Adrift → Ace; Nancy Drew [2]

vii. the myth of the anubis abacus

THE MYTH OF THE ANUBIS ABACUS
CHAPTER SEVEN

Olivia shut the door behind the priest as he left. She spun around and headed toward Bess and George. "What did you talk to him about?" George interrogated.

"Nothing important," Olivia lied.

She needed someone to wave their hand over the Abacus, but with how much they'd been coddling her and saying she was "different", her friends were the last people she wanted to ask for help. They didn't trust her because she was different, so why should she ask anything of them? Besides, she didn't want to say anything to anyone about the Abacus until she knew for certain that it worked.

"Anyway..." Bess sighed, slumping her shoulders in exhaustion. "Nancy said something earlier about the arrest of these people who worked with a thief of occult objects, named Bertram Bobbsey. Some relics were seized, so, once she and Ryan are finished with their search for the supernatural killer, I can get her to ask Mr. Drew if a soul splitter happened to be seized."

As if Bess had summoned them, Ryan and Nancy appeared in the doorway of the archives– a room that didn't have an entrance into the Historical Society. How had they suddenly appeared inside?

Bess gasped in horror and jumped to her feet, George following her actions. "You see them too, right?"

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"When we ran into the frozen hearts killer it kind of sniffed the air and let us go. I don't think it kills at random," Nancy said. She was momentarily distracted by the sudden passing of an icepack from Ace to Ryan who pressed it gratefully against his shoulder that had been dislocated in the underground tunnels they found. "I think it has hardwiring that dictates who it murders," Nancy said, her attention

Crossing her arms over her torso, George leaned against the wall. Something didn't add up. "How is it finding its victims then?"

"The supernatural killer has some sort of attachment to this doll..." Before saying anything else, Nancy reached for her phone from her coat's pocket and typed in her passcode. She flipped it over to show Olivia, George, Nick, Bess, and Ace who were struggling to grasp everything that Ryan and Nancy had just dumped on them. Squinting, Olivia slouched forward to get a better look at the image. It was a picture of a doll with blonde braids and porcelain skin. Its clothes were dusty and brown with dirt. "The supernatural killer was laser-focused on it... it clearly wanted it back, and it was the same doll in the vision with Trott. Now that I think of it, Temperance also had a weird reaction to it... like she recognized it."

"That means Temperance let the supernatural killer out..." Nick concluded. Olivia nodded along– it made sense.

Bess shook her head defensively like she was trying to convince even herself that Nick was wrong. "No, no, she can't have."

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around tunnels being connected to the historical society," George mentioned, glancing between all her friends for a reaction. "I mean did Hannah ever mention a secret door in a wall?" Everyone shook their heads.

"Well, what if this thing is being unleashed by coming up through the Historical Society?" Ryan suggested and nodded his head toward Nancy. "You know, like we did?

When Ryan's words filled his ears, Nick pushed himself off the wall and began to walk toward the desk across the room. "I set up surveillance cameras all over the building. We can watch those to see who's been coming and going."

"Let's start with the most recent surveillance footage and work our way backward from there," Nancy said, nodding to Nick in agreement.

"Perfect," Bess said cheerfully. She stood up from the sofa and hurried to Nancy before she could get occupied with the footage. "Meanwhile, Nancy, I need you to ask your dad a favor..."

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Boots clattered against the polished wooden floors as Nancy strode back toward Bess, Olivia, and George. The girls were huddled together, Bess and George waiting impatiently to find out what Nancy had heard from Carson, and Olivia standing with them merely out of curiosity. Learning more about the soul splitter was also a welcome distraction considering all that was actually on Olivia's mind was her selfish self-interest. The only thing she was truly interested in was the Abacus and finding answers about herself. She knew she couldn't say it out loud because the others would judge her and hate her, and there was still a part of her, somewhere deep inside, that was hopeful that she would become herself again. And if that was true– if she was able to become her true self again, she knew that the real Olivia wouldn't want her friends to hate her the way they would if they knew what was going through her head these days: that she couldn't be less bothered about George's life being cut short, that she didn't care that the supernatural killer was still loose and murdering innocent people. Most of all, her memories told her that if the real Olivia was here, and she saw how Ace hadn't even looked at her or spoken to her all evening, she would be heartbroken.

Reminders like that were the only thing keeping Olivia from ruining every relationship she had in Horseshoe Bay.

"So, my dad said he didn't see a soul splitter in the inventory of what was seized from the thieves," Nancy sighed, and Bess and George's wishful faces instantly dropped into dull stares of disappointment. "But, he said he could try to get a warrant to search through Bertram Bobbsey's locker before the D.A. confiscates everything. You guys said he was a relic thief working with the guys who got arrested, so maybe he's got something."

"You're amazing," George said gratefully before embracing Nancy in a hug. "Thank you."

"Hey guys, look at this." That was the first thing Olivia had heard Ace say all evening. She followed the other girls to the desk that Nick, Ryan, and Ace were hovering over with their eyes glued to the camera.

Nick rewound the security footage they were watching, ensuring the girls were watching before hitting play. Hannah was in the same room that they were in right now when suddenly there was a blackout.

They all frowned as they watched her in the video take a key out of a small chest and walk into the secret door that Nancy and Ryan had appeared from. "That's the door that led to the supernatural killer's cage..." Ryan uttered in shock.

"She knew about the door." Nancy's lips gaped in disbelief. As a thought appeared in her mind, she hurried her hand into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled a thin piece of metal out. "I found this broken key in the underground prison cell." She knelt to get a closer look at the video before her eyes landed on the chest on the desk... The same chest that was only a few feet from them. She hurried toward it and pulled open the lid of the wooden chest. She placed the piece of metal she had found into its designated place in the box. It fit perfectly.

"That's part of the key that unlocked the monster's case," Ace grumbled, his words barely audible as he tried to process what they had just discovered.

Nancy propped her elbow up on her other arm and covered her mouth in disbelief. "All this time, I thought that Hannah was gonna help us protect the town... But she's the one who released the supernatural killer..."