The Mystery off Old Telegraph Road

sticky, clinging fingers of a cobweb against her face. She shook her head to free it, and the tears that had been standing in her eyes rolled down her cheeks.
    They were going to dispose of her, the man had said. Trixie shuddered as she thought about what that might mean.
    Why did I have to come out here by myself? she thought desperately. Why didn’t I wait for Brian and Mart to come back from the movie, or call Jim and Honey?
    She realized that she’d left the house so hurriedly that she hadn’t even taken time to write a note. I thought I’d be back before my family was, she brooded. More tears rolled down her cheeks as she thought about her family returning from the movie and finding her gone.
    They’ll start to worry right away, she thought. They’ll call Honey to ask if I’m at the Manor House, and then Honey and Jim will start worrying, too. Someone will discover that my bike is missing, but that won’t tell them where I’ve gone. By the time they do find it, I’ll be— Where? In the Hudson River, probably. Trixie choked down a sob.
    The smaller man heard the noise and turned around, his face a cold mask. “Pipe down, kid,” he ordered.
    Trixie did her best to return his look with an angry one. When he turned his back, she looked away from him to the contents of the room, and what she saw was so surprising that, for a moment, she forgot her fear.
    It’s a regular printing shop! she thought. In one comer of the room stood an old-fashioned-looking printing press. There were pallets loaded with paper, drums of ink, and boxes filled with the finished product: fifty-deutsche-mark notes, just like the one she had found.
    Trixie also noticed a fireplace that was filled with charred pieces of paper. That’s where my note came from, she thought. They were burning rejects, and somehow one note blew up through the chimney before it burned completely.
    The smaller man saw Trixie staring and turned to look at the fireplace. “We have to put those ashes in a bag and take them with us,” he told the bigger man. “We don’t want to leave any clues behind. Otherwise we won’t be able to set up shop in this area again.” He smiled evilly at Trixie, his eyes glittering. “You tipped me off, kid. Thanks to you, we should be able to make a clean getaway,” Trixie flushed with anger—anger at the cruelty of the little man and anger at herself. Now you’ve done it, she thought. You’ve destroyed the one clue that might have made those men get caught. She tugged at the ropes that bound her wrists, frantically hoping that she might be able to free herself and make a run for the cellar door. The ropes held tight.
    Trixie let her body sag against the wall and watched silently as the men continued their moving operations. The smaller man was packing paper, ink, and counterfeit money into boxes, which the big man carried to the van. Then the smaller man began to take apart the press, and his accomplice strained to carry the heavy metal pieces up the stairs.
    After what seemed like hours, the cellar was empty. “You take the girl out to the truck,” the smaller man said. “I want to take one last look around, to make sure we didn’t forget anything.”
    The big man grunted in agreement, grabbed Trixie by one arm, and dragged her to her feet. He pushed her up the stairs, caught her roughly as she stumbled, and guided her out the door.
    When they got to the van, the big man lifted her up, as if she were a sack of flour, and tossed her into the back, closing the doors behind her.
    In the darkness, Trixie groped and stumbled, trying to find a place to sit. She settled herself uneasily on a pallet of paper. She heard the big man grunt again as he boosted himself into the vehicle, then heard the door on the driver’s side of the van slam shut.
    Trixie heard a slight rustling sound and felt a hand on her arm. She tried to scream.
    “It’s okay, Trixie,” Nick Roberts’s voice whispered close to her ear. “Don’t make any noise. I’ll get us out of here.” Nick crouched behind a stack of boxes as he heard the smaller man trudge up the cellar steps, slam the door shut, and pound the hinges back into place. He walked around to the passenger side of the van and climbed in.
    “Let’s go,” he barked.
    As the motor started, Nick removed Trixie’s gag and began to untie her hands. A jumble of thoughts raced through her mind. What’s Nick doing here? she wondered. And how is he going to get us out of this van