Free The Secret of Sigma Seven by Franklin W. Dixon

started to turn, but it was obvious that he would never be able to get out of the hovercar’s path in time. Frank leaped forward and tackled Gillis around the waist, knocking him to the pavement of the parking lot. The hovercar shot by a few inches overhead and plowed into the wall of the motel. It bounced away, deflected by the rubber bumpers that surrounded the lower rim of the car, then settled back to the ground.
    â€œWhat happened?” Gillis gasped.
    â€œYou were almost the victim of a runaway hovercar,” Frank said, climbing back to his feet. He reached down and helped Gillis stand up.
    â€œWhat?” Gillis said in disbelief. He turned and saw the hovercar lying next to the building. “Oh, no!” he exclaimed. “It must have gone out of control!”
    He rushed over to the hovercar and examined it. “It doesn’t seem to have been damaged. I don’t know how the car could have gone out of control like that.”
    â€œThere wasn’t anybody around it,” Joe said. “It just started moving—straight at you.”
    â€œIs there any way to remote-control the car?” Frank asked. “Could someone have started it from a distance?”
    â€œNo,” Gillis said firmly, opening a small hoodlike compartment at the front of the hovercar. “It can be started and controlled only from inside. It must have been some kind of glitch in the machinery. Or”— his voice changed tone—“somebody’s been tampering with the mechanism.”
    Gillis studied the engine carefully. “I don’t see anything unusual,” he finally said, closing the hood. “I’ll give it a complete checkup later.” He got into the hovercar, started it up, and drove it back to the tent. Then he climbed out and walked back to Frank and Joe.
    â€œWell, I’m a little shaken up by that,” Gillis told the Hardys, “but I still have to eat lunch. Maybe some food will calm my nerves.”
    â€œYou’d better be careful, Mr. Gillis,” Joe said. “It looks like somebody may be trying to hurt you as well as Mr. Devoreaux.”
    â€œI’ll take care,” Gillis said. He left them and walked back toward the motel.
    â€œHe’s a pretty cool character,” Joe said as the brothers headed across the parking lot toward the motel, keeping a distance behind Gillis. “I might be too shaken up to eat lunch if somebody just tried to kill me.”
    â€œSomebody tried to kill you last night when you left the party, and I didn’t notice it had any effect on your appetite,” Frank observed.
    â€œTrue,” Joe said thoughtfully. “But I’m used to it. I’ve been in the detective business for a while.”
    â€œWell, maybe Gillis is used to it,” Frank said. “After all, he deals with complicated mechanical devices like the hovercar every day. Maybe this sort of thing happens a lot in the movie business. Do you believe that thing started all by itself?” he asked his brother.
    â€œNo,” Joe said. “Too much of a coincidence. Last night somebody tried to kill Simon Devoreaux, and this afternoon somebody tried to kill Jack Gillis.”
    â€œSounds like somebody wants not only to snatch Devoreaux’s latest film,” Frank said, walking on, “but also to get rid of the entire team as well. You suppose they’ll go after the actors next?”
    â€œFortunately, the actors aren’t at this convention,” Joe said. “Which probably greatly increases their life expectancies.”
    Frank thought for a moment. “Do you suppose,” he said, “that it would increase the value of a bootlegfilm if the people who were in charge of the movie— such as the director, the writer, the special-effects supervisor—were all out of the way, so they couldn’t remake the film?”
    Joe laughed. “That’s the craziest idea I’ve ever heard!