Strangers on a Train

Contents

Dear Diary

CHAPTER ONE
  Going Ashore

CHAPTER TWO
  In the Line of Fire

CHAPTER THREE
  Rebuilding the List

CHAPTER FOUR
  Unpleasant Surprises

CHAPTER FIVE
  Comic Relief

CHAPTER SIX
  Sharp Questions

CHAPTER SEVEN
  Narrowing the Field

CHAPTER EIGHT
  Reservations

CHAPTER NINE
  Strange Discoveries

CHAPTER TEN
  New Connections

CHAPTER ELEVEN
  Final Surprise

CHAPTER TWELVE
  Final Answers at Last

Dear Diary

Mystery of the Midnight Rider
Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

Going Ashore

“NANCY! DOWN HERE!”

I hurried down the last few steps to the landing and saw Becca Wright waving as she rushed up the next set of steps toward me. The cruise ship's atrium
stairwell was deserted except for the two of us, just as she'd predicted. Almost
everyone aboard the
Arctic Star
was gathered along the
open-air decks watching the view as the ship chugged into the picturesque port of
Skagway, Alaska.

“I don't have much time,” I told Becca. “Alan thinks I'm in the ladies'
room. He wants to get a photo of all of us at the rail when we dock.”

“I don't have much time either.” Becca checked her watch. As the
Arctic Star
's assistant cruise director, she was always busy.
“I'm supposed to be getting ready for disembarkation right now. But I just found out
something I thought you'd want to know right away. The police caught the robber!”

I gasped, flashing back to the events of the day before yesterday. While
the ship was docked in a town called Ketchikan, someone had robbed the shipboard jewelry
store.

“Really, they caught someone already? That's amazing!” I exclaimed. “Who
was it?”

“A guy named Troy Anderson,” Becca replied, leaning down to pluck a stray
bit of lint off the carpet. “I guess he's well known to the local authorities as a petty
thief and general troublemaker type. They caught him over in Juneau trying to fence the
stuff he stole.”

I blinked, taking that in. It wasn't exactly the answer I'd been
expecting. “So he wasn't a passenger or crew member on the
Arctic
Star
?”

Becca raked a hand through her dark curls. “Nope. Which is weird, right? I
have no idea how he got onboard.” She smiled weakly. “Maybe it's a good thing you're
still here, Nancy. I hope you're in the mood for another mystery?”

The
Arctic Star
was the flagship of the
brand-new Superstar Cruises, and this was its maiden voyage. However, things had gone
wrong from the start.
Before
the start, actually. That was why
Becca had called me. We'd known each other for years, and she knew I liked nothing
better than investigating a tough mystery. She'd called me in—along with my two best
friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne—because she was worried that someone was trying to
sabotage the new ship.

And she'd been right. Just a few days into the cruise, I'd nabbed the
saboteurs, Vince and Lacey. They were working for a rival cruise line, trying to put
Superstar out of business.

Then the jewelry store robbery happened—
after
Vince and Lacey were in custody. And I'd realized that maybe the mystery wasn't over
after all.

“Do you think this Anderson guy had an accomplice on the ship?” I asked.
“If so, maybe that person was also responsible for some of the other stuff that's been
going wrong.”

Becca bit her lip, looking anxious. “I hope not. Because I was really
hoping all the trouble would be over after you busted Vince and Lacey.”

I knew what she meant. I'd been trying to convince myself that the case
was solved. That a few dangling loose ends didn't matter. That those loose ends were
just red herrings, easily explained by bad luck, coincidence, whatever.

What kind of loose ends? Well, for instance, there was the threatening
note I'd found in my suitcase the first day onboard. Vince and Lacey claimed to know
nothing about that. They also denied being involved in most of the problems that had
happened before the ship set sail. And they claimed to know nothing about the fake moose
antler from the mini-golf course that had missed crushing me by inches. They also seemed
clueless about the angry argument I'd overheard from the ship's kitchen that had ended
in what sounded like a threat:
Drop it, John! Or I'll make sure you
never make it to Anchorage
. And they insisted that neither of them was the
person who'd pushed me off a raised walkway in Ketchikan, sending me tumbling twenty
feet down into icy water.

I shivered, thinking back over the list. It didn't take an expert
detective to realize that the most serious of those incidents seemed to be directed at
yours truly.

“We have to accept that the case might not be over quite yet,” I told
Becca. “If the robber does have an accomplice on this ship, he or she might still try to
cause more trouble. We'll have to keep our eyes open for clues.”

“Do you think—,” Becca began.

At that moment I heard a clang from the stairwell. I spun around and saw
Alan standing on the top step of the flight coming up from below. He was staring up at
Becca and me with a strange expression on his face.

“Alan!” I blurted out, cutting off the rest of Becca's comment.
“I—uh—didn't hear you coming.”

I hadn't seen Alan Thomas coming the first time I'd met him either. Had
that really happened only a few short weeks ago? I'd been having lunch with Bess and
George at one of our favorite cafés near River Heights University. Suddenly Alan had
appeared beside our table, drooling over Bess and begging her to go out with him.

It wasn't the first time that type of thing had happened. But it was the
first time Bess had said yes. She said it was because she saw something different in
Alan. He was different, all right. He was outgoing and cheerful and kind of
excitable—nerdy, as George liked to call it. I guess that worked for Bess, because the
two of them had been together ever since.

Then Becca had called, begging me and my friends to come solve her
mystery. Our cover story was that we'd won the cruise in a contest. When Alan found out
we would be staying in a luxury four-­bedroom suite, he'd practically begged to
come along. He was an environmental studies major at the university, and this trip was
supposed to give him a head start on his sophomore year research project. That was nice
for him, but it made things kind of complicated for the rest of us. See, Becca had sworn
us to secrecy—we weren't supposed to tell a soul why we were really onboard the
Arctic Star
. Not even Alan. Had I just blown our cover?

“Nancy! I've been looking all over for you!” Alan exclaimed, hurrying
toward me. “Did you get lost on the way to the bathroom or something? You're missing
some amazing views.”

“Nope, I was just chatting with Becca, that's all.” I forced a smile,
studying Alan's face. Had he overheard what Becca and I were talking about? His gray
eyes looked as guileless as ever. Or did they? Something about the way they were peering
into mine made me wonder just how much he'd heard while coming up the
stairs. . . .

I dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. Alan was pretty much an
open book. Like I said, he'd declared his adoration of Bess the first time they'd met.
In fact, he seemed to blurt out pretty much every thought that entered his head. If he'd
heard anything important, I'd know it.

“We'd better get back out there,” I told him, still smiling. “I don't want
to miss any more scenery.”

“Smile and say Alaska!” Alan sang out.

Bess giggled, tossing back her blond hair as the sea breeze whipped it
across her face. “No way,” she said. “If I say that, my face will look funny. I'll stick
with the traditional.” She struck a pose leaning against the gleaming brass railing,
with the Skagway shoreline behind her. “Cheese!”

Alan snapped the photo. “Gorgeous!” he exclaimed, hurrying over to let
Bess check out the screen on his digital camera.

George rolled her eyes. “Are we going to stand around here taking pictures
all day, or are we actually going to get off this ship and
do
something?” she grumbled.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her aside, dodging a few excited passengers
who were rushing toward the gangplank leading to the dock below. “Leave Alan alone for a
sec,” I said quietly. “I've been dying to tell you what Becca just told me.”

“What?” George immediately looked interested. Shooting a quick glance at
Alan to make sure he wasn't close enough to hear us, she lowered her voice. “Was it
about Vince and Lacey? Did they finally fess up to leaving that nasty note in your
luggage?”

Right. That was another unexplained occurrence from earlier in the cruise.
The note had read,
I HOPE U GET LOST JUST LIKE UR BAG—& THAT U STAY
LOST!