Club Dread Read online

  MARCO POLOVITCH

  Once Nancy, Bess, and George left, Matthias really got down to business. The business of chewing us out, that is.

  “Where were you last night, Joe? I find it incredibly irresponsible that you would leave your assigned post in the middle of an investigation.”

  Matthias made it sound like Joe had left a stakeout, or something else important, not just a sink full of dishes.

  “I had something bad, man. I was puking everywhere. You wouldn’t have wanted me to stay in that kitchen.” Joe tried his best to look sick, but it was pretty clear Matthias wasn’t buying it. “It must have been one of those twenty-four-hour bugs. Maybe food poisoning or something.” He coughed a little, for good measure.

  I tossed him an eye roll.

  “I am beginning to doubt how serious you two are about solving this crime. I’ve got to say, I was expecting more from the two of you. Everyone says you’re the golden boys of ATAC.”

  “What?” Joe said. “That’s crazy. We’re just agents like anyone else.” Joe realized he was starting to get loud, and pulled his chair in closer. It wouldn’t be good for the entire restaurant to hear that we were secret agents.

  Sure, our dad had started ATAC, but we never received any special treatment because of it. If I didn’t know better, I would have said Matthias sounded…jealous. He must have been really nervous about this case. I guess it meant a lot more to him, since he’d been working down here for so long.

  Maybe we were wrong to keep what we had learned from him—he might have been annoying, but he was still a fellow ATAC agent, and we needed to do our best to work with him. I decided to tell him what had actually happened last night.

  “Look, Matthias, the truth is—”

  “I’m really growing tired of your excuses,” Matthias said. “From now on, I’d appreciate it if you two would follow my orders. Perhaps we could really get somewhere then. Now go get your staff IDs.”

  Ohhhh-kay. Maybe I didn’t need to tell him anything after all.

  Joe was practically shaking with anger, and I put my hand on his shoulder to calm him down. The last thing we needed was for him and Matthias to get into a screaming match in the middle of the hotel. We started to walk away, when Matthias called out over his shoulder.

  “Oh, and, Joe? Try not to get any more food poisoning, okay?”

  All the way back to our room, Joe kept muttering under his breath about Matthias. When we finally got there, he swung the door open and it banged against the wall.

  “Hey, calm down,” I said.

  Joe looked embarrassed.

  “Sorry. He just gets on my nerves, you know?”

  “Yeah. But we’ve only got a few more days to get to the bottom of this. So what’s our plan?”

  I grabbed our staff IDs while we were talking. The photo of me was terrible—my hair was a mess and my skin was breaking out when they took it. The IDs themselves were weirdly clunky. Much heavier than I would have expected. I tossed Joe’s ID to him.

  “Let’s find Petrovitch,” Joe said. “Maybe if we talk to him, he’ll let something slip.”

  “Yeah, like ‘Oh, hi, I’m Petrovitch. I’ve been robbing this hotel blind. What’s your name?’”

  “Okay, hotshot. You got a better plan?”

  He had me there. From what Nancy said, Petrovitch wasn’t the kind of guy we’d want to catch us breaking into his place. We left our room and headed toward the spa. I figured we’d have to set up a stakeout and follow him to someplace where we could talk. But we were in luck.

  “Hey, Frank, check it out—over by the employee pool.”

  The pool had been closed in the morning while the cleanup crew dragged the balcony out of it, but it seemed like it was open now. I turned and looked as we walked past. Huge, bald, and lying out on one of the deck chairs—that had to be Petrovitch.

  Suspect Profile

  Name: Petrovitch

  Occupation: Massage therapist

  Suspicious behaviors: Last person to see Jasmina the night she was attacked. Has anger-management problems. Hates rich guests.

  Danger factor: Anger could easily get out of hand.

  “So—guess it’s time for us to go swimming, eh?” I said. Finally, this mission was starting to look up.

  Joe tore off his T-shirt and whooped.

  “Race you?” Joe said.

  We ran to the pool. Thankfully, we were at the deep end, so when we made it to the edge, I dove straight in. I could feel Joe doing the same next to me. The cold water came as a shock after the days of hot sun and even hotter dishwater. I surfaced halfway down the pool.

  “Ha! Beat you, old man,” Joe said.

  “No way. I was definitely in the water before you.”

  “You wish!”

  We drifted over to the side of the pool where Petrovitch was lying, debating as we went. We played water games for a while. Eventually, we got out and flopped down on two of the chairs, conveniently placing Petrovitch between us. Up close, he was even bigger than Nancy had said—like three people pasted together.

  “Hey there,” I said.

  Petrovitch grunted and opened one giant eye.

  “Did you see us jump in? Which one of us hit the water first?”

  “Don’t know.” He grunted and closed his eyes. I could hear the accent Nancy had mentioned, and I felt a slight thrill—this had to be the right guy.

  “So, do you work here too?” Joe tried to get him talking.

  “Yep.”

  This time, he didn’t even bother opening one of his eyes.

  “We just started,” I said. “Got any tips for new people?”

  Silence. I thought he might have fallen asleep. So far, our fact-finding mission was a total bust. He had seemed eager to talk to Nancy. Maybe it was because she was a pretty girl—a totally unfair advantage. Or maybe we were just trying the wrong tack.

  “Bleh. I can’t believe we have to work in the kitchen again tomorrow, Joe. This job is the worst.” Hopefully Joe would catch on.

  “I know,” Joe said, anger creeping into his voice. “And the guests—man! They act like we’re not even people sometimes.”

  “Ha!” A deep rumble came from Petrovitch. I thought it might be a laugh. “That’s because we are not people, not to them.”

  “Totally,” I agreed. Actually, I’d found most of the guests to be really nice, but there were a few spoiled types who were clearly used to having people wait on them hand and foot.

  “It just gets me so angry,” Joe continued. “It’s like, without us, there wouldn’t be a resort. So the least they could do is be respectful.”

  “All day, every day, it’s, ‘Do this!’ or, ‘Get that!’” Both of Petrovitch’s eyes were open now, and he had raised himself up on his elbows. “I didn’t even have to work this hard on my family’s farm!” He made a noise of disgust.

  “Yeah, it’s ridiculous!” I said.

  Petrovitch was really on a roll now.

  “No one respects the laborers. The people who put bread on their table.”

  “Right,” said Joe. “I guess they’re getting what they deserve now, with these robberies and all.”

  Petrovitch stopped dead. I could feel him freeze up. Did we go too far too soon? Did he think we were onto him?

  “My friend, these are dangerous waters you are wading in,” he said. “I have seen what happens when people think they can take these things into their own hands, and it goes to a bloody place. What we need is a union, not a bunch of thugs.”

  “Well, what about what happened to that singer? Jasmina? Wasn’t she just getting what she deserved?” This was our chance, and I jumped on it.

  “What do you know about that?” Petrovitch roared. “She was a nice girl! Whoever did that to her is an animal.” He seemed genuinely upset about Jasmina. If he was acting, he deserved an Oscar.

  “Someone told us you were close to her. That you had seen her on the night she was attacked.” I tried to be as calm as I could. Petro
vitch was beginning to draw attention, and I needed to keep him talking.

  “Bah! I already went over this with the police.” He shook his head in disgust. “These filthy rumors. Yes, I saw her that night. But when I left, she was fine. And she had another visitor after me, a tall guy.”

  “Who? What did he look like?” I was too excited to hold my questions in. If someone else had been in Jasmina’s suite that night, we needed to find him.

  The loud ring of a cell phone broke through our conversation. Petrovitch pulled it out of his pocket.

  “Da? Okay. I’ll be there immediately.”

  He stood up.

  “See? Even on our days off, they make us work. But believe me, friends, violence is not the answer to this. I’m organizing a union meeting next week, for all of us workers to come together. I hope to see you there.”

  “Wait!” I called after him, but Petrovitch was already running toward the main part of the hotel, taking the information we needed with him. We had been so close!

  “What do you think?” Joe said.

  “Nancy was right—he certainly is angry. But I don’t think he was lying to us.”

  “Yeah, me either.”

  “We need to find out who was the last person to see Jasmina.”

  “Agreed.” Joe looked longingly at the pool. “Maybe there’s a clue in there?”

  “Well, ATAC always tells us to investigate every possible angle, right? And we’ve got some time to kill before we check in with Nancy, so…”

  I leaped in. This time, I definitely hit the water first.

  JOE

  Please. I totally beat you.

  CHAPTER 12

  NANCY

  THE OTHER BROTHERS

  George, Bess, and I headed back up to our suite to get ready for our evening out. Matthias really knew how to ruin a party. I didn’t understand how Frank and Joe could be friends with him, let alone work with him in ATAC. Poor George! He wouldn’t leave her alone. Thankfully George knew how to let a guy know she wasn’t interested.

  “All right, Nancy, let’s see what you’ve got.” Bess dragged my suitcase out. She put it on the table in the main room and started rummaging through it.

  “I don’t think I brought any of my investigation stuff. I know I left the picklocks at home. But maybe…”

  Bess was right. We needed to get ready. It seemed like things were coming to a head. Who knew what we might need.

  “No, Nancy. Clothes! Let’s see what clothes you’ve got. You’re meeting with Jack Thorton later. You need to get dressed up.”

  I groaned.

  “This won’t do?” I pointed to my shorts and sandals.

  Bess didn’t even bother responding. She was right. I sighed and helped her lay out all my clothes on the table.

  “Now it’s your turn to let her play dress-up on you. This is payback for the mall.” George laughed.

  Bess threw most of my clothes aside with a shake of her head. We had different standards when it came to fashion. The pile of “no’s” far outweighed the pile of “maybe’s.” Finally, she settled on a black shirt, the one pair of long slacks I had brought with me, and a pair of heels, which I almost hadn’t brought but which Bess convinced me I needed. They were low, only about an inch, but I still felt like I was walking on stilts whenever I put them on.

  “Do you think that shirt is fancy enough?” I didn’t know a lot about fashion, but it definitely looked like a plain T-shirt to me.

  “Of course not. I’m going to have to work on it. Hand me my sewing kit?”

  I should have known. If I thought it wasn’t fancy enough, I’m surprised Bess even thought it could be saved. But she was a miracle worker when it came to clothes. As I watched, she cut all along the bottom of the shirt, then took the extra fabric and began to stitch a fancy new collar.

  George called home to check in, and I could hear her telling her parents all about the hotel and the beach, though she didn’t mention anything about our room being trashed or the robberies. George was one of those people who could never sit still, and she paced back and forth through the suite while she was on the phone.

  As she walked, I noticed a strange noise, like a buzzing sound. At first I thought it was her phone, but then I noticed that it only happened when she was walking near one of the sofas—the one that was shaped like a giant clamshell. Once George was off the phone, the noise stopped entirely.

  I had a suspicion. I took a piece of paper and pen from my bag. Quickly, I wrote out two notes that said, pretend to have a conversation. I handed one to George and the other to Bess. Their eyes widened, but they nodded.

  “Hey, George,” said Bess. “So do you want to go to that party on the beach that Thatcher mentioned?”

  “I think so. Do you think it’ll be fun?”

  “I hope so.”

  While they talked, I took Bess’s scissors out of her sewing kit and walked over to the couch. I took out my cell phone and turned the volume all the way down. Then I dialed my voice mail. The buzzing returned. I began to pass the phone over the couch cushions, listening. The sound was loudest over by one of the seams. If I was wrong about this, I was going to have to apologize to Mr. Thorton tonight.

  I slipped the shears in between the thread and the fabric, cutting each stitch individually to make the least amount of noise and mess possible. George and Bess crept closer, continuing their fake conversation loudly. I peeled back the fabric. A small metal circle was sitting there, glinting. As I watched, a red light blinked on and off. There were small holes at one end of it, like the kind you see on a pair of headphones.

  The room was bugged!

  We all looked at one another, wide-eyed.

  We hadn’t said much of anything today, but if the device was here yesterday, the person listening would know all about Joe, Frank, and Petrovitch. I pulled the fabric back up and stitched it closed again. Whoever had put the device there, we didn’t want them to know we had found it.

  We continued to make fake conversation until the time came to leave. Bess finished making my new shirt, and we all got dressed to go out. In the elevator, we finally stopped pretending.

  “George, can you look up some information on listening devices and see if there is any way to block them out?”

  “Sure thing, Nancy.”

  “Bess, I need you to let Frank and Joe know about this. And then I want the two of you to be careful at that party tonight! Someone at the hotel is after us, and who knows what they may have overheard.”

  The elevator doors opened onto the lobby, and we split up. I trusted Bess and George to look after each other, but I was starting to worry. Most of the cases we worked on were back in River Heights, where we could call on Police Chief McGuiness or my father to help us out. Here, I had no idea who we could trust. Other than the Hardy boys, that is.

  A uniformed waiter with white hair met me at the door to the Wetlands main restaurant, the White Heron.

  “Ms. Drew?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “I have been instructed to take you to Mr. Thorton’s private dining room. Please come this way.”

  With that, he walked off away from the restaurant. I hurried to catch up with him. We walked through the lobby until we arrived at a small door I had not noticed before. It was very plain, except that it had a large keyhole in it. All the other doors in the hotel worked on keypads and sensor systems. The waiter pulled out a large black key, and the door clicked audibly as he turned it in the lock. He beckoned me to enter, and closed the door behind me.

  I found myself on a narrow path above a large pool. The water was lit from below, and I could see all manner of things swimming below me: fish, turtles, lizards, frogs. At the end of the path, a man sat at a table lit by candles. He smiled as I walked toward him.

  “Nancy!”

  “Mr. Thorton.” I smiled.

  “You must call me Jack. May I call you Nancy? Sit, sit!” Jack Thorton was a large, smiling man with incredible energy. He must h
ave been as old as my father, or maybe even older. His hair was all white, and his dark skin was lined with deep grooves from a lifetime of smiling. He seemed so excited about everything that his words tumbled out of him in the wrong order, and much too fast. I liked him instantly.

  “Of course, Mr. Thor—I mean, Jack. Please call me Nancy,” I said as I sat down. The table was set with old, heavy silver and thin, bone-white china. The table was an antique as well, a grooved and scarred piece of hardwood that must have weighed a ton! Jack caught me looking at everything and smiled.

  “This was all my mother’s. Handed down through the generations, though my mother was never clear on how many generations there were. French aristocracy, she assured me, we were. Or sometimes Creole royalty. Or Seminole chiefs. Her stories changed, but the china stayed the same. When she died, it became mine. As did the land the hotel now sits on—turns out she might have been telling the truth all along.”

  Jack picked up a bell that was sitting by the table and rang it once. A waiter came in with two small plates. I smelled spices and onions. On each plate was a tiny crepe topped with brownish yellow eggs.

  “Curried eggs,” Jack said. “I hope you don’t mind, I took the liberty of ordering us a tasting menu, a selection of our chef’s favorites dishes.”

  I put a bite in my mouth. It was delicious!

  “This is amazing. Thank you!”

  Jack smiled and clapped his hands. For the next half hour, the waiter brought a steady stream of tiny dishes—a bite of this, a taste of that. Most of it I barely recognized, but all of it was great. I tried to ask Jack about the hotel, but the food was so good, my mouth was always full.

  Finally, we took a break before dessert and I had my opening.

  “How have you been enjoying your stay, Nancy?”

  “It’s been wonderful, Mr. Thor—I mean, Jack.” It was hard to get used to calling someone my dad’s age by their first name. I could do it out loud, but in my head, I still thought of him as Mr. Thorton. “You must hear this all the time, but I’ve never been anywhere quite this amazing before!”