Carolyn Keene. Trial By Fire

Nancy jumped forward and delivered a hard karate chop to the side of the man’s neck. But she must not have hit him squarely. As she opened the back door to jump out, he was fumbling with the handle of his door. She had only stunned him!

He was scrambling to get out, but Nancy was too quick for him. She threw her full weight against his open door and slammed it on his fingers. She saw his face contort with pain before she took off.

Nancy looked quickly around. She was somewhere downtown, but she couldn’t tell where exactly. She dashed around the corner, where the traffic was heavier, and scanned the block frantically for a blue uniform or a squad car. But there were none in sight. Nancy kept running until she saw a man getting out of a cab.

“Taxi!” she yelled and darted toward it. It seemed like forever before the cab’s passenger retrieved his briefcase from the back seat and paid his fare. Nancy was terrified that she might be seen. But finally the passenger was gone, and she was safely in the cab.

“Where to?” the driver asked, turning around.

Nancy found herself staring into the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen, causing her to hesitate. The sunlight streaming through the taxi’s window made the driver’s thick, light hair shine.

Quickly regaining her composure, her first thought was to go to the movie house, to get her car and then go to the police.

“The Grand Cinema on Shepherd, please.”

“You got it.” The driver pulled away from the curb and reached for the mike hanging from the dashboard. “Two-nine-seven,” he said into it.

“Go ahead, two-nine-seven.”

Nancy frowned. The dispatcher sounded very much like the man she’d heard over the CB in the other car. Perhaps it hadn’t been a CB, but a two-way radio like this one. There’d been no cab light on the roof of that car, but considering how beatup it had been, it might have been a taxi at one time.

“Two-nine-seven going to the Gr—”

“Wait.” Nancy stopped him, speaking softly.

“Say again, two-nine-seven,” the dispatcher said. “You cut yourself off.”

“Where would you like to go, miss?” the cab driver asked. He sounded a bit exasperated.

“Make that Fifth and Cranston,” Nancy said. She listened carefully as the dispatcher acknowledged the driver and signed off.

She wasn’t absolutely certain it was the same voice she had heard on the radio in the other car, but she couldn’t afford to take the chance. Her kidnapper might have told the man the place she had escaped from. All the dispatcher needed to hear was a cabbie report from that same vicinity that he was taking a fare to the Grand Theater, and he’d know Nancy Drew was his passenger.

The trip was a long one and the traffic heavy. Nancy kept glancing behind her until she was certain they hadn’t been followed. By the time she got out at Fifth and Cranston, her pulse was normal again.

And she made sure she checked the name on the side of the cab before it drove away. Gold Star Cab Company. A name to remember. And a face to remember, too, she thought, suddenly feeling guilty. She was already dating the best-looking guy in River Heights—Ned Nickerson. Although Jim Dayton, the name Nancy noticed on the cab driver’s license, did come pretty close.

Nancy turned her thoughts back to the mystery. Why would a cab company be part of a plot to kidnap Ann? And why had the voice on that radio recognized her father’s name when he heard it?

She had learned something. She just wasn’t sure what.

She’d learned something else, too—a very expensive lesson. She could be used as a weapon against her father.

Chapter Five

The taxi ride had given Nancy a lot of time to think. She didn’t dare go back to the theater. Her kidnapper was no idiot. He would have guessed that she had driven to the Grand and would go back for her car. He’d probably be waiting for her. She’d have to leave the car there for a while.

Then Nancy remembered she wanted to try to see her uncle Jonathan Renk. She could phone the police from his house.

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