The Cheating Heart Read online

  Looking around as she gasped for breath, Nancy saw no sign of Annie or Brook. And there was no one else around, either.

  “Let’s hope Brook was smart enough not to come,” Nancy muttered. But she had a feeling that Brook, blinded by her infatuation with Paul, would have fallen for Annie’s ruse.

  Nancy pulled open the glass door and went in. Just inside the entrance was a small carpeted vestibule, with three turnstiles blocking the way to the main reading room beyond.

  A bored-looking guard sat yawning on a chair by the turnstiles. As Nancy began to charge through, the guard looked up. “Library’s about to close,” she drawled.

  Nancy wheeled around, frustrated. “It’s an emergency,” she panted.

  “Can I see your ID?” the guard asked.

  “I’m not an Emerson student,” Nancy protested, “but please—someone may be in danger! Call Dean Jarvis—he’ll vouch for me.” She gave the guard the dean’s home number. “It’s okay to call him at home,” she urged when the guard acted reluctant to help.

  The guard picked up a black phone, dialed a number, and waited briefly.

  She looked apologetically at Nancy. “The line’s busy,” she reported.

  It must be Ned on the phone with the dean, Nancy thought, groaning inwardly. “Please try again!” she begged. “He’ll be off in a minute.”

  The guard nodded and patiently dialed again. This time, there was an answer. “Dean, this is Imelda at the library,” she said. “I’ve got a girl here—” She looked up at Nancy. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Nancy Drew!”

  “Nancy Drew,” the guard repeated. “And she says—What? . . . Oh, yes, sir. Thanks.” The guard stared at Nancy with sudden respect as she hung up the phone. “He says you can go anywhere you want.”

  “Thanks!” Nancy pivoted and raced on into the main reading room, which had high ceilings and was brightly lit. Bookcases ran around all four sides, while the room’s interior was occupied by two rows of long tables, hard-backed chairs, and a few clusters of upholstered chairs. Only a few students sat around, and they were packing up to leave. With one careful sweep of her eyes, Nancy could tell that Brook and Annie weren’t there.

  She sprinted into a small side room, lined with rows and rows of wooden drawers, which held an immense card catalog. No one was there.

  Tiny prickles of fear ran up Nancy’s spine—she was beginning to feel desperate. Running to the far side of the reading room, past the long checkout desk, she noticed another room that was full of magazines and newspapers. No one was in there, either.

  Nancy stood in the doorway, willing herself to calm down and think clearly. The library was a big building—she’d never find them if she darted around at random. Maybe, if she thought, she could figure out where they would be.

  Then it came to her—the stacks!; They were completely hidden from sight, an ideal place for a person crazed with revenge to take a victim. But there were several floors of stacks. Which level would they be on?

  The entrance to the stacks was a small open doorway next to the checkout desk. Nancy jogged over there and studied a small floor plan posted by the doorway.

  Ned’s carrel, she knew, was on the third level, with the political science books. But Brook was an English major. If she had a carrel, it would be with the English books. Nancy studied the floor plan. It told her that the English books were down on the first level, deep underground.

  Just beyond the doorway, a metal spiral staircase led down into the stacks, twisting like a corkscrew into the depths. Nancy headed for the stairs. Holding on to the central post with one hand, she swung down the spiral, going as fast as she could on the narrow metal steps.

  She was dizzy by the time she reached the bottom level. It was dimly lit, with only a few bulbs along the long central aisle. Nancy peered down the seemingly endless rows of bookshelves. She couldn’t see anybody, but she had a sense that someone was there.

  Nancy moved as quietly as she could, glad that she happened to be wearing her rubber-soled cross-trainer shoes. With all her senses on alert, she went toward the far end of the aisle.

  Then a tiny scuffling sound to her left caught her attention. Nancy turned and caught a glimpse of hot pink—the color of the T-shirt Brook had been wearing earlier.

  Just then an electric bell began to chime for closing time. Nancy heard hard-soled shoes clanking down the metal steps. She ducked into a narrow space left between two of the sliding bookcases on their long tracks. If the librarians alerted Annie to her presence, she feared that Annie might get spooked and hurt Brook.

  The faint scuffling at the far end of the bookcases stopped, too.

  A librarian strode briskly down the aisle, then headed back toward the stairs. As she reached the spiral stairs again, Nancy heard her flick a switch.

  The stacks were plunged into darkness.

  Nancy groped her way toward the section of bookshelves where she’d seen Brook’s shirt. As she got closer, she heard muffled grunting and thrashing about.

  Digging into her purse, Nancy pulled out her pocket flashlight. Stealthily, she squeezed around the far end of the bookshelves, into a back aisle lined with carrels.

  Now she heard more distinct grunts and a sharp bang as someone knocked against a nearby carrel’s steel partition. Judging the direction carefully, Nancy snapped on her flashlight.

  The light caught two struggling figures. As they froze in the sudden glare, Nancy could see Annie, clutching Brook’s head with one hand. With the other hand, she held a sharp paring knife at Brook’s throat!

  Nancy flashed her light in Annie’s face, momentarily blinding her. She spoke in a low, firm voice. “Annie, let her go.”

  Annie only stiffened and tightened her grip on Brook. “No!” she snarled. “She stole my boyfriend. Now I’m going to make sure she never steals another boy again.”

  Brook yanked her mouth away from Annie’s smothering hand. “What are you talking about?” Brook burst out. “You were never dating Paul. He barely knows who you are!”

  Annie’s eyes glittered feverishly in response to Brook’s words. Nancy gestured to Brook to remain quiet.

  “Annie, what did you have in mind?” Nancy asked, still in a calm, low voice.

  Annie pressed her arm across Brook’s windpipe and pushed the knife up under Brook’s chin. “I’m going to slice up her face, so that no guy will ever be interested in her again,” she replied without pity.

  Just then, loud voices and pounding footsteps were heard from the next level up. “Annie, they’re coming for us,” Nancy said, hoping she was speaking the truth. “I asked Ned to bring in the campus police if I didn’t meet him outside at nine-thirty. The game is up—let her go.”

  Annie hesitated for a moment. Momentarily gathering her strength, Brook knocked Annie’s knife hand away and dove into the narrow aisle between a nearby pair of bookshelves.

  As the footsteps came clattering down the metal steps, Annie whirled around and moved suddenly out of sight. Nancy heard her dodge into another space between some shelves, a few rows farther along.

  Nancy turned and shone her light into the aisle where Brook lay, dazed and shaken. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” Nancy urged Brook. She scurried into the aisle and knelt down to pull her friend to her feet.

  But just then, the two girls heard a nearby creak of metal wheels. Annie was cranking the heavy bookshelves along the tracks, moving the shelves toward them.

  Rolling along, the steel shelves were quickly picking up momentum. In a moment’s time they would crush Nancy and Brook!

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  THERE WASN’T TIME to get out of the way. As the heavy bookshelf began to roll toward them, Nancy scrambled up from her knees. She wedged her hips against the shelves in back of her. Her weight was pushing them slowly backward.

  Groping for the approaching shelf with both hands, Nancy straightened her arms and braced herself. In an instant her shoulders were slamme
d back against the shelves behind her, but she kept her arms locked and straight.

  By now, Brook had recovered somewhat and was staggering to her feet. She shoved her shoulder against the moving shelf, jamming a foot against the shelves behind her. In the darkness the two girls strained to keep a space open between the heavy rolling shelves.

  Just then, the searchers coming down the stairs found the light switch. The dim lights snapped back on. “Nan, where are you?” she heard Ned call out.

  “Over here!” Brook shouted.

  “Left side!” Nancy added.

  The shelf behind the girls jolted to a stop. The bookshelves had rolled until there were no open spaces left in that direction. Now it was only Nancy and Brook’s combined strength that kept the shelf in front of them from squashing them.

  The searchers were still far down the aisle, but their footsteps pounded closer.

  Then the shelf the girls were pushing against was suddenly released. Nancy and Brook tumbled to the floor as the shelves swung away from them.

  Nancy looked up just in time to see Annie dash along the side aisle, heading for the exit.

  Nancy leapt to her feet and chased Annie. “Ned, block the stairs!” Nancy called out.

  “Got it!” she heard Ned call from the center aisle, while footsteps hammered back toward the stairs.

  Though the side aisle was almost dark, Nancy could see Annie’s figure at the end. Annie swung around the far corner, out of sight.

  Then Nancy heard Annie’s sneakers squeak to a stop on the linoleum floor. Annie’s voice cried out, “Paul!”

  Racing around the corner of the shelves, Nancy saw Annie facing Paul DiToma. The knife still gleaming in her grasp, she swayed warily from side to side, as though she might spring at any minute.

  “Calm down, Annie,” Paul said in a soft, soothing voice. “Drop the knife. Everything’s going to be okay now.”

  Annie’s shoulders heaved with emotion. “How could you possibly love Brook instead of me?” she cried. “I’ve been true to you for almost two years now. She’ll never love you the way I do.”

  Peering over Annie’s head, Paul gave Nancy a perplexed, shocked look. But he didn’t lose his cool. “Why, I haven’t really had a chance to get to know you yet, Annie,” he said gently. He held out a hand. “If you’ll just give me that knife, maybe we can go have some tea at the student center. It’d be nice to sit and talk awhile.”

  Annie stood still for a long moment, staring at Paul. Then, with a sob, she dropped the knife onto the floor.

  Paul stepped forward and put his arm around Annie. She collapsed, weeping, against his chest. He led her gently toward the stairs.

  Nancy scooped up the knife from the floor, then followed Annie and Paul to the center aisle.

  All the way down the aisle, Nancy saw Ned standing with a protective arm around Brook. A pair of campus security officers waited beside them. They all seemed to understand that, for the moment, Annie was best left alone with Paul.

  Paul went up the spiral stairs first, drawing Annie gently by the hand after him. “Do you remember that night at Ryan Kelly’s party?” she asked him in a wistful voice.

  “Uh, sure I do,” Paul answered softly. “But why don’t you refresh my memory?”

  “I was sitting on the sofa,” Annie recalled dreamily. “And you came over and asked me what kind of dip was on the table, by the corn chips. And I said it was salsa, and you said . . .” Her voice grew faint as they climbed upstairs.

  One of the security officers pulled out his walkie-talkie and radioed to two more officers posted outside. “A boy will be bringing the perpetrator outdoors in a minute,” he alerted his fellow officers. “He seems to have her under control. Can you take them to the infirmary?”

  “Will do,” the officer outside radioed back.

  “Dr. Singh is waiting at the infirmary,” the officer explained to Nancy, Brook, and Ned. “He’ll keep her there overnight for observation. Why don’t you three head on back to your rooms?”

  “Gladly,” Ned said. “I think we could all use a good night’s rest.”

  • • •

  “I really owe you an apology,” Professor Tavakolian said to Ned the next morning in Dean Jarvis’s office. “I was so certain my answer key had been stolen, I guess I needed a scapegoat.”

  “Well, if you hadn’t filed that answer key in the wrong drawer, we would never have asked Nancy to investigate this case,” Dean Jarvis pointed out. “And then we wouldn’t have learned that Annie Mercer needed help.”

  “I’m just sorry I didn’t discover her story earlier,” Nancy said. “Brook could have been seriously hurt by any of Annie’s acts.”

  “Well, Annie will be leaving Emerson now,” the dean explained. “Her parents have come to take her home, where she’ll get the psychiatric help she needs. Maybe in a year or two she’ll be ready to try college again, though I don’t think she’ll want to return to Emerson.”

  “Even if she could get in, with her grade average,” Ned added.

  The dean shook his head. “She wanted so much to be smart—like her twin sister. And she wanted to go to Emerson so badly, she took a shortcut to make sure she’d get in. Apparently she’d begun to lose touch with reality a long time before she arrived on campus.”

  “By the way, Dean, what happened with Steve Groff and Carrie Yu?” Nancy asked.

  “Steve and Carrie have been placed on academic probation,” Dean Jarvis reported. “And Steve has also been suspended from the swim team for a year. But I didn’t expel them—they’re both basically good kids. They just couldn’t resist the temptation of an easy high grade. Getting a good score became more important to them than learning. I guess this incident shows all of us that we need to downplay academic competition—some students can really crack under the pressure.”

  “I’m throwing out the results of the multiple-choice section of the test,” Professor Tavakolian said. “Students will be judged solely on the basis of the essay questions, which I finished scoring this morning.”

  “And what were the results?” Nancy asked him.

  “No surprises,” the professor said, smiling. “Linda Corrente and Gary Carlsen both got top scores. Tom Mallin’s was not quite good enough to place out of the literature course. After all, he tried to learn about literature by cramming for a few days—he didn’t really read all the books, like Linda and Gary did. You can’t force-feed that kind of knowledge.”

  “So Tom, Carrie, and Steve will have to take the required literature course after all,” Dean Jarvis said. “That’s not so horrible.”

  “Actually, I remember that that class was kind of fun,” Ned declared.

  “You, Ned?” Nancy teased him. “Calling an English class fun?”

  Laughing, the dean shook Nancy’s and Ned’s hands and showed them to his office door. As they walked out, Nancy saw a middle-aged couple on the bench outside. Next to them sat Annie Mercer.

  Nancy met Annie’s eyes, but the blond girl didn’t even seem to recognize her. She’s really snapped, Nancy thought, with a shiver.

  Then the girl turned to her mother. “When will they let us see Annie, Mom?” she asked.

  “After we talk to the dean, we can pick her up at the infirmary, Rona,” Mrs. Mercer replied.

  So the girl on the bench wasn’t Annie—it was her twin sister. Nancy walked on, feeling goose bumps prickle on her skin. It was uncanny how much the two of them looked alike.

  Ned walked Nancy back to the Omega Chi Epsilon house. Her blue Mustang was parked by the curb outside, ready for the drive home. Brook sat on the hood, and Paul leaned against the fender.

  “There’s only one thing that bothers me about your solving this case, Drew,” Ned said as he and she walked up to her car.

  “What’s that, Nickerson?” she asked.

  “It means that you’ll be leaving Emerson.” He gave her nose a playful poke.

  “But you know, Nan,” said Brook, “there’s always room for you at T
heta Pi. That is, if you ever have any reason to come back to visit.”

  “Oh, I just might find a reason.” Nancy smiled meaningfully at Ned.

  “Well, I’m glad I got a chance to meet you, Nancy,” Paul said, reaching out to shake her hand. “I have you to thank for introducing me to Brook—and for keeping Brook from being hurt by Annie.”

  “What else are friends for?” Nancy replied. Then she turned to Brook and gave her a big hug.

  “Me next,” Ned interrupted. Nancy turned to Ned and slipped into his comforting arms. “You know I hate mushy goodbye scenes,” he said lightly. “So let’s just say, ‘See you later.’ ”

  “See you later,” Nancy echoed. He brushed her forehead with a kiss and let her go. With one last wave, she climbed into her car, switched on the motor, and pulled away.

  Nancy was fine until she reached the edge of campus. Then her eyes welled up with tears. Brushing them impatiently away, she tried to concentrate on her driving.

  But just as she turned onto the highway that led to River Heights, she noticed from the corner of her eye a plain white sheet of paper, folded in half and tossed on her dashboard.

  With a shiver, Nancy remembered all the anonymous notes she’d seen lately. A vision of Annie Mercer’s demented scrawl flashed in her memory. Nervously, she picked up the note. With one eye on the road, she flipped the paper open.

  Dear Nan,

  Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell you these things in person. I wasn’t very understanding when you were trying to solve this case. I accused you of not having faith in me, when I didn’t have faith in you. Can you forgive me?

  Glancing up at the road, Nancy whispered to herself, Yes, Ned, of course I forgive you.

  Then she read on:

  I know the answer is yes, because I know you love me. And you’d better come back to Emerson soon, so I can show you how much I love you, too.

  With all my heart,

  Ned

  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.