Strangers on a Train (Nancy Drew Diaries #2)(24)

I glanced back at Tatjana, who was coming toward us. "Nancy!” she cried, her eyes flashing with anger. “Did you follow me?”

“Obviously she did,” Hiro snapped, frowning at her. "I told you to be careful!”

I cringed back against the tree trunk as he spun to face me. My eyes darted around, looking for anything I could grab to use as a weapon—a rock, a fallen branch . . .

“Nancy, please don’t tell anyone you saw us out here,” Hiro begged.

I blinked, focusing back on his face. All the anger had disappeared from his expression. Now he just looked anxious and kind of freaked-out.

"Yes, please, Nancy,” Tatjana put in. "If anyone knows we are together, especially Becca—”

"Wait,” I said, confused. "What’s going on here?”

Hiro reached for Tatjana’s hand. "Don’t worry,” he told her, his voice thick with emotion. “Even if they fire us, it was worth it.” He planted a kiss on her lips.

I blinked. Okay, I’m no Bess, but I recognize romance when I see it. "So you two are—a couple?” I asked. "That’s why you’re sneaking around out here?”

"Yes.” Tatjana squared her shoulders. "But you cannot tell Becca. She wouldn’t understand.”

Hiro nodded. "I know you’re friendly with Becca,” he told me. "So I suppose you already know that she and I used to date when we both worked for Jubilee.”

“Actually, I didn’t know that.” But now that I did, some things were starting to make a lot more sense.

"We broke up when we both got hired by Superstar.” He shrugged. "She’s technically my boss now, so we didn’t think it would be appropriate to keep seeing each other. Then Tatjana came along...” He glanced over at Tatjana and squeezed her hand, which he was still clutching. "Anyway, we weren’t sure at first how serious things were between us, so we kept our relationship a secret.”

Tatjana added, "It seemed a good idea at the time.”

"Yes. But now that things are more serious, we’re worried that Becca won’t understand.” Hiro sighed, running his free hand through his spiky dark hair. "In fact, I’d planned to talk to her about it before now, but I can’t seem to catch her alone.”

"That’s why you burst in on us,” I realized. "At the snack bar the other day. You were looking for Becca, right?”

He nodded. "I ran into Omar—the kid who works at that snack bar—and he said she was up there.” He smiled ruefully. "I didn’t even stop to think that she might not be alone.”

"Sorry about that.” My mind was clicking along, adding this piece to my puzzle of clues and incidents. This explained why Becca and Hiro always seemed so awkward together. And why Becca never had much to say when I questioned her about him. And also why Tatjana had been harder for her to reach lately.

"You won’t tell her, will you?” Hiro asked anxiously. “I plan to talk to her as soon as we get back to the ship.”

“I won’t say a word.”

Leaving them together, I headed back through the woods toward the lodge. Halfway there another thought occurred to me. Could this new information also explain the busboy’s firing?

Maybe he’d caught the two of them together, and they’d been afraid he’d tell Becca.. . .

"Doubtful,” I muttered before I’d even finished the thought. It was worth keeping the possibility in the back of my mind, but now that I knew their secret, Hiro and Tatjana just didn’t seem like the type of people who could have made that anonymous tip against an innocent man.

When I reached the meadow, I saw a flash of movement. It was Tobias. He was crouched near the edge of the woods with a digital camera.

I walked over to him. "What are you doing out here?” I asked. "I thought you’d be off on a day trip.”

“Nope.” Tobias straightened up. “My mom had a headache, so we stayed here.” He grinned. “Good thing, too! Wendy wants me to take pictures of all the birds and animals and stuff I can find. She says she’ll pay me if she decides to use any of them on her website!”

“Really? Are you sure she said that?”

"Uh-huh.” Tobias turned and snapped a photo of a bird flying past. “She knows I like exotic animals and stuff, so she figures I can get some good ones.”

“And she said she’d pay you for them?” That seemed odd, given that Wendy was supposed to be broke. Could this have something to do with her mysterious new plan?

Tobias stared at me as if I had two heads. “Didn’t I just say that?”

"Where is Wendy right now?” I asked.

Tobias shrugged, fiddling with his camera. “She was in the lobby when I saw her.”

I headed for the lobby, but Wendy wasn’t there. She wasn’t in her room or the restaurant, either. I wandered around the grounds for a while, but there was still no sign of her.

“Oh well,” I murmured, pausing on the lodge’s unoccupied back deck.

The lounge chairs out there looked comfortable, so I sank onto one. It had been another long day. I leaned back, staring up at the still-bright early evening sky and thinking about the case. I realized I’d just crossed two more suspects off my list. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that Hiro and Tatjana didn’t have anything to do with the case. That only left me with a few live suspects: Wendy, Max, maybe Scott. Was it time to start looking for some new ideas?