Danger in Disguise Read online

  “Something to get us through to the front.”

  She gestured at the partition between the seats. They had to get to the controls up there. The doors and windows were electrically controlled, and the controls had to be in the front.

  Bess had taken off her shoes and was pounding on the back and side windows with them. It was a futile gesture, but Nancy didn’t tell her that. She’d seen the tears streaming down her friend’s face and knew they weren’t just from irritated eyes. Bess was terrified.

  George handed out the pieces of wet material. Nancy slapped hers over her nose and mouth and breathed in. The bubbles from the seltzer tickled her nose, but the mask did help her to breathe. And at this point, every little bit helped.

  Meanwhile, Michael’s foraging had produced a tape measure, a notebook and pencil, and more nails. Then from his inside jacket pocket he pulled a small screwdriver. Nancy gestured toward the mechanism that held the partition window in place, and Michael started prying at the clasp. When Bess heard Michael chiseling at the lock, she spun around.

  “I’ll help,” she choked as she scrambled across the seat, clambering over George. Before Nancy could comprehend what was happening, Bess had grabbed the screwdriver handle along with Michael and gave it a furious jerk.

  Extreme fear can make a person very strong all of a sudden. And that had happened to Bess. Fueled by terror, the force of her pull on the handle was too much for the screwdriver. The long blade snapped with a crack that made Nancy sick to her stomach.

  Michael wrestled the handle away from Bess and went on jabbing at the lock with what was left, but Nancy could see it wouldn’t do any good.

  “Spray!” she choked at George, gesturing toward their nose cloths.

  George spritzed them each with another dousing of seltzer. The dancing bubbles didn’t feel like tingles this time. They burned like tiny, hot needles searing Nancy’s nostrils.

  Still, that wasn’t what worried her most. She could feel herself getting woozy. She knew how dangerous it could be to slow down in a situation like this. Fast thinking was more crucial than ever.

  A clever idea was desperately needed to save them from what was beginning to look more and more like their fate. But no idea came.

  Nancy felt her muscles growing slack despite her efforts to keep them taut and action-ready. Bess was racked with choking spasms now. She sounded as if she was on the verge of strangling, and George and Michael would not be far behind.

  Nancy had to think! Her powers of reasoning and deduction had been her mainstay in times of trouble for as long as she could remember. They were clearly failing her now as she felt herself fading from consciousness.

  The gas had slowed the others down too. Bess was back at the window, but the results were closer to tapping than pounding now.

  Then, through the fog of Nancy’s gas-clogged thinking, came the faint glimmer of an idea.

  “Backs against the seat!” she rasped as she plopped back onto the cushioned leather that had seemed so luxurious such a short while ago.

  The other three stared at her instead of moving. Their brains were obviously as sluggish as hers right then.

  “Do this,” she ordered in a hoarse voice. Her throat had begun to constrict, and she doubted she’d be able to say much more.

  She pressed her back against the seat and forced her legs upward into a tuck against her chest, gesturing for the others to do the same. Michael was the first to respond, and George after him. They crawled to the seat as quickly as their slowed reactions would allow, one on each side of Nancy. George grabbed Bess’s arm and pulled her down also.

  Nancy made a slight kicking motion at the partition in front of them to show what they were supposed to do. They’d need to kick together, but she could no longer speak so there’d be no countdown. She raised her arm as a signal. Her hand seemed to float through the air.

  The rest of them had pulled their knees up and apparently understood that they were supposed to kick the partition together. Even Bess was in position. Their heels glanced off the Plexiglas out of sync in a random pattern.

  Nancy’s heart fell. It was their last chance. She looked at each of them in turn and in that glance she willed herself to convey the words she could not say.

  Once more, she urged them silently. This is the one that counts.

  She clamped her knees to her chest, staring at the partition through her tears, looking directly at the spot where her feet would hit—concentrating all of herself on that spot as if it contained the entire universe.

  From somewhere deep inside her, out of a corner of herself she’d hardly known existed until that moment, came a surge of determination like nothing she’d ever felt before. It rocketed through her with a power she wouldn’t have thought herself capable of.

  “Now!” she shouted.

  At that very instant, four pairs of legs shot forward in a single, mighty movement—hitting the partition and punching it forward to burst from its frame on Michael’s side. He was out of his seat and pushing himself through the opening before Nancy had recovered from the jolting impact of the kick.

  She could hear him fumbling with buttons in the front seat. With her last ounce of strength she reached over and grasped the door handle and pushed it down. It hardly budged at first, only clicked against the secure lock like the sound of doom.

  Then the handle moved a few inches farther, and the door swung open with Nancy falling after it, tumbling into the cool night air—choking, sobbing, gulping her way back toward life.

  Chapter

  Ten

  THEY ALL LAY on the ground near the limo and choked and gasped till they could breathe normally again.

  Bess sat up and brushed weakly at an enormous grass stain on her dress. It had been made when Michael had dragged her away from the car. “My dress is ruined,” she said with a shaky laugh.

  They all could have made the same complaint. Evening outfits weren’t made for scrambling around in life-or-death situations or kicking out partitions or sprawling on damp grass. Michael’s white shirtfront wasn’t gleaming any longer. In fact, it didn’t even look white. Nancy’s blue skirt had ripped when she had made that last desperate kick, and her stockings were a mass of runs.

  “We’re alive,” croaked George. “That’s what matters.”

  “They didn’t mean us to be,” said Michael. He’d been over at the limo, checking it out under the hood. “That car has been rigged with a switch on the dash to direct the exhaust back inside. They could have killed all of you just to get to me.” He was holding on to his injured arm. He’d probably hurt it more pulling Bess from the car.

  “I don’t think they’re only after you,” said Nancy.

  She told him about Kathy Novello’s death. Michael’s eyes widened as she retraced the scene in the copy room.

  “So,” Nancy concluded, “Kathy may have been killed because they thought she knew about you. But I’m not really sure how it all ties together.”

  “I swear I’ve never been anywhere near Kathy Novello’s apartment building,” Michael Mulraney said. “I didn’t even know her.”

  “I believe you,” said Nancy.

  “Is all of this over that note I got about the real Mulraney?”

  “Maybe somebody doesn’t want us to dredge up the fact that he was probably murdered,” George suggested.

  “Could be,” said Nancy.

  “Franklin Turner couldn’t have done all this,” said George, gesturing toward the limo.

  “If he did, he wasn’t alone,” said Nancy. “There was that other guy. The one with the deep voice.”

  “How would somebody like Turner be connected to the kind of people that probably killed Mulraney?” asked George, sounding confused.

  “Only one person has the answer to that,” said Nancy, standing up and brushing herself off. “I think I’ll pay Turner a visit, but I don’t think I’ll be talking to him,” said Nancy.

  “But I thought you said you were going to visit him
,” Bess objected.

  “I am.” Nancy replied. “But, actually, I’m hoping he won’t be home.”

  “Well, we’re coming with you,” Bess said. “It sounds too dangerous—” She stopped, overtaken by a fit of coughing.

  “Bess, you’re the greatest,” Nancy said with an affectionate grin. “But you’re obviously in no shape to do anything more right now. I’m sending you home to bed.

  “You, too, Michael,” she added, raising her hand to silence his protests. “You shouldn’t have come out tonight in the first place. I want you to rest and recuperate.”

  “Well, I’m coming, no matter what you say,” George insisted. Nancy gave her friend a grateful look. She’d hoped George would volunteer her help. Nancy’s plan would require an extra pair of hands.

  Meanwhile, Michael used the odds and ends from his pockets to disconnect the exhaust valve. The limo was still running, though the ignition key had been removed by the driver. Michael opened all the windows to air out the last of the gas and drove them back into town.

  Nancy’s Mustang and Michael’s pickup were the only vehicles left in the parking lot of the Pinnacle Club. The reception was long over. Nancy wondered if there had really been a private supper for the councilman’s “special friends.”

  Could Terry possibly be in on this? Could there be something from his past, something involving the real Michael Mulraney, that was a threat to Terry’s career? He was clearly an ambitious man. How far would he go to protect those ambitions?

  Nancy didn’t mention her suspicions to George. She would be very upset that someone was looking for chinks in her white knight’s armor, and Nancy didn’t have the time or energy for an argument right then.

  Michael took Bess home in his pickup, and George followed Nancy’s car in the limo. The long car was part of Nancy’s plan.

  They parked out of sight from the entrance to the downtown luxury condominium complex. Nancy had driven by it that afternoon to check out where Turner lived. A doorman in a gray uniform sat at a desk just inside the double glass doors which led to the foyer. She and George would have to get past him to the elevators, and that wouldn’t be easy.

  “We have to distract him,” Nancy said to George. “Phase one of Nancy Drew’s master plan.”

  “Let’s hope it works,” George murmured. “Good luck!” She squeezed Nancy’s hand.

  The first stage of Nancy’s plan involved using her messy appearance to her advantage. She rumpled her hair to look even worse before hurrying up to the building and through the glass doors.

  “Somebody jumped into my car at the stoplight,” she exclaimed. “I had to jump out to get away! Please—I need a phone.”

  She’d made that sound pretty convincing, but it was probably her torn stockings that actually convinced the doorman.

  He was asking what he could do to help when the second stage of Nancy’s plan got underway, right on schedule. George revved the motor of the limo after pulling it across the driveway entrance, just as Nancy had told her to do. The doorman looked toward the street and frowned at the long car. Then he glanced back at Nancy.

  “You go ahead and take care of that. I’ll wait here,” she said with a smile.

  The doorman looked toward the limo again. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and was off down the drive.

  So far, so good, thought Nancy. Now all she had to worry about was whether George could make it up the drive without being seen.

  A narrow sidewalk ran from the street to the building, bordered by waist-high shrubs. Nancy thought she saw a movement there, then George was out from behind the bushes and through the glass doors in a flash. Her athletic grace came in handy in tight spots like this one.

  According to the directory board in the foyer, Turner lived on the fourteenth floor. George and Nancy took the elevator as far as the eleventh and walked the rest of the way, just in case the doorman had returned and was watching the floor indicator over the elevator door to see where they’d gone. It was quite late by now, and Turner’s hallway was deserted.

  “Are you going to pick the lock?” asked George as they stood in front of his door.

  “First I’ll see if he’s home.” Nancy pressed the buzzer. “I shouldn’t really break in, but we’re talking about murder here.”

  George had already darted out of view. “What are you going to do if he answers?”

  “I’ll think of something,” said Nancy. She wished she felt as sure of that as she sounded.

  There was no answer. Nancy had gambled on that, but the risk had been calculated. If Turner was as much of a party animal as George had said, then he probably wouldn’t be home this early on a Friday night.

  “That was easy,” she said. “Now let’s see if the easy way will work a second time.”

  She fished in her shoulder bag and pulled out a plastic credit card, which she inserted between the door and frame just above the lock. She slid the card down. It was the oldest trick in the book, but Nancy was banking on the fact that this was a doorman building in a well-patrolled, low-crime neighborhood. Maybe Turner hadn’t bothered installing fancy locks. A barely audible click confirmed that he had not.

  “This may still be our lucky night,” said Nancy with a wink at George as the door swung open and they slipped inside.

  She took out the flashlight she’d brought from the car and switched it on.

  “Wow!” said George as the light beam bounced off expensive furniture and valuable-looking artwork.

  “He couldn’t possibly pay for this stuff on a political aide’s salary, could he?” asked Nancy.

  “I heard he doesn’t get a regular salary,” said George. “His parents pay him. That’s how they got the councilman to take him on.”

  “Which just goes to show that maybe you should look a gift horse in the mouth,” Nancy murmured with a grin.

  Nancy moved away, scanning the walls for entrances to other rooms, then opening them to peer inside. At the third doorway she came across what she’d been looking for.

  Books lined the shelves of what appeared to be Turner’s study. The bindings looked suspiciously untouched. Nancy suspected Turner wasn’t as much of a reader as he wanted people to think.

  “The desk is over here,” whispered George through the gloom.

  Nancy was disappointed to find that none of the drawers was latched. Bad sign. People didn’t keep secrets in open drawers, and she was looking for evidence that Turner had a very big secret indeed.

  She searched the desk anyway, but she’d been right about locks and secrets. The deep drawer didn’t even hold files, only a stack of thick phone books from around the country. Nancy pulled them out and stacked them on top of the desk as she examined each one.

  She was about to put them back in the same order she’d found them when she was startled by something. The stack on the desk was noticeably shorter than the depth of the drawer. Yet, when she opened it, the top cover had barely cleared.

  She tapped at the inside bottom of the drawer. It sounded hollow all right, and she could see it was inches above the actual base of the desk. She felt around inside.

  “Maybe there’s a hidden button or something like that to open it,” George suggested, peering over Nancy’s shoulder.

  Nancy nodded, but she had, in fact, decided to try the easy way first. She pulled a nail file from her purse and fitted its thin blade along the side of the false bottom, then levered it upward.

  They were in luck that night. Jackpot. Nancy lifted out a pile of manila file folders and leafed quickly through them. Sure enough, the name of Michael Mulraney was printed on one of the tabs.

  She was about to open that folder and look inside when she heard the sound she had been dreading ever since they entered the apartment. A key was turning in the main door lock.

  Franklin Turner was back!

  Nancy took the three top files and stuffed them in her bag, then slid the false drawer bottom back into place and hastily replaced the phone books on top of it.
She closed the desk drawer and listened. She could hear Turner moving around the apartment.

  George had wedged herself into a corner next to the bookcase, but she wasn’t really out of sight. Nancy flipped off the flashlight and crept into the kneehole under the desk. Their one hope was that Turner wouldn’t have any reason to come into his study that late at night.

  Then, the study door opened, and Nancy heard footsteps walking straight toward her.

  It looked as if her lucky streak had run out.

  Chapter

  Eleven

  THEY’D BE CAUGHT the minute he turned on the lamp. He’d see George for sure, and he’d have to step on Nancy to sit down at the desk. She held her breath and didn’t make a sound. They’d have to run for it.

  But he wasn’t walking around the desk to sit down. He’d stopped on the other side. Instead of pressing the button for the desk lamp, he picked up the phone and pushed a button there.

  Nancy had noticed the fancy telephone when she was searching the desk. It was the kind with the console that lit up when you lifted the receiver, and there was a row of buttons down the side for presetting numbers you called a lot. Turner must have pushed one of those just then and was waiting for it to ring and be answered.

  The minute Turner spoke, Nancy knew her suspicion was right. Turner’s was definitely the voice she’d overheard that first night from the copy room at Councilman Terry’s office. It was squeaky from tension, just as it had been then.

  “Franklin Turner here,” he said nervously.

  “Don’t ask me,” he continued after a pause to listen. “I have no idea how they got on to us.”

  He listened again. “I have no intention of backing out now. There’s too much at stake.”

  Nancy couldn’t tell if the person on the other end was urging Turner to back out or warning him not to.

  “This girl and her friends were causing more trouble than they were worth.”

  He paused. “I’m doing my best and will continue to do so. You can be absolutely certain of that,” he said, and listened one more time before hanging up without a goodbye.