Текст книги "Once Upon a Thriller"

Автор книги: Carolyn Keene

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 6 страниц)

CHAPTER FIVE

Cracking the Code

BESS WAS UP FROM HER chair in a second. “Come on, Ian,” she offered. “I’ll give you a lift back.”

George and I walked Bess and Ian to the car. “Do you have any more details?” I asked.

He opened the car door and said, “The piece was by artist Rick Brown. It was taken from one of the small art galleries in town. The Bride of Avondale, I think my uncle said.”

“Two crimes in less than twelve hours?” George questioned once they drove off. “I know that may not be much for River Heights, but from what we’ve heard about Avondale, it’s pretty suspicious, isn’t it?”

“I agree,” I said. “I know I’ve heard the name Rick Brown, but I can’t remember where.”

“Maybe you saw one of his pieces in a museum, or read about him in art class,” George suggested.

“Wait a sec,” I said. “I remember.” I jumped up and ran into the house to grab the two Lacey O’Brien books I had bought earlier in the day. I came back to the porch and opened one of them to the “About the Author” page and skimmed it quickly.

“I knew it!” I said triumphantly. “I read about the author on the way to the diner before. Rick Brown is Lacey O’Brien’s husband.”

“That’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?” George said. “I mean, first Lacey’s supposed to appear for a reading but there’s a fire at the bookstore. Then her husband’s statue is stolen from an art gallery on the same day.”

I took a sip of tea and closed my eyes for a second.

“Do you remember those two girls at the bookstore fire this morning? One of them mentioned that it seemed awfully similar to the plot of Lacey O’Brien’s book Burned.”

George nodded. “Right,” she agreed. “But what does that have to do with the stolen sculpture?”

“Well, Burned is about a fire in an old building, and Framed is about a theft from an art museum,” I told her.

“Seriously?” she said.

I nodded. “And another one of Lacey’s mysteries is Drowned. Think about what happened to us on the lake before. It sounds like someone’s copying the crimes from her mystery novels,” I said.

George gave me one of her George looks and said, “Okay, so we could have drowned today in Moon Lake, but why would anyone target us? No one knows who we are. And besides, how could anyone have known we’d go out on the lake and be caught in a storm?”

“But remember Alice Ann—and that waitress—told us where Lacey lives. I just have a feeling it’s connected somehow. I know you’re beat, but maybe we should start reading Burned and Framed now. There just might be more clues to what’s next.”

“I’ll tell you what’s next for me, Nancy: sleep. You can wait up for Bess, but I’m going to bed.”

The next morning I woke up early and waited to tell Bess and George what I had discovered. I had looked at both books, letting George get her beauty sleep. Burned opens with a mysterious fire at an antiques store. The arsonist tampers with the wiring in an old chandelier to make it look as though the fire is accidental. The rest of the plot involves an international ring of criminals who traffic in fake and stolen antiques. The heroine in the novel—a journalist named Lucy Luckstone—breaks the story and eventually solves the case with the help of Detective Buck Albemarle.

The two characters appear again in the novel Framed. This time a thief steals a valuable painting from an art museum while Lucy Luckstone is on a behind-the-scenes tour. Lucy is framed for the theft, and Detective Albemarle has to clear her name.

I didn’t know if Drowned would have revealed anything helpful, but I didn’t have a copy of it.

I was on my second cup of tea when Bess came into the kitchen.

“So, what did you find out?” Bess asked eagerly as she helped herself to a mug of coffee. “Any insight into the Avondale crime spree?”

“Well, I think there’s a pretty good chance I’m right about someone borrowing crimes from Lacey’s books,” I explained. “But I don’t even know where to begin in terms of motive.”

“How about Alice Ann?” George said as she shuffled into the living room. “You said she didn’t seem to like Lacey or Paige all that much.”

I nodded. “Could it really be that easy? Who else? Lacey?”

Bess yawned from the couch. “It sounds crazy, but who else knows her books better than the one who wrote them?”

Bess had made a good point. But as much as I would love to talk to Lacey, we had already been warned by Sheriff Garrison to stay away, far way. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be willing to talk to strangers from out of town, no matter how friendly people from Avondale appeared.

George looked thoughtful. “Well, you’re probably the only person in town who’s made the connection between the two crimes,” she said. “Ian and the sheriff might figure it out as well, but something tells me you have a leg up on those two, at least for a little while. The sheriff thinks we’re stalkers, remember?”

I answered, “I know. But the girls in town did know that the Paige’s Pages fire sounded similar to Burned. Maybe it would make sense if we let people know about the connection between the two crimes. What do you think?”

George didn’t look too happy. “Do we really have to get involved in this, Nancy? Can’t we let the sheriff take charge, for once?”

My friends knew me better than that. If there was even a possibility that these occurrences were copycat crimes, then I couldn’t ignore them. And it didn’t mean they would stop—Lacey O’Brien had written a number of mysteries, and the person or persons behind the fire and the theft had more than enough material to keep them going.

I frowned at George.

She and Bess both sighed. “Okay, Nancy,” Bess finally said. “What do we do next?”

I got up from my chair and walked into the kitchen area to pour myself another cup of tea.

“I was thinking I might give Ned and his dad a story for the Bugle, and if they want to run it, they would be free to do so.”

Bess nodded. “And you’ll get this story by . . .”

“Saying I’m a Bugle reporter, of course. And that I’m following Lacey O’Brien’s rare appearance and book signing in the quiet hamlet of Avondale.”

“Hamlet?” George said.

“I’m going to give Ned a call right now,” I said. “And then I’ll do the dishes. Promise.”

My boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, is a part-time reporter and news editor at the River Heights Bugle, his dad’s paper. The Bugle covers a wide area encompassing three counties, including Avondale, so the chances were good that Ned and his dad would be interested in the story.

I quickly filled him in on what had happened yesterday, and he agreed that both crimes sounded newsworthy.

“I’ll have to clear it with my dad, but if you write the story, I’ll edit it and get my dad to publish,” he told me on the phone. “When will you be back in River Heights?”

“I’m not sure. But Bess and George are coming home first thing tomorrow,” I replied. “I hope to do the interviews tomorrow morning and write the article tomorrow night so you can post the story ASAP. Sound good?”

“Yes, sounds great,” he replied.

After I hung up the phone, I cleaned up the dishes as promised. And because yesterday had been such an unplanned adventure, we decided to relax the rest of the day at the cabin—snacking, napping, reading—before George and Bess took off for home.

After dinner, we decided to play one of our favorite games, Scrabble.

George was easily the best player among us, and just fifteen minutes into the game, she was well ahead of Bess and me.

“Triple word score!” she shouted gleefully as she played the word ZEBRAS.

“Ugh, and you even have a Z in there,” Bess groaned.

“Not only that, but the Z is on a double-letter-score square,” I added with a pained sigh.

“Sorry, girls,” George said apologetically, though the smile on her face made it hard to believe she was being sincere.

I played the word YEAR and was left with the letters A, D, K, and O. I selected a Q and then two Os in a row.

“Really?” I exclaimed, exasperated. “Two more Os?”

“Nancy, you just totally gave away your letters!” Bess laughed.

I shrugged. I was losing badly by this point anyway. I placed the tiles on my stand with a sigh and started rearranging them. Suddenly I remembered the scrap of paper from yesterday.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, practically knocking my tiles over. “I think I know what that number might have been!”

George and Bess both gave me puzzled looks.

“Number?” Bess asked. “What number?”

“The one on the paper Paige dropped in the supermarket,” I reminded my friends.

“What do you think it means?” George asked.

“Well, I was rearranging the letters on my stand, and I was looking at the number of points assigned to each letter instead of at the letters themselves,” I explained. “Maybe each of those numbers corresponds to a different letter of the alphabet.”

I spun my stand around to show them.

“Well, I guess the game’s over if you’re showing off all your letters,” George joked.

I glared at her.

“Sorry, sorry!” she said, waving her arms in apology. “Please, go on.”

“George, I know you thought the number might be a date, but what if it’s a word?” I continued. “The numbers were 9-1-14, so we should try the ninth, first, and fourteenth letters of the alphabet.”

Bess had been keeping score, so she quickly grabbed a scrap of paper and a pencil and jotted down the numbers one through fourteen on the paper with the letters of the alphabet below them. She studied the paper for a second and then gasped.

“The letters spell the name ‘Ian’!” she cried.

“Really?” I asked, intrigued.

“It’s a good theory, but why would someone write down numbers instead of letters for someone’s name?” George asked. “I admire your sleuthing skills, but maybe the number is just a number.”

“You have a point,” I admitted. “People sometimes write things down if they’re likely to forget them, and ‘Ian’ doesn’t seem like a name that would be hard to remember.”

“Or necessary to disguise,” Bess pointed out a bit defensively.

“Well, we don’t know about that, do we?” George joked. “Maybe he’s an undercover spy and his cover is that he’s the sheriff’s nephew-slash-intern.”

“Ha, ha,” Bess replied, rolling her eyes.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “If it is just a number, a number that someone wouldn’t want to forget, it could be a combination—maybe to a safe?”

“And that would explain why the bookstore owner looked so alarmed when you picked it up,” George pointed out. “Maybe it’s the code to a safe she has in the bookstore.”

I nodded. “It’s a possibility.”

“Are we done with this game, then?” George asked as she gestured at the abandoned Scrabble board. “Or are we still playing?”

Bess threw up her hands. “It’s no use, George,” she admitted. “You’ll win anyway. Let’s call it quits.”

“I agree,” I chimed in. “You are truly the champ, George.”

With that, we packed up the game and headed to bed.

I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. But I was startled awake in the middle of the night by a rustling noise outside the cabin. I sat straight up. Bess was still sleeping soundly in the bed next to mine, but I saw George shift in her bed across the room. She sat up too.

I tiptoed over in the dark and perched on the edge of her bed.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered.

She nodded. “It sounds like someone’s out there,” she said in a hushed tone.

I stood up and dashed back to my bed to grab a sweatshirt and my cell phone—just in case. I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and stepped into my flip-flops. George did the same, and then we quietly went out into the cabin’s main room.

A shadow darted past the window next to the front door. George and I both held our breath.

“Maybe we should call the police,” she said quietly.

Suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I clutched George’s arm.

What I had seen outside was now behind me, but inside.

CHAPTER SIX

Shadowed

THE MOONLIGHT CAST THE FIGURE’S shadow on the wall in front of me. I grabbed a ceramic frog that was perched on the sideboard and whirled around, my heart pounding. I raised the frog, ready to bash the intruder.

“Stop! Don’t touch me!” the voice screamed.

Bess?

I lowered my arm. “Bess! You scared the daylights out of us!”

Bess flinched and then scowled. “You almost hit me with that—that ugly frog.”

I smiled apologetically. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly, glancing at the painted ceramic figurine. “I thought you were an intruder.”

“I did too,” George added.

Bess glared at us both. “Well, you two are the ones who are out of bed in the middle of the night,” she said accusingly. “I heard the floorboards creaking and both of your beds were empty, so I didn’t know what was going on. What’s up?”

“George and I heard something outside the cabin,” I explained, leaning over and flicking on the light switch. “We wanted to check it out.”

George nodded. “And then we saw a shadow on the front porch. We were about to call the police when you came up behind us.”

“Well, let’s call, then. It’s possible the intruder is still around.” Bess shuddered. “I still don’t know why anyone around here is interested in us.”

She picked up the phone and dialed 911.

About ten minutes later, Sheriff Garrison appeared at our front door.

“What seems to be the problem, ladies?” he asked. “I didn’t expect to see the three of you again so soon.”

George said, “We heard a noise outside the cabin. Then we saw a shadow flit across the porch. We thought someone might be trying to break in.”

The sheriff looked concerned. “I’m glad you notified us,” he replied. “This is the third call we’ve received tonight from the cabins around Moon Lake. It seems there have been a few sightings.”

Bess, George, and I exchanged a look. First a fire, then a theft, our almost drowning, and now three calls to the police in one night? Was that also a plot from one of Lacey’s books?

The sheriff’s walkie-talkie crackled.

“Unit One, come in.”

The sheriff pulled the handset off his belt and replied, “Sheriff Garrison here.”

“We’re sending the chopper over Moon Lake. Looking for a perp in the southeast quadrant.”

“Copy that,” the sheriff replied. He turned back to us. “You ladies okay? We’re sending the helicopter out over the lake, so if there’s anyone still out there, he or she should flee quickly or be caught in the floodlights. In the meantime, lock all the windows and doors and turn on any lights around the outside perimeter of the cabin. I doubt the perp will come back this way, but if you see or hear anything suspicious, just give me a call.”

He handed me a card. “This is my cell number. Feel free to call me directly and I’ll send someone out ASAP.”

“Thanks a lot, Sheriff,” Bess replied as she held the door open for him. “And sorry to bother you twice in two days. At least we weren’t annoying anyone this time.” She smiled.

“No bother,” he replied. “That’s what I’m here for.”

Once the sheriff had gone and we had double-checked to be sure all the doors and windows were locked, we returned to the bedroom and climbed back into our beds.

“Whew,” Bess said as she slipped under the covers. “I feel like these two days have been like a roller coaster.”

“I know,” I said as I lay back against the pillows. “I’m really sorry this visit to Moon Lake hasn’t been restful.”

I closed my eyes and mulled things over for a few minutes. Could the would-be intruder be connected to the fire and the art gallery theft? I had to check the plots of some of Lacey O’Brien’s books to find out if an intruder in the woods was a character who appeared in any of her stories.

I opened my eyes to see that Bess and George were both asleep. I quietly slipped out of bed, grabbed my laptop from my bag, and tiptoed into the living room. Once my computer was running, I did a search on Lacey O’Brien’s books. Up came Framed, Drowned, Consumed, Shadowed, Snatched, Dragged, Ditched, Stalked, Nabbed, and Burned, with plot summaries of each novel.

I read through the summaries, and my breath caught when I got to Shadowed. Lucy Luckstone is the protagonist again, and this time she’s spending a week on vacation in a rented cabin on a lake. On the first day of her trip, her wallet is stolen, and for the rest of the week, she feels as though she’s being followed. Then one night someone tries to break into her cabin. It turns out she has a doppelgänger who’s trying to steal her identity.

My skin prickled. It was as if I was reliving the book. How could that be?

Had I really left my wallet at the Cheshire Cat Inn, or had someone—Alice Ann?—lifted it from my purse and then returned it to me after finding out my background?

I dug through my bag and grabbed my wallet, popping it open to check its contents. My credit card, ID, and cash were still inside. I laughed nervously. Of course Alice Ann hadn’t stolen my wallet—she was the one who had brought up my missing wallet when Bess, George, and I returned to the inn, not the other way around. But just because everything was accounted for didn’t mean Alice Ann—or anyone, really—hadn’t looked through my wallet.

Now I was really being paranoid. But I couldn’t help feeling that I had become the copycat criminal’s target.

A wave of exhaustion washed over me. My head hurt from thinking too much about all the different possibilities. I had to get some sleep or I’d never be alert enough to track down the owners of the bookstore and art gallery, and possibly Lacey O’Brien the next morning. With heavy eyelids, I headed back to bed and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning we were all awake bright and early. George and Bess were packing up to return to River Heights. Meanwhile, I would stay here in Avondale and try to interview as many possible suspects as I could.

I decided to leave our rental cabin on the lake, which, without Bess and George, would be too isolated for me to stay in alone. I thought I’d stay in town at the Cheshire Cat. I’d be able to keep my eye on Alice Ann and anything else that happened.

“Nice to see you again, Nancy,” said Alice Ann as she checked me in. “So glad you decided to stay here after all. I think Two-B would be perfect for you. Just up the staircase, second door on your right.”

Two-B was decorated with everything related to famous writers, from Edgar Allan Poe to Emily Dickinson. A bust of William Shakespeare sat on the night table, and a framed needlepoint of the Robert Frost quote, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,” hung on the wall above the bed.

There was even an old typewriter on a desk in front of the windows. I looked for a memento of Lacey O’Brien, but there was nothing honoring her in the room. That would be odd, if I didn’t already know Alice Ann’s true feelings about her.

I headed to Paige’s Pages bookstore first. It was still closed, of course, but I was hoping Paige might be around cleaning up after the fire. The store was locked up tightly, though, and there was still police crime-scene tape across the front door.

I headed around to the back of the store, where a woman with dark, graying hair in a messy bun was loading large trash bags into a white pickup truck. I recognized her immediately as the woman from the grocery store—Paige.

I cleared my throat softly and she whirled around, clutching her chest.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You scared me. Can I help you?”

“My name is Nancy Drew, and I’m on assignment for the River Heights Bugle,” I introduced myself, holding out my hand. “Are you the owner of the bookstore?”

She studied me carefully, taking in my notebook, sunglasses, and reddish-blond hair.

“Have I met you before?” she asked, genuinely perplexed. “Have you been to my store?”

I figured she might recognize me from the grocery store, and it seemed like the best thing to do was just fess up.

“I think our paths crossed at the grocery store on Saturday,” I admitted. “You dropped a slip of paper and I handed it back to you.”

She smiled.

“Oh, yes, of course,” she replied. “Thank you for that. And I apologize if I was abrupt. I was a bit out of sorts that day, with the fire and everything. I still am today, I’m afraid. I didn’t sleep much last night.”

She wiped her hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand, and I noticed the dark circles under her eyes. Then she said, “I know the investigators said it may be arson, but who would do such a thing? We’re a quiet town, with law-abiding citizens. This is quite disturbing.”

I thought back to my busy night and didn’t blame her for not being able to sleep much, given what she had been through.

She took my hand and shook it firmly. “I’m Paige Samuels,” she said.

“I realize it must be difficult, but I’d like to speak with you for a few minutes about the fire,” I explained. “I’m doing a story about a few crimes that have taken place around town over the last few days.”

“A few crimes?” she asked, her eyebrows raised. “I didn’t know there were others.”

I nodded. “There was a theft in town Saturday as well, and sightings of an intruder near Moon Lake last night. I think the crimes may be related. Do you have a minute to talk?”

Paige nodded. “Let me just put this last bag of trash in the back of my truck and then we can grab a coffee at the diner. The firefighters let me bag up some debris on Saturday before they began their investigation. I figure there’s still plenty more to do inside the store, but for now, I may as well clear away as much of this trash as I can.”

“No problem,” I said. “Should I meet you there in about fifteen minutes?”

Paige nodded. “Sure, that works.”

I got back in my car, drove up the street, and parked in the lot across from the Avondale Diner. Standing on the curb, I quickly glanced to the left and right before stepping into the crosswalk.

Suddenly a black car raced around the corner, tires squealing, heading straight for me!