163 The Clues Challenge Page 3
been spiked.”
When they got back to their table a few minutes
later, George, Grant, C.J., and Dede were all drinking
coffee.
“You're back.” C.J. grinned up at them as he stirred
sugar into his coffee. “We were starting to think you
decided to make a whole new dessert yourselves. What
happened?”
His smile faded as Nancy and Ned told them about
the tablets. “Whoa!” C.J. glanced around the room in
disbelief. “You're sure someone spiked our dessert? I
mean, you still don't know what those pills are, right?”
“We can't be positive until someone identifies
them,” Nancy admitted.
“There's a twenty-four-hour pharmacy off Main
Street,” Ned put in. “We can go there tonight.”
“And in the meantime . . .” Nancy thrummed her
fingers on the table. “We have to think about who had
the opportunity to—”
She broke off talking as her gaze landed on Dennis
Garcia. Dennis, Philip, and Jake were sitting at the
same table as Krista, Rosie, and some of the other girls
from Kappa Rho.
“Hmm,” Nancy murmured, half to herself. “Do you
guys remember seeing Dennis standing in the hallway
near the alcove?”
George turned, following Nancy's gaze. “Definitely,”
she said. “I saw him there while Mr. Lorenzo was
talking. You think he spiked our food?”
Nancy started to answer, then stopped when she saw
Dennis get up to walk out.
“I'm going to talk to him,” she said. She jumped to
her feet and caught up to him as he was pulling his
black parka from the coat rack.
“Leaving so soon?” she asked.
Dennis shrugged. “Might as well head back to the
frat and turn in,” he said.
“I saw you standing over here before,” Nancy
commented. “I was wondering if you saw anything
unusual when the dessert was being served.”
“Such as?” Dennis asked.
Nancy held up the plastic bag containing the
crushed tablets. “Someone put these pills on our
dessert,” she told him. “I think whoever did it was
trying to make sure the Omega team won't be in peak
shape.”
Nancy watched Dennis's face closely. But if he was
the one who had spiked their dessert, he showed no
sign of it. He looked blankly at the pills.
“Give me a break,” he said. “What is this, C.J.'s way
of drumming up hot material for that Sports World
article?”
“C.J. isn't like that,” Nancy said. Turning the con-
versation back to Dennis, she asked, “Are you taking
any medication for your shoulder injury?”
He angled a sharp look at her. “I don't need tricks to
get the best of C. J. Thompson,” he insisted. “When
the Clues Challenge is over, there's going to be only
one champion—me.”
Nancy was going to remind him that it was a team
competition. Dennis didn't stick around to listen,
though. Zipping up his parka, he headed for the exit.
Hmm, thought Nancy. Dennis obviously thought of
the Clues Challenge as a personal contest between
himself and C.J. How far would he go to win?
* * *
“So Dennis thinks we set up the whole crushed-pills
incident just to spice up Randy's article about C.J.?”
Grant said, after Nancy returned to the table and told
them what had happened.
“That's ridiculous!” Dede said hotly. “But. . .” She
turned to face C.J., her eyes flashing with uncertainty.
“Shouldn't we tell Mr. Lorenzo what happened? If
someone is trying to sabotage your team, he should
know about it.”
Glancing across the room, Nancy saw Mel Lorenzo.
He was still at the table with Joy and some of the other
Deltas. As Nancy watched, Joy, cool and confident as
ever, leaned close and spoke into his ear. Mr.
Lorenzo's expression changed. He shifted uneasily in
his chair as Joy spoke to him, and kept checking his
watch.
He doesn't seem like a super-smooth salesman now,
thought Nancy.
“What could she be saying to him?” George said.
“I don't know, but Mr. Lorenzo doesn't seem happy
about it,” Nancy said.
The change in him was so curious that Nancy tem-
porarily forgot her own reason for wanting to talk to
him. She watched, puzzled, as Mr. Lorenzo squirmed
in his chair. After a few moments he said something to
Joy, gave a curt nod, and got up and left.
“Hmmm.” Nancy frowned as her eyes jumped back
to Joy. “Now she's leaving—by herself.”
Ned sipped some coffee, looking over his cup at Joy.
“You think she's up to something?” he asked.
“She sounds so confident that the Deltas are going
to win the Clues Challenge,” Nancy said, thinking out
loud. “Maybe that's because she's doing something to
make sure they win.”
In that instant she made up her mind. “I'm going to
follow her.”
“I'll go with you,” George said right away.
“Okay,” Ned agreed. “Grant and I will take the pills
to the pharmacy. We can all meet back at the frat.”
“Do you see her?” George whispered to Nancy a few
minutes later.
Nancy paused at the beginning of the snow-covered
path that led back toward Emerson College. She and
George had left the Eatery in time to see Joy turn onto
the path. Now that they were at the path themselves,
though, Nancy couldn't see Joy.
Globe street lamps stretched along the path, each
surrounded by a pool of yellow light. “One of the lights
is out,” Nancy whispered back, staring into the
blackness. “Maybe . . . Yes!”
A figure moved out of the shadows and back into the
lighted part of the path. Nancy recognized Joy's blond
hair and quick, purposeful stride at once. “That's her.
Let's go!”
She and George kept about fifty feet behind Joy. For
several minutes all Nancy could hear was the crunching
of their boots on the snow. She didn't see Mr. Lorenzo
anywhere. Joy walked alone, carrying her backpack
slung over one shoulder.
“Shouldn't Joy turn left up there to get to her
sorority?” George whispered.
Up ahead, Nancy spotted the path that forked left to
the West Campus. Nancy could see the lights of the
sorority and fraternity houses. Joy had walked past the
turnoff and continued toward the main campus.
“Maybe she's going to the Student Center,” Nancy
whispered, nodding toward an enormous, brightly lit
building set at the edge of the lake. Plenty of other
students were headed in that direction. Instead Joy
veered right, down a side path that was lined on both
sides with tall oaks.
“She's going to the Academic Quad?” George asked,
gazing ahead at the brick buildings that rose out of the
s
now around a square courtyard. “At ten o'clock on the
night before the Clues Challenge?” Even in the
darkness George's doubt was clear.
She and Nancy picked up their pace. As they drew
closer, Nancy could make out the gothic arches and
corner turrets of the buildings. At one corner of the
quad a bell tower loomed four stories high. A lantern
outside the entrance of the tower illuminated a stone
archway and stairs that circled upward along the inside
wall.
“Hold it.” Nancy grabbed George's arm as Joy
stopped outside the arched doorway of the tower.
“Quick! Duck out of sight.”
She and George climbed over a snowdrift and
crouched behind one of the oak trees. When Nancy
peered around the trunk, she saw that Joy was still at
the foot of the bell tower. She was checking in every
direction before dropping her backpack to the ground,
unzipping it, and reaching inside.
“What's she doing?” George wondered aloud.
Joy stopped suddenly, her head whipped toward the
oak tree where Nancy and George were hiding. Nancy
froze, thankful for the darkness and the winter wind
that whistled through the trees. A moment later Joy
bent back over her pack, rummaging inside it.
“The Clues Challenge starts right here in less than
twelve hours,” Nancy whispered. “If Joy is here now—”
She broke off as a faint noise from somewhere be-
hind her and George caught her attention. She turned
her head, listening carefully. After a moment she heard
it again—the crunching of boots on snow.
“Someone else is coming,” George hissed, whirling
around. “Back there!”
It sounded as if the person was nearby but they
didn't see anyone. And the trees lining the path
blocked much of their view.
“Come on!” Nancy mouthed, picking her way over
the snow as quietly as she could. “I want to see—”
All of a sudden George let out a gasp, and Nancy
turned in time to see George stumble forward. She fell
against Nancy, sending both of them flying.
“I tripped on a rock!” George whispered, struggling
to find her balance in the snow.
Nancy scrambled until she found her footing and
pushed herself back to her feet. “Oh, no,” she said,
cocking her head to one side to listen.
The pounding sounds of boots on snow were faster
now, and they were getting fainter and fainter. “The
person's running away.”
Nancy ran back down the path several yards,
whipping her head left and right. “Where are you?” she
said under her breath. But the footsteps had already
faded. Between the darkness and the trees, Nancy
didn't see anyone.
“Whoever it was is gone,” she said, letting out a sigh.
“I just hope Joy didn't hear. . . .”
“Too late for that,” a voice spoke up right next to
Nancy and George.
Joy stood on the path right next to them. Her hands
were poised on the hips of her red parka, and her
backpack was slung over one shoulder. In her eyes was
an ice-cold glare that swept over Nancy and George
like an arctic blast.
“Take some advice and quit following me,” Joy said
coolly. “If you don't, you'll be sorry.”
4. You’ll Be Sorry
Nancy faced Joy squarely. “I'm sorry if we scared you,”
Nancy said. “It's just that . . .” Now that she and
George had been discovered, she decided to be direct.
“We think someone may be trying to rig the Clues
Challenge.”
“You mean, cheat?” Joy's expression remained cool.
“Someone put some crushed pills on our dessert
tonight,” George said. “Plus, we're pretty sure someone
sent Mr. Lorenzo a threatening message telling him to
hand over the answers to the challenge.”
Joy tightened her grip on her backpack strap and
stared down her nose at Nancy and George. “What
does that have to do with me?” she asked
“We're just trying to make sure the Clues Challenge
gets off to a fair start,” Nancy said. “We saw you talking
to Mr. Lorenzo, and—”
“So you decided to follow me? How fair is that?” Joy
snapped.
“You have to admit, this is a weird place to be, so
late at night,” George said, picking her way over the
snow to join Nancy and Joy on the path. “Were you
meeting someone?”
Joy pressed her mouth into a tight line. Her eyes
flew over the snowy landscape, as if she were searching
for answers in the night shadows. Finally she faced
Nancy and George once more and said, “What I do is
none of your business. Period.”
Shooting one last glare at them, Joy turned and
walked back down the path toward the West Campus.
George brushed the snow from her parka and jeans,
staring after Joy. “Well, she's not going to win any Miss
Congeniality awards.”
“We obviously got in the way of something, and she
didn't like it,” Nancy said. “Too bad she heard us
before we could figure out what it was.”
As they headed back toward Ned's frat, they saw Joy
ahead of them. Her silhouette moved farther and
farther away, until it disappeared down the path to the
West Campus. Just as Nancy and George were turning
onto the path themselves, they spotted two familiar
figures walking toward them from town.
“Ned! Grant!” Nancy waved, stopping to wait where
the path forked off.
“We found out what the pills are,” Ned said, holding
up the plastic bag of white tablets. “Comptamine.”
George stared at him blankly. “Run that by me
again, only in English this time?” she asked.
“It's a muscle relaxant,” Grant explained. “The
pharmacist told us it's used to control pain and muscle
spasms resulting from injuries.”
“Say, shoulder injuries?” Nancy inquired. She
slipped her hand into the crook of Ned's arm as they
continued toward the West Campus.
Ned nodded. “Shoulder, neck, back . . . that kind of
thing. The pharmacist says we're lucky no one ate the
stuff. Comptamine has a tranquilizing effect, so it
probably would have made us sluggish in the Clues
Challenge.”
“Wow,” said Nancy. “So whoever put that stuff in
our tiramisu really was trying to slow us down.”
While they walked, Nancy and George told Ned and
Grant about their run-in with Joy. When they were
done, Grant let out a whistle that echoed in the cold
night air.
“Joy must have been meeting the other person you
heard—the one who ran away,” he said. “And I bet
they were up to something underhanded. Why else
would the other person run away like that?”
“Do you think she was meeting Dennis?” Ned asked.
“Maybe,” Nancy said. “But why would he and Joy
meet on the sly? T
hey're not even on the same team,”
she said. She blew out a cloud of breath, thinking.
“Still, we should try to find out what medication
Dennis took for his injury. And what he and Joy know
about computers.”
“Plus, we should tell Mr. Lorenzo about the pills,”
George added. “Maybe he'll tell us what Joy said to
him that made him so uncomfortable.”
“Most of all,” Grant said, angling a warning glance at
George, Nancy and Ned, “we'd better watch our steps.
Whoever spiked that dessert means business.”
Nancy shivered involuntarily. She was glad to see
the green-and-white banner that hung over the front
door of Omega Chi Epsilon a minute later.
“I'll drive you and George back to Centennial,” Ned
offered.
He stomped over a pile of snow to the curb, where
his sedan was parked. Nancy stayed where she was.
She glanced down the row of fraternities, toward a guy
who was headed up the front walk a few buildings
down from Omega Chi Epsilon.
“Isn't that Dennis?” she said.
“Looks like him.” Ned glanced up, then unlocked
and opened the passenger door. “I guess he just got
back from the Eatery.”
Nancy went to the car, slipped in the front seat, and
moved over to make room for George. “But Dennis left
the restaurant an hour ago,” she said. “He told me he
was going straight back to the frat to sleep.”
“Hmm,” George said. Her breath clouded up the
windshield as she leaned forward to watch Dennis
disappear inside Sigma Pi. “I guess he took a detour.”
“Yeah. But where?” Nancy wondered. “And why did
he lie about it?”
“Remind me why I volunteered to get up before it's
even light out on a freezing cold Saturday morning?”
George yawned, stomping her boots on the packed
snow as she and Nancy walked toward the bell tower.
Nancy laughed. “What happened to being psyched
about the ultimate physical challenge?” she asked.
“It's hard to get psyched about anything until I've
had breakfast,” George said. “Ned said he was going to
bring us some, right?”
“Yup. Tea and muffins.” Nancy eyed the ribbons of
pale yellow light that began to brighten the horizon. “I
hope he gets here soon. The Clues Challenge starts in
less than twenty minutes.”
Small groups tromped toward the bell tower. Some
people were already there, stretching or jumping up