After visits to the Office of Public Safety, the central headquarters of the River Heights Police Department, and the Hacks Bureau, Nancy was beginning to wonder if she was on the right track. There seemed to be nothing unusual about the Gold Star Cab Company.
Checking her watch, Nancy left the building that housed the Hacks Bureau. Unless she hurried, she’d be late for her lunch meeting with Ned, Bess, and Ann.
Nancy tucked her notes in her bag and started across the street to the lot where she had left her car.
She heard trouble coming before she could see it. It was the sound of a powerful engine being pushed to its maximum. Seconds later she saw it—a dark late-model car racing around the corner and heading directly for her at top speed!
Chapter Nine
Still shaken by her near encounter with the dark car, Nancy met Ned at the door of the Pizza Palace just as he was leaving to go look for her. “There you are. We’ve already ordered.”
Ann and Bess were waiting in a booth, Bess’s deep pink jumpsuit clashing with the bright orange and purple vinyl seats. The place was jammed with students from a nearby junior college.
“Stop staring at me,” Nancy ordered her friends. “I got dirty dodging a car that tried to hit me. He missed me by a hair.”
“A drunk driver?” Ann asked.
“Not on your life—I mean, my life. He tried his best to hit me.”
Ned’s expression was grim. “Did you get his license number?”
“No. I jumped back behind a filthy minivan at the curb. By the time I could look, the car was gone and I was dirty. Did you guys have any trouble today?”
“Not a bit,” Bess answered. “It’s been fun.”
Ann chuckled. “It’s a good thing she was with me. One Bess Marvin smile, and every male in the computer room is searching data banks to get the information you asked for.”
“That’s great. Keep smiling, Bess.” Nancy turned to Ned. “How’d you do?”
He removed a notepad from his pocket. “So far I’ve got the names of seven businesses that use white vans. I’ll keep at it this afternoon. Then tomorrow I’ll hit all these places and see if I can find your van with the bent fender. How’d things go at the office?”
Before Nancy could respond, a waitress slid two huge pizzas onto the table. They smelled incredibly good, and Nancy’s stomach growled in anticipation.
“I didn’t find a thing in my dad’s office,” she said, removing her first slice. “Whoever planted the bug must have come back and taken it out. As for the cab company, that was a washout, too.”
“What’s a cab company got to do with anything?” Ann asked.
Nancy explained about the voice she’d heard over the two-way radio in her abductor’s car and in the Gold Star cab. “Gold Star checked out okay,” she said. “In business over twenty years, owned by two local men. They have ten cabs and a dynamite safety record. Not a single accident in the past three years.”
Ann peeled off a circle of pepperoni from her slice. “I could have told you that. It was one of the businesses insured by—” She paused, frowning. “By Mid-City Insurance Company,” she said slowly.
“Coincidence?” Ned asked, gazing at Nancy.
“I don’t know. On paper they’re certainly good guys,” she responded. “Several public service awards, one of them from the Gray Panthers for offering senior citizens lower fares.”
Ann chewed the sliver of pepperoni thoughtfully. “You know, losing their insurance company must have been devastating, especially to a small business like Gold Star. It would be interesting to know what it took for them to recover.”
“So that’s how an idea for an article is born,” Bess said. “Somehow I thought it would be more—exciting.”
Nancy didn’t really pay much attention to the conversation as they finished their pizzas. That dispatcher’s voice—she was so sure it had been the same man on the radio of both cars!
And there was something else nagging at the back of her mind, a tiny bell warning her that she had missed something. But what could it be?