Strangers on a Train (11 page)

CHAPTER NINE

Strange Discoveries

“HIRO!” MY HEART POUNDED AS I RECOGNIZED
the danger I was in. We were pretty far from the lodge out here—definitely too far for anyone to hear me scream if Tatjana and Hiro were up to no good.

I glanced back at Tatjana, who was coming toward us. “Nancy!” she cried, her eyes flashing with anger. “Did you follow me?”

“Obviously she did,” Hiro snapped, frowning at her. “I told you to be careful!”

I cringed back against the tree trunk as he spun to face me. My eyes darted around, looking for anything I could grab to use as a weapon—a rock, a fallen branch . . .

“Nancy, please don't tell anyone you saw us out here,” Hiro begged.

I blinked, focusing back on his face. All the anger had disappeared from his expression. Now he just looked anxious and kind of freaked-out.

“Yes, please, Nancy,” Tatjana put in. “If anyone knows we are together, especially Becca—”

“Wait,” I said, confused. “What's going on here?”

Hiro reached for Tatjana's hand. “Don't worry,” he told her, his voice thick with emotion. “Even if they fire us, it was worth it.” He planted a kiss on her lips.

I blinked. Okay, I'm no Bess, but I recognize romance when I see it. “So you two are—a couple?” I asked. “That's why you're sneaking around out here?”

“Yes.” Tatjana squared her shoulders. “But you cannot tell Becca. She wouldn't understand.”

Hiro nodded. “I know you're friendly with Becca,” he told me. “So I suppose you already know that she and I used to date when we both worked for Jubilee.”

“Actually, I didn't know that.” But now that I did, some things were starting to make a lot more sense.

“We broke up when we both got hired by Superstar.” He shrugged. “She's technically my boss now, so we didn't think it would be appropriate to keep seeing each other. Then Tatjana came along. . . .” He glanced over at Tatjana and squeezed her hand, which he was still clutching. “Anyway, we weren't sure at first how serious things were between us, so we kept our relationship a secret.”

Tatjana added, “It seemed a good idea at the time.”

“Yes. But now that things are more serious, we're worried that Becca won't understand.” Hiro sighed, running his free hand through his spiky dark hair. “In fact, I'd planned to talk to her about it before now, but I can't seem to catch her alone.”

“That's why you burst in on us,” I realized. “At the snack bar the other day. You were looking for Becca, right?”

He nodded. “I ran into Omar—the kid who works at that snack bar—and he said she was up there.” He smiled ruefully. “I didn't even stop to think that she might not be alone.”

“Sorry about that.” My mind was clicking along, adding this piece to my puzzle of clues and incidents. This explained why Becca and Hiro always seemed so awkward together. And why Becca never had much to say when I questioned her about him. And also why Tatjana had been harder for her to reach lately.

“You won't tell her, will you?” Hiro asked anxiously. “I plan to talk to her as soon as we get back to the ship.”

“I won't say a word.”

Leaving them together, I headed back through the woods toward the lodge. Halfway there another thought occurred to me. Could this new information also explain the busboy's firing? Maybe he'd caught the two of them together, and they'd been afraid he'd tell Becca. . . .

“Doubtful,” I muttered before I'd even finished the thought. It was worth keeping the possibility in the back of my mind, but now that I knew their secret, Hiro and Tatjana just didn't seem like the type of people who could have made that anonymous tip against an innocent man.

When I reached the meadow, I saw a flash of movement. It was Tobias. He was crouched near the edge of the woods with a digital camera.

I walked over to him. “What are you doing out here?” I asked. “I thought you'd be off on a day trip.”

“Nope.” Tobias straightened up. “My mom had a headache, so we stayed here.” He grinned. “Good thing, too! Wendy wants me to take pictures of all the birds and animals and stuff I can find. She says she'll pay me if she decides to use any of them on her website!”

“Really? Are you sure she said that?”

“Uh-huh.” Tobias turned and snapped a photo of a bird flying past. “She knows I like exotic animals and stuff, so she figures I can get some good ones.”

“And she said she'd pay you for them?” That seemed odd, given that Wendy was supposed to be broke. Could this have something to do with her mysterious new plan?

Tobias stared at me as if I had two heads. “Didn't I just
say
that?”

“Where is Wendy right now?” I asked.

Tobias shrugged, fiddling with his camera. “She was in the lobby when I saw her.”

I headed for the lobby, but Wendy wasn't there. She wasn't in her room or the restaurant, either. I wandered around the grounds for a while, but there was still no sign of her.

“Oh well,” I murmured, pausing on the lodge's unoccupied back deck.

The lounge chairs out there looked comfortable, so I sank onto one. It had been another long day. I leaned back, staring up at the still-bright early evening sky and thinking about the case. I realized I'd just crossed two more suspects off my list. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that Hiro and Tatjana didn't have anything to do with the case. That only left me with a few live suspects: Wendy, Max, maybe Scott. Was it time to start looking for some new ideas?

Pulling out my phone, I checked to see if Becca had texted back yet about my questions. She hadn't, and I was about to stick the phone back in my pocket when I realized I hadn't checked in with Ned in a couple of days.

I tapped out a quick message to him, mostly saying hi and updating him on the case. It was pretty late in River Heights due to the time difference, so I wasn't expecting an answer until the next day.

Hearing a noise, I looked up and saw Tobias creeping along in the distance near the woods. He was too far away for me to see whatever bird or other local critter he was focused on, but seeing him reminded me of what he'd just told me.

Why would Wendy pay him for photos? It had to have something to do with her new plan. But what kind of money-making scheme could involve amateur photos of Alaskan animals? I wondered if Alan might have any guesses. After all, he was the expert on wildlife and such.

At least he was
supposed
to be. Suddenly I remembered the odd answers he'd given Tobias on the train earlier. It had almost sounded as if he didn't know much about the native creatures of Alaska. But wouldn't an environmental studies major know about things like that, especially if he was planning to make this trip the basis of a yearlong school project?

That brought another question to mind. What if Alan wasn't what he claimed to be? I sat up straight, disturbed by the idea. But I couldn't quite shake it. After all, Bess had just met Alan a few weeks ago—she really didn't know him that well yet. Could he be pulling some kind of scam on her or something?

“You're letting this mystery go to your head, Drew,” I said to myself with a half smile. I glanced down at the message on my phone screen, hesitating for only a moment before adding a few quick lines, asking Ned to check up on Alan when he got the chance. That shouldn't be hard, since they were both students at the university.

I hit send and leaned back in the lounge chair again. There. With that taken care of, I could go back to working on the case—beginning with tracking down Wendy. Still, the lounge chair was comfortable, and the evening temperature was perfect. Maybe I could just sit here and rest for a few minutes first. . . .

My eyes drifted shut, and moments later I was asleep.

Unfortunately, my unplanned siesta made it hard to fall asleep that night. It didn't help that it never really seemed to get dark in Alaska at that time of year. When Bess, George, and Alan returned from their ride at almost nine o'clock, it was still as bright as midday. And when we all headed into our separate rooms a couple of hours later, the sun was just sinking toward the horizon. I tossed and turned and finally drifted off after a while, but awoke suddenly at around two a.m.

Yawning widely, I got up and tiptoed toward the bathroom, trying to be quiet so I wouldn't wake Bess and George. After using the facilities, I wandered over to the sink to wash my hands. I glanced out the window at the moonlit landscape.

I blinked. Was the near darkness playing tricks on my eyes? Or was that a hooded figure sneaking off toward the woods?

My sleepy mind struggled to figure out what this meant. I pressed my nose to the window, trying to get a better look. Was that Hiro sneaking off to meet Tatjana?

I blinked again, trying to focus my fuzzy mind. Maybe it was Hiro, or Tatjana for that matter. But what if it wasn't?

That thought woke me up a little more. Hurrying out to the main room, I slipped on the shoes I'd left near the door and pulled a jacket over the shorts and tee I was sleeping in. Then I let myself out of the cabin as quietly as I could.

The figure had disappeared by the time I rounded the cabin and crossed the meadow. But he or she had been heading toward the same trail into the woods that Tatjana had used earlier, so I hurried that way too.

The woods were a lot darker and spookier at this time of night. Animal calls and rustling noises came from every direction. I did my best to ignore them, listening for any sound of human footsteps.

Enough moonlight filtered through the treetops for me to follow the narrow trail through the woods. I hurried along until the trail split, then hesitated. ­Tatjana had gone right earlier. Should I go that way now?

Then I heard the crack of a branch somewhere off to the left. I turned and went that way.

After walking for a few more minutes, I started to doubt my decision. I hadn't heard another sound from up ahead. What if that cracking branch had been caused by an animal? My quarry could be a long way down the other fork by now.

Then I froze as I heard a sudden loud sound up ahead. It was muffled by the trees surrounding me, and I wasn't sure what had caused it. It didn't sound like footsteps—more like a loud but muffled grunt or squeal. What if it was an animal?

My heart pounded as I suddenly flashed back to all those wildlife warnings they'd given us on this cruise. Not to mention Bess's comments about dangerous moose, and Tobias's excited talk about grizzly bears and other native wildlife. What if I was about to stumble across a bear, a wolf, an irritated moose?

I stayed rooted in place, waiting for the sound to come again. But all I heard were the normal noises of the forest. Finally I crept forward again, moving slowly and carefully, wondering if I was being foolish. Maybe it would be smarter to go back to the lodge, get some backup. . . .

Then I saw the trees open up into a clearing just ahead. It was larger than the one where Hiro and ­Tatjana had met earlier. But that wasn't the only dif­ference. This clearing had a ramshackle corrugated shed in the middle of it.

I crouched behind a tree and scanned the clearing for the hooded figure. When nothing moved, I stepped carefully into the clearing.

The shed's door was standing ajar. I realized that could explain what I'd heard—a rusty metal door scraping over the earth might make just that sort of weird sound. Scurrying over, I peered inside. It was dark in there, of course, and at first I couldn't see a thing.

Then my eyes adjusted a little, and I saw something large and square shoved into the darkest corner. A box? What was it doing way out here? And what was inside?

I carefully dragged it out. It was fairly large and surprisingly heavy. When I peeled back the packing tape holding it shut, a strange musty odor tickled my nose, and I let out a sneeze.

BANG!

Suddenly a shot rang out. I gasped and jumped back as a bullet pinged off the metal shed wall—inches from my head!