Redding pulled the trigger and fired again.
6
Room 1203, Revisited
Nancy leapt on top of Bess and George and knocked them down to the ground as several bullets whizzed over their heads.
“Cut!” yelled the director.
For a few seconds there wasn’t a sound as the three girls lay on the ground in a heap.
Then everything happened at once. The other conventioneers crowded around them. Dan Redding towered over them. Crew members were shouting, and Matt Ziegler was running back and forth like a frightened puppy.
“Everyone back on the bus!” Ziegler shouted. “We’re going back to the hotel!” He scurried toward the street where the bus was parked.
Reluctantly the crowd moved away from Nancy, Bess, and George. Mystery lovers all, none of them wanted to walk away from a real mystery: who had put real bullets in the gun? And why?
“Is anyone hurt?” Ziegler said, scurrying back toward them.
Nancy rolled over on the pavement and sat up. She bent and unbent her legs, felt her arms, then rose to her feet. “I’m still in one piece,” she said. “How about you?” she asked her friends.
Bess and George stood up. Bess brushed some dirt off her skirt and pointed to some scrapes on her knees. “I haven’t had those since I was eight,” she said.
George held up her arms to show matching scrapes on her elbows. “It could have been a lot worse,” she said.
“That’s a relief,” Ziegler said. Then he headed for the bus.
Dan Redding took a few steps toward them. He had taken off his hood. “I don’t know what to say,” he said. His voice was hoarse. “The eye-holes in that hood weren’t made properly. I totally lost track of where I was aiming. I’m really sorry.”
Nancy looked up at Dan Redding’s handsome face. Were those tears in his blue eyes?
“I don’t know what happened with that gun,” he said, blinking. “But I know for sure it’s never going to happen again. Nobody does this on my show. You hear that?” he shouted in the direction of the crew. “You costume and prop guys just lost your jobs!”
Redding turned and strode toward some crew members who were huddling by a trailer parked behind the statue. As Redding approached, they gathered even closer together.
Suddenly one man broke away from the huddle and raced away down the street. Before he turned the corner, Nancy realized who it was. It wasn’t someone from the crew. It was Peter Thornton!
What was Will Leonard’s manager doing on the set of “Cop”? He didn’t have anything to do with the show. In fact, he worked for its biggest competitor. Was that the reason he was here? To check out the competition?
Maybe he planned to sabotage the show. It would be terrible for “Cop” if word got out that innocent people were almost killed on the set.
Or could this have something to do with the conversation they’d had yesterday in the coffee shop? Nancy had told Thornton he couldn’t stop her from spreading news of the kidnapping—and she had already told Ziegler. Maybe the bullets were Thornton’s way of keeping her quiet for good.
“I’ve got to check something out,” Nancy said to her friends. She ran up to the corner Thornton had turned.
Nancy looked up the dark, empty street. There weren’t any cars or people because the street had been blocked off for filming. There wasn’t any Peter Thornton, either. Just a bunch of little stores and coffee shops crowded together.
Just then Nancy was startled by a loud, screeching sound over her head. Nancy jumped. Then she laughed at herself when she realized it was just the squeaking wheels of the train running on the tracks above her.
Nancy turned back toward the square and rejoined her friends.
“Where’d you go?” asked Bess.
“I saw Peter Thornton running away from here,” Nancy said. “I followed him, but he got away.”
“What was Peter Thornton doing on the set of ‘Cop’?” Bess wanted to know.
“That’s exactly what I’d like to know,” Nancy replied. “Maybe Ellingsen was right about him. Maybe he is after Will Leonard’s money—and our blood!”
“You mean you don’t think those bullets were an accident,” said George.
“Think about it,” Nancy said. “Nobody substitutes real bullets for blank ones unless there’s a reason. And those bullets were coming right at us. Everyone else was standing farther away.”
Bess shuddered. “You think Thornton did it?” she asked.
“Either him or one of our other suspects,” replied Nancy. “Thornton ran away from the set—that makes him look pretty suspicious. Both he and Ellingsen work in the industry, so they could have friends who work on the show. Either one of them might have been able to get that gun. The same goes for Matt Ziegler. I’m not sure about Braddock and Sherbinski, but we can’t rule out the possibility that they somehow managed to tamper with the gun.”
“I guess the kidnapper thinks we’re getting too close,” said George.
“Which means time is running out,” Nancy said. “I don’t think the kidnapper is going to be satisfied with a few cuts and scrapes. Let’s get back to the hotel and see what else we can find out before he or she strikes again.”
The girls took a cab back to the hotel and pulled open the brass front doors. The lobby was once again humming with activity. Conventioneers wearing Mystery Lover T-shirts crisscrossed each other on their way to special events.
“Let’s go back up to Will Leonard’s room,” Nancy said. “We left there so quickly when Ellingsen and Thornton were fighting that I never finished looking for clues.”
Bess looked at her watch, then looked at George and fidgeted.
“What’s the matter?” Nancy asked.
