“But I was so sure,” Bess said sadly, watching soft snowflakes melt on the windshield of Nancy’s Mustang. “If Peter was stealing, Ava could have found out. Then maybe he kidnapped her!”
Nancy nodded. “Part of me agrees with you,” she said. “But look at the clues. Mr. Taggert said Peter always gives both keys to his clients. If the clients have both keys, how would Peter get into the boxes to steal things? Call his clients up and ask for the keys?”
Bess sighed. “Well, couldn’t he just wait until they needed something? Then they’d give one of the assistants their key, and he could take things out of the boxes then.”
“Yes, if some of the assistants were helping him do the stealing,” Nancy said.
“Right, that could work,” Bess brightened. “Maybe Peter tried to get Ava involved, and she threatened to call the police!”
“It’s still wrong,” Nancy insisted. “Using the students is too chancy. And besides, waiting for his clients to ask for something out of their boxes could take a long time—he couldn’t steal everything at once. If he had to wait long enough, some of his clients would find out their things were missing before the others decided to get at theirs. And some of them might never give away their keys.”
“He could copy the keys,” Bess suggested.
“No, you can’t have a safe-deposit box key copied,” Nancy corrected. “It’s illegal.”
“So the box has nothing to do with Ava’s disappearance, then?” Bess asked.
But Bess had given Nancy an idea. “Did you get a list of places in town that have safe-deposit boxes?” she asked. She took the list from Bess and whistled. “For a small town, that’s a lot of safe-deposit boxes.”
“We could split up,” Bess offered.
“We only have one key. And besides,” Nancy pointed out, “it’s getting late. The banks are going to close soon.”
“And I thought we were so close! What are we going to do now?”
“We’re going to call Betsy,” Nancy said. “Keep your fingers crossed that she’s in her room. And that Ava has a bank account.”
Nancy pulled out of the parking lot and up to a pay phone. She jumped out of the car and ran through the snow to the booth. After dialing Betsy’s number, she stood shivering, listening to the rings.
“Hello?” It was Betsy’s voice.
“It’s me—Nancy. Listen, does Ava have a bank account in town?”
“Yes, she does. What’s going on? Where are you calling from?”
“There’s no time to explain,” Nancy said. “I’m tracing her key, and I’ve got to get to the bank before it closes.”
“It’s the Middletown Savings Bank.” Betsy gave Nancy the address. “Did you find Ava?”
“No, but I think Peter Hoffs may know where she is,” Nancy said grimly.
“Can I meet you somewhere?”
“No, I’ve got to go. Peter Hoffs and Maia Edenholm are going on vacation tomorrow. We’re running out of time.”
“Be careful, Nancy,” Betsy pleaded.
Nancy promised and raced back to the car. “The Middletown Savings Bank,” Nancy told Bess as they headed out. “My guess is that if Ava needed a bank she could trust, she’d use her own.”
“I don’t understand,” Bess said in a daze. “You think Ava had a safe-deposit box? What for?”
“Well, let’s say you’re right about the deposit boxes,” Nancy began. “Assume Peter Hoffs did kidnap Ava. Then the question is, why?”
“I’m not following you at all,” Bess said. “But if Peter kidnapped Ava, it was because she found out he was stealing.”
“Why not just kill her? He killed Luke.”
Bess frowned. “Because she’s no good to him dead?” she asked at last.
“Exactly!” Nancy said pleased. “He needs something. And I suspect that he needs the key I have in my hand. Or rather, he needs whatever the key is hiding. And we’re about to find out what it is!”
Chapter
Thirteen
SO THAT MEANS she’s still alive,” Bess said. “Doesn’t it? Hoffs would need Ava to get in.”
“I hope so,” Nancy replied, searching for the bank along the street.
“But then how do we get into Ava’s safe-deposit box? The Elderly Assistance program’s not going to work here, and Ava’s not around to help.”
Nancy steered the Mustang into a parking spot in front of Middletown Savings Bank.
“Ava’s not here,” Nancy said, “but her ID is!” She grabbed her purse and drew Ava’s student card out from the bottom. “What do you think?” she asked Bess, holding the card near her face.
Bess bit her lip as she compared the two. “You might pass if they don’t pay much attention to your eye color,” she said at last. “Why don’t you put on my hat?”
Nancy slipped the knit hat over her head and pulled her bangs down straight.
“What about the signature?” Bess asked. “Can you fake it?”
“I’ll have to try. Maybe I can say I broke my hand or something.”
“I know what you can use,” Bess said, turning to look around in the backseat. She handed Nancy a Popsicle stick. “Put it in your glove,” she directed. “That way it will look like a splint.”
Nancy laughed and did as she was told. “Have you been sneaking ice cream again, Bess?”
“Don’t say a word,” Bess warned, opening her door. “I saved you again.”
As they got out, Nancy checked her watch. “Hurry,” she urged, “we only have five minutes before closing.”
Nancy and Bess raced up the steps to the bank. Reaching the door, Nancy tugged at her hat, trying to regain her composure. Then they walked up to the bank manager, a young man with an eager smile. The nameplate on his desk read Ryan Gillam.
Nancy put her key on the table. “May I get into my box, please?” She glanced quickly at the key. “It’s number two eighty-six.”
Ryan picked up the key and handed Nancy a logbook. “Of course,” he said. “Please sign here.”
Nancy waved her hand, forcing a laugh. “It’s not going to be a beautiful signature,” she said lightly. “I sprained my finger yesterday, and it hurts like anything.”
The bank manager gave her a brief smile but didn’t offer any help.
Nancy took the logbook with a sinking feeling in her stomach. Suddenly she couldn’t remember what Ava’s signature looked like.
“Come on, Ava,” Bess said. “The bank’s about to close!”
“I need a pen,” Nancy said, searching her pockets. Her fingers touched Ava’s student ID and she pulled it out.
Ava’s letters were round and even, she saw with relief. She looked up and saw Ryan Gillam watching her.
“You need this, too, don’t you?” Nancy asked, handing him the card. “They always ask for ID.”
The bank manager took the card and put it on the desk. Wordlessly he handed her a pen.
Nancy grabbed the pen and scrawled Ava Woods’s name in the logbook. Ryan looked at it and gave her a friendly smile. “Let me just check it against your signature card, Miss Woods,” he said. “You’ve got plenty of time to get to your box. We’re open until six on Fridays and on Saturday mornings, as well.”
As the bank manager disappeared Nancy and Bess traded relieved looks.
“We did it,” Bess whispered.
Ryan returned a moment later. “The vault’s over here,” he said, gesturing Nancy over.
When the door swung open the young man turned to Bess. “Excuse me, but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to wait outside. Only authorized personnel are allowed inside the vault.”
Nancy saw the disappointment clouding Bess’s face. “I’ll only be a minute,” she promised.
The vault looked much like the one at the First National Bank. Ryan Gillam put the safe-deposit box on the table and then walked tactfully back to the door to wait with Bess.
Nancy was surprised to find she was holding her breath. She let it out and unlocked the box, then li
fted the lid and pulled out a long velvet case. Carefully she opened it.
It was exactly what she’d suspected! Inside the case a beautiful sapphire necklace lay neatly in a long oval groove. In the center a matching ring sparkled against the midnight black lining. But the clue that pulled the mystery together for Nancy was not in the jewelry case. A smaller groove for a bracelet was molded into the bottom—and it was empty!
Thinking quickly, Nancy slipped the jewelry case inside her jacket. She closed the empty safe-deposit box and locked it.
“I’m finished,” she called out.
When the young man returned, Nancy gave him a winning smile. “I really need to open another safe-deposit box. Could you help me?”
The manager looked startled. “Another box?”
Nancy slipped the jewelry case out of her jacket and flashed it at the young man. “I thought this would fit in the other box, but I seem to have filled it. Couldn’t we just add a new box onto all the old paperwork?”
“All right,” he agreed, puzzled. “Let me just see what’s available.” He walked past Bess, who was frantically trying to see what was happening from the doorway. A moment later he returned to the vault and pulled another drawer out.
“Put it in here,” he directed, unlocking the box itself.
Nancy did as she was told, and moments later the necklace was secure. He handed her the keys.
She didn’t take them. “I was hoping I could leave those here overnight,” she said. “I’ll get the two keys hopelessly confused. Could you do that for me?”
He sighed. “It’s very unusual,” he said. “But I can hold them. You’ll have to sign for them tomorrow. Will you be paying by check?”
“What?”
“The rental fee,” Ryan Gillam explained. “Will you pay by check?”
“Oh, right.” Nancy followed him out the door. “I’ll pay in cash.” She ignored Bess’s questioning gaze as they went back to the manager’s desk. She paid the rent, and Gillam handed her a form to fill out.
Nancy looked at the form and realized she’d never be able to fill it out. She got as far as Ava’s name and address.
“My finger really hurts,” she complained. “I’m sorry, but it’s been bad all day. Could you just copy this information from the other form?”
“Sure, but I’ll need your signature again here,” the bank manager said, pointing to the bottom of the form.
Nancy signed Ava’s name with a flourish and pushed the form across the desk with a promise that she would return the next day for the keys.
The girls left. “You were great in there,” Bess crowed as they crossed the parking lot.
“I thought I was caught when he asked me to fill out the form,” Nancy said, shaking her head. “It was pure luck.”
Bess waited while Nancy unlocked the passenger door. “Okay, I’ve controlled myself long enough,” she said, buckling her seat belt. “What were you doing in there? What did you find?”
Nancy pulled slowly out of the parking space. As she checked the traffic on the road, she told Bess about the necklace and the ring. “They match the bracelet I saw on Maia’s wrist this morning,” she explained. “I think Maia must have stolen it.”
“So Peter and Maia are stealing from their clients,” Bess said. “But how did the jewels get into Ava’s box at the Middletown Savings Bank? Mr. Taggert said Peter Hoffs always uses the First National Bank.”
“The jewels must belong to one of Ava’s clients,” Nancy explained. “Somehow Ava found out the bracelet had been stolen from the set. So she switched the necklace and the ring to a new box in a different bank.”
“She switched boxes!” Bess said excitedly. “Of course. That’s what the phone calls were all about. The woman wants to know where her jewelry is.”
“Bravo, Bess,” Nancy said approvingly. “And the calls also mean that Ava checked with the owner of the jewelry before she made the switch. That means she was helping the woman, not stealing the jewelry for herself.”
“But wait.” Bess stopped. “There’s still one thing missing. How did Peter Hoffs get into the boxes?”
“I’m going to test a theory about that.” Nancy pulled off the road. “Peter and Maia’s house is about a hundred yards up this road. We’re going to see if we can find his missing workroom.”
Snow was coming down hard as the two girls got out of the car. The late afternoon sun was blocked by the downfall, leaving the sky and the land an indistinct white. The girls darted toward the house, keeping near the trees that lined the property along the road. When they reached the driveway Nancy stopped.
“This is it,” she whispered. “The lights are on. We’ll have to be careful.”
“We’re going to break in while they’re home?” Bess hissed in alarm.
“No. Maia gave me a tour of the house. The workroom’s not there. My guess is it’s either in the garage or in a little cottage around back on the other side of the pond. We’ll try the garage first. Stay down!” Nancy hissed as they crept toward the house.
There was a door on the side of the garage. Nancy tried the knob. It was unlocked, and the girls hurried inside.
The garage was dark. Nancy switched on a lamp on one of the benches, and the light flared brightly in her face. Quickly she threw her coat over part of the shade, dimming it.
“It’s a workroom, all right,” Bess observed. “It’s filthy.”
“You take that side,” Nancy said, ignoring Bess’s comment, “and I’ll look around here. Try not to make any noise.”
Peter Hoffs had every imaginable tool, Nancy thought as she inspected her side of the room. Still, the drawers and boxes she searched didn’t contain what she was looking for.
“Yuck! I have grease on my jeans,” Bess whispered.
“Look in the cupboards,” Nancy told her. “I’ll search over there.” Nancy walked toward Bess and began sifting through some old rags under a table saw. After a while, Bess’s voice floated back to her.
“You have to admit, this man is handy,” she was saying. “He even makes his own teeth.”
Nancy made it to Bess in three steps. “What did you find?” she asked urgently.
“Dental plaster,” Bess said, pointing to a container in the cupboard above her head.
“Bess, you’re brilliant,” Nancy said, trying to remain quiet. She pushed past her and started rummaging through the cupboard.
“What do teeth have to do with jewelry?” Bess whispered.
“Dental plaster is used to make molds of people’s teeth. Then the imprint in the mold is used to cast new ones,” Nancy explained. Her right hand hit something hard and box-shaped, and she drew it out. It was a block of dental plaster. Searching around, she found two stacks of blocks in the back of the cupboard. “It hardens in about five minutes.”
Nancy hurried over to the light. “Remember the statue Sophie mentioned? Peter must have set it in plaster and made a mold of it.”
She held the mold under the light. “Look.”
“Oh, Nancy,” Bess said softly.
Nancy was holding a small piece of pink plaster. In the center was an impression—shaped exactly like a safe-deposit box key!
Chapter
Fourteen
HE COPIES the keys himself!” Bess murmured in awe.
“And he’s copied quite a few of them,” Nancy observed, going back to the cupboard. “He must have at least thirty molds here.”
“We’ve solved the mystery,” Bess said gleefully.
“But we haven’t found Ava,” Nancy pointed out. “Peter and Maia are about to skip town, and I doubt they’re planning to take her home first.”
“Are you sure they kidnapped her?” Bess asked. “Maybe she’s hiding from them.”
Nancy shook her head. “They wouldn’t have ransacked her room for the key if she wasn’t with them. They can’t use it without her.” She dug her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I think Ava’s here.”
“But where?” Bess asked
. “Maia gave you a tour of the house, and she wasn’t there, right?”
Nancy gnawed her lip, thinking. “Maybe she’s in the fishing cottage,” she said at last. “No one would think of going there in the middle of winter. It’s a perfect hiding place.”
“Right! Oh, poor Ava,” Bess said. “I’ll bet it’s freezing out there.”
“Let’s just hope she’s still alive,” Nancy said grimly.
Nancy turned out the light and put on her jacket. Then the two girls ducked quietly out of the garage and ran back into the trees surrounding the house. The sun was almost gone, and the wind had picked up, creating snowdrifts.
“The pond is surrounded by trees,” Nancy explained. “Once we get there, we can hide among the trees and no one will see us.”
They crept around the back of the house. From where they stood, they could see a long snow-covered hill leading down to the pond.
“There’s not a lot of cover here,” Nancy admitted. “We’ll have to run as fast as we can.”
She looked toward the house. She couldn’t see any movement through the window. “Now!”
Nancy took off down the hill with Bess right behind her. She could feel her heart pounding in time with her steps. She dared not turn around to see if Peter and Maia had spotted them through the windows. Even if they do, she thought, we’ll get to the cottage before they can catch us.
She reached the trees surrounding the pond and grabbed a tree trunk to slow herself down. Bess almost plowed into her as she turned around.
“Ooh,” Bess wheezed. “I’m not a runner. Did they see us?”
Nancy looked back at the house. All was quiet. “It looks as if we made it.”
Once Bess had caught her breath the two girls began picking their way through the woods toward the cabin. Only the crunch of their feet in the snow marred the silence. Nancy’s thoughts were whirling. What if Ava wasn’t there? she wondered. Or what if they were too late?
Suddenly Nancy spotted the dark shape of the cabin in front of them. Bess caught up with her.
“I don’t see any light,” Bess said.
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