Beware the Young Stranger by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online Page B

pants.
    They walked over to Nancy’s little compact without looking at each other.
    â€œI’d better drive,” he said.
    She nodded and walked around the front of the car to get into the suicide seat.
    â€œWith you in a sec,” he said.
    The gravel of the driveway crunched beneath his feet as he went to his sports car. He had no luggage. He had planned, upon his aunt’s sudden call this morning, to stop back at the apartment and pick up a few things after he met Nancy.
    He kept a lightweight London fog in the MG. The coat lay on the front seat. He leaned across the door of the car and picked the coat up.
    There was a small metal box lying on the seat. Frowning, he triggered the catch and opened the box.
    He didn’t lift the money out right away, merely stood there touching it. Then with a jerk, his fingers closed over the sheaf of bills, scooped it out of the box, slipped it into the side pocket of his trousers.
    He went back to Nancy’s sedan and slid under the wheel. He turned the key and started the car.
    They dropped out of the driveway, wheeled around the edge of the lake. He felt a need to talk. But he did not say anything. Neither did Nancy, until the car turned away from the lake and burrowed into the woods.
    â€œGot a cigarette?” she asked lightly. But there was a tautness in her voice.
    He handed her the pack.
    â€œWant one?”
    â€œPlease.”
    She lit a cigarette for him, one for herself.
    â€œWhat’s the agenda?”
    She was resting her head against the seat back, smoking calmly, blowing the smoke in a cool stream.
    His stomach writhed. This was not the Nancy he had known. There was now a cold-bloodedness about her, as if she had deliberately shut out of her mind all the guilty questions, doubts, and fears. The change alarmed him. It wasn’t like Nancy. And he shared it. A sort of hardening process had set in. In both of them.
    â€œI won’t go back, Nancy.”
    â€œThe police usually dig out the truth.”
    â€œI had a round with those small-town cops in Florida,” he said. “They had no evidence, but it was rough. The police here … they’ve got a lot more on me. The minute I’m jailed they’ll throw away the key.”
    â€œI don’t know, Keith, you may be right. Whoever killed your aunt may get careless. The longer you’re missing, the greater the possibility of the real murderer’s tipping his hand.”
    â€œSure,” Keith said.
    She hadn’t, he realized, quite understood that they weren’t going back, period. The implications of vanishing, of never again seeing familiar faces or surroundings were unreal to her. Maybe when the chips were down she’d regret her decision back there at the lake house. Probably would. He would have to watch, be prepared. Wait and see, he told himself. Take one thing at a time. Act as if there weren’t a screaming nerve in your body. Improvise. Regard everything and everybody as a potential enemy.
    Even Nancy.
    The dark sadness reached deeper inside of him.
    Like a beetle, the little sedan stretched the distance between itself and the lake. The timberland fell behind. They met no traffic as they moved across the hills on the secondary road.
    Finally the stop sign at the intersection with the primary road came into view.
    Keith braked, quietly waiting for a heavy car and house trailer to trundle past. Then he gunned the engine and swung onto the highway.
    Nancy was again lighting cigarettes.
    â€œDon’t burn yourself,” she cautioned him. “Here.”
    Without taking his eyes from the road, Keith took one hand from the wheel and let her put the cigarette between his fingers.
    The highway was not of the best. A two-lane road a generation ago, it had been widened, patched, repaired until it was a crazy conglomerate of tar, asphalt, concrete.
    Keith checked the dashboard. Plenty of gas; nearly a full tank. Temperature gauge showed the engine