Danger at the Iron Dragon by Carolyn Keene

Author:Carolyn Keene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2021-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

A couple of hours later, George and I were sitting at my kitchen table at home, scarfing down take-out cartons of lo mein that we’d picked up on the way home. Despite all our worrying, we’d both had a really good time in class, and even though I was starving and exhausted, for the first time since this case started, I felt like I was thinking clearly.

“Anything left for me?” Bess asked, coming in the back door and dropping her gym bag on the floor.

George, her mouth crammed with noodles, pushed the carton of lo mein across the table to her cousin.

“You guys are the best,” said Bess. She opened the carton and blissfully inhaled the cloud of Chinese food smells that wafted out before tucking in with her chopsticks.

“Anything to report?” I asked her.

Bess shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. Master Brock obviously has a chip on his shoulder about the Carly thing—I overheard him and Lucy Hayes talking about the tournament and strategizing about how to beat her. But no suspicious whispering about threats or mischief at Iron Dragon. And nothing that points to them having hired help to terrorize the competition. Maybe the evidence is there, but I couldn’t find it. Sorry, Nancy.”

“Don’t apologize. Sometimes not finding any evidence is evidence in itself. If anything, it makes me think that my new theory might be right after all.”

“What new theory?” Bess asked.

“That I’ve been barking up the wrong tree.”

George popped a shrimp into her mouth. “What do you mean?”

“From the very beginning of this case, I assumed that Carly was the target. I mean, why wouldn’t I? It made sense, and there was no reason for me to doubt it. But what if someone was putting those clues there to throw me off? What if, by following all those fake clues, I ended up ignoring the real ones?”

“You’re thinking about Penny, aren’t you?” George asked.

I nodded. “Something about the way she acted at the construction site, and tonight, was weird. She seemed nervous, awkward—like she’s hiding something. The only question is: What?”

George set down her chopsticks. “Where’s your laptop?” she asked.

“It’s in my bag by the door,” I answered. “Why?”

She got up to grab it. “Because,” she said, setting up the computer on the table and cracking her knuckles, “whatever Penny might be hiding, the magic of the Internet shall reveal.”

George opened up a search window and typed in Penny’s name. While Bess and I finished our late-night meal, George clicked away, her brows furrowed in concentration as she stared at the screen. I was polishing off the last bite of an egg roll when she sat back in her chair with a “Huh.”

“What is it?” I asked. “What did you find?”

“Nothing,” George said. “Well, almost nothing. That’s the weird thing. Penny said she lived in New York before moving to River Heights, but there’s no record of her anywhere in the state. Nothing on public record or on social media that matches her description. It’s almost like Penny Forrester didn’t exist before six months ago, when she moved to town.

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