A noise in the locker room reminded Nancy that she wasn’t alone. She had all the evidence she needed against the Mitchells. But she still had to address a more immediate problem.
Would she make it out of the locker room in one piece?
Scooting out from under the desk, she sneaked another peek through the glass partition. Josh was carrying the bomb in his hands. He paused at an open door next to the showers, leaned down, and placed the bomb inside.
That’s the boiler room, Nancy recalled. Why is he putting the bomb in there?
Josh stepped back, and Nancy saw that the expression on his face was sad and tortured. In that second she actually felt sorry for Josh. He seemed so unhappy, so confused. For a moment he simply stood there. Then he turned and strode down the dim hallway that led to the locker room’s outside door.
Nancy dashed out of the coach’s office, then suddenly stopped short. She was no expert on explosives, but she knew enough to wonder whether this bomb could be set off by a sudden movement.
She could hear its timing device counting off the seconds, the sound echoing ominously through the empty room. Tick, tick, tick . . .
Chapter Seventeen
Nancy gulped back her fear. She had to find away to get Josh to deactivate that bomb.
“Josh, come back!” she shouted.
She saw him start, then snap his head around to look over his shoulder. The instant his gaze lit on Nancy, he began to run.
He plunged into the dark end of the hallway. There was a flash of daylight as he threw open the door. A moment later Nancy heard him groan as his arms and legs flailed in the air.
Running to the doorway, Nancy saw that Josh was lying prone on the ground. He was hugging his chest and gasping for air. Bess stood over him, her arms folded across her chest.
“I tripped him,” she announced proudly. “Are you okay? What happened in there?”
“Plenty,” Nancy said, “but I don’t have time to explain. We’re on a tight deadline.” She looked down at Josh. “Aren’t we, Josh?”
Josh shook his head, his chest still heaving. “I’m not going back in there. No way.”
“I’ve already called the police,” Nancy said. She squatted beside him and looked into his eyes. “You’re in enough trouble already, Josh. It’ll be a lot worse if that bomb goes off—especially if someone gets hurt.”
“A bomb!” Bess gasped. “When is it going to go off?”
“A few minutes before halftime,” Josh spat out, “and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Nancy wasn’t sure exactly how much time they had, but she knew they needed to work fast. “Is there any way to dismantle it?” she asked.
“Of course,” Josh replied. He sounded offended. “I made it myself. I know how to take it apart.” He looked from Nancy to Bess, a mixture of defiance and fear in his eyes. “But I’m not going to. My old man is really angry at me as it is. I’m not going to ruin this now.”
Nancy’s palms began to sweat. How was she going to get him to deactivate that bomb? “You seem to know a lot about explosives,” she said in what she hoped was an admiring tone.
“I’ve always been a science whiz,” Josh told her proudly as he climbed to his feet. “People think I’m a dimwit because I’m on probation. It’s not true.”
“I think you had to be pretty clever to plan all those things designed to hurt Randy Simpson,” Nancy said, shooting Josh a dazzling smile. “The fire, the loose weights, the sleeping pills—even the float. You managed to pull them all off without getting caught.”
“Some of them were easy,” Josh said arrogantly. “With a little kerosene, that platform turned into a tinderbox. People thought Kristin started it with her baton, but that was an illusion. I just had to toss a match from the side of the stage.
“The other things were easy, too,” Josh continued. “Carrie never even missed her wildcat costume. She keeps it in a closet near the girls’ locker room. It was a cinch to borrow and return it without her knowing. And as for the guys, well—none of them would ever suspect a teammate of rigging the float or drugging a fellow player.”