Hidden Meanings (5 page)

Soon the double doors swung open, and the students flooded in. Nancy, still on the lookout for Gina—and Ned—sat at a table by the door.

She'd just started to chat with the others at her table when she saw Sally Harvey in the doorway, camera case slung over her shoulder. Her face looked pale. Nancy jumped up and ran over to her. “Sally, what's wrong?” she asked.

Sally spoke in a small, tight voice. “Our room has been broken into—again!”

Leaving Sally where she was, Nancy found Bess, asked her to find Mr. Ruxton, then hurried off with Sally. “Gina returned to my class before lunch, and we went to drop off my cameras in the room,” Sally explained in the elevator as the girls went up to the seventh floor. “When we got there, the door was open. Ned went in to check it out. Then he sent me down to get you.”

Sally met Nancy's eyes. “Nancy—what if some kidnapper is after Gina? She's my best friend, you know. I'm so scared for her!”

“Then you're lucky Ned's around. He'll protect you,” Nancy said reassuringly.

When they reached the room, Gina was sitting on the edge of her bed, looking visibly shaken. Ned sat on the bed beside her, one arm around her shoulders. When Nancy walked in, he threw her an apologetic glance. Seeing Gina's state, Nancy nodded her okay.

But, she thought to herself, Gina was awfully cool about last night's break-in. Why is she so upset this time? To get attention from Ned?

Examining the door, Nancy saw no sign of forced entry. But she thought that the room was much less a mess than it had been the night before. Had the thief found what he was looking for this time?

Then, on a hunch, Nancy went into the hall to look for Rosita Ortiz. She found her in the nearest supply closet, sitting with her head in her hands. As Rosita raised her frightened face, Nancy saw she had been crying.

“What's the matter?” Nancy asked her.

“Oh, miss, it's you!” Rosita cried. “I didn't know where you were, but I had to tell you—I can't find my passkey!”

Y
OUR PASSKEY IS MISSING
?” Nancy asked Rosita, trying to sound calm. “When was the last time you had it?”

“Half an hour ago,” Rosita said in a quivering voice. “A guest asked me to open his room. He said he left his card inside. In training they tell us never to use a passkey for a guest. We must say to go ask the front desk. But he was very nice.”

Nancy drew a careful breath. “This man—what did he look like?”

Rosita looked scared. “He was not wearing a suit, just a shirt and pants,” she said, struggling to remember. “Brown hair. American. Very tall.”

Tall, Nancy thought. Like Nick Kessler? “Was it room 707?” she asked.

“Oh, no,” Rosita declared. “After what happened yesterday, I would not open that door.”

“You just let him in and left?” Nancy asked.

Rosita shook her head. “He needed me to help fix a closet door,” she said. “It had come off the track. He and I both bent down to fix it. Maybe my key fell off then.” She showed Nancy an empty key clip hooked to her belt. “I went back, but when I knocked, he was not there. So I looked here for my key.” Rosita waved her hand, indicating the shelves of the supply closet. The sheets and towels were in disarray from her frantic search.

Nancy tried to imagine the scene in the man's room—two people bent down near the sliding doors of the closet, probably close together. It would have been easy for the man to slip the key off Rosita's key clip.

Nancy asked Rosita to show her which room the man had been in. She knew that it might not have been his real room—maybe he had asked Rosita to open any room, as a ruse to steal her passkey. But Nancy wanted to explore every possible lead.

Rosita and Nancy left the supply closet and wandered down the hall. Reaching the end, Rosita became flustered. “Maybe it was here,” she said, stopping at room 724. Nancy knocked. No answer. “No, I think it was this one,” Rosita continued, changing her mind. She went to room 726. “But . . . they all look the same,” she said with a helpless shrug.

Disappointed, Nancy pulled a small notebook out of her purse. “Here's my name and room number,” she said, writing them down and tearing out the page for Rosita. “If you see that man again, please call.”

“I will,” Rosita promised. “But please, miss, don't tell Mr. Wasilick I have lost my key!”

“I think you'd better report it,” Nancy said. “You'll need a new key to get into the rooms to do your work. Mr. Wasilick can't blame you if the key was stolen from you. But I promise I won't tell anyone that you opened a room for a guest.”

Rosita looked at Nancy gratefully. “Thank you!”

Nancy went back to her room and phoned Ms. Peabody for the names of the guests at the far end of the hall. None of the names were familiar, though she jotted them all down for future reference. Then she went downstairs and grabbed lunch at the mezzanine-level café. She knew Bess was still waiting tables, and George was back at the pool.

Next, after signing her room check, Nancy went to find Ned. She knew that Gina and Sally had workshops all afternoon. In a hallway outside the meeting rooms, Nancy finally spotted him, tipped back in a chair, reading a magazine. Seeing Nancy, he brought the chair down with a thump. “Hey, Drew, what's up?” he called to her happily.

Nancy mustered a smile, hoping she wouldn't look too uptight at seeing him. She sure
felt
uptight. “Hey, Ned. How's the bodyguard business?” she replied.

“Bor-
ring,”
Ned complained.

“Look, Ned, I need to search Gina's room for clues,” Nancy said. “Is that okay with you?”

“Sure,” Ned replied. He pulled out two keycards from his pocket. “One's for my room, one is Gina's—I can't remember which is which. Take them both. Bring them back when you're done—I'll be here till four.”

“Thanks,” Nancy said, taking the cards. “See you then.” With a little wave, she turned to walk away.

“Hey, Drew!” Ned called. Nancy turned. He tapped a finger on his lips. Slipping back, she bent over for a kiss. He reached up, caught her shoulders, and held her for a few extra seconds.

Nancy broke away. “I miss you,” she murmured.

Ned nodded. “I miss you. Let's not let Gina catch us, huh?”

Nancy's face darkened. “Why not?” she asked.

Ned shrugged. “I thought we weren't supposed to let on we knew each other,” he said casually.

“Oh, right,” Nancy said. But as she left, she felt uneasy. Ned had seemed his old self again—until the remark about Gina. They both knew how Gina would have reacted if she'd seen them kissing.

Nancy went upstairs and started her search of Gina's room. She dusted for fingerprints on all doorknobs and drawer handles, but they were too smudged to read. She pulled a couple of snags of clothing fiber from a splintered edge of the desk. A quick check in the closet showed they were threads from Gina's clothes.

She sifted through the wastebaskets, looking for anything the thief might have discarded. But all she found was makeup-smeared cotton balls, an empty film container, and wrappers from the hotel chocolates left on guests' pillows each night.

Then, on a memo pad on the desk, Nancy spied dents in the paper, left by writing on the previous top sheet. Shading over it with pencil, she outlined the message:

Ned—Sweetest dreams. I feel so much safer knowing you're on the other side of my wall. If I get lonely during the night, can I call you?—G

Nancy tore off the paper and crumpled it up. So that's what is going on! she fumed.

Storming out of the room, Nancy went back downstairs. She knew Ned was waiting for his keycards, but she couldn't face him right now. Instead she found Bess in the Muskoka Lobby, setting up a snack table. Nancy asked her to return the keycards to Ned. “I have to check in with George,” she added, not wanting to go into the real reason, and headed for the pool, which was on the roof of the hotel's three-story annex.

Wearing a red tank suit, George was walking along the pool with a screen on a long pole, skimming leaves from the water. “Nancy, put on your suit and go for a swim,” George urged her. “You could use some relaxation. You look tense.”

“And for good reason.” Nancy groaned as she flopped down on a poolside chair. George sat beside her, and Nancy told her about the note she'd found in Gina's room.

George made a face. “You don't think Ned would fall for a gooey routine like that, do you?” she said. “Besides, you don't know that he's done anything to encourage her.”

“She doesn't
need
encouraging,” Nancy said, scowling. “And he obviously hasn't told her he's already involved. He's just eating up the attention.”

“Of course he is. He's only human,” George reminded her. “Look, Nan, I know this is hard for you. But you just have to trust the guy.”

“I know, I know,” Nancy said. “But seeing this little flirtation go on right under my nose is really frustrating.”

“So what's going on with the case?” George asked. Nancy knew she was trying to get Nancy's mind off Ned, and it worked. By the time Nancy had recounted the day's developments, she felt calmer.

“Well, there's not much going on here,” George said. “Not many people swim in the middle of the day.” Scanning the pool, Nancy saw two ten-year-old boys playing tag in the shallow end, and one man swimming laps.

“Jane Sellery told me she always takes an after-dinner swim,” Nancy noted. “Watch for her this evening. She's tall, with red hair.”

“I will,” George commented.

The two girls fell silent, each wrapped up in her own thoughts. “I like the way they've planted those trees and shrubs around the sides of the terrace,” Nancy finally said.

“That plant's a rhododendron—we have one like it in our backyard,” George commented. “It's really pretty when the flowers bloom.”

Nancy nodded, looking at the nearby bank of greenery. “And this one next to it is hemlock,” she commented, fingering a small evergreen.

“Hemlock—like the poison?” George asked.

“No,” Nancy said, “poison hemlock is an herb, with fine leaves. It looks almost like parsley. But speaking of poisons . . .” Nancy stood up to examine a narrow-leafed evergreen bush with white blossoms. “This is oleander. This
is
deadly.”

“How do you detectives end up knowing so many grisly facts?” George declared with a shudder.

“I sat in once on a med school class on accidental poisoning,” Nancy explained.

Just then out of the corner of her eye she saw the man who'd been swimming. He was sitting at a nearby table, drying his hair and beard with a towel. Nancy recognized him as the man who'd met Evan Sharpless on the mezzanine the day before.

Suddenly the man saw Nancy watching him. Scooping up his clothes, he scurried into the men's locker room.

“That guy sure is acting strangely,” Nancy said. “I saw him yesterday with Evan Sharpless.”

“Maybe he's a reporter, too,” George suggested. “Maybe he's leading a class. Why don't you ask him?”

“I will, if he comes back out,” Nancy said.

“Why wait?” George asked. “Hang on, Nan, I'll try to find him.” Before Nancy could protest, George marched boldly to the door of the men's locker room and called out for the attendant.

Impressed with George's resolve, Nancy sat waiting anxiously. She unconsciously snapped a twig from the oleander bush, watching the milky white sap ooze out. Then, remembering how poisonous the plant was, she tossed the twig into a litter basket.

Finally George returned. “Either he ran out the doorway leading to the hotel, or he's hiding somewhere inside,” she said. “The attendant barely saw him run past.”

Nancy laughed. “Well, thanks for trying. Anyway, what's next on your schedule?”

“I'm supposed to bus tables at a buffet dinner tonight,” George said. “They need extra help. And I'm meeting Bess for dinner in the employee cafeteria. Why don't you come along and see how the other half lives?”

Agreeing, Nancy went with George back up to their room to change and relax for an hour or so. Then George led Nancy into the seventh-floor service corridor. “This is the route we workers have to take,” George announced with a grin. Nancy recognized the area as the corridor Rosita had shown her. The two girls took the big, clunky service elevator down to the subbasement.

A hallway lined with metal lockers led from the elevator. Sidestepping a rolling hamper filled with dirty green coveralls, Nancy and George entered the cafeteria, a cement-floored room with harsh lighting. Paul Lampedusa waved to George from a table, and George waved back eagerly.

George and Nancy filled their plates and joined Paul. Bess soon arrived. As they all ate and chatted, Nancy decided Paul was funny, smart, and charming. She gathered that he was working here part-time to help pay his college tuition.