Danger for Hire (10 page)

Nancy shook her head. “I don't know, but I'm pretty sure of one thing—Tom Hayward knows nothing about this.”

• • •

That night Nancy switched places with George to tail Adam Reeves. Saturday night was a prime time for robbery since the warehouse district would be all but deserted. Since Adam was the suspect most likely to be part of an actual strike, she wanted to be the one covering him.

According to his work schedule, Adam was off. When he left his apartment, he was dressed all in black. Nancy's excitement grew as she followed him downtown because he doubled back a few times, obviously checking for a tail. Nancy countered his moves perfectly.

There was no moon that night. Nancy snapped off her headlights and used only the light from the streetlights. Adam finally parked in the warehouse district. Nancy did, too.

Finally, close to midnight, a van came up their street from the direction of the river. Adam started his car and followed it around
the corner. Her pulse quickening, Nancy got out and followed on foot.

Adam's destination was an audio components warehouse. She had passed it many times on her earlier patrols. As she watched from the shadows thirty yards away, Adam got out of his car—only now he wore the Wolfman mask. Nancy snapped a picture.

The van backed up to the loading bay. Another figure dressed in black got out of it—the Dead Man. Nancy recognized the grisly mask instantly. She took another shot.

The two men opened the back doors of the van and wheeled out handcarts. The Dead Man went to the alarm system keypad and pushed a sequence of keys. The red light that had been blinking on the panel went off. They rolled up the door.

As Nancy had expected, they worked mostly in the dark, using flashlights. They were fast, too. She saw them zoom between the warehouse and the van twice in less than a minute.

Nancy crept closer. She wanted to get as much on film as possible.

The Wolfman and the Dead Man disappeared inside the warehouse for more than a minute. Nancy crept closer. There was no sign of them.

She was now close enough to make out the lettering on the van. It said, “Hayward Security Systems.” No wonder no one ever noticed them coming or going! They had the perfect camouflage: a vehicle that was totally familiar to people in the district. And to the police. And to her.

Was it a fake Hayward van or the real thing?

Nancy darted up to the loading bay. The thieves were now deep inside the warehouse.

She leaped up onto the loading platform because she needed a picture of the interior of the van, and that was the only way she could get it. She sighted through the viewfinder.

No good. She moved back, stepping carefully around a small aluminum ladder that someone had left set up inside the warehouse. She sighed again—still no good.

When she was twenty feet away she sighted again. Perfect. Then, through the viewfinder, she saw the aluminum ladder come into the picture. It was falling! It clattered onto the platform. Nancy froze.

She peered into the darkness and saw who had knocked the ladder over.
Cindy!

“I'm sorry!” Cindy whispered.

“What are you doing here?” Nancy whispered back, furious.

“I—I wanted to get in on the excitement,” Cindy replied, “so I followed you down here.”

This was no time to lecture the girl, Nancy knew. “Let's get out of here before—”

It was too late. From inside the warehouse Nancy heard the sound of running feet. The Wolfman and the Dead Man were coming!

I
NSTEAD OF RUNNING
down the street, Nancy grabbed Cindy and hauled her into the warehouse to fake out the robbers. Boxes of stereo parts were stacked on top of wooden pallets. The pallets were arranged in long parallel rows running from the front of the warehouse to the back.

Nancy yanked Cindy down the aisle that was closest to the right wall. The thieves weren't likely to come that way—she hoped.

When they reached the back wall, they found an aisle perpendicular to the others.
Nancy pulled Cindy behind the last pallet of components. Now they were no longer visible from the front of the warehouse.

Nancy heard the thieves run up to the loading bay door. A second later powerful flashlight beams shone down the aisles. Bright circles of light played against the wall to either side of them. The stack of boxes hid them, but Nancy knew that the thieves must suspect someone was there.

Nancy put her mouth to Cindy's ear and whispered,
“Don't move!”

The warning was hardly necessary. Cindy was nearly frozen with terror.

Nancy looked around for a makeshift weapon. There was nothing within reach. Naturally,
this
warehouse would be spotless! The only thing available was her camera. Nancy was surprised, somehow, that she still had it in her hand. Too bad the flash attachment wasn't on. She might have been able to blind them temporarily.

Male voices conferred near the front. Then Nancy heard the van's rear doors slam. Hope seized her. Were they leaving?

Not right away, it turned out. The next sound she heard was that of a tool working on a pipe—a pipe wrench? What were they
doing? After a minute, a loud clanging began. They were hammering on a pipe. Why?

The loading bay door rolled down and was locked, leaving them in total darkness. There was the muffled sound of the van starting up, and then the engine fading in the distance. They were alone. Nancy whipped a penlight from her pocket, switched it on, and grabbed Cindy's hand.

“Let's get out of here!”

As they drew close to the front, Nancy stopped—and sniffed. There was an odor in the air.

“Gas! That's what they did! They ruptured a gas line!”

“W-we're going to d-die,” Cindy whimpered.

“No, we're not, but we'd better get out of here soon,” Nancy cautioned.

The loading bay door couldn't be opened. The control panel inside was identical to the one outside. The code had to be keyed in. A door in the office led out, too, but it was locked. Nancy searched the office for a key, but couldn't find one. She tried the phones. Dead.

“The wires outside were cut,” she guessed.

Nancy found the light switches and flicked
them until the warehouse interior was completely lit. Then she raced to find the gas leak.

“Help me trace this line!” she ordered Cindy. “Maybe we can find a valve that will turn it off.” But there wasn't one. If there was, it was on the outside.

The smell of gas was now heavy in the air. Nancy felt dizzy. How long would it take the warehouse to completely fill with gas? An hour? Fifteen minutes? She forced herself to think.

“An emergency exit! There has to be one!”

There was, set into the back wall. But it was chained shut.

“That's illegal!” Nancy fumed.

Nancy ran along the back wall, looking up. Yes! About ten feet up on the wall was a row of three lateral windows. They were too high up to reach with the aluminum ladder.

“We've got to build a pyramid out of boxes,” she said urgently.

They began to move the stereo components, erecting a crude cardboard stairway. It was growing increasingly difficult to work, however. The smell of the gas was overpowering. Nancy felt like gagging. Cindy began to cough. They had to get out—soon!

At last they reached the windows, but the handles on them wouldn't budge. They were rusted in place. They would have to break the windows open, but with what?

“The ladder!” Nancy said.

The trip for the ladder was agonizing. The gas stung Nancy's throat and eyes. Returning to the rear wall, she gripped the ladder by two middle rungs, climbed up the cardboard stairway, and thrust the ladder against the window.

It bounced off. She tried again. This time, the window cracked.

“Hurry!” Cindy urged, her voice a series of choking coughs.

Two more thrusts and cool, fresh air was pouring in through a hole. A minute later the glass was completely out. Nancy cried in triumph, “We did it!”

She helped Cindy out first. Then she squirmed through the narrow space and dropped ten feet into the alley outside.

“N-Nancy, I'm so sorry! I almost got us killed,” her assistant sobbed.

Nancy hugged her. “Cindy, it's okay. We got out. That's all that counts. Come on, let's call the police and the fire department.”

• • •

As she slept that night, Nancy dreamed that she was choking. In the morning she barely touched her breakfast.

Later, in her bathroom, she developed the pictures she had taken the night before. She tried to think the case through, but no conclusions would come.

Her father was sitting across the room reading the Sunday paper. He asked conversationally, “How's the investigation going?”

Nancy said, “I don't know. It's frustrating—it doesn't add up. Means. Motive. Opportunity. I can't get a clear picture of who's planning it all.”

Carson folded the front section of the paper. “At least the robberies aren't on page one anymore. Brenda wrote another article about them, but it's buried on page twelve.”

Nancy smiled. “Sounds like she hasn't come up with any new angles.” Knowing Brenda, Nancy decided, she must have been feeling very frustrated. The reporter loved to see her byline on page one.

“No, she hasn't.” Her father opened the business section. “On the other hand, the
plunge in Hayward's stock price is top financial news.”

Nancy went to see. Looking over his shoulder, she read that Hayward shares had now lost eighty percent of their value. Analysts were predicting that, barring a sudden change in fortune, the company would be bankrupt within a week.

“How awful,” she groaned. “People are losing a ton of money just because of a couple of break-ins. And Tom's losing the most.”

“Well, the ones who sell their shares are losing,” Carson said.

Nancy suddenly stood upright. “Dad! What did you just say?”

“I said, the people who sell their shares at bargain prices are the losers. You see, a decline in a stock's price is really only a loss on paper. You have to sell to actually lose money.”

“That's it!” Insight flooded Nancy's mind like a sudden burst of sunshine. She cried, “Dad, you just gave me the answer!”

“I did?”

Nancy threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “You said a drop in value is only a ‘paper' loss, right?”

“Right.”

“And isn't it also true that for every seller of stock there's a buyer?”

“True. A ‘sale' is always an exchange between two parties,” Carson agreed.

“Then that's it! Nancy exulted. “I've cracked the case!”

T
HERE ARE
just a few things I have to check,” Nancy added. “Can you help me, Dad?”

“I'll try,” Carson said. He was still in the dark, Nancy could see, but he trusted his daughter's abilities.

Nancy said, “I know the price of Hayward stock is down, but exactly how many people are selling their shares? A lot? A few? And how many people are doing the buying?”

“There's no way for us to know that for sure,” her father explained. “But I can tell you
how many shares have been sold this past week.”

Carson turned the pages in the business section. “Here we are. The number of shares traded this week was—wow, two million!”

“That's a lot?”

“Nancy, there are only six million shares in existence, and Tom owns slightly more than half of those.”

“So about two-thirds of the other shareholders have sold out,” she calculated. “I wish there was
some
way to know for sure who was doing the buying.”

Carson studied her. “You know, I think I see what you're getting at. If you can supply enough evidence, then the Securities and Exchange Commission can subpoena brokerage house records and prove who did the buying.”