The Eskimo's Secret by Carolyn Keene Read Free Book Online

wanted to talk to you about your change of mind. Are you saying he never reached your estate?” Nancy felt a cold stab of fear.
    “I’ve been here all day,” Helen Haggler replied. “He’s neither arrived nor called. Haven’t you heard from him?”
    “No . . . well, sort of,” Nancy amended. “I’m in Victoria.” She explained how she’d come to be staying at the Creighton Hotel.
    “Well, when you do see him, ask him to call, will you?” Miss Haggler said. “No matter how late it is.”
    “I’ll do that,” Nancy promised, but even as she spoke the words, she was afraid her father’s disappearance was more than just a case of missed connections and changed plans.

8. A Cruel Bargain

    When her food arrived, Nancy had little appetite for it, but she ate, hoping the meal would distract her from the fear inside her. She was just finishing her dessert when the telephone rang, so startlingly that she dropped her fork.
    “Miss Nancy Drew?” The voice was male and unfamiliar.
    “This is she,” Nancy replied.
    “I'm calling about your father,” the voice informed her.
    “Where is he? Who is this? What’s going on?” The questions boiled out of her.
    “Your father is with me,” the voice answered coldly.
    “What do you mean he’s with you?”
    “All you need to know is that your father is with me, and if you want to see him again, you’re going to have to find Alana Steele for us.” “But I don’t know where Alana is,” Nancy protested. “I’ve been trying to find her.”
    “If you want your father back, don’t make ex-cuses.” The voice was hard and ugly.
    “How do I know you have my father?” Nancy asked, getting her fears under control with a stern effort of will.
    “Listen to this,” the voice ordered.
    Nancy started to object, but there was a click and in a moment she heard her father’s voice.
    “Nancy, I’m all right. I’m being held . . . at a place and I’ll be taken care of as long as you don’t try to contact the authorities or anyone else. Don’t try to find me. Just do as they tell you.”
    The tape clicked. “Dad!” Nancy moaned, aching to talk to him, to really hear his voice.
    “If you want to talk to your father again, you’d better find Alana Steele,” the voice told her unemotionally.’
    “But I don’t know where she is,” Nancy wailed, desperation bringing tears to her eyes.
    “You’re a detective. You find her.” There was a short bark of cruel laughter. “And remember what your father told you about contacting the authorities. If you do, you’ll never see him again.” The receiver clicked and the line went dead.
    For a moment she sat still, tears flooding down her cheeks, her heart pounding with panic and fear. Then she remembered the sound of her father’s voice, calm and strong, unafraid. She closed her eyes and tried to draw strength from his courage, his faith in her.
    Alana was the key, she realized. But how? Who wanted to find Alana badly enough to actually kidnap Carson Drew? And why? There was only one reason that came to her mind—the missing sculpture, the Tundra.
    Her mind once more working logically, Nancy picked up her purse and took out the notebook she’d found in Alana’s room. It was now much easier for her to believe that someone had tried to harm Tod Harper, then gone to the mansion and slipped inside to search it.
    “What could Alana know that makes her so important?” she asked herself, opening the notebook.
    The first part of the notebook was simply a detailed cataloging of the individual carvings of the Tundra. Pages and pages listing caribou in various poses, the wolves, the bears, the tiny humans that populated the man-created tundra. Nancy skimmed through them, then noticed that several were starred.
    “What’s going on here?” she murmured, then she found the note at the end of the list.
    “I’ve marked several carvings that seem very familiar to me,” it read in Alana’s handwriting. “If only I could