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.“It’s because there’s no one else on the island,” George explained.“No lights, no noise except for the waves, wind, birds, and cats that roam wild on the island.The chickens run wild, too, but they’re quiet at night.”“It does sound eerie,” Nancy admitted.“Solet’s find Bess before it gets dark.”The two girls followed the line of flowering plants that formed the edge of the beach.Nancy quickly slipped off her shoes, enjoying the feeling of the warm sand on her bare feet as she peered into the shadowy area behind the plants.The ground there was still sandy, but much firmer than the beach.There were marks in it, but nothing that resembled a footprint.The arm of land curved and grew narrower, so that sometimes she could catch small glimpses of the rocks that formed the outer edge of the land and could hear the more violent crashing of the waves on them.Palms shaded the area and the plants.Nancy was almost to the end of the sand when something caught her eye.There was a tiny flash of bright blue among the soft greens of the remaining plants that clung to the narrowing ridge of land.Nancy paused, then moved into the shade of the palm fronds and picked up a small triangle of cloth.She recognized it as coming from a flared skirt that she knew was one of Bess’s favorites.She saw the footprints immediately.“George,” she called to her friend, who had fallen behind to examine a shell.“I think I’ve found something over here.”“Nancy, did you find Bess?” It was her father calling down the hill from the resort.“Just footprints,” Nancy shouted.“We’ll be right down,” Carson called.Nancy and George waited, watching as Penny and Nancy’s father came down the path from the resort.Neither of them was smiling.“Any luck with the radio-phone, Dad?” Nancy asked as they neared them.He shook his head.“There’s something wrong, but I didn’t take the time to really look for the trouble.Perhaps this evening.Now, what did you find?”“This.” Nancy extended the scrap of material.“Bess’s skirt?” she asked George.George nodded.“She was wearing it today.” “The footprints lead this way,” Nancy continued, stepping past the barrier of plants and following the marks through the shadowy areaand coming out on the other side.There she stopped, her rising hopes dropping abruptly.“Where do they go?” Penny asked from behind her.“Nowhere,” Nancy answered, her voice closeto a wail.“They stop right here!” She pointed to the rocks that stood against the onslaught ofthe waves crashing against the shore.9.Phantom IntrudersThe footprints did indeed stop at the rocks.Nancy looked at them carefully.“She must have walked on the rocks,” she murmured, stepping up on the nearest boulder and standing on it to look around.“But where did she go from here?” George asked.Nancy shook her head.“I have no idea,” she admitted.“Maybe we should just go back along the rocks toward the resort,” her father suggested.“She couldn’t have gone the other direction, could she?”They all followed his gaze.The rocky shoreextended a hundred yards, curving around to the entrance of the cove.The trees and brush ended nearby, and there was a clear view of the protective rocks.“I’ll walk on the rocks,” Nancy said, “and the rest of you watch for footprints.” The plants on this side of the arm of land were much less lush, and she was sure that Bess would be plainly visible if she’d left the rocks.Nancy moved toward the resort, hopping as easily from rock to rock as she assumed Bess had.At first it was simple enough, since the rocks were close together and fairly smooth on top.Then however, the coastline grew rougher.Nancy made a long jump from one rock to another, and her foot slipped.“Careful, honey,” her father said, catching her arm as she stumbled to the sand.“Bess would never have been able to make that jump,” George commented firmly.“There’d be no reason for her to,” Nancy agreed.“I was trying to stay out of the sand just to see if I could.”“But where could she have gone?” Penny asked, looking back the way they’d come.“We didn’t find any more tracks, Nancy.”Nancy followed her gaze, trying to find another explanation or another way that Bess could have gone, but there was nothing.Areas of crusted sand separated the rocky outcroppings and there were no tracks to mar them.“Would she have gone into the water?” Carson Drew asked, his gaze directed to George.George shook her head without hesitation.“Penny warned us about the tides on this side of the island,” she replied.“We swam only in the cove where it’s safe.Besides, Bess wouldn’t be swimming in her clothes—her bathing suit is still hanging on the balcony rail drying out.”After several more minutes of looking around the area, they all followed Penny through the screening growth of hibiscus and other plants and back along the beach to the path that led up to the resort.There Nancy paused.“Isn’t there somewhere else we could look?” she asked.Penny sighed.“Not around the cove,” she replied.“We can search the resort area and look in the cabins again and along the paths to them, but that’s really about all there is on this end of the island—and I did just search them.”“What’s on the other end?” Carson Drew asked.“Well, there’s a small road that leads along the ridge, and at the far end of it is a little village.The regular dock is there.That’s where the inter-island ferry stops when it has a passenger for Anchor Island.”“When will it be stopping again?” Nancy asked quickly.Penny shrugged.“The next time someone wants to come here, or if they have a delivery for us.In the winter, they come three times a week; but in the off-season, they might not come for weeks.”Nancy looked at her father, reading the same worry in his face that she was feeling.“Are you sure there is no one else on the island, Penny?” Mr.Drew asked.The redhead considered for a moment, then shrugged.“We haven’t seen anyone, Mr.Drew.And there’s really no reason why anyone would be here.The village is just the houses the staff stay in during the winter, and there’s no one at the resort but us, of that I am sure.”George nodded.“We explored this end of the island today,” she said, “and we didn’t see anything or anyone but Penny.”“Well, then I guess we’d better go back to the resort,” Nancy conceded with a sigh.“Maybe Bess is waiting there.”The rest smiled at her words, but she sensed that they had no more confidence in that than she did.Bess wouldn’t have waited quietly for them to return.If she had come to the resort and found it empty, she would have been looking for them just as they were looking for her.“You didn’t find anything in the resort grounds, did you?” George asked Penny.The older girl shook her head.“No footprints, nothing.I checked the cabins, too, and they’re all still locked up.”“Then where can she be?” George asked.“Could we check the other end of the island?” Mr.Drew asked.“Not till morning,” Penny answered.“Why not?” Nancy inquired, startled by her words.“If Bess is there—”“We can go,” Penny amended quickly, “but there’s no electricity going to that end of the island now, so I don’t know how much searching we could do.”“What do you mean there’s no electricity?” Mr.Drew asked.“The two ends of the island are served by separate generators,” Penny answered.“Luckily, my grandparents left the generator on here.I have no idea how to turn them on.”“Dad, do you think you.Nancy began.Her father chuckled.“I could try, but I doubt that I could manage it in the dark.Besides,” his grin deepened.“I can’t imagine that Bess would have taken such a hike [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]