Trail of Lies by Carolyn Keene Page A

noticed that it had started to snow. She walked to the barn. It was silent, and when she went inside the dogs were gone. So was the sled. Steve and Craig must have taken them out for a run.
    Nancy walked through the barn slowly. Something bothered her about George’s disappearance, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She found herself standing by the stallwhere Steve and Craig stored the burlap bags of dry dog food.
    As Nancy looked around, a tiny scrap of bright red cloth near the floor caught her eye. It had snagged on a nail that stuck halfway out of a wooden post. She bent quickly to examine it.
    Nancy thought she recognized it. It looked as though it had been torn from George’s silk scarf, the one that her mother had given her just before they left River Heights.
    Then Nancy spotted something that sent chills rippling down her spine. Half under the pallet that the bags of dog food lay on, and almost buried by straw, was the rest of George’s scarf.
    Gingerly, Nancy lifted it up. It had been ripped almost in two.
    Quickly she strode around the pallet to examine the rest of the stall. On the other side, the straw had been kicked away from the wood floor, and one of the bags of dog food had been ripped open. Brown, freeze-dried nuggets had spilled out over the floor. That told Nancy all she needed to know. A struggle had taken place here.
    Her sharp eyes noticed something glinting inside the gaping hole in the bag of dog food. Carefully, Nancy reached inside and pushed her hand through the loose nuggets. She feltsomething hard and smooth and took it out. It was a small ivory carving of a bear.
    Nancy’s mind stood still for a second as she took in the little carving. Then it was churning again. Things were falling into place.
    And then she knew, with absolute certainty, who the smuggler was.

Chapter

Thirteen
    M OTIVE AND OPPORTUNITY . One person had them both.
    â€œCraig Miller,” Nancy said aloud.
    His motive was simple. He’d made no secret of needing money so that he could afford his own dog team. And as the night watchman at the shipyard, he had access to the ships. He could slip into the cargo hold and unload the ivory while he was supposed to be on duty.
    Craig had been at the shipyard when the lights went off in the cargo hold. He’d been at the office when Nancy was pushed down the stairs. He’d been at the track when the firecracker exploded.
    Nancy thought about how Craig had saidthat Steve made him do all the chores. That was a clever lie—it made Steve look like an insensitive rich kid, and it also made it seem perfectly natural that Craig never let anyone else near the food bags where his illegal ivory was cached.
    Craig had had luck on his side, too, she reflected. The Totem Pole’s ivory supplier had described a “tall young man driving a dogsled,” and Nancy had immediately assumed it was Steve. But Craig was nearly as tall as Steve, if only she had stopped to think about it.
    The clues had been there all along. But through it all, Craig had drawn Nancy’s suspicions to other people—he’d suggested John was hiding something. He’d led her along a trail of lies.
    Nancy was willing to bet it was Craig who’d concealed the whip on Steve’s sled, and now he’d done something to George!
    Nancy bit her finger as she tried to think. If I were Craig, what would I have done with someone who walked in on me and caught me red-handed? she wondered. Where would I take her where no one else would find her?
    Suddenly an idea struck her. Nancy ran back to the house and raced up the porch stairs two at a time. “John!” she called, barging into the kitchen. But the butler wasn’t there. To hersurprise, Nancy found Steve in the kitchen, making himself a sandwich. Her heart sank. She’d thought he was with Craig.
    â€œWhere’s Craig?” she asked, unable to disguise the tension in her voice.
    Steve turned and