If Looks Could Kill (13 page)

“Yes,” Nancy replied. “You decided to get your hands on it, so you cooked up the scheme to get Maura to come to the opening so you could kill her.”

“Stop,” he growled, his hands balled into fists.

“Why should I?” Nancy said harshly. “It's the truth, isn't it?”

“No, no, no.” Suddenly he seemed ready to collapse, his head hanging to his chest. When he spoke again, it was in a breathy whisper. “You don't understand—”

“What?” Nancy asked tensely.

“It was Martika,” he said, shaking his head.
“Martika
. She killed Maura—not me. She lured her to Cloud Nine.”

“Martika!” George gasped.

“But someone was trying to kill
her,”
Bess said, incredulous.

Derek stared straight at Nancy. “That's what she wanted you to think. It was amazing, the way she set it up to look like she was in danger.”

Nancy stood rooted to the spot, her heart pounding hard, the details of the case flooding through her brain. The silenced shot on the beach, the severed oxygen line, Maura's makeover, and the gold lamé shawl, the spent firework Nancy had found, the loud bang Nancy had taken for gunfire, the newspaper article . . .

“What you're saying,” she began slowly, “is that Martika planned to kill Maura, but to keep from being a suspect, she arranged it so she appeared to be the intended victim.” Nancy took a long, ragged breath. “So I wasn't invited here to be Martika's investigator. I was invited here to be her alibi.”

“You got it,” Derek said, relieved that he'd made Nancy believe him. “But don't be too hard on yourself. My darling sister was incredibly clever.”

“I don't understand,” Bess said, perplexed.

“You see,” Derek began, “just before our father died, he told us that his brother had fled to New Zealand after the scandal. I never thought much about it, but Martika was obsessed by it. She was old enough when the scandal happened to know what our family went through. She started reading newspaper clippings about it, going through New Zealand phone books trying to find Sawins. She didn't know Uncle Peter had changed his last name, too, which was only natural, of course.”

He sighed for a moment before continuing. “She went off on a job in New Zealand last November. She read the obituary and knew Peter was our uncle and Maura our cousin. Next thing I knew, she told me she'd run a contest in New Zealand to pick a guest to come to our opening for free. All Martika told me was that this Maura person had won, and I was to write and tell her so. I never suspected till I found that article in Martika's room this morning. Then, of course, I figured it all out. I don't know why she kept the article.”

“A kind of vanity,” Nancy explained. “She assumed she'd never be caught.”

“And what about the murder attempts?” Bess asked.

“All faked,” Nancy said. “Each and every one of them. Starting with the notes. Easy enough to forge, misspellings and all. She must have mailed the first two from Saint Thomas and dropped the last one on the floor in her room so she could find it while I was there that first day. Martika had to pin Maura's murder on someone, and Kurt was the obvious choice. She acted upset when he was arrested, but she must have planted the gun under his pillow herself.”

“And it would have been easy enough for her to let the snake out of its cage before she went down to the dock to greet us,” Bess speculated.

“Right,” Nancy said.

“What about the shot somebody took at Martika that first night?” George asked. “How could that have been faked?”

“She could have fired the gun through her blouse sleeve earlier,” Nancy reasoned. “Then she probably dropped the shell in the gazebo before she invited me for a walk down on the beach. At just the right moment she raised her arms over her head, pretended to hear something whiz by, and waited for me to do the detecting work. I always assumed that because I heard no bang, the shooter was using a silencer. But there never was a silencer. There was no bang because there was no shot!”

“But what about the other murder attempt?” George asked.

“The diving accident? She could have hidden a knife under the sleeve of her wet suit and cut the line herself. She said she didn't see anyone in the water, and I believed her. Someone could have come up behind her without being noticed.

“And now comes the most brilliant part of Martika's scheme,” Nancy continued. “When she had me convinced that someone was trying to kill her, she set the stage for Maura's murder.”

“Because it was Maura she wanted dead all along,” George half-whispered.

“She did a make-over on her cousin, so that Maura looked just like
her!
Then she lent her the gold lamé shawl. While the fireworks were going on, she must have invited Maura down to the beach. She showed Maura the obituary and told her who she really was. Maura must have turned and moved away from Martika while she was reading. All Martika had to do was wait for a big fireworks blast and shoot. When Martika grabbed the obituary back, she didn't notice the small piece that remained in Maura's hand.”

Nancy watched Derek's face turn ashen. The whole plan was too much for him to take in.

“So after Martika killed Maura, she ran up the steps and planted the gun under Kurt's pillow. Right?” George asked.

“She had a master key,” Derek said quietly.
“In fact, she was the one who probably took mine.”

Nancy nodded. “Then she went back outside and invited me to go walking with her. But on the way down the steps, she pretended to feel cold and ran back up to get a wrap.”

“I get it now,” Bess exclaimed. “That's when she lit the firecracker and threw it down the cliff.”

“Exactly,” Nancy said. “I was already a little way down the stairs. Her timing was perfect. The firecracker must have had an extra long fuse—easy enough to arrange. Presto—an instant alibi for Martika. Hearing the bang, we ran down onto the beach and found Maura. The charade was complete. The police located the gun and arrested Kurt. Everything was perfect until Derek found the obituary and tried to blackmail her.”

No one said anything for a long moment. At last Derek cleared his throat, though his voice remained hoarse with emotion. “It was strange. When we were in your room this morning, something just clicked. I had no idea how intricate Martika's plot was, but I suddenly knew she had to be behind everything.”

“So you went to her room . . .” Nancy prompted him.

“Yes,” he went on. “And found the article. I know I should have tried to stop her, but I decided to cash in on the situation by blackmailing her instead. Martika deserved it.”

“And you needed the money,” Nancy said. “Who were you talking to on the phone that first evening when you took Martika's check?”

“A man on Saint Thomas,” Derek said. “I owe him some money. You see, I gamble quite a lot.”

“Derek—” Nancy said, but suddenly she stopped. She could hear pebbles ricocheting down the cliff. One bounced off her shoulder, stinging her.

“Hey,” Bess said, dodging a pebble. “What's going on?”

Raising her eyes to the cliff top, Nancy gasped in horror as a roar sounded.

“It's a rock slide!” Nancy cried. “Everybody run.”

Just then, though, a large boulder started to move above them. It came loose with a grinding sound and then hurtled down the cliff, headed right for them. In another moment one of them would be crushed!

L
OOK OUT
!” Nancy screamed, grabbing Bess and yanking her away. The two of them fell to the sand and rolled away just as the boulder hit the beach.

“George!” Nancy cried out as soon as the big rock landed.

“I'm okay, Nan,” came George's voice from nearby. Nancy and Bess both heaved sighs of relief.

“Me, too,” Derek said, “but let's get out of here before another one falls.”

They all ran down the beach, pausing at the steps leading up to the gazebo.

“That was close!” George gasped.

“Too close,” Nancy agreed, checking the spot where the slide had started. “I bet this was no
accident. Come on, everyone. We've got to stop Martika before she does any more damage!”

Nancy led the group back up the steps at a breathless pace. They emerged at the top to find the patio mostly deserted. Nancy took off running toward the spot at the top of the cliff where the slide had started. It was well beyond the end of the railing. When she reached it, she saw a little path leading down to a perch in an outcropping of rocks. She followed it, gripping the boulders along the sides of the path with her hands.

When she came to a stop, she found herself at the very edge of the cliff. There, abandoned on a ledge, was a large wooden plank.

George was right behind her. “What is it?” she asked.

“I believe Martika's been here,” Nancy said. “This must be what she used to start the rock slide. She could have jimmied a couple of rocks free and pushed them over.”

George inhaled sharply.

“Let's go back up,” Nancy said.

When they reached the top, Derek and Bess were waiting for them. “Obviously, Martika must know that we're onto her,” Nancy told them. “That's why she tried to kill us just now. You're her brother, Derek. Where should we search for her?”

Derek shrugged. “She must have seen that we were still alive. If I were Martika, I'd be running
for dear life at this point. And since this is an island, that means the dock.”

“Right,” Nancy agreed. The four of them ran back to the main building and through the lobby, exiting out the front door. They scanned the entire harbor area and saw no boats except for the ones moored to the dock.

“Let's check Martika's suite,” Nancy said, swinging around almost without skipping a beat.

When they reached the model's room, Nancy was surprised to find the door open. She exchanged wary glances with her three companions before leading them into the suite.

The main room was empty. Nancy made a quick check of the bedroom and bathroom. Squeeze was sleeping in his cage, but Martika was gone. One thing was obvious—she had left in a hurry. Martika had seen that the game was up and had gone through her papers in a rush. She had probably destroyed anything that could possibly implicate her.

Nancy was about to suggest that they split up to search for Martika, when the bookshelf on the wall next to the desk caught her eye. There was something wrong with it. It seemed to have been moved away from the wall.

She went over to check and found that the bookshelf was slightly out of alignment.

Derek helped her push it away from the wall.

“It's a secret door!” Nancy gasped. It was
made of strong wood and had a heavy iron latch. She grabbed the latch's handle, pulled hard, and the door sprang open. “There are stairs going down!”

“They're cut right into the rock,” Bess said.

“George—the grotto!” Nancy cried in sudden realization. “Martika said there were stairs cut into the rock leading down from the main house! Come on, everyone!” she shouted, bounding down the dimly lit steps. “We've got to stop her before she gets away!”

The stairs went on forever, and as she hurried down, Nancy realized that Martika had had an escape route from the very beginning.

Nancy could finally see the iron door at the bottom of the stairs. It had a push handle on it. Nancy rammed into it with her right side, forcing it open. Derek, Bess, and George were right behind her as she barreled through the doorway.

Then several things happened almost at once. The door slammed shut behind them with a colossal clang. Bess swung around to stop it, but she was too late, and though she tried to shove it back open, it wouldn't budge. It was locked. They couldn't get back up the same way they'd come.

Nancy had turned back to watch Bess as she struggled with the door. Now she faced the pool again. There, standing at the stern of the little speedboat, was Martika—flushed and incredibly beautiful, holding a large leather briefcase in her
left hand and a semiautomatic pistol in her right. The pistol was leveled right at Nancy and her friends!

They were trapped. Martika had left the bookshelf awry on purpose, Nancy realized, to lure them down here. Now she could finish them off and no one would even hear the shots.

“Welcome,” Martika said, with a satisfied smile. “Please put your hands above your heads.”

The four of them did as they were told. Nancy looked around. She and her three companions were still standing on the small rock ledge at the rear of the grotto. Just in front of them, the ledge ended and the water began. The small boat fit neatly into the tiny mooring place. On the other side of it, the steel bars closed off the opening of the cave.

“You're really something, Nancy,” she said, with an admiring nod of her head. “When I invited you here, I never thought it would come to this. I'm really sorry to have to kill you and your friends. As for you, Derek, it was only a matter of time. There was no way I was going to share Maura's fortune with you. You'd have squandered your half and been after mine in no time.”