The Cheating Heart Read online

  Chapter

  One

  NANCY! IT’S SO GOOD to see you again.”

  Brook Albright turned over the book she was reading as she jumped up from her desk chair.

  “Hi,” Nancy Drew said from the doorway of Brook’s room at the Theta Pi sorority house.

  “Bring your stuff in.” Brook swept her clothes aside, making a clear space on one of the twin beds. “I’m thrilled you’ll be staying with me for a while.”

  Nancy stepped into the room with the elegant dormer windows overlooking Emerson College’s leafy campus. “You’ve got a great room this year, Brook.” Nancy had become friendly with the Theta Pi sisters on previous trips to Emerson, when she had visited her boyfriend, Ned Nickerson.

  “Well, now that I’m a junior I can choose my room,” Brook said with a confident smile.

  Nancy brushed back her shoulder-length reddish blond hair, then tossed her duffel bag on the extra bed and pulled off her yellow cotton sweater. “It sure is hot for the first of September,” she said with a sigh. “Are you having any trouble planning your freshman-open-house day in this heat?”

  Brook rolled her eyes. “I’ll say. I’ve been running around like crazy when all I want to do is sit down and sip a soda.”

  “I’ll bet the guys at the Omega Chi Epsilon house are sweltering, too.” Nancy grinned, thinking of Ned. He had asked Nancy to come to Emerson to be a hostess for his fraternity’s freshman reception on Saturday.

  “Well, we all want to impress the freshmen,” Brook replied. She paused. “I’m sure Ned must be dying to see you. After a summer of togetherness, he must really miss you now that he’s back at school.”

  Nancy winced. She hadn’t seen as much of Ned that summer as she’d wanted to, and though Ned hadn’t complained, she felt bad about it. “I’m afraid I was away from River Heights a lot this summer, working on cases,” she told Brook.

  “That must be tough—for both of you,” Brook said sympathetically. “If I had a boyfriend at home, it would be hard to leave when school started. But if I had a boyfriend here at school, I’d be dying to get back on campus in the fall. So I guess I’m lucky I’m unattached—it does make moving around much easier.”

  Nancy laughed. She’d always liked Brook’s independent spirit. Brook was so attractive, with her wavy auburn hair and dark brown eyes, that Nancy found it hard to believe she had no boyfriend.

  “Since you’re so unattached,” Nancy said, “why don’t you join Ned and me Saturday night for the Dillon Patrick concert?”

  “I’d love to,” Brook said enthusiastically. “I adore his music.”

  “What else is going on this weekend?” Nancy asked.

  “Well, there’s a movie in the theater tomorrow night, and on Saturday there’s a crafts fair on campus.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “This is a great time of year to be here,” Brook said. “Classes haven’t started yet. Everyone is just hanging out, seeing old friends after the summer and not worried yet about papers and tests.”

  Nancy checked her watch. “It’s getting late. Ned will be wondering where I am. Want to walk down to the Omega Chi house with me?”

  Brook hung back. “Three’s a crowd.”

  “Oh, come on, there’ll be so many frat brothers there,” Nancy coaxed.

  “Okay!” Brook gave in, slipping a bookmark into the novel she had been reading.

  The two girls strolled from the Theta Pi house, a graceful white, columned mansion, to the Omega Chi Epsilon fraternity house.

  On this late summer afternoon, the majestic old Greek houses lining the road were bustling with activity. From parked cars, students were unloading suitcases, boxes of books, CD players, computers, microwaves, framed posters, armchairs—all the furnishings of college rooms. Music blared from open windows that students poked out of to call to friends they hadn’t seen for three months.

  Three of Ned’s fraternity brothers sat sprawled in lawn chairs in front of the house, drinking soda and munching tortilla chips. “Hey, Nancy Drew!” one of the guys called.

  “Hi there, Jerry.” Nancy smiled at Ned’s pal Jerry McEntee. “I thought you were supposed to be in training for football. Are you sure chips are on your diet?”

  With a grin, Jerry rolled up his sloppy T-shirt and massaged the taut muscles of his tanned stomach. “With a bod like this, I don’t need a training diet,” he bragged. The other two frat brothers groaned loudly and punched Jerry from either side.

  Fending them off, Jerry laughed. “So, Nancy, did you bring Bess and George with you this time?” He was referring to Bess Marvin and George Fayne, Nancy’s two best friends from home. They’d visited Emerson with Nancy a few times, and Ned had fixed them up with various Omega Chi brothers.

  Nancy shook her head, smiling. “Sorry—George had to play in a tennis tournament this weekend, and Bess was going to a friend’s wedding. Have you seen Ned around?” she asked.

  “Probably inside.”

  “Thanks, we’ll go check,” Nancy said. With waves, she and Brook headed indoors.

  They paused in the large entry hall for a minute. One of the fraternity brothers was running a vacuum cleaner in the living room. He was slender but broad shouldered, with dark hair and tortoiseshell glasses. Seeing the girls, he switched off the vacuum and called out, “Can I help?”

  Nancy couldn’t remember meeting him before, so she introduced herself. “Hi, my name is Nancy Drew. I’m here to visit Ned Nickerson.”

  “Oh, hi, Nancy—I’m Paul DiToma. I’m in charge of Saturday’s reception. Ned volunteered you to be a hostess, right?”

  “Right,” Nancy said. “By the way, do you two know each other? Brook—Paul—”

  Turning to Brook, Paul’s eyes widened. He awkwardly stuck out a hand to shake. “I’m not sure—you look familiar.”

  “I’m a Theta Pi,” she explained, studying his lean, handsome face with obvious interest. “Maybe we’ve met at a mixer?”

  “I doubt it,” Paul said hesitantly. “I kind of avoid those parties. Everything seems so . . . set up.”

  “I don’t go to many of them, either,” Brook replied. “Maybe we’ve had a class together, then.”

  Paul snapped his fingers and grinned. “American Lit Two Twenty-one, Professor Ford,” he said. “You always sat in the front row. You carry your books in a red backpack, right?”

  Brook blushed and smiled. “Right. And you were always in the back corner, with your chair tipped back and your feet on the windowsill. I didn’t recognize you without your leather bomber jacket.”

  Paul smiled shyly. “Yeah, I love that jacket. But it’s kind of hot to wear it today.”

  “Then I’ll just have to recognize you by something else. Your glasses, perhaps?” Brook ventured with a giggle.

  Nancy tactfully broke into their conversation. “I’d better let Ned know I’m here. Paul, have you seen him?”

  Paul turned back to Nancy. “Let me buzz his room,” he offered, parking the vacuum. He walked over to the intercom and pushed a button.

  Jerry and the other two guys walked in the front door, carrying the folded-up chairs under their arms. “Hey, DiToma!” called out the heavier of the two guys. He put on a high, fluty voice and continued, “I’m waiting for you!”

  Nancy noticed Paul’s face grow red. “Cut it out, Rich,” he protested.

  Jerry explained the joke to Nancy and Brook. “Paul got a note today in the Emersonian, in the personal ads. It said, ‘Paul DiToma: I’m waiting for you.’ We figure it’s got to be from some secret admirer.”

  Paul flinched, obviously embarrassed. “Come on, guys, it’s as much a mystery to me as it is to you.” He quickly changed the subject. “Ned doesn’t seem to be answering, Nancy. Want
me to look around for him?”

  Just then the phone by the front door rang. Rich sprang to pick it up. “Might be your secret admirer, Paul,” he teased as he picked up the receiver. “Hello, Omega Chi . . . Hey, Nicker-son! Perfect timing—your girlfriend just showed up looking for you. . . . What?”

  Nancy watched as Rich’s expression changed, and her instinct told her that something was wrong. She reached for the phone, but Rich held on, nodding. “Okay, I’ll tell her. Catch you later.” He hung up abruptly.

  “What’s the matter?” Nancy asked.

  “I’m sure it’s no big deal,” Rich assured her. “But Ned’s over at Dean Jarvis’s office. He wouldn’t say what was going on. He just asked you to meet him there.”

  Nancy nodded. “I’m on my way.” She turned to Brook. “Sorry to run off like this.”

  “No problem,” Brook said, stealing a sideways glance at Paul. It was clear she wouldn’t mind staying on to talk to him. “I’ll see you back at my room.”

  Nancy walked swiftly out the door, trying hard to believe that Ned wasn’t in trouble. Ned was a star athlete and a popular campus figure, with lots of friends and good grades. He wasn’t the type to give school officials a hard time.

  She quickly crossed the campus, heading for the ivy-covered administration building.

  When she arrived, the dean’s assistant recognized Nancy from her previous visits to Emerson when she had helped crack some difficult cases. “Hello, Nancy,” she said. Nancy thought she could detect a note of uneasiness in the woman’s voice. “Ned said you’d be meeting him here. Could you wait outside the office? There’s a bench over there.”

  As Nancy sat down, she glanced at the half-closed door of the dean’s office. She could glimpse three figures inside. Dean Jarvis, a bear of a man, was sitting at his large wooden desk. She recognized Ned’s tall, broad-shouldered back as he stood facing the desk.

  She could also see the back of the third figure, another man. “But I tell you, Dean, there was only one copy,” he was saying loudly and somewhat hysterically.

  “Now, Professor Tavakolian.” Nancy immediately recognized Dean Jarvis’s resonant voice. “You said it was locked up in your file cabinet—”

  “Yes, and the only time I unlocked that cabinet was on Monday—when Nickerson was in the room,” the professor continued shrilly. “And then again yesterday, Wednesday, to take out the test. Otherwise, my cabinet was locked up tight. But when I went there this morning to get the answer sheet it was missing! He must have stolen it!”

  Then Nancy heard Ned’s voice, sounding baffled. “Why would I want to steal the answers for a freshman English placement test?” he asked. “I’m not a freshman, and I’ve already taken the first-year literature course. What good could it do me to get exempted from it now?”

  The professor snorted loudly. “Don’t think that I don’t know the sort of foul play that goes on around a college campus,” he replied scornfully. “True, you don’t need the answers to help yourself. But,” he continued in a low, angry voice, jabbing his finger close to Ned’s face, “there are lots of freshmen who might have been desperate to see the answers to that test. I believe you stole the answers and sold them. Believe me, Ned Nickerson, you’re not going to get away with it!”

  Chapter

  Two

  NANCY’S HEART began to race. She knew that Ned was honest. How dare this professor accuse him of stealing anything!

  “Let’s not jump to any conclusions, Professor,” Nancy heard Dean Jarvis say. “I can personally vouch for Ned’s integrity.” Then his voice went on in a soothing murmur, and Nancy couldn’t make out his exact words.

  The professor gave a loud hmmph! “I don’t know this young man from Adam,” his voice whined. “I only asked him to photocopy that test!”

  Nancy still couldn’t hear the dean. She leaned forward on the bench, straining to catch his reply.

  “That’s easy for you to say!” the professor exploded. “The test is tainted now. I’ll have to start all over again. I’ll have to create a new exam that the freshmen will have to take again. Then I’ll have to grade it—and all before classes start on Wednesday!”

  “But we’re not sure anything was stolen,” the dean put in. “Just because you can’t find your answer sheet . . .”

  “Dean Jarvis,” the professor said haughtily, “I am beginning to suspect that academic integrity is of no importance to this office. Do you, or do you not, intend to take action in this case?”

  Nancy couldn’t stand by another minute. She hopped up and stood in the doorway. “Hello, Dean Jarvis!” she said brightly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ned’s handsome, square-cut face. He was flushed, whether with anger at Tavakolian or pleasure at seeing her she couldn’t tell. She flashed him a swift pretend-you-don’t-know-me look and he understood immediately.

  “Why, Nancy Drew—” the dean said awkwardly.

  “I happened to be on campus, and I thought I’d drop by to see you,” Nancy said breezily. “Got a mystery for me to solve?”

  The dean continued to stare at Nancy in confusion. She swiveled around and got her first good look at the professor. He was a man of medium height with a chunky build, curly pepper-and-salt hair, and a neat black beard. Despite the hot weather, he wore a rumpled tweed silk jacket over a dark blue polo shirt.

  “Sorry—was I interrupting anything?” Nancy asked innocently.

  Dean Jarvis cleared his throat. “Professor Tavakolian, this is Nancy Drew,” he said. “She’s a talented detective who has helped us solve a number of mysteries on campus.”

  Nancy shook hands with the professor and then turned to Ned and stuck out her hand. “Nancy Drew,” she said, introducing herself.

  Ned’s dark eyes sparkled with amusement and relief. “Ned Nickerson,” he said quietly, trying hard to keep a straight face. As they shook hands, Nancy could see the dean’s baffled expression.

  “A detective, you say?” the professor asked. “Well, it just so happens we do have a problem. Someone has stolen the answer sheet to an important exam.” He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow, then quickly replaced it.

  Nancy glanced at the dean, and she saw understanding dawn in his eyes. “Professor, perhaps you’d like to tell Nancy your story.”

  “I would indeed,” the professor declared, then quickly retold the story Nancy had already heard. Nancy nodded and listened thoughtfully.

  “I’d like to go to your office to check out the scene of the crime,” she suggested when he had finished.

  “Excellent.” Tavakolian beamed. “If you’ll excuse us, Dean?”

  “By all means,” the dean said. But as the professor headed out the door, Dean Jarvis pulled Nancy aside. “Are you sure you know what you’re up to, Nancy?” he whispered.

  “Thanks for not blowing my cover, Dean Jarvis,” she whispered back. “Maybe I can find out if the test was actually stolen or not.”

  The dean nervously glanced at the professor waiting outside the door. “Nancy, I don’t want any complaints about a conflict of interest. You must investigate quietly—Tavakolian doesn’t know Ned is your boyfriend, but lots of people at Emerson do. And after all, Ned is our chief suspect.”

  “But . . . but I thought you said that you didn’t believe Ned did it.” Nancy frowned.

  “I can’t afford to take anything for granted,” the dean replied. “Can I trust you to pursue this truthfully, no matter where it leads?”

  “You can, sir,” Nancy promised, shaking his hand. Then she glanced over at Ned, who was still standing awkwardly by the desk. Their eyes met only for an instant, but they knew each other so well that an instant was all they needed. Without a word, she knew he trusted her, too.

  Drawing a deep breath, Nancy turned and joined the professor in the hallway. They headed for Ivy Hall, an old brick classroom building in the center of campus.

  “I’m an English professor,” the professor told Nancy as they walked. “I teach one o
f Emerson’s core curriculum courses. All Emerson students have to take four courses before they graduate—a world history course, an earth sciences course, a math and computer course, and a literature course, which is the one I teach.

  “I said all students have to take the courses,” he added, “but there are exceptions. During orientation week, freshmen take placement exams in those four subjects. If a student scores well on a specific test, he or she can skip that required course and get extra credit for it.”

  “And it’s the answers for that test you think were stolen,” Nancy said.

  “I know were stolen,” Tavakolian corrected her. “On Monday afternoon I asked the English department office for a student aide to photocopy the test. Apparently all the student aides in the English department were busy, so the department secretary, Ms. Belzer, called the campus jobs office to send over a temporary worker.”

  “Ned Nickerson,” Nancy filled in.

  Tavakolian nodded as he held open the door of Ivy Hall for her. “I had a single copy of the test and the answer sheet on Monday afternoon. I handed Ned the test and asked him to make two hundred copies of it.”

  “You gave him the test only?” Nancy asked.

  “Yes. I left the answer sheet in the file folder, with the computer disk containing the test and the answers,” he replied firmly. “While Ned went to make the copies, I placed the folder on my desk.

  “When he brought the copies back,” he went on, “I put the original copy of the test back in the folder. I laid the folder aside for a minute when I was putting the photocopies in my file drawer. That’s when I think Ned stole the answer sheet. Then I put the folder in my file drawer and I left my office, locking the door.”

  “When did you return next?” Nancy asked.

  “Yesterday morning, Wednesday, at ten-thirty,” he said. “I picked up the copies and took them to the auditorium, where the test was scheduled for eleven o’clock.”

  They were walking down the second-floor hallway when the professor abruptly stopped outside a varnished wood door. F. M. Tavakolian was painted on the door in flaking black paint.