Strangers on a Train (Nancy Drew Diaries #2)(13)

George was looking that way too. “Looks like you’re not the only one with a short attention span, Alan,” she said with a laugh.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Alan answered.

Suddenly I had an idea. "Looks like Tobias’s poor parents are at the end of their rope,” I said, keeping my voice casual. "Too bad Hiro isn’t around to take him to get his energy out on the climbing wall. Especially since there’s probably nobody else there right now—he could go crazy on that thing.”

“Good point, Nancy.” Bess turned her big, innocent blue eyes toward Alan. “Maybe you should offer to take him, sweetie. I know you’ve been dying to try the climbing wall.”

That was exactly what I was counting on. Alan had mentioned wanting to try the ship’s state-of-the-art rock-climbing wall several times, but as far as I knew, he hadn’t done it yet. Probably because Bess had no interest in such things.

“Oh,” Alan said, glancing from Bess to the scenery and back again. "Um, I guess that’s not a bad idea. We could just go for a little while—give Tobias’s folks a break.”

“What a nice idea.” Bess squeezed his arm, turning on that million-watt smile of hers that never fails to turn guys into jelly. "Why don’t you go suggest it to them? I’m sure they’d really appreciate it.”

Moments later Alan and Tobias were disappearing into the nearest stairwell. “Come on,” I told Bess and George, heading away from the crowds at the rail. “We need to talk.”

Soon the three of us were huddled behind a stack of lounge chairs. I started by filling them in on the previous day’s chat with Becca and subsequent encounter with Hiro, since this was my first chance to talk freely to them since then. We discussed all that for a few minutes, though we didn’t reach any new conclusions.

“Did you tell George about your newest suspect?” Bess asked.

"You mean Max?” I said.

"Max?” George said. "You’re kidding, right? The guy doesn’t exactly seem like a hardened criminal.”

“I know,” I said. "But it’s weird how he keeps messing things up lately—and how it always affects me.”

"Paranoid much?” George rolled her eyes. "I mean, seriously, Nancy—a botched wake-up call? Sending out the wrong laundry? This is your evidence that he’s up to no good?”

"I know, I know.” I glanced around to make sure nobody had wandered close enough to hear us. “But what if he’s been in cahoots with that jewelry thief all along? He definitely had access to our luggage, which means he could have left that nasty note in my suitcase on the first day. And maybe now he’s just trying to distract me however he can, hoping it’ll throw me off the case.” The argument sounded weak even to my own ears.

“Okay, there’s that,” Bess said diplomatically. “What about the rest of the suspect list?”

We went on to discuss our other suspects, including Wendy, Scott, Fred, and Tatjana. Could any of them be the thief s accomplice? None of us could come up with any compelling evidence for or against.

"It just doesn’t quite add up, does it?” I said at last, leaning against the stack of chairs and squinting up into the cloudless blue sky. “We have a whole bunch of suspects, but not much solid evidence. Just vague clues that could mean anything. We’ve been investigating for days, and it feels like we’re no closer to figuring out who could be the thief s accomplice.”

George opened her mouth to respond. Before she could say a word, another voice spoke up from behind us.



"Thief s accomplice?” Alan said. "What the heck are you guys talking about?”





CHAPTER FIVE




Comic Relief



“ALAN!” BESS BLURTED OUT.

Alan looked over the stack of chairs. His forehead was creased in a puzzled frown. “What’s going on?” he asked, looking at each of us in turn.

“Urn . . .” George gulped. “We were just, ah, role-playing. That’s it—we’re actually super geeks, and we’re really into, um, acting out famous true crimes from history. Now you know our secret—oh well, we’re pathetic nerds.”

Alan shook his head. "Nice try.” He glanced at me. "I thought I was going crazy when I heard you talking to the assistant cruise director about clues and stuff. And now here you are again, discussing suspects and evidence and accomplices...”

Uh-oh. Apparently Alan had overheard more than I’d thought yesterday morning. Added to his accidental eavesdropping just now? Well, it seemed the cat was out of the bag.

I took a deep breath, glancing at my friends. "I guess our secret’s out. We’d better fill him in.”

"Fill him in?” George echoed cautiously. “Um, you mean...” "The truth,” I finished for her. I was annoyed at myself for being so careless, letting him find out more than he should. But besides that? I was mostly, well, relieved. Now we wouldn’t have to sneak around behind Alan’s back anymore, which should make our lives—and the investigation—much easier. Maybe he’d even be some help.

“Okay, if you say so,” Bess said. She turned and took Alan’s hands in hers. "I’m sorry we haven’t been honest with you. It’s only because Becca swore us to absolute secrecy. We didn’t win this cruise in a contest. We were called in to look into some mysterious happenings. See, Becca knows Nancy from way back, and when she suspected someone was out to sabotage the Arctic Star...”