Close Encounters (Nancy Drew (All New) Girl Detective Book 21) (5 page)

“I’ll check it out,” George said, retrieving her backpack from our table. She took out her laptop and switched it on. It booted right up. George tested a couple of programs, went online, then looked up from her screen. “It’s fine. The problem’s limited to your system after all,” she told Winnie.

“It figures.” Winnie blew out her breath. “The way everything’s been going lately around here, I’m beginning to feel jinxed.”

“Jinxed?” I repeated. My mind catapulted back to Sarah Conway’s mention of Winnie’s troubles.

Winnie gave an embarrassed laugh. “There are probably reasonable explanations . . .”

“For . . . ?” George said, encouraging her.

“Lots of little problems have been cropping up at the café,” Winnie explained. “I’m not even sure they’re connected. The ovens broke down last week, and somehow the baking powder and flour containers got mislabeled, and we had to throw out a whole evening’s baking. Just yesterday the plug on the cappuccino machine fell off. Joel had to take it to be repaired—I won’t have it back until tomorrow, and we’re so busy.”

As I listened, I felt as if I were looking at a puzzle where the dots didn’t really connect—and yet my
sixth sense, known for helping me solve tough mysteries, told me otherwise. “Do you have any explanation?” I asked.

“In my saner moments,” she answered, “I chalk it up to being understaffed and overbusy. I’ve been through this kind of stress before. You start making mistakes in the kitchen—everything from not-so-minor accidents, like cutting yourself during prep or burning your hand on a hot pot, to dumb things, like going to drain pasta in the sink and forgetting the colander.” Again, Winnie looked sheepish.

“And when you’re feeling not so sane?” Bess asked. Her tone was light, but the question was reasonable. I’d been wondering the same thing.

Winnie colored slightly. “Oh, I think someone is deliberately sabotaging me and the restaurant.”

Sabotage
? Before I could ask her who or why, Winnie gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Like I said, I’m probably blowing things out of proportion . . .” As I watched, her expression shifted from embarrassed to puzzled to something I couldn’t quite read. “It can’t be.” She seemed to be figuring something out—out loud. “Hacking into a computer—how would she?—I can’t believe . . .” Winnie’s words trailed off as the door to the kitchen swung open.

Joel emerged. He wore a beat-up shearling jacket
over his apron and thick winter gloves on his hands. “Boss, we’ve got a problem.”

Winnie’s jaw dropped.

“It’s the freezer again. The back section is fine, but the front is defrosting at a pretty scary rate, and we just got that meat order in this morning.”

“The freezer.” To my amazement, Winnie sounded relieved. “That’s all?” She turned to George. “This is an ongoing problem I’ve had since the café opened. The new freezer’s on order, but meanwhile, I’ve got to deal with this.” She headed for the kitchen.

“What about the computer?” George asked.

Winnie stopped and turned. “Do you need me, or can you just deal with it?”

“No problemo!” George waved her off. “Go ahead—I’ll have it up and running before we leave.” Immediately she sat down at the computer. Bess and I exchanged a glance, and knew it was time to leave George to wrestle with the computer.

Winnie told us to help ourselves to more coffee and dessert, then followed Joel into the kitchen.

As the doors closed behind Winnie, Bess lowered her voice and said, “I wonder who ‘she’ is?”

“Whoever this mystery woman may be, Winnie doesn’t think she has the tech skills to hack into her system.” A pot of hot water was on the coffee machine heater. I located a tin of tea bags and made myself a
cup of tea. As it brewed, I mentally reviewed the list of Winnie’s mishaps. At first glance all the incidents seemed like just a run of bad luck. But what if Winnie was right, and someone
was
sabotaging her?

Within the hour George had Winnie’s system up and running. “I need to come back tomorrow morning to install a better firewall,” she reported. “I’ll ask Winnie to stay offline until then.”

After saying good night, we headed back to the inn. When we arrived, Sarah invited us into the lounge. A meeting with the mayor, some town officials, the police, and the
Reel TV
people had just broken up. “You all look a bit chilled,” she said. “Why not help yourselves to hot chocolate and something sweet?”

Bess patted her stomach. “We’ve all had more than our share of dessert, but something hot sounds great. It’s getting cold out there.”

Sarah smiled broadly as we took off our jackets. “Snow’s predicted any day now. Maybe our spell of dry, warm winters is about to break.”

“Let me get rid of my backpack,” George said, then ran upstairs to our room, taking our jackets with her.

I followed Sarah into the lounge. This was the perfect chance to track down the cameraman who had filmed the UFO sighting. After a cursory glance at the crowd I asked Sarah if he was still there, or if he’d already gone to his room.

Sarah looked up from filling a mug with hot chocolate. “Oh, you mean Frankie Lee. He’s not staying at the inn. Ms. Sanchez rented a house for him up the road a ways. His family’s flying in from the West Coast next week to spend some time here, and we just didn’t have room.” She handed me the drink. “He should still be around, though. I overheard him say he had to speak with Ms. Sanchez about some production notes.”

“I’d like to meet him,” I said.

“I’d be happy to do the honors,” she said, but we hadn’t moved two steps away from the buffet when a spare, rangy man stopped us. “Who’s your friend?” he asked Sarah. He was over six feet tall, and he looked like he was in his seventies. His sandy hair was faded and thinning; his face was narrow. But his pale blue eyes shone sharp as a hawk’s. He smiled and reached out to shake my hand even before we were introduced.

“Oh, Ethan, this is Nancy Drew. She and her friends are visiting Winifred. And, young as she is, she’s a bona fide detective.”

I was dismayed at that introduction—I like to keep my sleuthing private when I can, just in case it gets in the way of my getting some evidence. Ethan lifted his eyebrows. “Impressive,” he said.

“And Nancy, this is Ethan Brody. He’s the mayor of Brody’s Junction.”

“Who’s a detective?” a shorter, beefy man inquired
as he walked up. He wore a state trooper uniform and held a cup of coffee in one hand.

“Nancy here is,” Sarah said. Then she introduced me. “This is Captain Rupert Greene. Rupert’s stationed at the barracks just outside of town.”

Captain Greene seemed to appraise me carefully as he shook my hand. “Someone called you in to investigate?”

“I’m just here visiting friends,” I told him.

He nodded, but I sensed he didn’t believe me.

Mayor Brody chuckled. “Rupert, don’t look so suspicious. A detective on the case might be just what we need.” From his tone I couldn’t tell if the mayor was mocking me. Not that I wasn’t used to officials being skeptical. After all, teenagers aren’t usually known for investigating crimes. Speaking of crimes, though—I wondered if these guys were talking about the UFO sightings.

“What’s there to investigate?” I was sure I knew the answer, but figured playing a bit dumb wasn’t a bad idea here.

“Alien invaders!” the captain said, grinning from ear to ear.

The mayor patted the captain on the shoulder. “Our lawman here likes to joke about our small town being on the front lines of an intergalactic war zone,” he said with a disarming smile. “But don’t let
his joshing fool you. He’s taking it seriously enough to cordon off the perimeter of the sightings.”

Captain Greene let out a hearty laugh. “Ethan’s right. I’m pretty skeptical they’re the real thing.” Then he asked, “Were you around earlier this evening?”

“Yes.”

“So what’s your take on our otherworldy visitors?” His tone was serious, but the shadow of a smile played across his lips.

I saw I had an ally. The state police captain believed the UFOs were about as real as the man in the moon. “That they have more to do with
this
world than the stars,” I answered. I wondered if I could convince him to give me access to the area where the UFOs had appeared.

Mayor Brody’s eyebrows shot up even higher. “You’ve found yourself another skeptic, Rupert.” He turned to me. “You think our UFO sightings are hoaxes, then?”

Our
sightings. That was a strange way of putting it. But I attributed his remark to hometown pride. “Probably,” I answered.

“Which is why,” Izzy Sanchez said as she joined us, “I want to use Nancy and her friends in our documentary.”

Captain Greene practically choked on his coffee. “To prove the UFOs don’t exist?” he asked the TV producer.

“Actually, just the opposite,” Izzy said. She smiled
at me. “I confess, I’m an incurable eavesdropper, so I couldn’t help but overhear that you are some kind of detective?”

Mayor Brody answered for me. “She is.”

“
Amateur
detective,” I pointed out. I was trying to maintain a guise of not having much experience, in case it ruffled anyone—but at the rate news was spreading about my sleuthing rep, I feared it was a lost cause.

“So much the better,” Izzy said. “That’s the perfect touch. The camera will record your efforts to prove that the sightings are a hoax. The drama will be even more intense when the viewers realize, at the same time as you, that they aren’t. The detective bit gives more weight to the whole thing.”

“Like I said before, I’m not interested.” I turned to ask Captain Greene about visiting the site, but he was already talking with someone else.

“What can I do to convince you?” Izzy asked. I must say, I admired her persistence. It sure piqued my curiosity.

“Why me and my friends, again?”

“Like I told you earlier: You girls are young enough to appeal to our target audience; they’ll identify with you. The three of you will look good on-screen . . .”

I finished her sentence for her. “And of course, there will be more drama when you convince me these hoaxes are real. But what if I don’t get convinced?”

She wasn’t about to give up. “If you worked with us, you could move freely around some of the restricted areas—at least while the crew is around.”

The woman was as dogged as I was. “You sure know how to play a person.”

“That’s a big part of my job—convincing people to do something they
think
they don’t want to do.” She paused. I could tell she was waiting for my reply. I wanted to say no, but my need to get to the root of this mystery was too strong. The UFOs were a hoax, and in spite of what Izzy might think, I was going to prove it.

“So?” she asked.

“Okay, okay, you got me. I’m game. I can’t speak for George or Bess, though—we’re here together on vacation. If they don’t want to go ahead with the deal, then it’s off.” Of course, I knew Bess would jump at the chance to be on TV, and George would go along with the whole thing, if only because she was always a good sport in the end.

“All right!” Izzy pumped her fist in the air. A second later she was all business. “I’ll have one of my people leave releases for you to sign in the morning. Part of my crew will be at the roadblock at the foot of the hill leading up to Brody’s Peak Resort. You can hook up with one of the camera teams there before lunch, if possible. It’ll give you a chance to get closer to the scene of your so-called crime.”

I
’m sure the TV
crew won’t bother with me,” George said the next morning after breakfast at the inn. When she looked up from signing her copy of the release Izzy’s people had left at the reception desk, relief was written on her face.

“True,” Bess said, zipping up her fleece jacket. “Watching you fine-tune Winnie’s computer isn’t exactly the stuff of exciting television.”

“Ah, but taping you shop—now that could make for some pretty hot TV drama,” George told her as we headed for the parking lot.

“We’re going shopping?” I asked, looking at Bess.

She brandished a Brody’s Junction flyer in my face. “We are not only in the land of the bargain clothing
outlets, we are also in the heart of major antiquing,” she informed us.

I checked my watch. “Bess, we’ve already gotten a late start today. We might have to put off shopping until tomorrow.”

“Not to worry,” Bess said, opening up her tourist map. “The shop I’m thinking of is just east of town, on the same road where the TV crew is headquartered.”

George laughed. “She’s got all the bases covered, Nancy. You might as well give in.”

“Believe me, I’m not about to argue with that famous Marvin logic,” I said.

George left us to go for her morning run, then she’d head to back to the café and Winnie’s computer. After upgrading the firewall she planned on kicking the café’s website up a notch. We’d decided to hook up at Winnie’s in the early afternoon.

Bess and I went toward the shop. True to her word, Bess’s chosen shopping target, the Antique Attic, was close by. A sign with the word
REALTOR
was arched over the top of the handcrafted Antique Attic sign.

“Looks like the perfect place for a quick browse,” Bess said as we parked next to the shop’s pale green minivan.

“
Quick
is the operative word here,” I reminded Bess. The storefront had two doors. One door led into the realty office, the other into the antique store.

A buzzer sounded as we walked in, and a tall woman with salt-and-pepper hair looked up from arranging jewelry in a display on the counter. She was an attractive fortysomething: a spare, nicely dressed woman with great cheekbones. I was sure I had seen her somewhere before . . .

But where?

I shook off the thought. I had never been anywhere near here before. How would I know her?

“Just browsing?” she asked. “Take your time. But if there’s something in particular you’re looking for, feel free to ask.”

“Thanks, we will,” I said. Immediately a display of beaded bracelets caught Bess’s eye. “Would Hannah like one of these?” she asked. Hannah was our housekeeper in River Heights, and she’d been like a second mother to Bess and George ever since she’d become a part of our household.