Flirting with Danger (6 page)

“A burglar wouldn't have left without that camera,” Ned said, voicing Nancy's conclusion. “Not to mention the rest of the stuff in the house.”

“How could anyone get past the housekeeper? She should have heard a noise,” Nancy said.

“Mrs. Morgan is a very sound sleeper, and her rooms are at the far end of the house. She also forgot to set the burglar alarm before
going to sleep, so the intruder had no problems getting in and back out,” Mrs. Kline answered with a slight shrug of her shoulders.

Nancy went back to the videotapes and studied them carefully. All had obviously been labeled by Rachel, with titles like “Day at the Beach,” “Girls at the Mall,” and “Boys Worth Watching.” Nancy smiled sadly and turned back to the others. “Are the police going to dust for fingerprints?” she asked.

“I don't know how much good it will do,” Mrs. Kline replied. “Allen and I touched lots of things while we were looking to see if anything was missing. The officer also said it wouldn't help unless whoever broke in had a prior record.”

“Still,” Nancy said, “fingerprints might offer an important clue. Suppose the culprit
does
have a record?”

Mrs. Kline nodded distractedly. “I'll ask Allen to speak to the police,” she said, and she hurried out.

“Let's go talk,” Josh said after a long sigh. Nancy nodded, and she and Ned followed him out of Rachel's room.

After Mr. and Mrs. Kline went off to bed, Josh, Ned, and Nancy sat down in the den with glasses of lemonade and a bowl of chips.

“It's been a long day,” Josh said, rubbing his eyes. “And a confusing one. I just don't understand what's happening.”

“Whoever broke in tonight was looking for something very specific,” Nancy offered. Ned nodded his silent agreement. “But what?”

“The only thing we know for certain is that it must be connected to Rachel,” Ned said. “And maybe also that it was something that could explain where she is now.”

“Maybe.” Nancy thought for a moment. “But we wouldn't know what the connection was.”

“Here's another question: Who pushed you over the deck tonight, and why?” Josh asked.

Nancy shrugged. “Someone in Rachel's crowd who doesn't want us to find her, that's my guess.”

“Could it have been Dennis?” Ned wondered.

“I doubt it,” Nancy said firmly. “Judging from the way he ran out of the Snake Pit tonight, I don't think he'd risk being seen at a party.”

Josh stood up. “I can't think anymore tonight, that's for sure. If you have time tomorrow, come by the studio and we can talk. My mom and dad are making me go to work every
day. They think it's best if we try to stick to our normal routine.”

Nancy smiled. “I agree with them.”

After Josh went up to bed, Ned reached out to give Nancy a kiss. “Alone at last,” he murmured into her hair.

“Don't worry, Nickerson,” Nancy told him with a laugh. “You'll have me all to yourself tomorrow.”

“Why? What happens tomorrow?” Ned asked curiously.

“Tomorrow we're going to track down Dennis Harper. No matter what.”

• • •

As soon as Nancy got up the next morning she tried Dennis's phone number for what seemed like the fiftieth time. Still no answer. After quickly dressing in white slacks and a roomy blue cotton shirt, she hurried downstairs.

Josh, Ned, and the Klines were already in the dining room. The doorbell rang almost as soon as Nancy sat down at the table.

“That must be Lieutenant Heller,” Mr. Kline said, getting up to answer the door himself. “The police promised to bring a fingerprint expert.”

Everyone left the table to follow the two people upstairs to Rachel's room. The fingerprint
woman sighed when she saw the mess the intruder had left. Fingerprints would be almost impossible to lift.

“I checked with your neighbors last night,” the lieutenant said. “None of them saw or heard anything out of the ordinary while you were out.”

“And nothing is missing,” Mrs. Kline added. “We double-checked everything.”

“Are there any leads on my daughter, Lieutenant?” Mr. Kline asked. “Have you been able to locate her boyfriend, Dennis?”

Lieutenant Heller raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “No leads, I'm afraid, Mr. Kline. But I do have an address for the Harper boy, and we're checking up on him.”

Nancy's heart started to race. So the police knew where Dennis Harper lived. “Could you give me his address, Lieutenant?” she asked.

At the lieutenant's quizzical expression, Karen Kline explained that Nancy was an amateur detective and that she was helping them find their daughter.

“Hey, I've heard of you,” Heller said with a smile. “I read about you in the paper somewhere. What do you know—Drew's your name, right?”

Nancy blushed, and Ned gave her a little poke in the ribs. “That's right. Could you give
me Dennis's address? I'd like to check his place out.”

The detective pulled a notebook from his shirt pocket, flipped it open, and read off an address. Nancy made a note of it and thanked the lieutenant.

“You won't be able to get in—unless he's there,” he said, closing the notebook and tucking it away again. “And if he is there, he probably won't let you in. I can tell you that we went over that apartment with a fine-tooth comb and came up blank.”

Nancy nodded. She still wanted to go out there herself. She'd ask Josh if they could borrow Rachel's car to drive out to Dennis's place.

Josh glanced at his watch. “I'm going to be late for work if I don't leave right now,” he said, his tone apologetic. “If you guys want to use the car, you can drive me to work and take it,” he said, reading Nancy's mind.

“Go ahead, Josh,” Mr. Kline urged. “Try to have a good day.”

Nancy lingered for just a moment after Josh and Ned went out, talking with Lieutenant Heller. “I understand there've been a lot of other break-ins in the community lately,” she said.

Heller answered her as if she were a colleague.
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “There have been, and we've been getting nowhere with them.”

“Just as you're getting nowhere finding our daughter,” Mrs. Kline put in, sounding a little peevish.

The lieutenant's strong but ordinary face showed compassion as he met Karen's gaze. “We're trying, Mrs. Kline,” he said quietly. “But the unfortunate truth is, we're swamped with reports of missing teenagers. It's an epidemic.”

“Nancy!” Ned's voice called to her good-naturedly, from a distance.

“I'd like to talk to you again soon,” Nancy said to the lieutenant.

He nodded and handed her his card. “Take care, Ms. Drew. We may be dealing with some very dangerous people. Please be careful.”

Just as Nancy reached the bottom of the stairway the telephone rang. Mrs. Morgan answered it and held out the receiver of the hallway extension. “It's for you, Nancy,” she said.

Nancy was surprised. “Hello?”

“Nancy, this is Beth Hanford.” Beth sounded scared and anxious. “I need to talk to you. In person.”

“I was just going out,” Nancy answered,
conscious that Ned and Josh were waiting. She didn't want Josh to be late for his job because of her. “Could we meet later?”

“Twelve o'clock,” Beth said. “The pizza place in the Golden Hills Mall?”

“I'll be there,” Nancy promised after Beth gave her directions.

Nancy hung up and dashed out to catch up with Josh and Ned. The three of them got into the Camaro and headed for the movie studio.

“I hope they get a break in this case soon,” Josh said as he maneuvered the sporty car through the early-morning traffic. “I don't think my folks—or I—can take much more.”

Nancy and Ned were silent. There was nothing either of them could say to help.

When they reached the studio gates Josh's mood improved. It was obvious to Nancy that he loved his job after only one day. He gave a cheerful hello to the guard who checked his ID, and he asked for one-day passes for Nancy and Ned. Driving through the lot, they passed people dressed in costumes from every period.

“Visitors can come onto the lot on the other side if they buy a ticket,” Josh explained. “They're not supposed to wander into this part, but it does happen sometimes.”

Josh passed a lot of expensive cars to park the Camaro among some older, battered models.
“Why don't you come over and look around for a couple of hours? A change from the case might do you some good,” Josh said.

Nancy and Ned nodded their agreement, and Nancy said, “Just for an hour. We've got lots to do.” She was interrupted just then by a screech of tires and a loud crash.

Josh chuckled. “Don't worry, Nancy,” he said. “It's just a scene being shot.”

They wandered over to the set where Josh was working. An outdoor scene was being blocked, and Nancy and Ned found places to stand and watch where they were out of the way. Josh was already at work helping the assistant director's assistant.

“We'll only stay for a little while because I want to check out the address Lieutenant Heller gave me for Dennis Harper,” Nancy explained. Then she filled him in on her appointment with Beth. “All right with you?” she asked.

“You bet.” They were silent for a few minutes. “It'll be weird to sit in a theater and watch this,” Ned whispered after a couple of minutes. Nancy's mind was mostly on the case she was trying to solve, but she did manage to smile and nod.

Ned appeared to be fascinated watching the hero of the movie—a well-known star—rehearse.
The actor jumped out of one car, leaving the door open behind him, and dragged a man out of another car parked nearby.

Nancy's mind wandered more and more until finally she knew she couldn't stay there another minute.

Josh had wandered off, and Nancy and Ned were looking for him so they could pick up his car keys. They were wandering behind the set when Nancy heard the roar of a car's engine behind them. She turned to look back and gripped Ned's hand.

In the next instant her heart jumped into her throat. A green sports car with tinted windows was bearing down on them at top speed! In another second they'd be run over!

N
ANCY DIDN
'
T WASTE TIME
talking. She dived to her right, pulling Ned with her. Belly-flopping onto the hard-packed earth, they rolled out of the car's path just as its wheels flew past, sending out sprays of dirt. The right tires missed them by no more than a foot.

“Are you hurt?” Ned asked, helping Nancy up.

“No,” she said breathlessly. “Come on!” Her eyes were riveted on the car as it disappeared around a corner.

She and Ned took off after the car at a dead run. They had to get a glimpse of the driver.
When they made it around the corner, they found the car abandoned, with the door on the driver's side hanging open.

Josh and a couple of other crew members wandered toward them from the direction of their set.

“What happened?” Josh asked, seeing how filthy they both were.

Nancy was still checking for any sign of the driver, even though she knew it was probably hopeless. Whoever had tried to run them down was long gone.

“Somebody tried to kill us,” Ned explained. “Fortunately Nancy saw them coming, and we rolled out of the way just in time.”

“I'll call studio security,” a guy in a plaid shirt called out. Another guy went to inspect the car.

“This is getting pretty heavy,” Josh said, standing beside Ned and Nancy. “Somebody's playing hardball now.”

“Maybe we can get a lead from the license-plate number,” Nancy said hopefully.

Josh shook his head. “It's a studio car—we're using it in the movie. Whoever wanted to run you down must have ripped it off when the prop people were busy.”

Within a couple of minutes a man and woman in security officers' uniforms arrived.

“What happened?” the woman asked.

Nancy explained that she and Ned had been walking along when someone tried to run them down, and the man in the jeans and plaid shirt told how the vehicle had been stolen from the property lot a few minutes earlier. Unfortunately, no one had seen anything.

“I think we should let Lieutenant Heller know about this,” Josh said. He was pale under his suntan. “You two could have been killed.”

Ned put an arm around Nancy and gave her a quick squeeze as he tried to reassure his friend. “We're okay,” he said quietly.

The security people left, telling them there wasn't much they could do without a description. Nancy kicked herself for not having gotten a better look at the driver.

Finally a man in a baseball cap called out, “All right, everybody! Back to work. We've got a picture to shoot!”

Josh was reluctant to leave Nancy and Ned. “I'd better go,” he said. “Maybe you two should get out of here before something else happens.”