Close Encounters (Nancy Drew (All New) Girl Detective Book 21) (11 page)

“Right,” George agreed. She knew as well as I that
time was of the essence. Even if this were some sort of prank, the people involved might panic—and Bess and Aldwin could be in serious danger.

Both the police chief and a state trooper were already seated at a café table with Winnie. As they talked, the officers took notes. Winnie looked beyond distraught. Figuring she’d somehow heard about Bess, I walked right up and interrupted. “Do you know where to start looking?” I asked the chief.

He glanced up from his notebook. “Excuse me?”

“There’s a good chance she’s wearing only one shoe. It matches this one.” I held up the sneaker.

Winnie’s eyes widened. “That belongs to Bess. She couldn’t get the paint off of it. . . . Wait. Why would the police be looking for her?”

“You haven’t heard,” George said. She quickly filled Winnie in.

Winnie’s face registered pure horror. “This is going too far!” she said, her voice shaking. Meanwhile, the trooper put a call out on his walkie-talkie, then left to secure the alley.

The chief stayed behind.

“Do you think this is connected?” Winnie asked him.

“With what?” I inquired.

Winnie looked desolate. “The recipe book I had on the counter is missing.”

“Since when?” I asked.

Winnie shook her head. “Who knows? I know it was here last night when I left. But in the commotion this morning I didn’t notice if it had been knocked off the counter. And I didn’t realize it was gone until now, when I had to check some ingredients.”

“You’re sure no one threw it out in the cleanup?” the chief asked.

“Why would anyone throw out a perfectly good loose-leaf binder? Besides, everyone who works for me knows the book is priceless.”

George winced. “I remember you said last night that you hadn’t finished putting the recipes into the computer.”

“Truthfully, I’d barely started. Knowing you were coming, I was going to ask for your help scanning them in.” She heaved a sigh. “They’re irreplaceable, George. They’re my family’s old recipes, and I had the only copy. Worse yet, all the café’s trademark dishes are from that book. Without the book—well, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

As I listened to Winnie, I had a hunch as to her book’s whereabouts. “Not to worry,” I told her.

The police chief looked up sharply. “You sound like you know what happened.”

“I don’t, exactly, but one thing’s for sure—a bear didn’t steal it.” Before anyone could even make the suggestion, I added quickly, “Neither did the aliens.”

J
ust in case Bess
turned up back at the café on her own, I gave the trooper my cell phone number. Then I left with George to try to track her down myself.

Before heading for the car, I checked out the entrance to the café’s parking area. As I’d suspected, the minivan had been replaced by a police sawhorse.

“Are you still fixed on investigating Nathan Blackman first?” George asked.

“He’s our best bet, but we’re going to visit someone else first. I’ve got a hunch that we might be able to find Winnie’s recipe book en route,” I answered as we drove out of town.

“I feel bad for Winnie, but can’t that wait? Bess is more important than any dumb book.”

“No question,” I agreed. I knew she was itching
to do something,
anything
, to find her cousin. I felt the same way. “But checking this out will just take a minute,” I told her. “Plus, I can’t shake the feeling that the missing recipe book is somehow connected to the UFO sightings—and to Bess’s disappearance.”

“What’s the connection?” George asked.

“Winnie’s cousin.”

“No way!” George exclaimed. Then she exhaled sharply. “Wait, Ellie was Winnie’s original partner in the café.”

“And after the way she booted Bess and me out of her shop this morning, I’m sure there’s some serious bad blood between them.”

“Okay—that gives her motive to sabotage Winnie. But why would Ellie kidnap Bess?” George asked. “Or anyone else—and how?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out. But we’re about to ask her,” I said as we approached the Antique Attic.

“It’s going to feel pretty awkward if you’re totally wrong,” George pointed out.

“Tell me about it.” But as I pulled into the driveway, I saw the proof that I wasn’t wrong. I pointed to the shop’s green minivan parked in front of the garage. “That van looks just like the one that was blocking the lot behind the café earlier.”

“I didn’t really notice,” George admitted. “But there’s gotta be more than one green van in this town.”

“Right. The van I saw might not be Ellie’s. Even if it is, it doesn’t prove she stole the recipe book,” I conceded. I grabbed Bess’s shoe and bracelet and started toward the antique shop. On impulse I did an about-face and detoured toward the van. I felt the hood of the car; it was warm.

Maybe my hunch wasn’t so off.

“Here goes nothing,” George murmured as I opened the shop door.

Inside, Ellie was tallying receipts. At the sight of me her welcoming smile faded fast. “What are you doing back here?”

“I need to talk to you,” I answered.

“
I
don’t need to talk to
you
. In fact, perhaps you didn’t get the message earlier: You aren’t welcome here. So leave.”

When I didn’t budge, she reached for the phone. “This is private property. If you don’t leave now, I’m calling the police.”

I shrugged. “Be my guest,” I said. “Though I’m not sure you want to do that.”

George exhaled impatiently. “What Nancy is getting at is, we want the recipe book back—the one you filched from Winnie’s café.”

“What recipe book?” Ellie asked, looking baffled. But I noticed her hand move away from the phone.

“Your family recipe book—the one you and Winnie
used in the café. The one you stole this afternoon.” I watched her face as I spelled it out.

“I was here all afternoon,” she declared, looking indignant.

“Oh, then someone borrowed your van?” I suggested.

Ellie’s forehead furrowed into a frown. “No one borrowed my van, and what’s that got to do with Winnie’s book? If that woman can’t keep track of her things, that’s her problem. It’s sure not mine anymore,” she concluded bitterly.

“That’s weird. I’d think you’d be just as upset as Winnie that someone had made off with your family’s recipe book. It’s the only copy, after all.” George looked right at me. “Isn’t that the impression you got, Nancy?”

I nodded, watching Ellie struggle to come up with a response to George’s remark. I knew we’d caught her in a lie, but that wasn’t enough. Bess was missing, and we needed to get to the root of what was going on. “Ellie, stop denying it. No one’s going to press charges against you if you return the recipe book now. We’ll just bring it back to Winnie.”

Ellie’s expression darkened. “Okay, you’re right. I did take it. This afternoon. And yes, I was in town with my van. What’s all this to you, anyway?” she fumed. “I’ve got as much right to it as Winnie. It
originally belonged to our grandmother. When we decided to dissolve the partnership in the restaurant, the recipe book conveniently went missing.”

“Oh, gimme a break!” George scoffed.

Ellie stormed out from behind the counter. “Oh, sweet Winifred Armond didn’t tell you that part, did she? It takes
two
people to make a business work—and to make it fall apart. Everyone thinks I’m the bad guy here, but Winnie’s no angel. The book must have turned up again, because her menu is totally based on the recipes. She continues to profit from everything we dreamed of and started together. The café was as much my passion as hers. When we split up, she was supposed to copy the recipes and share them. Has she? No!”

I had no patience for Ellie’s rant. “That’s all history, something you should have worked out before now. Instead you’ve stolen her book. I bet you also hacked into her computer, tampered with ingredients in her kitchen . . . and who knows what else you’ve done to get back at her?”

“How about breaking into the place last night and making it look like the work of a bear?” George suggested.

“That’s nuts. I didn’t break in. Bears have broken into several restaurants around here . . . private homes, too. Leave it to Winnie to try to blame that on me.”

“The point is that you admit you stole the recipes. What about the other attempts to undermine her business?”

Ellie’s bravado suddenly collapsed. “Okay,” she said. She heaved a tired sigh, and threw the papers she was holding down on the counter. “I’m sick of this whole feud anyway. Yes, I stole the book. And yes, I want Winnie’s business to fail, so I managed to play a few dirty tricks. As for her computer . . . that wasn’t my idea.”

“Whose, then?” George asked.

“My son started tampering with her system before he went back to school. He’s in Boston, studying to be a programmer. He seems to be able to access her machine from there. It’s a mystery to me how.”

Her confession encouraged me. It was time to play hardball with this woman. “If your son’s such a techie, then he probably helped you on the other front.”

“What other front?” Ellie asked, sounding genuinely startled.

“The UFOs,” George answered. “We’re pretty sure they’re a hoax, and since the sighting this afternoon gave you cover to steal the book—”

“Whoa!” Ellie snapped to attention. “You think the UFOs are a hoax?”

I nodded.

“And you think
I
have something to do with
it?” She suddenly didn’t look the least bit tired. She looked furious. “Are you accusing me of somehow faking all these sightings?”

“With help, of course,” I said, holding her glance.

Dumbfounded, Ellie gaped at me. It took her a second to find her voice. “That’s totally off the wall. Forget the
how
of it.
Why
would I do something like that?”

“To rev up business,” George suggested, pointing to Ellie’s display of alien souvenirs.

“Oh, that’s brilliant!” Ellie laughed tightly. “In order to sell more dumb alien masks, I’d try to perpetrate some impossible hoax involving little green men.”

“Not for the masks,” I told her. “For your realty business. UFO sightings promise to turn Brody’s Junction into Vermont’s version of Roswell, New Mexico.”

“Interesting concept,” she said, looking impressed. “But believe me, the last thing I want is to turn this town into a permanent tourist mecca—attracting all the crazies who think they see spaceships ready to invade—”

George broke in. “You’re telling us that you had nothing to do with the sighting this afternoon, and Bess’s kidnapping?”

Ellie looked confused. “Someone besides Aldwin and his prize hound have gone missing?” I watched
her expression morph from shocked to horrified. “Wait, isn’t Bess that blond girl who was in here earlier today?”

“Yes,” I said. I was finding it hard to read Ellie’s reaction. Either she truly was in the dark about Bess or she deserved an Oscar for Best Actress.

“I can’t believe it—who’d do that?”

“We think it’s whoever is behind the hoaxes—and I’m not convinced you aren’t involved with them somehow,” I told her.

“Are you insane?” she practically shrieked. “I have nothing to do with the hoaxes, and I have no idea what happened to your friend—but if someone abducted her, that’s beyond awful. It’s . . .” She was suddenly at a loss for words.

Ellie looked and sounded so dismayed that I found myself sure she was telling the truth: She was certainly in the wrong for sabotaging her former business partner, but the woman seemed totally incapable of perpetrating a UFO hoax, let alone kidnapping Bess—

“Wait,” she said, interrupting my chain of thought. “Not being local, you wouldn’t know this, but Aldwin is famous around here for being a prankster. When he and the dog went missing, I figured he was taking a joke too far. But if your friend has really been abducted, then Aldwin has too.”

“You have me convinced,” I finally told Ellie. “You don’t know anything about how Bess or anyone else disappeared.”

“But you
did
steal those recipes, and unless you want us to turn you in to the police, you’d better return them to Winnie,” George said firmly.

“No way!” Ellie declared. “I’m not returning them to Winnie, not until I have copies.”

“Then we’ll have to call the cops and tell them about how you’ve harassed Winnie and her café, trying to drive her out of business.” George pulled her cell out of her pocket.

“You can’t do that,” Ellie declared hotly.

“Yes, we can,” I contradicted her. I waited a beat before adding, “Unless you go over there now, own up to what you’ve done, and return the recipes.”

George spoke up. “If you do, I’ll sweeten the deal for you. I’ll input the recipes into her computer and make a disk for you—if Winnie doesn’t object. But only if you include a good, heartfelt apology with your very sincere confession.”

“All right,” Ellie said reluctantly. “I’ll go later.”

“More like
now
,” George said. She turned to me. “Ellie can drive me in her van. You go ahead and keep looking for Bess. I’ll meet up with you later at the inn.”

Ellie closed up her shop as I left the store. I pushed
the speed limit and headed right out to the Nichols farm.

When I arrived, I parked in front of the farm stand. The front yard gate creaked as I opened it, and the sound sent the whole kennel barking.

“Oh, keep quiet,” I cried, feeling annoyed, frustrated, and, deep down, scared about what might have happened to Bess.

The dogs continued to bark as I knocked on the front door, hoping Addie May was still home waiting for Aldwin’s return. But no one answered. I figured I’d better check the backyard.

I hurried down the porch steps and rounded the corner of the house, only to find myself eye to eye with the barrel of a shotgun.

And the shabby man pointing the gun at my chest was none other than Nathan Blackman.

F
ace-to-face with
a shotgun, I swiftly weighed my options—not that there were many. Addie’s truck was not in the barnyard, so it was a good bet I was alone.