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 voilà! Everything fell into place.”
Silence descended in the office. As Nancy relaxed, letting the tension finally drain out of her system, she suddenly realized that there was something she didn’t know.
“Coach Burnett, in all the excitement I forgot to ask. Who won the game?”
“We did, by two points,” he said.
There was no joy in his voice. No doubt he was thinking about the NCAA playoffs, she knew. The Wildcats weren’t going to have much of a chance with their best players out of commission. She felt bad for him.
What a lot of trouble had come out of a few practical jokes!
• • •
Ned was waiting for her in the lobby. Without a word, they went out the front doors together and began to wander slowly across the campus. The moon cast blue shadows around them. Nancy felt as if she were walking the last mile.
“Ned, you can forgive me for suspecting Mike, can’t you?” she asked.
Ned shook his head. “I don’t know, Nancy. I just don’t know . . .”
“But he was involved in the point shaving. He made that effigy, too. You accept that, don’t you?”
“Yes. What I can’t accept is the way you handled everything. If you hadn’t confronted him the way you did . . . if you had been more understanding . . . then maybe . . .”
“What?”
“Well, he might have opened up to you. Or to me. Instead he tried to handle everything himself, and look what happened! He’s flat on his back in the hospital. He’ll never play basketball again!”
There was nothing Nancy could say to that. Ned was right. Because she had been angry at him, she had tried to prove him wrong. She had charged ahead without any thought about the consequences.
She could see now that Mike O’Shea wasn’t a bad person. He was simply a vulnerable guy from a poor background who had been offered some easy money. He had listened to his conscience, too, and had tried to break free. But had she taken that possibility into consideration? No, she had not. She had tagged Mike as a criminal.
What had gone wrong? How had she managed to lose her usual good judgment? It had been a stressful case, of course, but that didn’t excuse her. The greater the pressure, she knew, the more important it was for her to stay loose.
Maybe it was something else, she thought. Maybe being a detective was making it difficult for her to trust people. After all, look at her and Ned! In spite of their relationship, she had even suspected him for a while!
Remembering the bracelet he had given her, Nancy asked a question that had been on her mind since early that evening.
“Ned, where did you get the money for that silver bracelet?”
He shrugged. “Where else? It came out of the money I earned lifeguarding last summer.”
“Oh. Then why did you keep it a secret? When I said something about the price that night at the party, you brushed me off.”
Ned walked in silence for a minute, his eyes on the stars. When he finally answered her, his voice was remote.
“Nancy, do you realize how hard it is for me to give you anything?”
“What do you mean? Ned, you’ve given me lots of things! Balloons, chocolates—”
“I’m not talking about gifts. I’m talking about more important things . . . love, support, sympathy . . . that stuff.”
“Ned, are you nuts?” she cried. “You’re the most loving, generous guy in the world!”
“And you’re the most independent girl in the world, too. Nancy, you don’t need me. There’s nothing I give you that you can’t get from a hundred other guys.”
“Ned!”
“It’s true. Not only that, when you get right down to it, who comes first in our relationship? You! Your career! Your cases! Even your suspects!”
“But—”
“Every time I help you with a case, you keep me in the background. My opinion means nothing to you! Well, let me tell you something . . . I’m sick of being put down and ignored. Nancy, I can’t even give you a bracelet without hearing you ask how much money I spent on it!”
Nancy was stunned. Never before had she heard him sound so angry, so bitter. Had she really been acting as horribly as he said? Had she really been treating him so badly?
Stopping, she turned and touched his arm. “Ned, what are you saying? I don’t understand why you’re so upset. I mean, we’ve shared everything . . . the danger, the fun. . . .”
“Sure, but that’s not what I want anymore. It’s not enough.”
“What do you mean?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Nancy, I’ve been thinking about it for the last few days, and . . . well, I think it’s time for us to start seeing other people.”
The words hit Nancy like a slap. “N-Ned . . . you don’t mean that—”
“Yes, I do. I can’t live with the way things are between us any longer. You’re changing, Nancy. You don’t trust people anymore . . . not even me.”
“That’s not true!”
“Then what about Mike? When I told you he was okay, why didn’t you believe me?”
Once again there was nothing she could say. She hadn’t believed him. But did she have to pay for it by losing Ned?
“Ned, I love you,” she whispered. “Please don’t leave me.”
“I’m sorry, Nancy. My mind’s made up. We can still be friends, I guess. Or at least we can try to be.”
“Ned, no!”
“Goodbye, Nancy. And good luck on your next case, whatever it is.”
With that, he turned and walked away. Nancy watched him disappear down a snowy path, her mouth hanging open. This couldn’t be happening! How could they be breaking up after all this time?
A minute later, he was out of sight. He didn’t come back, either. Nancy desperately wanted to see his face one more time, to plead with him to change his mind. But she wasn’t going to get that chance, she knew. It was over. For good.
Turning away, Nancy walked off into the darkness. In the distance, a siren began to wail. A vast emptiness opened inside her, and for the first time that she could remember, she began to cry.