Nancy gave her a cautioning look. “You know, Bess, maybe it isn’t a good idea to let yourself fall head-over-heels for this guy. There are some pretty weird things going on on this trip, and Max could be involved in them.”
“He isn’t that kind of person,” Bess said flatly. “He saved us from the bear, remember? I mean, he could have let the bear attack us, and that would have taken care of us for good.”
Nancy flung up her hands in confusion. “I don’t know. Maybe the bear wasn’t part of the plan, and he just reacted spontaneously. Or maybe I’m entirely wrong and he’s not involved at all. But there’s something awfully strange here, and I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all.”
They reached the end of the trail, where it opened out onto the sandy beach. “Well, I appreciate your concern for my feelings,” Bess said huffily, “but I’m a big girl now. I think I can be trusted to know what’s good for me and what isn’t. I—”
Nancy put a hand on Bess’s arm. “Shh,” she said. The rafts had been pulled up on the deserted beach about ten yards ahead. Everybody else was off picking berries or making lunch farther down the beach, or walking in the woods. Everyone except Mercedes. She was bent over the pile of gear stowed in the middle of Paula’s raft.
“What’s she doing there?” Bess wondered. “Hey! She’s going through someone’s pack.”
But Nancy was already on the beach, marching forward. “That’s not anybody’s pack,” she said grimly. “She’s going through mine!”
Chapter Seven
Nancy walked toward the raft, Bess following her closely. “Can I help you, Mercedes?” she asked pleasantly.
Mercedes straightened up and jumped back. “Help me?” she stammered. “No, I . . . I was just looking . . . in Paula’s pack. For—for some sunscreen.”
Nancy pointed. “The pack you’re looking in just happens to be mine.”
“Yours?” Mercedes looked down. She gave a nervous little laugh. “How silly of me. Of course it’s yours. It even has your name on it. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m so sorry. I hope you don’t think that I—”
“Well, as a matter of fact—” Bess began hotly.
“No, of course not,” Nancy interrupted, overriding her friend. “I’m sure it must be easy to make a mistake like that.”
Nodding, Mercedes backed away, then turned and hurried up the beach.
“Now, what was that all about?” Bess asked, turning to Nancy. “Mercedes knew what she was doing.”
Nancy looked quickly through her pack. “Nothing’s missing,” she said. “But you know, in a funny way this doesn’t surprise me. I’ve had the feeling all morning that Mercedes has been watching me.”
“Could she have anything to do with the mooring line?” Bess asked.
“I suppose so. But so could almost anybody else—especially Paula and Max.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Bess said. “I still don’t think that Max—”
Nancy held up her hand. “Finding a criminal is different from defending him in the courtroom, Bess. Out here, everybody is guilty until we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that they’re innocent. No exceptions.”
Bess sighed. “Well, I still don’t think he did it,” she muttered.
Fifteen yards down the beach, everybody was beginning to gather around the fire that Paula had built. She and Max had spread sandwiches on a towel, along with apples and bananas and bags of chips. George and Ned were there, helping themselves, when Nancy and Bess arrived. The four friends sat down on the sand with their lunches, a little apart from the others.
“. . . and then she just walked away,” Nancy said in a low voice as she finished telling George and Ned how she and Bess had caught Mercedes rifling her pack. On the other side of the fire, Sammy and Mercedes were deep in conversation. Nancy wished she could hear what they were saying.
“Mercedes is Paula’s cousin, isn’t she?” George asked quietly. “Do you think it’s possible that Paula or Max asked her to look through your pack?”
“At this point, there’s no way to know—she might even have done it on her own,” Nancy said, ignoring the look Bess gave George. “You know, this is really an odd situation. Usually when I’m working on a case, I know what kind of crime we’re dealing with—and the clues usually make some sort of sense.”