Carolyn Keene - Two Points to Murder

“I doubt that.” Nancy was getting impatient. She had to get free soon—but how?

Frank seemed to sense the new urgency she was feeling. “You’re looking awfully perky,” he said. “I think it’s time to take you for a nice, long ride, Nancy Drew.”

Bending over, he reached for a piece of rope that was lying by his feet. Nancy saw her chance. Bracing herself with her hands, she pushed herself off the examination table and at the same time kicked upward with her foot.

The kick wasn’t strong enough to knock Frank out, but it did catch him squarely in the face. Howling, he fell backward onto the desk. Blood gushed from his shattered nose, but Nancy didn’t hang around to see more. Heart pounding, she ran to the door and opened it.

Running was difficult. Nancy was still groggy from the chloroform. She felt herself weaving back and forth, pushing off walls, tripping and getting up. No matter what, though, she kept going. She would only get one chance!

How long had she delayed Frank with that kick? Not very long, she was sure. He was probably after her already. He had the revolver, too. Somehow she had to get out of the building—she’d have a better chance in the open. A car might come by. Someone might hear her scream.

On and on she ran. Why had they made the halls so long? Finally, she reached a stairway and staggered up it. Another long hall and she was in the main lobby.

It was empty, of course. The game was long over, and everyone had gone home. Even the security guard wasn’t around. Anxiously, she raced to the glass front doors and pushed. They were locked! She glanced around wildly for another way out—and spotted it. Off to her right, another set of doors!

Sprinting, she burst through them—and stopped dead. She was in the gym! This wasn’t any good—she was a sitting duck in the middle of all this space.

What next?

Nancy was almost ready to give up when she spotted the floats. Ever since the pep rally that afternoon two of them had been parked on one side of the gym, next to some bleachers. She ran for the nearest one as fast as she could.

The float was a high platform, below which hung a pleated curtain. Ducking under this, she saw that the whole thing rested on the roof of a Jeep! What luck! If she could only get it started, then maybe, just maybe—

Footsteps sounded on the wooden floor outside. Frank was in the gym, stalking her. Quietly, Nancy slipped into the Jeep’s driver’s seat and reached for the key. It wasn’t there. She would have to hot-wire it, she realized, but how could she do that without giving herself away? One sound and she was dead!

Reaching under the dashboard, she located the ignition wires. She tugged them down and began to twist them together. How did it go? The red and the white? The black and the green? If she got out of this alive, she promised herself, she would practice stealing cars until she could do it blindfolded!

The engine caught. Nancy stomped on the gas pedal, slammed the gearshift into first, and popped the clutch. The float jerked forward. She was in motion! Now she had just one more problem to solve: Where to go?

Nancy flicked on the headlights. As she did, she saw that a rectangle had been cut out of the curtain in front of the windshield. The view wasn’t great, but it would have to do. She headed for the middle of the court.

Where was Frank? Nancy couldn’t see him, but she knew he was there. It wouldn’t be long before he started shooting, either. Her only hope lay in being difficult to hit. On that theory, she began to drive in circles, looking both for Frank and a possible way out.

There! She had it! On the other side of the gym was a long row of double doors—the exit to the parking lot. Spinning the wheel, she headed for them—then hit the brakes. Twenty yards ahead of her, Frank had stepped from the darkness into the glare of the headlights!

Slowly, Frank raised the revolver and squeezed off a shot. The windshield shattered. Nancy screamed and covered her face with her hands. She was trapped!

Chapter Nineteen

What was she going to do? There was no hope. Unless . . .

Pushing in the clutch, she slammed the gearshift into first again. The Jeep began to roll. She was heading directly at Frank, but he didn’t move. Instead, he squeezed off two more shots. Nancy hit the horn and accelerated. Why didn’t he jump out of the way? Why didn’t he—

At the last moment, he twisted sideways and dove. Pressing down the accelerator, Nancy headed straight for the exit doors. When she reached them she didn’t stop—she plowed straight through.

The Jeep died in the parking lot. Nancy felt as if she was going to die, too. Every bone in her body ached. She felt like she had just driven through a brick wall.

“Look! Over there!”

George! Wrenching open the door, Nancy fought her way out of the now-ruined float. Across the parking lot she saw her friend running toward her—and with her were Bess, Ned, and at least a dozen policemen.

She was safe!

An hour later, Nancy was sitting in Pat Burnett’s office. She had just given the coach her final report, and now Bess and George were falling over each other in their eagerness to tell their part of the story. Nancy grinned as she listened.

“. . . so after waiting in the student union for an hour, we realized that something was wrong. We went to the hospital, figuring we’d find Ned there. That’s when we saw Dr. Riggs. We asked him—”

“—if he’d seen you, but his answer sounded fishy. So we followed him to Mike’s room. Just then Ned walked by . . . he was talking to a doctor . . . and we filled him in. The doctor was suspicious, too, so we ran into Mike’s room, and sure enough! Dr. Riggs—”

“—was getting ready to inject a syringe full of air into Mike’s arm! Can you believe that? What a creep!”

“Yeah. Well, to make a long story short, we had him arrested. Then we rushed over here to the sports complex.”

“We arrived just in time to see you drive that float out the side entrance. Boy, did that look weird!”

“I’ll bet it did,” Nancy said.

Behind his desk, Pat Burnett grunted and leaned back in his chair. “I owe you an apology, young lady,” he announced. “If I had known how much danger was involved, I never would have called you in to investigate this case.”

Nancy shook her head. “Don’t apologize. You had no idea what was going on.”

“I certainly didn’t. And I’m still not too clear about one thing . . . how did you know that Riggs was behind it all?”

“Remember the warning spray painted on the window of our dorm room? That happened the first night. At the time, only three people besides Bess and George knew that I was investigating the practical jokes: you, Ned . . . and Dr. Riggs! I should have seen the significance of it sooner, but I didn’t.”

“There’s something else you haven’t told us, Nancy,” Bess put in. “What’s a push ?”

Nancy explained, “Craig and Andy were worried that the final point spread would be eight—exactly on the line for tonight. If that happened it would be a push. All bets would be off, and nobody would collect any vig.”

“Is that why they knocked Ned down? To keep him from pushing the score over the line?”

“That’s right.”

George looked over. “I have a question, too. What made you realize that gambling was involved, Nancy?”

“Oh! It was the comment you made after Ned was taken down. You said, ‘I’ll bet the other team is happy.’ Remember?”

“Yes, but—”

“It was the word bet that hit me. I put it together with Captain Hook’s phone call, and voila! Everything fell into place.”

Silence descended in the office. As Nancy relaxed, letting the tension finally dram out of her system, she suddenly realized that there was something she didn’t know.