Cutting Edge (11 page)

Trish gave her father a peck on the cheek before she said goodbye to Nancy and George and turned to go.

“Have you had lunch yet?” Mr. O'Connell asked Nancy and George.

“No,” Nancy answered.

“Then join me,” he said. “I received some information this morning that I want to share with you.”

“Okay,” Nancy said. George nodded, and the three headed for the restaurant.

“Your photograph came in very handy,” Mr. O'Connell said with a heavy sigh after they were seated and had ordered lunch. “The man's name is really Dieter Grunsbach, and he's one of the world's most notorious corporate spies. He's also got a prison record as long as your arm.”

Nancy leaned back in the booth. “I didn't see him today,” she said worriedly. “Do you think he's already out of the country?”

“I don't think so,” Mr. O'Connell told them. “The minute I found out about all this, late last night, I contacted customs at both major airports in the area and they told me he hadn't left. Even if he drives to an airport in another city, customs will have been alerted to stop him. They'll search him with a fine-tooth comb. He'll never get out of the country with our chips.”

“He must have another plan,” Nancy speculated. “I'm sure he knew ahead of time he'd be carefully watched.”

“That makes sense,” George agreed. “I only wish we knew what it was.”

“Me, too,” Mr. O'Connell said.

Nancy paused as the waitress came with their sandwiches and sodas. “There's something else that's bothering me,” she said, when the waitress had left. “How did Grunsbach know the exact location of the circuit board?”

“That's what I'd like to know,” Mr. O'Connell said. “We tried to keep that information top secret. That's why we had a compartment constructed under the counter. Most people would
assume the circuit board would be part of the main terminal.”

“Let's try some logic,” Nancy suggested. “Besides yourself and Rob, who knew where the circuit board was hidden?”

“Well,” Mr. O'Connell said thoughtfully. “No one.” For a moment his breath caught in his throat before he found his voice again. “No one, that is, except Trish.”

T
RISH KNEW WHERE
the Opto chip was located?” Nancy asked. “Are you sure?”

Mr. O'Connell let out a huge sigh. “Well, yes. I'm sure. It was the day we first arrived here. We checked into the hotel and came to the arena. That was when we first met you two, actually.”

“I'm curious about something,” George said. “If you and Veronica are from the same hometown, and such good friends, why didn't you travel here together?”

“I can answer that simply enough,” Mr. O'Connell said, setting down his glass of water. “Trish and I didn't come here from home. We'd been in Ohio, visiting my mother.”

Nancy nodded. “Mr. O'Connell, did Trish realize how big a secret the location of the circuit board was?” Nancy asked.

“Oh, yes,” he replied without hesitation. “She knew how closely we had to protect that information.”

“I see,” said Nancy, trying to piece together what she'd just heard. “Mr. O'Connell, I need to ask a personal question. Do you and Trish get along well?”

Mr. O'Connell's eyebrows raised in surprise at the question. “Do Trish and I get along? Of course, we get along. Naturally, we have differences. All families do,” he explained. “But we love each other very much.”

His answer confirmed Nancy's gut feelings about Trish and her father. Trish didn't seem the type for deep resentments or destructive behavior. That was exactly why none of the clues pointing to Trish made sense.

With a weary sigh, Mr. O'Connell wiped his mouth and put down his napkin. “I was really looking forward to this contest to test the Optoboard in a real competition. I had no idea that things would turn out so badly, for me
and
for my daughter.”

“I believe someone is setting Trish up,” Nancy said. “Does she have any enemies that you know of?”

“Trish?” he asked, totally surprised. “Why, everyone loves Trish! Everyone who knows her, that is.”

When the check arrived, Trish's father scooped it up. “This is on me,” he said. “And now, if you'll excuse me, I want to go talk to Rob before the afternoon program begins. See you in the arena.”

“He's really sweet,” George said as Mr. O'Connell walked to the exit.

Nancy barely had heard George, though. Her attention was caught by a portly man who had just entered the restaurant. He was standing beside the cashier's desk, surveying the restaurant with his sharp eyes.

“George, look,” Nancy said. “There's Gilbert Fleischman. Why is he standing there like that?”

The head judge's eyes seemed to light on a table at the far end of the room that was cut off from Nancy's view. She craned her neck but was unable to see what or who had caught his attention. “George, can you see who's sitting at the table behind that pillar?”

George turned her head in the direction Nancy asked. “Yes, I see,” she said. “It's a group of reporters. I recognize Mary Joe Peck from the River Heights
Morning Record.
She's sitting with some woman with a terrible bleach job and heavy makeup.”

“That's got to be Fran Higgins,” Nancy said excitedly. “Remember? She's the one whose car Fleischman got into that night.”

“Right. Now she's glancing over at the cashier,” George said. “She's putting money on the
table and getting up! Do you think she's meeting Fleischman?”

“Come on, George, we're leaving, too,” Nancy said suddenly. “I want to see where they go.”

“Fleischman is already gone,” George said, looking toward the restaurant door.

“He's waiting for her, I'll bet,” Nancy told her. “But why, George? Why are they sneaking around? Could he be working with Dieter Grunsbach? Could Fran Higgins be the female accomplice?”

Nancy didn't wait for an answer. The moment Fran Higgins reached the restaurant door, she got up from her chair. “Let's go,” she said to George.

Outside the restaurant, Fleischman was nowhere to be seen. Fran Higgins strolled back in the direction of the main arena, but she soon turned off the main corridor into a small hallway. Holding back, Nancy waited for a moment before she peered around the corner.

Gilbert Fleischman was anxiously signaling the reporter to come to him. He was holding a door open for her and glancing around nervously. “Come in here,” he said, breathless. “Hurry.”

From around the corner, Nancy heard the door shut. When she looked again, no one was in the hall.

“They must have gone in that room,” Nancy murmured. Moving closer, she saw that the door was plainly marked: Utility Closet.

George shot Nancy a quizzical look. “Isn't a
utility closet for brooms and cleaning equipment?” she whispered.

“Or secret meetings,” Nancy put in.

“Let's listen,” George suggested.

“Just what I was thinking,” Nancy agreed, pressing her ear to the door.

“Yes, it's urgent, Frances,” the head judge was saying. “It's been three years since we met, and two since I fell in love with you. I must know, right away—will you marry me?”

Nancy and George were both surprised.

From inside the small room, they heard Fran Higgins let out a hearty laugh. “Oh, honey, I thought you were never going to ask! The answer is yes, yes, yes!”

The utility room got very quiet after that and Nancy guessed that the prospective bride and groom were sharing a kiss. “Let's go, George,” Nancy whispered, turning away from the door.

“I guess that clears up that little mystery,” George said with a wry grin as she and Nancy made their way back to the arena to their seats for the pairs finals.

“It sure does,” Nancy agreed. “But it doesn't clear up any other mysteries around this place.”

As the arena was filling up again, the Optoboard put on a dazzling show, repeating highlights from the morning program. There was Trish, gliding to the pure sweet jazz she'd used in her short program. Her movements punctuated the music with dazzling leaps and sophisticated spins.

“Watching on the Optoboard is almost as good as being there in person,” George remarked. Nancy had to agree.

Veronica Taylor's performance came next. In her scarlet-and-white outfit, she skated to a medley of movie themes. She skimmed the ice, boldly spinning and leaping, sure of herself and as graceful as a swan.

Next the board flashed the new standings in the women's competition. Trish O'Connell was still in the lead, by a wide margin now. Suzanne Jurgens was second, followed closely by Ann Lasser. Right behind them was young Terri Barton in fourth place. And in fifth, only a fraction of a point behind Terri, was Veronica Taylor. Elaine Devery was in sixth, in spite of all her problems. The rest trailed far behind. Yoko's name had been removed from the board.

“Veronica's back in contention now,” Nancy said, summing up the standings. “She's really strong at free skating, too. I'll bet she makes it into the top four and goes on to the World Championships. Elaine, too. She's a great free skater, don't you think? Much stronger than Suzanne Jurgens or Ann Lasser.”

“Yoko would have been in the lead,” George said sadly. “She's better than any of them.”

“True,” Nancy agreed. “And the way things have been going, it's impossible to tell who else might be knocked out by more sabotage.”

The announcer's voice came over the loud
speaker system, informing the audience that the pairs-skating finals would begin in ten minutes.

“What do we do next, Nan?” George asked. “I know you well enough to realize that we're not just going to sit here and watch the pairs skating.”

Nancy grinned mischievously. “I want to talk with as many of the women skaters as we can,” she said. “Everything points to Trish, but that's the problem—it's too neat and tidy. In my opinion, she's being set up.”

“I agree,” George said. “But who would do a thing like that?”

“That's what we've got to find out. We have to dig up some clues, and we've only got one more day.”

“Where to first?” George wanted to know.

“There,” Nancy said, pointing to the south end of the rink. Two rows of seats had been removed, and makeshift partitions had been set up to create cubicles where reporters could do interviews with the skaters. “I see some of the women skaters giving interviews.”

“Hey,” George said, getting up to follow Nancy. “Maybe I'll get to see Kevin. He mentioned that he had to interview Terri Barton.”

Following George around the edge of the rink, Nancy soon came to the cubicles. George peeked around one of the partitions. When she popped her head back out, she said, “That was Suzanne Jurgens.”

“There's the Worldwide Sports camera
operator,” Nancy said, pointing out a guy wheeling a camera toward the partitions.

“Last cubicle, Steve,” a rink staff member told him.

“Aha,” George said. She ran ahead of the cameraman to the last cubicle, with Nancy right behind her.

Nancy almost bumped into George because her friend froze in the cubicle entryway. Nancy couldn't believe her eyes when she saw what had made George stop short. Kevin and Veronica were standing inside the entrance. And they were kissing!

A
LL OF A SUDDEN
Kevin looked up and saw Nancy and George.

“G-George!” he stammered, clumsily breaking away from Veronica's embrace. “I, uh—um, I—”

Veronica gently stroked Kevin's cheek and patted him on the shoulder. “I can see you two need to be alone for a minute,” she purred, moving to the doorway. “I'll be right out here, Kevin. Call me when you're ready to do our interview.” With a wink and a wave, she made her way out past Nancy and George, not even glancing at them.