and repeated the conversation the cousins had overheard. "And then he caught us," she finished.

  "What happened?" Nancy asked.

  "Well," George said, "we were lucky. When we got there, I turned my lights off and pulled to the side of the road. Our car got stuck. It worked in our favor, because when Edinburgh saw us, we told him we were looking for help."

  "He came to the car with us and pushed us out!" Bess added with a chuckle.

  "I still don't understand," Mrs. Greenfield said. "Lilith Edinburgh is alive? Then how is her ghost haunting the hospital?"

  The Phantom of Room 513

  "I have a hunch, but I need to prove it," Nancy said. "Let me call my father. He may be able to help."

  It was night again, and the fifth floor of Rosemont Hospital was quiet. Almost all the patients were asleep and the visitors had gone home. Only Nancy was wide awake. She and Lisa crept down the deserted hall, while George and Bess waited in the room with Mrs. Greenfield.

  Cautiously, Nancy opened the door to Room 513. She flicked the light switch, but the place remained pitch black. Moans began again, just like the previous night. "HellUp meeee!" the ghostly voice screeched and gusts of cold air blew the girls' hair!

  Purple and yellow lights floated in the middle of the room. They weaved and danced and took on the form of a huge, shadowy woman.

  "Oh, no!" Lisa gasped. "It is a ghost!"

  "I wonder," Nancy said. She flicked the switch once again. The moaning stopped, and the lights disappeared.

  "I don't believe it!" Lisa whispered.

  "Watch," Nancy said, and flicked the switch a third time. Nothing happened. On the fifth flick, the ghost appeared again.

  "Every now and then it comes when you turn the switch," Nancy told Lisa. "Did you bring the flashlight?"

  "I sure did." The young nurse pulled a tiny flashlight from the big pocket in her uniform. Nancy took it and shone it around the room until she found the chair she

  Nancy Drew Ghost Stories 2

  remembered. She pulled it up under the light, stepped up on it, and began to unscrew the fixture.

  "Lisa, shine the beam up here. Look! There's a hologram projector hidden in the fixture. It creates the lights. And there's a tiny tape recorder, wired into the electrical system. Sometimes, when you flick the switch, the lights don't work, but the ghost is turned on. The intervals are irregular, to make it more real. Very clever!"

  Lisa flashed her light around the room. "Nancy!" she cried, "there's a fan in the corner. That must make the wind gusts."

  "Let's go see the charts," Nancy said as she climbed down from the chair. The girls walked to the closet and opened the door. Then they froze in fright!

  "Not so fast!" Dr. Edinburgh sneered as he grabbed both Nancy and Lisa by their arms. "Your snooping days are over, Nancy Drew! You should have been content to remain a patient!"

  Just then, a voice boomed out behind them. "Her snooping days aren't over, Edinburgh!" Mr. Drew shouted. He looked over his shoulder. "Take him, officer," he said, and a policeman snapped handcuffs on the man.

  The following day, Mr. Drew, Bess, and George came to take Nancy home from the hospital. The tests had proved negative, and her condition had been diagnosed as a spastic colon, which was very painful but of no consequence.

  "Nancy!" George cried out when she entered the room. "You have to tell us what's been going on!"

  The Phantom of Room 513

  "I hear you caught Dr. Edinburgh," Bess added.

  "Yes, except that he wasn't Dr. Edinburgh," Nancy said.

  "What!"

  "He was the doctor's identical twin brother, Jim. Jim had been a medic in the army. He'd been in trouble with the law, and Harold Edinburgh, the older twin, threatened to expose him. So he had to disappear."

  "But he didn't really," Mr. Drew went on. "He kidnapped his brother and posed as Dr. Edinburgh. He did a lot of surgery, and made plenty of money. But he didn't have the
necessary skills, and many patients developed complications after their operations. That's why Jim Edinburgh falsified their charts. He worked with a crooked lawyer, Melvin Smith, who talked Edinburgh's patients out of suing him. Smith was arrested this morning."

  "But w^hat about the ghost?" Bess asked.

  "Well, Jim Edinburgh's sister-in-law was no longer happy being married to her husband Harold and wanted to leave him, but she knew he would never let her go," Nancy took up the story. "So Jim arranged for Lilith to disappear. After the police investigated the hospital, he fixed the wiring in Room 513 and rigged up the ghost. This way, people would believe Lilith had really died. Plus, it would scare people away so Jim could work on the charts in private."

  "But what about the real Doctor Edinburgh?" George interjected. "Where is he now?"

  Nancy went on to explain that his brother had kept the doctor locked in the basement of a small house on

  Nancy Drew Ghost Stories 2

  the outskirts of town, with no way of escaping. The police had found him that morning a bit shaken up, but not hurt.

  Just then the phone rang. Nancy picked up the receiver and heard the voice of Ned Nickerson, her boyfriend, on the other end.

  "Hi, there," he said. "We had a date last night. Or did you forget?"

  "Oh, Ned!" she cried. "I'm sorry. Let me explain."

  Ned chuckled. "You don't have to. Your dad told me everything. I just wanted to tell you that I'm glad you're feeling better. And Nancy, as far as our date is concerned, don't worry. I know I could never compete with a ghost!"

  FOREST OF FEAR

  Nancy Drew pulled her blue sports sedan up to a fork of the wooded, dirt road.

  "This looks like the way to Lake Oolagah," she told her friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne.

  "But where is the sign that used to be here?" tall, dark-haired George asked.

  "Yes," Bess added and pointed. "All I see is that weird-looking thing."

  In place of the Lake Oolagah sign was a crudely drawn skull and crossbones nailed to a tree.

  "Maybe the lake's closed now," George said. "It has been several years since we've been here."

  "If that were the case, the government would have blocked off the road," Nancy said, and continued along the dusty path while the sun was rapidly setting behind the treetops.

  Nancy Drew Ghost Stories 2

  A few minutes later they passed another crude sign. "Danger—Go back!" it read.

  Bess became worried. ''Let's turn around," she said. **See how barren the trees are? Something's wrong here."

  "I know," Nancy said. "But I'd like to know what it is."

  The farther they drove, the less living vegetation there was. The trees and bushes, which should have been bursting with new shoots and leaves, were dead, skeletal things that seemed to be reaching ominously for the car. And darkness was descending rapidly, stretching long shadows across the roadway.

  "This is getting spooky," Bess shuddered. "Let's go back."

  "Not until we find out what this is all about," Nancy said. "The lake should be less than a mile from here."

  They pushed on. Far off the roadside they saw a makeshift cabin of odd-sized planks and rocks. Nancy did not remember it being there before. Dead, rotting trees surrounded it like a natural fence. She wondered what kind of person would put a house in the middle of such desolation.

  "There's the lake!" Bess said, pointing. The road went right up to a small spillway for unloading boats into the water.

  "Strange," Nancy said. "It looks like Lake Oolagah, but—"

  Bess frowned. "It's as if it got old and died," she added.

  "Died is right," George murmured and got out of the

  Forest of Fear

  car. She walked to the water's edge. "Look at this." Nancy and Bess joined her and stared. The ground on the shore was littered with fish skeletons!

  **What happened here?" George asked.

  Nancy surveyed the countryside. The lake covered about twelve acres, which gave her a good view of the surrounding forest. It was all dead!

  *T have no idea," she said.

  "What should we do?" George asked. "It's getting dark."

  "And we haven't had dinner yet," Bess interjected.

  Nancy smiled at her. "Just keep thinking how good you'll look at the Spring Fling if you skip dinner."

  Bess looked horrified. "Bite your tongue!"

  The girls laughed. "I suggest we set up camp anyway," Nancy said, "then worry about what to do in the morning."

  Bess and George agreed, and in the last light of the fading sun, they hurried to unload the tent and sleeping bags from the car.

  "Okay," Nancy said, surveying the gear on the ground. "Let's get—"

  "Nancy!" Bess screamed, her face white as milk. "There—in the trees!"

  They looked up. A canteen dropped from George's hand and clattered loudly to the ground. Large, glowing orbs moved lazily through the parched woods!

  There were four of them, then a fifth. They glowed a warm yellow as they flitted through the spindly trees— the only things that seemed alive in the deserted forest.

  "What do you think that is?" George asked.

  Nancy Drew Ghost Stories 2

  "G-ghosts!" Bess whispered, her throat dry.

  "Bess!" Nancy snapped.

  "What else could it be?" Bess replied. "Look at them, waltzing around there. What if they come down here?"

  "Then maybe we'd get some idea of what they really are," Nancy returned.

  The ghost lights moved through the woods for several frightening minutes, then, all at once, they began to rise. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, the eerie orbs floated up into the night sky to dwindle, then disappear into the darkness.

  Bess leaned against the fender of the car. "Whew," she breathed. "I've never been so scared in my whole life."

  "Neither have I," George confessed.

  She walked to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. "Let's go," she said. "We've had enough excitement for one night."

  "What about the gear?" Nancy asked.

  "No one will take it," George said, climbing into the back seat through the driver's door. "Let's find a motel. We'll come back for the stuff in the morning."

  Nancy was reluctant to leave the camping equipment behind, but Bess and George were so frightened that she got into the car.

  As she drove, her friends recalled frightening experiences in the past, frequent occurrences when they helped Nancy in her detective work.

  Suddenly George sat up straight. "I don't recognize this road," she said. "Did we make the wrong turn?"

  Forest of Fear

  "We might have," Nancy admitted. "It's so dark I can hardly see where I'm going."

  "What's that sound?" Bess asked.

  A loud rumbling noise seemed to be drawing nearer to them.

  "I don't know," Nancy began. "I—"

  The next moment, piercing beams of light were blinding them.

  "It's a truck!" George exclaimed. "Why doesn't it turn off its brights?"

  As if in answer to her question, the truck dimmed its lights as it prepared to pass them from the opposite direction.

  "What's a big truck like that doing way out here?" Nancy asked. "This isn't near any highway."

  The truck slowed and rumbled past them on the narrow, tree-lined road. It was a large white tanker with the words Dunbar Enterprises printed in red on the side. The driver, barely visible in his cab, honked and waved good-naturedly as he drove by.

  "Maybe we should turn around and retrace our route," George said.

  "There are lights up ahead," Nancy replied. "Let's see what they are, first."

  They followed the forest road until it led them to a large industrial complex. A big wire fence with Dunbar Enterprises written on it prevented them from going farther.

  Nancy stopped in front of the gate, and a security guard came out to the car.

  Nancy Drew Ghost Stories 2

  "Evenin
' girls," he said. "What can I do for you?"

  "We're lost," Nancy said.

  "And hungry," Bess added.

  "Can you tell us how to get to the nearest motel?" George asked.

  The man grinned. "Took the wrong road, huh," he said, shaking his head. "Happens all the time. What you do is go back the way you came and take the first left. Lutherville is about five miles away."

  "You sure are located in the middle of nowhere," Nancy told the man.

  He shrugged. "We used to have a big old plant in Cleveland," he said. "Then Mr. Dunbar decided to build a new, ultra-modern factory out here and relocate everybody. I come from the country anyhow, so it was a good move for me."

  "What do you make?" Bess asked.

  "Toys!" the man explained. "All kinds of plastic toys."

  Just then, a delivery truck pulled up behind Nancy's car and honked.

  "Whoops," the guard said. "I'd better get back to work."

  The girls waved to the pleasant man as Nancy turned around and headed toward Lutherville.

  They found the town within fifteen minutes, though a good section of it was boarded up and deserted. Only one motel, the Rest-a-Spell, seemed to be open. They pulled up to the manager's office and went in.

  A bell rang when they opened the door and a small.

  Forest of Fear

  gray-haired lady came in from the living area in back of the office.

  'Tretty late for you young ladies to be out," she said, and smiled. "I'm Mrs. Johnson. We don't get too many guests here anymore."

  "I'm Nancy Drew," Nancy said. "And these are my friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne."

  "George?" the woman said, wrinkling her nose. "Funny name for a girl."

  "We were going to camp out at Lake Oolagah," Nancy said, "but—"

  "Don't say any more," Mrs. Johnson interrupted. "The reason Lutherville looks like a ghost town is because of that lake."

  "What happened?" George asked.

  The woman frowned. "One room with two big beds okay?" she asked.

  The girls nodded.