didn't exactly act guilty. Which makes me think she
didn't have a hand in kidnapping Jade.”
“Do you still think Jade's disappearance might be
connected to the Drakes?” George asked her.
Nancy nodded. “It's possible. But we need more
facts. We also need to find Mr. Drake. I want to check
out his reaction when he sees you.”
The string quartet stopped playing, and a woman in
a red dress got up on the stage and tapped briskly on
the microphone. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. I
want to introduce our main speaker for this wonderful
event, which was organized by SFEC, the Southern
Florida Environmental Coalition, for the purpose of
saving our precious manatee population.”
The crowd broke into wild applause. “Let's try to
find Mr. Drake,” Nancy whispered to George.
Just then Nancy noticed something out of the corner
of her eye. Griffin Carey—Jade's boyfriend—was
standing by the buffet table.
What's he doing here? Nancy wondered.
Then Nancy noticed something else. Griffin was
talking to an attractive blond woman. Their heads were
bent very close together, as though they were
discussing something very personal or confidential. The
woman was dressed in a long, dark purple dress.
There was something familiar looking about the
woman. Who is she? Nancy wondered. And what is
Griffin doing with her?
Nancy tried to make her way over to the two of
them, but before she had a chance, a wave of people
cut in front of her, trying to get closer to the stage. By
the time she and George got to the buffet table, Griffin
and the blond mystery woman were gone.
“Oh, great,” Nancy muttered in frustration.
Just then she noticed something else. Mr. and Mrs.
Drake were standing across the room, talking. At one
point, Mrs. Drake turned around and pointed to Nancy
and George. Mr. Drake nodded, and they continued
talking.
What was that about? Nancy wondered curiously.
Did Mrs. Drake just tip her husband off that George
wasn't Jade Romero?
By the time Nancy and her friends got back to
Flamingo, it was late in the afternoon. After making
plans to meet for dinner, Susan said goodbye and went
off to work.
George and Bess started walking back to their cabin.
Nancy stopped in the middle of the path. “Wait up,
guys,” she called out. “I want to go over to the marina
to see if I can find the motorboat from last night. You
guys want to come with me?”
“The motorboat from last night? Why?” George
asked her.
Nancy shrugged. “Just a hunch. I want to make sure
that what happened to Bess was an accident.”
“Sure, no problem, as long as I don't fall into Florida
Bay again,” Bess joked.
The three girls headed toward the marina. The air
was thick with humidity. Palm trees cast long shadows
across their path. As they walked, they discussed the
benefit at the Coconut Beach Club.
“We know this much,” Nancy said. “Mrs. Drake
definitely knew Jade. She acted surprised when she
saw you, George. But she didn't act guilty, which
makes me think she wasn't involved in any weird foul
play against Jade.”
“What about Mr. Drake?” Bess pointed out.
“We didn't get a chance to talk to him, so there's no
way to tell. Maybe we can figure out some other way to
run into him by accident.' “
Nancy stopped to kick a pebble that was lying in the
path. “I'm land of wondering about Griffin,” she went
on. “I wish I knew what he was doing at that party, and
who that blond woman was.”
“He sure got over Jade fast,” George remarked.
“You can say that again,” Nancy agreed.
After a while the girls reached the marina. There
were lots of people milling around: park employees,
tourists, sailors rigging up their boats. Seagulls wheeled
through the air, squawking noisily. A group of children
were sitting on the dock, laughing and eating ice-cream
cones.
Nancy glanced around, assessing the situation. “You
take that dock over there,” she told Bess, pointing to
the dock on the left. “I'll take this one. George, you
take that one.” She nodded to the dock on the right.
“What are we looking for, exactly?” George asked
Nancy.
“A motorboat with a name that starts with the letters
P-A-N,” Nancy replied.
The three girls took off separately. Nancy went from
boat to boat, checking out the names. There were a lot
of fun names: Queen of the High Seas, Gone Fishin',
Salty Dog, Sink or Swim. But Nancy didn't come across
any that started with PAN.
After a while Nancy and her friends headed back to
their cabin. Bess and George hadn't had any luck
either. “It's possible that the Pan-whatever motor-boat
doesn't have a permanent docking space here,” Nancy
said to Bess and George as they walked through the
front door of their cabin.
Bess took her pink rhinestone sunglasses off and set
them down on the front hall table. “Do you think the
same guy who was driving the gray car was driving that
motorboat, too?” she asked Nancy.
“It's possible,” Nancy replied. “It's also possible that
the two events are totally unrelated. In any case, we
should—”
Then she stopped. She glanced around the living
room, frowning. Something wasn't quite right,
something was out of place.
She saw what it was. One of the wooden chairs had
been knocked down.
Nancy whirled around. “Bess? George? Did you
guys knock that chair down?” she demanded.
“No,” Bess replied. George shook her head.
Nancy glanced around the room, looking for any-
thing else that might be out of place. All of a sudden,
she had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. There
might be an intruder in the cabin!
Nancy put a finger to her lips, indicating to the girls
that they should be silent. She walked very quietly over
to the bedroom, reached for the light switch and
flicked it on. The room was empty.
The bathroom door was open. Nancy glanced inside
quickly, then checked the shower—no one was there,
either. She checked under all three beds. There was no
one under any of them.
“Nancy, what is it?” Bess whispered frantically from
the living room doorway.
“It's nothing, false alarm,” Nancy started to say.
Then she stopped. There was something on the
headboard of her bed—something that hadn't been
there that morning.
Nancy walked over to her bed. When she saw what
it was, she gasped.
Someone had stuck a note to the headboard with a
big hunting knife. The note said: “Drop this case or
you'll end up like Jade Romero.”
10. An Alligator Encounter
Her heart hammering in her chest, Nancy stared at the
warning note and the hunting knife. First the
eavesdropper, then the gray car trying to run them off
the road, then the motorboat incident—and now this.
The case had become much more intense and
dangerous than she'd ever expected.
Bess and George came rushing up to her. “Nancy,
what's going on?” George demanded.
Nancy pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket, then
carefully extracted the hunting knife from the
headboard. She didn't want to mess up fingerprint
evidence, if there was any.
She turned to Bess and George and held up the
knife and the note. Bess clamped a hand over her
mouth and stifled a scream.
“A-a-a knife?” she sputtered. “Someone stuck a knife
in your bed?”
“ Drop this case or you'll end up like Jade
Romero,'” George read out loud. “Hmm, this isn't
good. Someone's threatening us.”
“Well, it's definitely not a love letter,” Bess pointed
out.
Nancy sat down on the edge of the bed and took a
closer look at the note. The letters had been cut out of
newspaper headlines and glued onto the paper to form
the message.
She touched the letters carefully with her fingertip.
The paper was still a little damp.
The person just put this note together today, she
thought.
“Someone's definitely trying to keep us from solving
this mystery,” Nancy said. “Someone, or maybe a
couple of someones working together.”
George held up her hand and began counting. “The
eavesdropper, the driver of the gray car, the motorboat
driver—unless that whole thing was a coincidence—
and whoever left us the knife souvenir. Are they all the
same person? I guess that's the question.”
Bess marched over to the phone and picked it up.
“It's time to bring in the big guns. We have to call the
police and tell them about this . . . this hunting knife
incident.”
Nancy was about to tell Bess to go ahead, but then
she had a thought. “Put the phone down, Bess,” Nancy
told her.
Bess frowned at her. “Huh? Why?”
“I don't want to tell the police just yet,” Nancy
replied. “I have another idea.”
Bess hung up the phone and made a face. “What
other idea? It had better be good because this case is
getting way, way too scary.”
Nancy smiled. “We're going camping—back-country
camping. In Whitewater Bay, via the Wilderness
Waterway.”
“Cool,” George said.
“Not cool,” Bess protested. “I'm not even interested
in plain-old-everyday camping. Which means that I am
definitely not interested in going back-country
camping. Which means that I am definitely, definitely
not interested in going backcountry camping in some
place called the Wilderness Waterway. It sounds too
wild.”
“We're going,” Nancy said firmly. “We need to solve
this case once and for all. And going to the scene of the
crime is the only way”
“Crime? What crime?” George asked her.
Nancy smiled grimly. “Whatever crime made Jade
Romero disappear from the face of the earth,” she
replied.
“Backcountry camping?” Susan gasped.
Susan, Nancy, Bess, and George were in the
cafeteria, having dinner when Nancy told Susan her
idea about going backcountry camping.
Outside the window, the sun was setting over
Florida Bay. A few lone fishing boats bobbed on the
horizon.
Nancy was really excited about her plan, and she
hoped she could convince Susan to go along with it.
She was ticking off a mental checklist of supplies they
would have to gather: tents, sleeping bags, flashlights,
batteries, backpacks, containers for food and water,
and so forth. It had been a long time since she had
gone camping, and she wasn't familiar with the
Everglades.
“Tell her she's crazy, Susan,” Bess demanded. “We
need to stay right here to solve the Jade Romero mys-
tery, not go traipsing around in the mud or whatever.”
She speared a piece of broiled grouper, a popular
local fish, and popped it into her mouth. “Besides, what
are we going to eat if we're out there in the jungle?”
she went on. “Berries or twigs or something?”
Nancy glanced over her shoulder. Some volunteers
at the next table were staring at their table curiously.
They must have overheard Jade's name, she thought.
She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Look. I
don't know why I didn't think of this idea before. It
makes perfect sense. We need to go back-country
camping in Whitewater Bay, where Jade disappeared.”
“But the park rangers and police have already been
there,” Susan pointed out.
Nancy nodded. “True. But it can't hurt to take
another look. We might be able to find some clues the
search party missed.” She added, “Worst-case scenario,
we might get some new insights into the mystery.”
“That's a good point,” Susan agreed. She slapped her
knees. “All right, I'm in. I'll see if I can get a couple of
days off work.”
Nancy grinned. “Great!”
“There'll be showers there, right?” Bess asked
Susan.
“Okay, well, sinks, then? Mirrors?” Bess persisted.
Susan laughed again.
Bess turned to Nancy. “Do I have to go? Can't I just
stay at Flamingo and hold down the fort or
something?”
“Sure, you can stay here just in case our friend
comes back to the cabin with another threatening note
and another hunting knife,” George said to her cousin.
Bess's blue eyes widened. “Hmm. Now that you
mention it, maybe it's time I tried this backcountry
camping thing. I mean, I've gone camping before. So
what's the difference, right? So we're going to some
place that's got stingrays and alligators and no showers.
I'm tough, I can handle it.”
Just then Griffin walked by, tray in hand. At first he
didn't seem to notice the girls.
Nancy really wanted to talk to him, to ask him some
questions about Jade and about the Manatee benefit.
She waved to him, trying to flag him down. “Griffin!
Hey, Griffin!” she called out.
Griffin stopped. Nancy wasn't sure, but he looked
sort of annoyed. “Oh, hi,” he muttered.
“You want to join us?” Nancy said.
“I'm just on my way out, actually,” Griffin replied.
“Thanks, anyway.”
“Before you go, I wanted to ask you some stuff about
Jade,” Nancy said.
Griffin hesitated. “I really am in kind of a hurry—”
Nancy smiled. Why was he acting so unf
riendly?
“This'll just take a minute. Okay?” she persisted.
Griffin put down his tray on the girls' table, pulled
over a chair, and sat down. “Okay. I really don't like
talking about her, you know? It brings back a lot of
memories.” He sounded sad all of a sudden.
“You poor thing,” Bess sympathized, putting her
hand on his arm.
“Thanks for understanding,” Griffin said. Then he
turned to Nancy. “Okay, what did you want to ask me?
I'll do the best I can.”
“Was she—Jade—involved in any environmental
groups that you know of?” Nancy asked him.
Griffin shrugged. “No, not that I know of. I mean,
definitely not. She would have told me if she had
been.”
“Do you know if she knew Bill and Esther Drake?”
Nancy said.
“You mean those developers? I'm not sure.” Griffin
added, “Hey, speaking of the Drakes. I saw you guys at
the Manatee benefit yesterday. Did you have fun?”
“It was a blast,” Bess said. “Really good shrimp
cocktail!”
“We saw you there, too,” Nancy said to Griffin.
“Who was your friend?” she added.
Griffin looked confused. “Friend? What friend?”
“The blond woman,” Nancy said. “You know, long
purple dress?”
Griffin shrugged and shook his head. “I'm not sure
who you're talking about. I was there alone. Maybe it
was just some stranger I was talking to. I don't know.”
He scooted his chair back and stood up. “Listen, I
really do have to run. So if you don't have any more
questions . . .”
“If I think of anything else, I know where to find
you,” Nancy said with a smile.
Griffin smiled back. Then he waved goodbye and
headed for the exit.
After he left, Nancy turned to her friends. “I don't
think Griffin was completely honest with us,” she said.
“That blond woman wasn't just some stranger he ran
into. I wonder what he's hiding?”
Susan frowned. “Blond woman—blond woman—
you know, I saw Griffin with her, too. You said she was
wearing a long purple dress, right?”
Nancy nodded. “Right.”
“And she had a purple cell phone,” Susan went on,
taking a sip of her iced tea. “I remember her phone
because it was so cool-looking.”
Nancy started. “Purple cell phone? Are you sure?”
“Yes, definitely,” Susan replied. “Why?”
Nancy remembered the woman at the Café Blue