Club Dread (5 page)

FRANK

“Where's your brother?” Katlyn yelled in my face. Her breath stank of onions and garlic. Then again, so did everything else in the kitchen. They were two of the main ingredients on tonight's menu.

I didn't blame her for yelling—the kitchen was a pretty loud place, with everyone running back and forth, the industrial-size dish dryers, and all the cooking noises—but she didn't have to do it in my face.

Joe had been missing for nearly an hour, though, so I could see why she was upset. It probably hadn't helped that Joe had tried to hit on her earlier.

“Uh, well, he was here a minute ago. I think he's out getting more dishes?” I put my head down and kept scrubbing, hoping she would leave me alone.

She waited for a moment, then threw her hands up in the air.

“If he's not back here in ten minutes, he is out of a job!”

“But our shift is done in five minutes,” I pointed out.

Katlyn looked at the clock, muttered something under her breath, and walked away. Looked like Joe would be keeping his job. I was sure he'd be overjoyed to hear it. I just hoped he'd found something so that this wasn't all for nothing.

I never wanted to wash another dish again for the rest of my life. For seven hours, every time I looked up, another pile of plates was being poured into the soap-filled sink in front of me. My hands became wrinkled and waterlogged, even inside my rubber gloves. And once Joe was gone, I had to cover for him too, running out to the dining room, carrying the plates back, and then washing them. It was like spending a day doing chores for Mom. Only worse, because there weren't even any doughnuts.

To make things worse, Matthias showed up to give us our work schedule for the rest of the week. We'd still barely talked about the case—all he seemed interested in was giving Joe and me more chores to do.

“Where's Joe?” Matthias asked. It seemed to be the only question anyone was interested in asking. “Is he
off investigating on his own? I believe we discussed this, did we not? ATAC rules explicitly state that the superior agent must be notified at any time if—”

“He's not investigating. He felt sick and had to go back to the room.” I felt bad lying to Matthias, but he was such a stickler for the rules. And if we did it his way, we'd never get anything done. Plus, I was beginning to dislike him.
Ugh,
I thought,
now Joe's got me thinking like him.

Matthias seemed almost pleased to hear Joe was sick.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we'll have a check-in to see how the case is going. Until then, remember to report anything you see or hear to me.”

“Will do.”
Yeah, right,
I thought.

“Oh, and, Frank?”

“Yes?”

“You missed a spot on that dish right there. Remember, a good agent pays attention to detail and gets the job done right.”

I wanted to take my sponge and wipe that smile right off his face. Instead, I scrubbed the dish as hard as I could and pretended it was Matthias's face.

When my shift finally ended, Joe still hadn't returned. I thought about calling him, but if his phone rang at the wrong moment, it would give him away. I couldn't risk that. With no way of contacting Joe and no idea where
he was, I wasn't sure what to do. Joe can get himself into trouble at times. But two people sneaking around Nikitin's office were more likely to be noticed than one, so I couldn't go looking for him. Besides, Joe was just as good at getting out of trouble as he was at getting into it. Or, at least, nearly as good. Most of the time.

I decided not to think about it and to go check out Nancy's old room. If Joe didn't find anything in Nikitin's office, then the break-in would be our only lead. By tomorrow, the hotel would have cleaned up the suite—and any evidence the thief might have left behind. If we were going to learn anything, we had to get in there tonight.

I took the elevator up to the penthouse. When I got out, I saw that there was security tape across the door and a Wetlands' employee posted outside. He was big and burly, but he looked pretty young. I'd have to try to bluff my way past him.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “This area is off-limits for the evening.”

“I'm Frank. Mr. Nikitin sent me to replace you.” I held out my hotel ID for him to inspect. The important thing was to act like I knew what I was doing.

“But I'm supposed to be on duty until midnight.”

“Nah, they changed the schedule, so you're free.”

“But—”

“I mean, if you want to stay, that's fine with me. I'll
head back down to the pool.” I started to walk back into the elevator. It was a gamble.

“No, wait! I mean, if they told you to come replace me, then I guess I should go.”

Awesome, he fell for it!

We switched places. I stood outside the door, trying my best to look bored, until the elevator doors closed behind him. Then I ducked under the security tape and into the suite. The place had been thoroughly trashed. Anything that could be thrown had been thrown. The dresser was knocked over, the drawers had been turned upside down, and there were clothes everywhere.

My phone vibrated—a message from Joe. I flipped it open and read his text.

 

Think Andrew Nikitin is in on the robberies.

May have accomplice. Be careful.

 

So it looked like Joe had found something after all. He was probably headed back to our room, so we could compare information later. Now I really needed to dig up some evidence. I couldn't let him have
all
the fun. I had to concentrate and try to find clues among all the chaos.

Nancy said they couldn't find anything missing,
I thought. That was strange. They hadn't even taken George's laptop, which was in plain sight. Almost all the other cases had
been straightforward burglaries. None of the other rooms had been ransacked either. They had all been clean, the work of professionals. Except for with Jasmina, there had been minimal violence.

In Nancy's suite, it seemed like the thief had been searching for something. And searching in a real hurry. No time to be subtle. But what could he have been looking for? The girls were staying in the penthouse, so perhaps someone thought they had money hidden somewhere. But in that case, why wouldn't they have taken George's laptop, or any of their other belongings?

Maybe he was searching for information. Other than Joe and me, only one person at the hotel even knew who Nancy was: Jack Thorton, the owner of the Wetlands. Could he have been involved?

Nancy did say that her father had done some legal work for Mr. Thorton. Perhaps he wasn't happy with the result. And it would make sense that he would be working with Nikitin, since Nikitin was the manager of the hotel.

If Jack Thorton and Andrew Nikitin are the ones behind the break-ins, that would explain why ATAC didn't want us to reveal our identities to anyone working at the hotel,
I thought. But it didn't make much sense for Mr. Thorton to put his own hotel in danger. And we'd heard that he wasn't even around right now. I was going in circles.

I tried picking through some of the piles of junk in the room. Pillow, T-shirt, jeans, T-shirt, pajamas.

I dropped the clothes and turned to look somewhere else.

I went back to the door. The Wetlands had a complicated electronic lock system, where each door was reset after the guest left. The sensor pad showed no signs of being tampered with, and there were no marks on the door frame, so it didn't look like someone had forced it open.

If Nikitin was involved, it was possible the thief had a key. If so, I wasn't going to find anything, and I might as well give up. But if Joe was wrong, maybe the thief had gotten in some other way. It was worth checking, since I was up here already.

I looked around, searching for another entrance. Off to the side of the main room was a set of sliding glass doors that led to a large balcony. Since the penthouse was on the top floor, it would be easy for someone to drop down from the roof onto the balcony and get in that way.

Sure enough, the glass door had scratches around the lock. Someone had forced it open from the outside. Maybe they'd left behind evidence out on the balcony. I pushed the glass door open and stepped outside. I was so focused on looking for evidence that I didn't notice the small step right in the doorway. The tip of my foot
caught the edge of the step, and I fell down on my hands and knees.

Bam!

The rough surface of the balcony scraped my palms open, and my cell phone went flying through the bars of the railing and off into the night. ATAC was going to be mad about that. Our phones have dozens of special additions, including GPS and a walkie-talkie mode, and I'm sure they cost a huge amount to replace.

Staying calm, I reached up with one hand and grabbed the iron railing that ran all the way around the balcony. I started to pull myself up, but it gave way beneath me!

I fell right back on all fours, my hands stinging with pain. The entire section of the railing separated from the balcony and fell off the side of the hotel. I heard a splash as it hit the water in the pool below me. Thankfully we were above the employee pool, which was already closed for the evening. Otherwise, that fence could have killed someone.

What is going on?

If I had been standing up and leaning against the railing, I would have gone right over with it. From where I had fallen, I could see that neat cuts had been made in each of the metal bars. I froze. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

This was a trap.

I got up and heard a strange cracking noise behind me. The ground shifted forward and I stumbled right toward the hole in the railing. I just barely managed to stop before I went over the edge.

I turned around and realized…the whole balcony was coming off the side of the building!

Cracks had appeared all along the floor, and in a few seconds the whole thing was going to end up in the pool below. From this height, hitting the water would be like hitting concrete.

Crrrrrack!

The balcony gave one last shattering sound and detached from the building entirely. I leaped off it just in time. I reached for the doorway—and missed. My hand caught one of the drapes inside, and I grabbed onto it for dear life. It tore off the wall, and I felt myself plunging toward the ground. This was it. I was about to be splattered.

But soon the fabric pulled taut and I stopped falling. The shock of it nearly knocked my hands off the curtain, but I managed to hold on. I was about five feet below the now balcony-less doorway, and I could see that the fabric of the curtain had gotten wrapped around the handle of the door.

A huge splash came from below, as though a whale had leaped into the pool. Carefully, I began to pull myself up the curtain, hand over hand. I heard a tearing sound
at the top, and I slipped back down a few inches. The fabric wouldn't hold much longer—every time I moved, I could hear it tearing a little more.

I had no way of getting in touch with anyone without my cell phone. Joe would have no idea where I was. Nancy, Bess, and George had all been moved to another room. The real guard on duty for this suite wouldn't be here until midnight.

I heard the fabric rip again. There was no way I was going to last until then.

JOE

After my close call with Nikitin, I was feeling pretty good. Finally, we had a lead on the robberies.
And
I got out of washing dishes. Bonus! Now all we had to do was figure out who was on the other end of that phone, and this case would be wrapped up with enough time for me to get a good tan before we headed back to Bayport.

No word from Frank or Nancy after my text, so I figured they were all still busy. It was late, and the Wetlands was getting quiet. When I left Nikitin's office, most of the crowd in the lobby had died down, either gone off to their rooms or to the hotel nightclub. I went to find Frank in the kitchen, but the doors were locked, and when I peeked through the window, all I saw were empty tables and a lone janitor vacuuming the carpets.
If Frank was still inside, well, it sucked to be him.

Next I headed back to our room. Frank wasn't really the party animal type, so it was a pretty safe bet he wasn't down in the nightclub or at the beach. He was probably asleep by now.

The Wetlands treated their employees pretty well, from what I saw. Since many of them were immigrants, they offered housing to anyone who worked full-time. There was a whole compound within the hotel, separated off from the guest areas. It had its own pool, gym, and places to relax where guests wouldn't constantly be asking staff to do things while they were off-duty. All in all, it was a pretty sweet deal. I mean, not as cool as being a teenage superspy, but not bad for what it was.

Our room was dark when I entered, and I figured Frank was asleep. I tried to get to my bed quietly, but I stubbed my toe on the hard wooden leg of the bedside table.

“Ow!” I said. “Sorry, Frank, didn't mean to wake you up.”

There was silence from the other side of the room.

“Frank?”

I turned on the light. Frank's bed was still made. I wondered if he'd gone off to search Nancy's room. I decided I might as well stay up until he got back.

We needed to make a plan of attack on Nikitin. Maybe I could get back into his office and actually
search his computer this time. Or maybe we would find something in Nancy's room that we could go on. And who knew what Nancy would find out at the spa. She might not be in ATAC, but she was pretty smart. Not to mention way cute.

I decided to hop in the employee pool to kill time, so I changed into my bathing suit. I still stank like kitchen grease and sweat, and it would be nice to feel clean again.
I could get used to this,
I thought. When we got back to Bayport, I was going to try and convince Mom that we should rip out her garden and put in a pool. I wouldn't even mind cleaning it…sometimes. It couldn't be worse than mowing the lawn.

The night was still hot and muggy. It never seemed to cool down around here. I was excited to have a chance to get in the water. Thanks to our stupid cover, this would be the first time I got to go swimming all vacation—if you didn't count the time Frank, Matthias, and I all fell into the swamp.

But when I got to the pool, there was no lifeguard on duty and no one swimming. The gate was locked. It looked like I wasn't going to get to go in after all. As I turned to head back to the room, I heard a tiny splash.
Maybe someone is in the pool after all,
I thought.

I looked back, but didn't see anything. Had I just imagined the noise?

Then something large and dark came hurtling out of the air and into the pool. It looked like a big piece of metal, like the door to an oven. What was going on? Was someone throwing things into the pool? I leaned my back against the gate and looked around, but there was no one else out there with me.

Suddenly, there was a huge splash and I was soaked with water from head to toe. I turned around just in time to see a piece of the hotel sinking to the bottom of the pool. It looked like an entire balcony!

I looked up to figure out where it had come from and saw someone dangling out one of the hotel windows, up at the top floor…right where Nancy's room had been.

Frank!

I was running before I even realized it, my feet pounding away as my mind was still taking it all in. Twenty stories up. If Frank fell, there was no way he would survive. I considered calling hotel security, but by the time I explained everything, it would be too late. I didn't doubt that Frank could hold on, but whatever he was holding on to might give at any moment.

In the lobby, I stabbed the elevator button repeatedly. It seemed to take forever to come. A puddle of water formed around me, and I realized that the few people who were still awake were staring at me. One of the night managers came over.

“I'm sorry, but we ask that people dry off before they go farther into the ho—”

I thrust my staff ID at him and cut him off.

“It's a plumbing emergency. Code 372-A.”

He looked confused. It was always good to quote regulations at people. It generally took them at least a few minutes to figure out that you were making it all up. And by that point, I'd be gone. If the elevator would ever come.

Finally the doors opened and I raced inside, leaving the night manager standing there scratching his head. I hit the penthouse button and waited. Never had an elevator moved so slowly before.

Hang on, Frank,
I thought.
Hang on.

I burst out of the elevator as soon as the doors were open wide enough for me to fit through. The door to Nancy's suite was open, and I ran straight through the caution tape. I wasn't sure where in the suite the doorway to the balcony was.

“Frank?” I yelled.

“Out here!” came his reply. I heard the sound of fabric tearing.

“Stay still!”

I raced through the room to where I'd heard his voice. I could see the curtain out the window, straining under his weight. It was going to give at any moment. I threw myself on the floor, braced one arm against the
wall, and stuck the other one out the door.

Frank wrapped his hand around my wrist, and I did the same. The curtain finally gave way entirely, and Frank's weight nearly pulled me out the door with him. I braced myself and hauled him up the side, slowly.

When he was finally all the way in, we both lay on the floor panting.

“So,” I said. “You need to lose some weight.”

“Very funny.”

“You decided to just hang out for a little while, eh?”

“Stop.”

“Wanted to get a little air?”

“I'm going to go back out there if you keep this up.”

Frank got onto his hands and knees.

“I'm just kidding! Jeez…”

“No, look,” Frank said. He was pointing at the outside wall beneath the door, where the balcony had been.

There were grooves in the plaster. Someone had spent a long time with a sharp object, tearing away at the supports until the balcony was ready to give.

“This wasn't an accident.” Frank reached for his pocket, then stopped.

“I dropped my cell phone. You've got to let Nancy know that she and the girls are in danger.”

So that had been the first splash I heard! I texted Nancy, but didn't hear anything back. I hoped she was
asleep already. Things were getting crazy, and I'd hate to think…

Then something occurred to me.

“Frank?”

“Yeah?”

“I don't think whoever did this was going after Nancy. They trashed the room, and they had to know that Nancy and Bess and George would be moved to a new one. This was a trap for someone investigating the break-in. This was a trap for us. Someone knows we're here.”

Just when we thought this case couldn't get any hotter!