Strangers on a Train (Nancy Drew Diaries #2)(28)

Her smile looked a little sheepish. I realized what that meant. I’d been one of her suspects!

“So anyway, I did a little research after all the excitement last night. Made me miss some beauty sleep, but I didn’t want to wait.” She grimaced. "I heard there’s not much in the way of wireless access once we’re out in the park. We might not even have cell phone coverage.”

"Go figure,” George said innocently.

"Yeah.” Wendy shrugged. “Anyway, it didn’t take me long to find tons of info on you, Nancy.”

"Really?” I said. "Like what?”

Wendy opened her laptop and slid it over in front of me. “Here you go.”

My eyes widened. She’d opened up some kind of search engine. There on the screen was a whole page’s worth of stories about me! There were articles from the River Heights paper about various cases I’d solved. A write-up of a local service award I’d received last year. Even a link to a video of me standing beside my father while he was interviewed on TV after winning a big case.

"Wow,” I said. "I mean, I know you can find just about everything online. But this is kind of creepy!”

George reached for her coffee cup. "I’m always telling you this stuff is out there, Nancy.” She glanced at Wendy and rolled her eyes. “I swear, sometimes you’d think Nancy was older than my grandma.”

I just stared at the screen. This whole time, I’d been wondering why someone would target me and my friends when we were supposed to be here undercover. But when you came right down to it, we weren’t really undercover at all. We were using our real names. Anyone with Internet access could find out who we were with the click of a mouse.

The realization was so overwhelming that it took me a moment to realize Wendy was still talking. “Anyway,” she was saying, "I figured it made sense for us to team up to solve the case, you know?”

"The case?” I gulped. "Urn, how did you find out about it?”

Wendy shrugged. "The news is out there—all you have to do is look for it,” she said. "But actually, it was Tobias who clued me in.”

"Tobias?” I shot a confused look at George, who shook her head. "Wait, how did Tobias know about it?”

“I don’t know. I guess he saw it online too,” Wendy said. "The kid’s really into weird animal stuff, in case you haven’t noticed.”

"Weird animal stuff?” George said. "Wait—what case are you talking about?”

“Duh—my case.” Wendy sounded a little impatient. "And yours too, maybe, I guess. Are you here to investigate the Alaskan smuggling ring?”

"Smuggling ring?” I echoed. “Urn, no. What smuggling ring?” “Seriously? That’s not why you’re here?” Wendy looked suspicious. Then she shrugged. “Look, I’ll show you.”

She grabbed the laptop and started typing. A moment later she shoved it over to me again.

Another search result was up on the screen. This time, all the links had to do with smuggling. Specifically, smuggling animal parts, like tusks, teeth, and bones of rare or endangered species. “Wow,” I said. “Check this out, George.”

We skimmed a few of the articles, many of which talked about the latest international smuggling ring, which the authorities had so far been unable to bust. I felt a growing sense of excitement as I read. Was this the puzzle piece I’d been looking for?

“Well, here’s a motive for us,” George said, clearly thinking the same thing. “What if someone’s been smuggling rare Alaskan animal parts into Vancouver on cruise ships? It says right here that Vancouver’s a big hub for that sort of thing.”

“Wait,” Wendy broke in. “You think whoever’s doing this is someone from our ship? Crazy!”

"Maybe. And this would explain the weird, musty smell coming from that box last night.” I couldn’t help shuddering at the thought that the box might have been full of animal bones and such. “The trouble is, how do we prove it? We don’t know who that figure in the hoodie was. And we don’t even have the box as evidence.”

Just then I noticed a security guard hurrying toward us. He was a different guy from the one last night.

"Nancy Drew?” he said. "Hi. Hank filled me in on your situation during shift change this morning. I just wanted to let you know that the local police are on the case. We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, just holler if you need anything. My name’s John.” He pointed to his name tag.

“Thanks, John.” I stared at his name tag, and suddenly the final puzzle piece clicked into place in my head. A grin spread over my face. “Thank you very, very much!”

“What are you looking so happy about all of a sudden?” George asked as the guard hurried away.

"I think I know how to find out who I followed into the woods last night,” I said. “Maybe even how to solve the entire case—if it’s not too late.”



“Really?” Wendy exclaimed. “How can I help?”

“Can you go online and find out someone’s cell phone number?” I asked. "Even if it’s a super-common name—like Fred Smith?”





CHAPTER ELEVEN