The Vanishing Act Page 10

  He’s leaving us to die! Nancy thought desperately.

  The preview room was soundproof. If there was anyone in the building, he or she couldn’t hear the sound that was slowly draining the life out of Nancy and her friends. Nancy hurt so badly she couldn’t move a muscle.

  But she knew she had to try.

  The electric guitar, Nancy ordered herself. Someone had left it there—she couldn’t remember who. It was still leaning against the wall across the room.

  With torturous slowness Nancy set out to crawl across the floor toward it. She felt like a diver whose last bit of air was gone, but she made herself move until she’d reached the wall.

  Pick up the guitar, she ordered herself. She reached forward—but her hand wouldn’t close.

  Pick it up! she screamed at herself. And this time she did. Staggering, she dragged the guitar over to the sound booth and hoisted it into the air. With all the force she had, she hurled it at the glass separating them from the sound booth. Then she grabbed the window ledge and pulled herself up into the booth.

  Her brain was screaming instructions at her. What switch? What switch? It had to be that one—the red one right in front of her. Feebly Nancy reached forward and flipped it.

  The sound stopped, and a miraculous silence filled the room.

  Nancy let out a long, shaky breath and collapsed into a chair. All she wanted to do was let the quiet soak into her.

  On the floor in the preview room, George and Jesse were slowly uncurling and sitting up. To Nancy, both of them looked as though they were just coming out of a long, wrenching nightmare.

  “Thanks, Nancy,” Jesse said. He cleared his throat. “Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful. I really think that if that sound had gone on for one minute longer, I’d be dead now.”

  “I know I would have been,” said George, and quickly shuddered. “I can’t believe you’ve had to go through this twice, Nancy.” She looked around. “I suppose it’s no good hoping that Tommy Road is still around.”

  “No. He left a few minutes ago,” Nancy said. “I’m sure he didn’t hang around, either. He’s probably off to plan some alibi.”

  “Do you mean he’s going to get away with this?” George asked in horror.

  “No, he’s not,” Nancy answered firmly. “What we need to do is think up a way to trap him. And I think I’ve got a perfect idea. Tommy Road has never seen Bess, has he? Well, then . . .”

  • • •

  Winslow Thomas’s press conference at the Wilshire Hotel was attended by everyone who was anyone. The dozens of reporters packed into the room listened attentively as he described his feelings about Jesse Slade’s return.

  “To put it simply, I couldn’t be more delighted,” he said, “both for the music world and for TVR. This is a bloke with a tremendous talent who hasn’t even begun to tap his potential in music videos. We’re going to do great things together.”

  “Do you know Slade personally?” one reporter asked.

  The flicker of a frown passed across Mr. Thomas’s face and quickly vanished. “Of course I do,” he said sincerely. “He’s a fabulous, fabulous person. It wouldn’t be putting it too strongly to say I love him.”

  “What about his legal problems, Mr. Thomas?” another reporter asked. “Will he be charged in Tommy Road’s disappearance?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, that problem doesn’t exist,” Mr. Thomas said graciously. “Of course we’ll do all we can to help him if he needs help, but we’re not interested in dragging up the past here. It’s much more important to—”

  “He’s dead! Jesse’s dead!” came a heartbroken wail from the doorway.

  There was a gasp of shock. Everyone turned to see Bess standing by the door. Her face was contorted with grief and terror, and she was shaking from head to foot.

  “They’re all dead,” she sobbed. “I—I went over to TVR, and they were all lying dead in one little room! Oh, Jesse!” And she burst into fresh tears.

  It was Winslow Thomas’s finest hour. As he listened to Bess, he actually grew white. Horror seemed to shrink him in his clothes. He groped blindly behind him for a chair and sank into it.

  “What—what happened?” he asked hoarsely. “What do you mean, he’s dead? How can that be?”

  Bess wiped her eyes. All the cameras in the room were focused on her now.

  “I—I went to TVR to pick up two friends,” she choked out. “I couldn’t find them anywhere, so I started looking up and down the hall. And in one of the rooms at the end, I—oh, it was too horrible!” She buried her face in her hands for a minute while the cameras clicked avidly. “I saw my friends and Jesse just lying there in a pool of broken glass!”

  “Mr. Thomas” was clearly stricken. He rose tremblingly to his feet.

  “Because of the tragic circumstances,” he almost whispered, “I’d like to end this press conference immediately.”

  There was a murmur of sympathy through the room. Mr. Thomas tried to walk toward the door, but shock had made his legs too weak. Two men sprang to his aid, and—leaning heavily on their shoulders, the very image of a broken man—he staggered toward the door.

  “Hi, Tommy,” said Nancy breezily as she, George, and Jesse walked in right in front of him.

  “Jesse!” It was a strangled scream—and Nancy knew that this time Tommy’s horror was real.

  “You’re not here. You’re not,” he babbled. “None of you. No one could survive a noise like that—I made sure of it. You’re dead. You’ve got to be dead.”

  “Why, Tommy,” Jesse protested in a syrupy voice, “don’t you know that it would take more than a little rock ‘n’ roll to kill me? What do you take me for?”

  Tommy Road just stared at him, transfixed. Then, for the first time, he realized that all the cameras in the room were still rolling. Screaming, he turned to run.

  But he wasn’t quick enough. Nancy tackled him like a ton of bricks—and the reporters were there to catch every detail.

  Chapter

  Seventeen

  SO TOMMY ROAD has confessed to everything?” Dan Kennedy asked.

  It was the day after the press conference. Nancy, Bess, and George were entertaining a few visitors in their bungalow. Renee Stanley and Vint Wylie were sitting next to each other on the sofa. Dan Kennedy was lounging comfortably on the floor. And Jesse Slade was sitting in an easy chair that supported his bandaged arm.

  Even with the bandages, Jesse already looked like a different person. It wasn’t only that he’d shaved and bought himself some new clothes. “If I’m going to pick up where I left off, I need to dress the part,” he’d told Nancy. And Bess had had a wonderful time helping him shop. It was more a change in his expression. He no longer seemed beaten, lost, and withdrawn. Now he looked calm, relaxed, and confident. As George had teasingly told him, his star quality was back.

  “Yes,” Nancy told Dan. “He confessed to everything. Including spreading rumors at TVR that I was a spy from a rival video station.”

  “I sure fell for that one,” said Renee, wincing. “He came in the night before I met you, Nancy, and told me that he’d hired you as a guest veejay because he thought that would be the best way to keep you from finding anything out. In fact, he ordered me to keep you from finding out anything. He told me it was fine to give you a hard time on the job—and he also told me to keep him posted on your schedule. It wasn’t my fault that you’re so quick on your feet.” She smiled at Nancy, and Nancy smiled back.

  “I’d kept wondering why Mr. Thomas insisted on making me go undercover and made me promise not to tell anyone,” Nancy said. “Now I know that it was because he didn’t want anyone to notice that his story and mine were so different. And now I know why everyone seemed so unfriendly that first day!”

  “Did he plant that phony package for you, too?” asked Bess.

  “Yes. Mr. Thomas—I mean Tommy—managed to drop it off without the receptionist seeing, and then picked it up when she was off making the copies he’d asked her t
o do. While I was trying to track it down, he wired my car stereo.”

  Bess shivered. “I can’t believe how lucky you were, Nan. What if you’d been driving on the freeway when that noise started up? You could have been killed!”

  “Believe me, I thought of that,” Nancy said dryly. “So could a lot of other people—but Tommy didn’t care about that. He’s really charming.”

  “What happens to him now?” George asked.

  “Well, he’ll be charged with embezzlement, of course,” Nancy said, “and attempted murder. You know, he’s claiming there’s no evidence linking him to that little scene in the preview room. He’s so convincing that I’d almost believe him myself. It’s lucky he spilled the beans in front of a roomful of reporters.”

  “What about TVR?” Bess asked, and Dan smiled.

  “I got the news about that this morning,” he said. “Winslow’s—I mean Tommy’s—second-in-command will take over. She’s really great. And I’ve been promoted, too—to head veejay.”

  “Congratulations!” Renee said, and she sounded as though she meant it. “That’s great. It will be fun to work for you.”

  She cleared her throat nervously. “Nancy, you know I owe you an apology—but at least I behaved badly to you because I thought you were out to sabotage the station. But there’s another person here who deserves an apology, too. Jesse—I don’t know what to say.”

  “I don’t, either,” said Vint. “We’re just really sorry, Jesse. We didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “That’s why I freaked out so much when I heard that you were still alive,” Renee said. “I couldn’t stand thinking that you’d find out I’d started seeing Vint. It seemed like one of those horribly sad movies where the hero goes to war or something, and when he gets back his girlfriend has married someone else . . .” She took out a tissue and blew her nose.

  “Don’t think about it,” Jesse said. “It’s all past tense now. You’re two of my favorite people, and I’m glad you’re together. Besides, my life-style for the past few years hasn’t exactly been the kind of thing I’d want to make a girl share.

  “Anyway, now that I’m going back into the rock-star biz I’ll have lots of money again. And I’ll be able to date all kinds of incredible girls,” he added teasingly—then dodged as Renee hurled a throw pillow at his head.

  “What are you planning to do, Nancy?” Renee asked.

  “Oh, we’re heading home,” Nancy told her.

  “You know, you don’t have to leave right away,” said Dan. “I found out something interesting just before I came over here. It seems that guest-veejay interview you did was a big hit. We’ve been getting a lot of calls about it—everyone wants to see you on TVR again. Any chance you’d consider taking a job with us?”

  “You’re kidding!” Nancy gasped. “Me, a veejay? That’s great! I mean, it’s a great compliment. But, Dan, I’m a detective. I like being a detective. I like my life in River Heights. Thanks, though.”

  “Well, couldn’t the three of you stay a little longer just for a vacation?” Dan asked. “As head veejay, I have an even bigger expense account now. I’d be more than happy to put you up at the hotel a little longer. And I could make some time to show you the sights, too.”

  Nancy looked at Bess and George. They all shook their heads.

  “It’s a tempting offer. Maybe we could take you up on it in a couple of months. But I want to go home for now,” George said. “All I seem to do is sit in cars here.”

  “I’d love to come back here someday, but I want to go home, too,” said Bess. “But I’ll watch you every day, Dan. And Jesse, I expect you to write at least one song about all this.”

  He smiled at her. “It’ll be dedicated to you, Bess,” he said, and Bess giggled happily.

  “I have to go home, too,” said Nancy. “I miss Ned too much—and besides, there are sure to be other cases waiting for me back in River Heights.”

  “But they won’t be as glamorous as this one was, will they?” Renee teased her.

  “I hope not!” Nancy said fervently. “I’ve had enough of the glamorous music world to last me a lifetime. From now on, I’m sticking to plain, ordinary, uncomplicated everyday life.”

  But no one in the room believed her for a second.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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