She slowed down to a walk, thinking maybe she shouldn’t run until she figured out which direction to go in. A puzzled frown came to her face as she remembered Max’s words. What was he talking about when he said that he hadn’t meant to hurt her—that he just needed to talk? She stopped, hesitating.
“Nancy! Nancy, where are you?” It was Ned’s voice, and he sounded frantic. “Nancy!”
“Here, Ned!” Nancy called. “I’m here!” She ran toward the sound of his voice, still calling his name.
“Oh, Nancy!” Breathlessly, Ned burst through a clearing and enveloped her in a huge hug. Bess and George were with him.
“What happened to you? Where have you been all this time?” Bess asked anxiously.
“We told the others we’d be looking for you—Linda was glad to have the rest,” George said.
“But, Nan . . .” Ned began.
“What?”
“Why did you leave the trail?”
“I didn’t leave the trail,” Nancy said, feeling the knot on the side of her head. “Max came up behind me and hit me over the head. He carried me pretty far into the woods and tied me up, but I managed to get loose and catch him by surprise. I got away just a few minutes ago.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re safe,” George said, hugging her. She turned to Bess. “See? I keep telling you Max is dangerous.”
Nancy waved her hand to interrupt. “Probably. But there’s something that bothers me.”
“Bothers you?” Ned asked. “I’d be bothered, too, if somebody knocked me out and tied me up in the middle of the woods.”
“Yeah, I know.” Nancy sighed. “But Max said something odd, just before I got away. He said that he hadn’t meant to hit me so hard, that he just wanted to talk.”
“But why would he want to talk to you?” Ned asked. “Was he trying to keep you from going to the police?”
Nancy shook her head. “I don’t know, but I wish I hadn’t hit him so quickly.”
Ned considered. “You couldn’t take that chance. But we could go back and talk to him now,” he suggested. “There’re four of us and only one of him.”
Nancy looked around. “To tell you the truth, Ned,” she confessed, “I don’t know which direction I ran after I got away from Max.”
Ned followed her scuffed track in the leaves. “It looks like you came from over there,” he said, pointing’. “Let’s go that way.”
But even though they searched the woods, they couldn’t find the clearing where Max had held Nancy captive. Ned glanced down at his watch.
“It’s nearly two o’clock,” he said reluctantly. “The others are waiting. We’ll have to push hard if we’re going to reach the ranger station this afternoon.”
“If the ranger station is in this direction,” Nancy reminded him.
“Right.” Ned sighed and took her hand as the four of them headed back to the trail. “If.”
“Did you manage to talk to Mercedes?” Nancy asked after a few minutes.
“I tried,” Ned answered.
“Oh. No luck?”
“Nope. She wouldn’t say a word to me.” Ned grinned and squeezed Nancy’s hand. “Not even when I turned on some charm.”
“Now I really do wish I’d had the sense to play possum just a few minutes longer,” Nancy said unhappily. “If I’d just listened to Max, he might have given us a clue to this whole thing. I wish—”
“I wish you’d shut up, Detective Drew,” Ned said. He slipped his arm affectionately around her shoulders. “It’s good to have you safe. Even if you didn’t get the clue you wanted.”
“He kidnapped you!” Linda exclaimed hysterically when Nancy and her friends finally caught up with the rest of the group and told them what had happened. “He’s going to kill us all! He’ll track us down and isolate us, one at a time, and kill us.”
Ralph rubbed her back. “Don’t, Linda,” he said helplessly.
Mercedes jumped up. “Maybe Max doesn’t want to hurt the rest of us,” she blurted. “Maybe he’s just after Nancy.”
“No!” Sammy exclaimed. “He’s out to kill all of us. I’ll bet he’s somewhere nearby right now, spying on us, deciding which one of us will be next.”