Contents
1 Winter Wonderland
2 Cyber-threat
3 Deadly Medicine
4 You’ll Be Sorry
5 A Cry for Help
6 Cross-Country Catastrophe
7 Elusive Clues and Slippery Suspects
8 Look Out!
9 After-Hours Sleuthing
10 Blackmail
11 An Unfair Judgment
12 Close Call
13 Into Thin Air
14 Caught!
15 Over the Edge
16 A Desperate Plan
1
Winter Wonderland
“Don’t you love all this snow!” George Fayne remarked as her friend Nancy Drew drove her blue Mustang beneath the stone arch that marked the entrance to Emerson College. “The campus looks like someone spread a fluffy white blanket over the whole place.”
“You mean, a blinding white blanket.” Nancy had been squinting into the bright afternoon sunlight all the way from River Heights. On the campus snow covered every roof and tree, and drifts reached as high as the first-floor windows of the brick and stone buildings. “It is beautiful, but I can hardly see a thing. Especially with the wind blowing all the new snow around.”
“I love it!” George said. Her short brown curls danced around her face as she opened the passenger window and leaned out to catch a snowflake on her tongue. “Talk about perfect weather for the Big Chill Clues Challenge.”
“I’ll say.” Nancy tossed her reddish blond hair over the shoulders of the blue cable-knit sweater she wore over her jeans. “It’ll be great to see Ned. But I still can’t believe I agreed to spend two days competing in an all-out, outdoor treasure hunt with sports nuts like Ned and you.”
“You know you’ll love it,” George said. “Besides, we sports nuts need a clues maniac like you if we’re going to win the Clues Challenge.”
Ned Nickerson, Nancy’s longtime boyfriend, was a student at Emerson. When he called to ask if she and George wanted to join the Clues Challenge team from his fraternity, they both had said yes right away.
“I know it’ll be fun,” Nancy agreed. “The three other sororities and frats competing are really athletic, and the clues are tough. You know it’s a tradition to hide them in places that are practically impossible to get to.”
“Didn’t Ned say one of the clues last year was hidden at the bottom of an old well?” George asked as she rolled her window back up.
Nancy nodded. “Everyone had to cross-country ski five miles through the woods just to get there,” she said, laughing. “Then they had to use climbing gear to get down to the clue. One guy actually got stuck and had to be rescued by Ned’s team.”
“Sounds like my kind of treasure hunt,” George said, her brown eyes gleaming.
Nancy wasn’t at all surprised to hear that. George was crazy about sports and the outdoors.
“It will be cool to actually compete in the challenge Ourselves,” Nancy admitted. “Usually Ned’s whole frat wants to compete, but we were lucky that just about all of the guys were tied up this weekend.”
“And that the Clues Challenge rules allow outsiders to compete,” George added.
Nancy turned onto a side road that led to the west side of campus. Students were colorful splotches against the snow as they walked along paths that were still being shoveled. Up ahead was a cluster of colonial-style brick buildings. Even from a distance, Nancy spotted the green-and-white banner that bore the Greek letters of Ned’s frat, Omega Chi Epsilon. As Nancy maneuvered around a snowplow and pulled up in front of the building, she saw snowballs flying and people darting in every direction.
“Snowball fight!” Nancy grabbed her red parka and got out, dodging a snowball that landed on the windshield with a splat.
“Think fast, Drew!” called a familiar voice.
Nancy turned to see Ned scoop a handful of snow from a heaping mountain piled in front of the frat. Ned’s cheeks were bright red, and snow was matted in his brown hair and all over his green parka and jeans. He let the snowball fly, a huge grin on his face.
“Hey!” Nancy jumped to the left, and the snowball caught only her sleeve. “This means war!” she yelled back, yanking on her parka, then reaching for a handful of snow.
She barely had time to crunch the snow into a ball before Ned reached her and buried her in a snowy hug.
