Secrets Can Kill

  Chapter

  One

  HANDS ON HER hips, Nancy Drew stood in the middle of her bedroom and surveyed the situation. New clothes lay everywhere—strewn across the bed, draped over the backs of chairs, and spilling out of shopping bags.

  Laughing at the mess, Nancy reached for a just-bought pair of designer jeans. “How do you like the new look in private detectives?” she said, slipping the jeans on. “Undercover and overdressed!”

  “I’d give anything to have a job like yours.” Bess Marvin studied the label on an oversized green sweater that would be perfect with Nancy’s reddish-blond hair. “Not only did you get to buy a whole closetful of clothes for it, but you’ll probably be asked out by every good-looking boy at Bedford High.”

  George Fayne swallowed the last of her frozen yogurt and asked, “What’s going on at that school, anyway?”

  “I don’t know all the details yet, but it doesn’t sound too terrible,” Nancy said. “Lockers broken into, a few files and some video equipment missing, stuff like that.” She zipped up the jeans and took the sweater Bess was holding out. “The principal, Mr. Parton, said he’d tell me more tomorrow. I won’t say the case is going to be a piece of cake,” Nancy said with a grin, “but it doesn’t exactly sound like the hardest sleuthing I’ve ever done, either.”

  At eighteen, Nancy Drew already had a reputation in her home town of River Heights as one of the brightest, hottest young detectives around. And she’d earned every bit of that reputation the hard way—by tracking down clues and solving mysteries that ranged from arson to kidnapping.

  Nancy took every case seriously, of course, but somehow, going undercover as a high-school student to find a small–time vandal just didn’t seem very heavy. After all, she’d been up against some really tough characters in the past, like armed robbers and blackmailers.

  Nancy studied herself in the mirror. She liked what she saw. The tight jeans looked great on her long, slim legs and the green sweater complemented her strawberry-blond hair. Her eyes flashed with the excitement of a new case. She was counting on solving the little mystery fairly easily. In fact, Nancy thought it would probably be fun! “Right now,” she said to her two friends, “the hardest part of this case is deciding what to wear.”

  “That outfit, definitely,” Bess said, sighing with envy at Nancy’s slender figure. “You’ll make the guys absolutely drool.”

  “That’s all she needs,” George joked. “A bunch of freshmen following her around like underage puppies.”

  “Oh, yeah? Have you seen the captain of the Bedford football team?” Bess rolled her eyes. “They don’t call him ‘Hunk’ Hogan for nothing!”

  Bess and George were Nancy’s best friends, and they were cousins, but that was about all they had in common. Blond-haired Bess was bubbly and easygoing, and always on the lookout for two things: a good diet and a great date. So far she hadn’t found either. She was constantly trying to lose five pounds, and she fell in and out of love every other month.

  George, with curly dark hair and a shy smile, was quiet, with a dry sense of humor and the beautifully toned body of an athlete. George liked boys as much as Bess did, but she was more serious about love. “When I fall,” she’d say, “it’s going to be for real.”

  Both girls had helped Nancy to solve cases in the past, and they’d just spent the entire day with her at the shopping mall, helping Bedford High’s “new girl” choose her new wardrobe.

  “Anyway,” Bess went on, “Nancy will be completely immune to the charms of Hunk Hogan. She’s got Ned, right, Nan?”

  “Right.” Nancy glanced at the mirror above her dresser, where she’d stuck a snapshot of Ned Nickerson, and her grin changed to a soft smile as she thought of the first boy she’d ever loved.

  Nancy and Ned had a very special relationship. They’d known each other since they were kids, and when they’d first realized they loved each other, they’d thought it would last forever. But neither one was ready yet for a “forever” commitment, so occasionally they drifted apart, dating other people. Yet somehow, Nancy always found herself coming back to Ned. They were so in tune with each other that no matter what they were doing—whether it was tracking down the clues to a mystery or planning a private party for two—it seemed that they could read each other’s thoughts.

  Nancy smiled to herself and wondered if Ned knew what she was thinking at that moment, which was: that as good as he looked in a photograph, with his light brown hair, soft dark eyes, and gently curving mouth, Ned was a hundred times better in the flesh.

  Shivering as she remembered the feel of his arms around her, Nancy promised herself that when she solved the Bedford High case, she would definitely join him for a long weekend with his family at their cabin in the mountains.

  “You’re right,” she said again. “In my eyes, no guy can compete with Ned. But if I meet some really gorgeous senior, I’ll be sure to get his number for you.”

  “Great!” Bess fingered the gold locket she always wore around her neck. When she was in love, the locket carried a picture of the lucky boy. At the moment it was empty. “But I don’t want to be a complete hog,” she said with a laugh. “Get a number for George, too.”

  George blushed and tossed a pillow at her cousin. “No, thanks. I’ll find my own guy.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” Bess joked. “Come on, Nancy’s in a perfect position to fix us up. Who knows when we’ll have a chance like this again?”

  George tossed a second pillow, but by then she was laughing, too. “Nancy’s supposed to be solving a crime, not setting us up.”

  “Who cares? She can do both! Right, Nan?”

  Bess tossed one of the pillows at Nancy, Nancy tossed it back, and in a few seconds, the girls were in the middle of a full-fledged pillow fight. Soon the room was a bigger mess than ever, as feathers flew from the pillows and slowly drifted down onto the piles of clothes and shopping bags.

  The free-for-all was still going strong when the Drews’ housekeeper stuck her head around the door and good-naturedly dodged a flying pillow.

  Hannah Gruen had been with the Drews since Nancy was born. After Mrs. Drew died, when Nancy was still a baby, Hannah’s role had grown way beyond that of housekeeper. Mrs. Gruen had hugged and scolded Nancy through childhood, bandaging scraped knees and kissing away tears. As the years went by, she was always ready with encouragement and advice. And, of course, the hugging and scolding had continued, too. In time Hannah had become almost a second mother to Nancy. She was always there when Nancy’s father’s work as a lawyer took him away from his daughter. Carson Drew trusted Hannah implicitly, and Nancy loved her without question.

  “Hannah!” Nancy giggled when she saw Mrs. Gruen in the doorway. “I know what you’re going to say—it’s a school night, and I’d better clean up my room fast and get to bed early!”

  “Well, I couldn’t help thinking that you are starting a new assignment tomorrow, and you should probably get a good night’s rest,” Hannah said. “But the real reason I’m here is to give you this.” She handed Nancy a bulky manila envelope.

  Nancy took it and saw her name printed in black marker. There was no return address, no stamp, no postmark. “Where did this come from?” she asked.

  “I haven’t the vaguest idea,” Hannah replied. “I went out to sweep the front porch about five minutes ago and there it was, poking out of the mailbox.”

  Nancy fingered the package, then held it up to her ear. “Well, it’s not ticking,” she joked.

  She ripped open the envelope and pulled out an unlabeled videotape.

  “Oh, terrific,” Bess said. “A movie. I’ve been dying to see a good movie lately.”

  “Too bad we don’t have any popcorn,” George said as they trooped
down the hall toward the den.

  “I just bought a bag,” Hannah said, heading for the kitchen. “Come help yourselves if you get hungry.”

  In the den Nancy turned on the television and then opened the cabinet that held the VCR. “I wish I knew where this came from,” she said. “Who goes around leaving videotapes on peoples’ doorsteps?”

  “Maybe it’s some advertising gimmick,” Bess suggested.

  “No, I’ve got it!” George began laughing. “It’s that workout tape Bess was so interested in—the one with all the gorgeous hunks.”

  Nancy grinned. “Yeah, I had the feeling she was more interested in the hunks than the exercises.” She slipped the tape into the deck and pushed the play button. “Okay,” she said, joining Bess and George on the couch, “get ready.”

  The girls were still laughing as the movie started, but after the first few seconds, the laughter stopped.

  “What is this, anyway?” George asked.

  Leaning forward from her corner of the couch, Bess gave a little cry of surprise. “It’s us,” she said. “Look!”

  In silence the girls watched themselves doing exactly what they’d done six hours earlier: entering the shopping mall and arguing about which store to go to first.

  But after that the camera stayed almost exclusively on Nancy. There she was, studying the mannequins in the window of a fashionable boutique; there she was again, coming out of a store called Ups & Downs, checking her pocketbook.

  “You were afraid you’d left your credit card in the store,” Bess said. “Remember?”

  “I remember.” Nancy didn’t take her eyes off the screen. “But I don’t remember anybody hanging around with a video camera, taping the whole thing.”

  The tape stayed on Nancy: riding the escalator, going in and out of stores, sipping a Coke. Then it showed the three friends eating hotdogs by the fountain in the center of the mall.

  “It’s true,” Bess remarked, “the camera does add ten pounds.”

  George shook her head. “This has to be some kind of weird joke.”

  “It’s weird, all right,” Nancy agreed. “But if it’s a joke, I’m not laughing.”

  “There can’t be much more,” Bess said. “Panache was the last store we went into.”

  Sure enough, as they watched themselves come out of Panache, the camera zoomed in on Nancy. The last frame froze in a close-up of her smiling face.

  Nancy was reaching out to turn off the tape machine when a screeching, whining sound made her stop, her hand in midair.

  Then a high-pitched, hideously shrieking voice invaded the Drews’ cozy den. “Stick with shopping, Nancy Drew. It’s a lot safer than snooping at Bedford High!”

  Chapter

  Two

  EARLY THE NEXT morning, as Nancy was pulling her red Mustang out of the Drews’ driveway, the sound of the frightening voice came back to her once again. “Stick to shopping, huh?” Nancy muttered under her breath. “Fat chance.” She shifted her car into drive and was just stepping on the gas when she saw Hannah hurrying out the front door.

  “You almost forgot this,” Hannah said, handing Nancy an orange canvas duffel bag that held notebooks, pens, and makeup—everything Nancy had packed for her “first day” at school.

  “Thanks, Hannah.” Nancy stifled a yawn and smiled as she took the bag. “I almost forgot my most important prop for this job.”

  “You don’t look very alert this morning, I must say,” Hannah commented. “In fact, you look downright sleepy.”

  “I’m fine, Hannah, really. See you later!” Nancy waved cheerfully as she drove from her house, but Hannah had been right. Nancy was definitely less than bright-eyed and bushy–tailed.

  No wonder, Nancy thought. Getting to sleep the night before had been next to impossible. She was always a little edgy before she started a new case, but the past night had been worse than usual. She’d lain awake, running the mysterious videotape through her mind over and over again.

  The creepiest part was that horrible voice. The sound of it had echoed in Nancy’s head all night and into the morning. It had obviously been electronically distorted, but realizing that didn’t make it any less scary. And knowing that someone had been following her all day was definitely frightening. Nancy couldn’t help thinking about the video equipment that had been taken from Bedford High. Could there be any link between the two? Nancy wondered.

  Who was responsible? And why? Why would some high school kid who was into rifling lockers and stealing a few files go to such trouble to scare her off? And how did whoever it was know about Nancy’s assignment? That was the question which had kept the young detective awake the longest.

  Nancy had tried not to think about those pieces to the Bedford High puzzle. She knew she wouldn’t figure them out until she actually got to the school campus and did some on-the-spot research. Still, she hadn’t been able to keep her mind off the troubling questions. And there she was on the first day of a case, nervous and droopy-eyed!

  As she drove the fifteen miles from River Heights to the town of Bedford, Nancy tuned the car radio to her favorite rock station, hoping the music would clear her head. She slowed, passing the local Ford dealer. The new Mustang GT Convertible she’d been drooling over was still inside. Be cool, Nancy, she said to herself with a half-smile, trying to keep her heart from pounding. Then, pressing her foot to the accelerator, she zoomed toward town.

  Bedford was beautiful, small, but with large homes surrounded by lush lawns, and, no doubt, swimming pools tucked away in the back somewhere. On the outskirts of town, along the road to the high school, Nancy passed several houses that could only be described as mansions.

  Bedford was obviously a place where a lot of rich people lived, Nancy thought as she pulled up to a stoplight near the high school. At just that moment a sleek, expensive black Porsche 911 eased up beside her in the next lane.

  Nancy glanced over, admiring the car, and its owner gently revved the engine. The powerful motor gave a soft, throaty rumble, then another. Nancy smiled at the obvious come-on and lifted her gaze to the driver.

  The guy in the Porsche was one of the most gorgeous boys Nancy had ever seen. He looked about seventeen. He’d probably been a tow-head when he was little, but now his blond hair was highlighted with streaks of honey-brown. And his eyes—were they brown or black?—were full of light and laughter as he gave Nancy a playful grin and revved the engine once more.

  Suddenly Nancy was wide awake. She grinned back and fluttered the gas pedal on the Mustang. Two can play this game, she thought.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Nancy saw the turn arrow change to green. Still looking at the boy, she smoothly shifted gears. Then she peeled out ahead of the Porsche, swinging wide into his lane so that he had to follow her all the way down Bedford Road. She was definitely back in high school!

  Nancy lost sight of the Porsche somewhere in Bedford High’s student parking lot, and as she joined the crowd of kids swarming up the school’s front steps, she stopped thinking about it. Of course, its driver wasn’t quite so easy to forget.

  Bedford High wasn’t big, with a total enrollment of about six hundred students. But it seemed to Nancy as if every one of those students was milling around in the building’s big front hall. They looked like a typical bunch of kids. While they waited for the final bell, they laughed together, calling to each other, talking about dates and upcoming tests.

  For a moment Nancy felt exactly like what she was pretending to be—a transfer student coming into a new school in the middle of fall semester. There she was, facing a bunch of strangers who already knew each other and were checking her out, trying to figure out who the new girl was. She felt exposed and self-conscious, and like all new kids, she wished she had a friend nearby. That’s the way you’re supposed to feel, Nancy told herself. At least it was a good cover.

  Nancy was standing alone, trying to remember the directions to the principal’s office that she had been given, when a snatch of conversation
caught her attention.

  “You know I can’t give you a ride,” a boy’s voice said. Nancy could detect the frantic pleading in it. “I just can’t. If I miss practice, I’ll be kicked off the team!”

  Then came a second boy’s voice, calm and slow and coldly self-assured. “Miss practice . . . or else,” it ordered.

  Nancy craned her neck, trying to locate the source of that unpleasant little exchange. There was no way, however, to match the voices to any of the faces in the mass of chattering students around her.

  I guess there’s at least one super-creep in every high school, Nancy thought to herself. But as she headed for the principal’s office, she kept hearing the harsh sound of that calm, cold voice. There was an intimidating power in it. And obviously, whomever it belonged to had someone scared!

  Nancy turned down one of Bedford High’s drab green hallways. No matter how much high schools changed, she decided, the paint jobs never seemed to. Nancy found the principal’s office and told the secretary that she had an appointment with Mr. Parton. The principal didn’t keep Nancy waiting five seconds.

  Stepping into the office, Nancy took one look at Mr. Parton and decided to try to solve this case in record time. Not only did she want that weekend with Ned, but Mr. Parton looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. For the sake of his health, she’d better work fast!

  “It’s driving me insane!” Mr. Parton declared, dramatically pounding his fists against his temples. “And are the police any help? Noooo. Beef up security, they say. Ha! Try getting the salary for another guard out of the school board. A patrol car drives around the school every night. We can’t be bothered with a little file-filching. It’s your problem, they say.”

  Mr. Parton paused for breath and then chuckled to himself, shaking his bald head and smiling at Nancy with worried brown eyes. “Thank heavens I know your father. If he hadn’t suggested that I hire you, I don’t know what I’d have done.”

  Probably collapsed, Nancy told herself, but she kept her thoughts silent. She smiled. “I’m glad you did call me, Mr. Parton. I’m ready to get started, but first I just want to make sure I’ve got the facts straight. You mentioned files being taken. What files?”