“But he must have been so scared!” Kat wailed, clutching the Chihuahua closer, much to his obvious discomfort. Pretty Boy wriggled around and bared his teeth, clearly frustrated that Kat was squeezing him too tightly for him to be able to bite her.
“It’s over now,” Hildy said soothingly. “And everyone is all right. Some people just get a little carried away when it comes to saving the environment, that’s all. There are worse crimes in the world.”
“True enough,” I agreed, thinking not only of Sara but of crazy Phyllis as well. Then again, I realized that maybe I shouldn’t think of her as crazy. After all, she’d been right about the resort, even if Enrique had turned out to be the culprit rather than Green Solutions.
In any case, it seemed the mystery was finally solved. But Sara still wasn’t confessing to the zip line or crocodile incidents, which was sort of troubling. And thinking back to her shock at seeing that poisonous frog, I couldn’t help wondering how it had gotten there. Was it Enrique? And had he been the one to push me overboard? It was unsettling to realize that I might never know the answers....
I was still thinking about the remaining unanswered questions as I packed my things the next morning. Bess was bustling around our room as well, though George was lounging on one of the beds with half her clothes still strewn around the place.
“Hurry up,” Bess chided her cousin. “The bus leaves for San José in, like, an hour.”
“That’s plenty of time,” George said with a yawn. “I want to stay in vacation mode as long as possible.”
Before Bess or I could respond, the door to our room flew open with a bang. Standing in the doorway was Juliana.
“Please!” she cried out, sounding upset. “I heard what happened, and you have to help me! My father is innocent — I know he is!”
I winced, realizing that Enrique must have just told her the whole story. “I’m really sorry, Juliana,” I said, setting down my bag. “For everything. Especially accusing you of all that stuff. I know now that you didn’t do any of it.”
She waved a hand as if shooing away a fly. “That’s not what I’m talking about,” she said. “My father loves nature too much ever to do anything to hurt it. If what he just told me is true, he must have been duped into going along with it somehow! Probably by this mysterious American girlfriend of his!”
Huh? I traded a confused look with Bess. Even George sat up on her bed and stared at Juliana.
“American girlfriend?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“Those letters — the ones I told you about? On his computer?” Juliana said urgently. “I took another look and saw that they are not to Aunt Virginia at all! There are dozens of them to and from someone named —”
“Cassandra Samuels,” George finished. “We saw them too.”
“Then you know!” Juliana rushed over and clutched her by the arm. “You know she must have put him up to this!”
“Listen, Juliana,” Bess said kindly, sneaking another peek at the time. “We’re heading home soon; I think maybe you should talk things out with your father.”
“I tried!” Juliana sounded more desperate than ever. “He just keeps saying he is responsible. But I know this woman in Chicago must have something to do with it!”
“In Chicago?” George echoed. “How do you know that’s where she is?”
Juliana shrugged. “She mentions it in one of the letters,” she said. “I was not able to read them all, but I saw enough.” Her eyes flashed angrily. “I cannot believe he allowed this woman to get him into trouble! And now he is taking the blame instead of fighting back —”
She was interrupted by a sudden, loud scream from somewhere outside. “What was that?” Bess exclaimed as the scream came again.
I was already pushing past Juliana to the door. All four of us raced outside, where we found a horrifying sight. Sara was standing on the pathway in the main garden, her head completely engulfed in tiny swarming insects!
Others had emerged out of the buildings by then. Among them was Alicia, who let out a cry of horror. “Army ants!” she cried. “They’re attacking her face! Dios mio!”
“Out of the way.” Cristobal had appeared as well. Racing over to Sara, he scooped her up as easily as if she were a kitten. Then he ran off down the path with her cradled in his arms, hardly seeming to notice as some of the ants swarmed over his arms.
I realized what he was doing. “The pool!” I yelled over my shoulder to my friends, already dashing after him. “He’s going to toss her in the pool to get them off her.”
Ten minutes later, it was all over. The pool trick had worked pretty well — Cristobal and Alicia had jumped into the water with Sara, washing away the ants as quickly as they could. Then the two of them had accompanied her to Violeta’s medical station for treatment. As Sara had passed by us, I’d had to look away — her face was already swelling from the multitude of bites.
“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Bess asked, staring after them.
“I hope so. At least they got them off her fairly quickly.” I glanced over at the others still gathered around. Most of the guests were there. “Did anybody see what happened? How’d those ants get on her head like that?”
“They were in her hat,” Frankie said in a trembling voice. “I was standing right here when she put it on. They just came swarming down over her face! It was horrible!”
I shot a look at my friends. Their expressions said that they were both thinking the same thing I was: There was no way this was an accident. The timing was just too suspicious.
Someone must have found out that Sara was the one who had exposed the not-so-green side of Casa Verde, I thought grimly. Probably the same someone who tried to scare me off the case by messing with the zip line and turning me into crocodile bait. Was it Enrique? Or could someone else be responsible?
Either way, it seemed this wasn’t over. Yet what was I supposed to do about it with our plane leaving so soon?
I wasn’t sure. But Nancy Drew never leaves a case unsolved. And no matter what it took, I was going to see this one through to the end....
TO BE CONTINUED…
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