“I told you I might come down, remember?” Nancy said. “Besides, your—”
“Oh, that’s right,” Kim interrupted. “So much has been going on, I guess I forgot.” She was already out the door and hurrying down the hall toward the elevator. “Listen, I can’t talk now, I’m in a rush. But I really do want to see you. Maybe when I—”
“Hey, where’s the fire?” Nancy joked as Kim kept jabbing at the elevator button. “Let’s take the stairs, and then I’ll walk you wherever you’re going. We can talk on the way.” She hurried to keep up with her friend, who was already at the stairs. “Kim, what’s going on? You look freaked, to say the least.”
Kim hurried down the stairs, her rubber beach sandals slapping on the cement. “I am freaked,” she called over her shoulder. “You just won’t believe what’s been happening!”
“Try me,” Nancy suggested.
“I will, I will, but, Nancy, it’s just too complicated to get into right now. I’ve got something really important to do, but I promise I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can.”
Frustrated, Nancy followed Kim through the hotel’s small, deserted lobby toward the street door. Kim dashed outside. Nancy ran after her, but her sandal chose that moment to slip off her foot. She bent over, put it back on, and hurried after her friend.
Kim was standing impatiently on the curb, her long brown hair blowing in the sea breeze. She reached up, pulled a strand of hair out of her eyes, and stepped into the street.
Nancy was just leaving the hotel when she heard the sound of a car’s engine firing and the squeal of tires as the car peeled away. She saw that Kim had reached the middle of the street. Nancy started after her, but it was at that second that she noticed the dark blue car racing toward Kim.
Nancy yelled but it was too late. The car was barreling down the street at a crazy speed. Kim opened her mouth to scream, but her voice was drowned out by the sound of the impact.
The car never slowed down. Its tires squealed again as it sped around the corner and out of sight.
Chapter Two
In a second, Nancy was at Kim’s side. It was impossible to tell how badly her friend was hurt. All Nancy could see were cuts and scrapes, but she didn’t dare move her. She wasn’t even going to take the chance of putting her friend’s head in her lap. She knelt down, took Kim’s hand, and leaned close to her.
“Kim?” Nancy tried to keep her voice from shaking. “It’s going to be okay. Just don’t move.”
Gripping Nancy’s hand, Kim licked her lips and tried to say something. Her voice was so weak that Nancy could barely hear her.
“Rosita,” Kim whispered. “The . . . it was . . . Rosita.” She took another breath and started to say something more, but then her eyelids fluttered closed and she was silent.
Nancy looked up and was surprised to see that a crowd of ten or fifteen people had gathered. She’d been concentrating so hard on Kim that she hadn’t even noticed them.
“Could someone call an ambulance, please?” Nancy asked.
An elderly man nodded his head. “Of course,” he said, and hurried away.
A voice close to Nancy asked, “Is she dead?”
The person who’d asked about Kim was a young woman, wearing the uniform of a hotel maid.
Nancy swallowed hard and shook her head. “No, she’s not dead,” she told her. “She’s breathing. But she passed out.”
The woman nodded and started to leave.
“Wait!” Nancy called. “Did you see what happened?”
“No, I didn’t,” the woman said. “I was inside. I heard a scream, but that’s all. I came out to see, and on the way, I told my boss to call the police. It sounded like a bad accident.”
“It was bad,” Nancy agreed grimly. “But it wasn’t an accident.”
“I wouldn’t know about that, miss,” the woman said, backing away. “I have to go to work now.”
In the distance, Nancy could hear the wail of a siren, and she knew help was on the way. Still holding Kim’s hand, she glanced up at the other people. “Did anyone see it happen?” she asked. “Did anyone see who was driving the car?”