Mystery of the Midnight Rider (Nancy Drew Diaries #3)(29)

It was a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize. “Yes, this is Nancy,” I said cautiously. “Who’s this?”

There was a funny noise from the other end of the line. It sounded like a sob.

I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

“Nancy!” the voice gasped out again. “This is Annie—Annie Molina? We talked yesterday?”

"Yes, I remember,” I said, perplexed.



Annie choked back another sob. “S-sorry to b-bother you,” she wailed. "But I had to call someone, and you’re the only person at the show whose name I know, and well...I just want to confess!”





CHAPTER ELEVEN




The Evans Edge



“THERE SHE IS.” GEORGE POINTED OUT through the main gate.

Shading my eyes against the morning sun, I looked that way. Annie Molina was hurrying to meet us. My heart pounded. Could this really be so easy? Was Annie about to solve the case for us by confessing?

“Nancy!” the woman blubbered. She was a mess. Mascara dripped down her splotchy cheeks, and more tears were welling up in her eyes. “I’m so glad I tracked you down. I feel just terrible about all this!”

“Okay,” I said. "Why don’t you tell us about it?”



Annie nodded, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "I just wanted to help the animals,” she said. “And horses are so darling and magical—when I read on PAN’s website that they were coming here to protest, I just knew I had to help.”



"So this was the first horse show you protested with them?” George asked. “Or was there another one a few weeks or so ago?”

Annie blinked at George as if wondering who she was. “No, this was my first one,” she said. “I’d never worked with PAN before. They don’t come to this area much.”

"But this time they decided to come and protest the River Heights Horse Show,” I prompted, poking George in the side to shut her up. I didn’t want her questions to confuse Annie, who seemed a little confused already. “So you joined in to try to help the horses.”

"That’s right.” Annie sniffled loudly. “Only I thought we’d just be carrying signs and so forth. It was bad enough when Bill threw that tomato, but then yesterday—oh, dear!” She shuddered.

"Yesterday?” I said.

Annie nodded. “I swear, I only distracted the guard so the others could sneak in,” she insisted, the tears starting to flow again. "I didn’t even want to do that—the whole plan just seemed too risky—but they convinced me that none of the horses would be hurt!”

"Hold it.” I was starting to catch on. "You’re talking about those horses getting loose from their stalls, right? Your PAN buddies were the ones who let them out?”

"That’s right.” Annie pulled a wadded-up tissue out of her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. “Oh, I’m just so glad nothing terrible happened! Even so, I couldn’t rest all night. What if one of those beautiful creatures had been hurt? I just couldn’t live with myself if we’d caused any real trouble!” She shook her head. “That’s not what I thought PAN was all about!”

As far as I knew, that was exactly what PAN was all about. But I didn’t bother to say so.

"I see,” I said. “So what about the other incidents?”

“What other incidents?” Annie looked worried. "Did something else happen? I just got here myself.” She stared wildly around the parking lot.

“So you don’t know anything about Payton Evans and her horse’s drug test?” Bess put in.

"Who?” Annie said blankly.

Yeah. Maybe Annie wasn’t going to solve the case for me after all. All she was confessing to was the loose-horse incident and the tomato throwing.

Just to make sure, we asked her a few more questions. But it soon became clear that we were wasting our time.

After that, it took several minutes to extricate ourselves from Annie’s sobbing confession. But finally my friends and I escaped into the show grounds.

“Okay, that was a waste of time,” George said as we walked past the snack bar.

“Not really,” Bess pointed out. “At least now we know for sure that the tomato thing and the loose horses are red herrings.”

I nodded. “And I think we can cross Annie and PAN off the list for the other stuff. It’s pretty obvious they’re not organized enough to pull off anything too devious.”

"Great.” George clapped her hands. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go find our other suspects!”

We spent the next few hours wandering around the show grounds, trying to do just that. Unfortunately, luck seemed to be against us. When we finally located Cal Kidd, he was schooling one of his horses in an out-of-the-way ring. We wasted at least half an hour watching him before giving up and moving on to Lenny Hood. But when we tracked him down, he was surrounded by students—and seemed to be staying that way. As for Dana, she appeared to be actively avoiding us. Was it because of our questions about Cal, or just because she was busy? It was hard to tell.

"This is ridiculous,” George said as we leaned on a fence and watched Lenny canter an ornery-looking chestnut over a low fence while the horse’s young rider watched from nearby. “The Grand Prix is starting in about an hour, and we haven’t made any progress at all!”