Club Dread

by Carolyn Keene

  All around, women lay in robes and bathing suits on plush beach towels. A few were swimming or standing under the waterfall. Other platforms rose at seemingly random intervals throughout the room, and atop them I could see women getting various services done.

  Another woman greeted us at the base of the spiral staircase. Her hair was silver and cropped close to her head, and her face was deeply lined but somehow ageless. “Welcome to the Wetlands Spa,” she said. Her voice was cool and calm. “You must be Bess and Nancy. I was told to expect you, and to let you know that all our services are the compliments of Jack Thorton. May I offer you some açaí juice and a robe?” She held out two glasses filled with deep red liquid. Bess and I reached out hesitantly to take them.

  “Açaí is a tropical fruit, native to Brazil and South America,” she continued, as two assistants walked over to us bearing white robes. “Its sweet flavor and beautiful color have made it a popular drink in the region. As it is a swamp plant, we are experimenting with growing it here at the Wetlands as a nutrient-rich alternative to soft drinks and sodas. Enjoy.” With that, she drifted off to welcome another woman to the spa.

  The juice was sweet and refreshing, and already I felt some tension drain out of me. I felt bad that Frank and Joe were cleaning dishes and clearing tables, but they had asked us to come here and investigate, after all. We finished our glasses and slipped behind two bamboo screens to change into the robes.

  “I wish all of your cases needed to be investigated here,” Bess said. She rubbed the soft white cloth between her fingers. “Egyptian cotton,” she noted. Bess knew her fabrics. We removed our shoes and put them on the waiting racks.

  I wasn’t quite sure what one did at a spa, other than lounge around. And it seemed impossible to lounge and search for clues at the same time. I’d never even been to a spa before. Bess, on the other hand, had been to her fair share and knew exactly what to do.

  “I think I’ll start with a manicure,” she said, looking at her fingers.

  “And a pedicure.” She wiggled her toes.

  “Then maybe a haircut and a massage. Or a facial? I hear the kelp and cucumber mask they do is to die for. And I’ve always wanted to try a deep-sea mud body wrap…”

  One of the attendants overheard Bess and took her hand to lead her through the spa to the manicurist. Bess was still listing treatments she wanted to try as she went.

  “Keep your ears open!” I whispered as she walked away. Bess winked. I knew I could depend on her to keep her wits about her, no matter how relaxed she felt.

  I walked this way and that through the spa, unsure how best to look for information. The ground was soft and warm beneath my feet. There was almost no talking, except for a few quiet conversations in some of the seating areas. For the most part, the spa was a tranquil place. My cell phone vibrated in the pocket of my robe. I flipped it open to a text message from Joe:

  Think Andrew Nikitin is in on the robberies.

  May have accomplice. Be careful.

  Andrew Nikitin! He had been in our room after the break-in. If he was involved…I wondered what Joe had discovered. And who Nikitin might be working with. Somewhere in the spa was the information I needed—I could feel it. I just didn’t know where it was.

  Noticing that I looked a little lost, one of the attendants came over to me. She was a young girl, maybe my age, with deep brown eyes, warm brown skin, and pitch-black hair to her waist.

  “I’m Ciara,” she said. “Is this your first time here?”

  “Yes. Does it show that much?” I laughed nervously.

  “It can be a little overwhelming at first. Believe me, when I first started working here, I walked around for two weeks with my mouth hanging open. Especially when some of the celebrity guests would come through.”

  An idea popped into my head.

  “Actually, that’s part of the reason I’m here,” I said. I leaned in and dropped my voice, as though telling Ciara a secret. “I heard that Jasmina used to come here. I’m her biggest fan!”

  “Oh yeah, she used to be in here all the time. She was the sweetest thing in person. Used to come here after all her big concerts.”

  “Was there anything in particular she liked?”

  Ciara pointed up to one of the platforms that rose from the spa floor. I could just make out an empty massage table at the top. “Ask for Petrovitch. Though I can’t tell you what she liked about him.”

  That sounded odd. But it was a lead, and I had to follow it. Perhaps this Petrovitch might be able to shed some light on what happened to Jasmina.

  I climbed the long spiral staircase up to the platform. A very tall man stood at the top with his back to me.

  “Petrovitch?” I asked.

  He turned to face me. “Yes?” I detected an accent in his voice, but I couldn’t make out where it was from.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Nancy.”

  He stood there waiting, his arms crossed. I tried again.

  “I heard you knew Jasmina. I’m a huge fan of hers.”

  He might as well have been made of stone.

  “I, uh, wanted a massage.” I’d never had a massage before, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Petrovitch didn’t seem like the type to engage in idle chitchat.

  He pointed to the table, and I lay down. His large hands touched my back, and I felt him knead the muscles of my shoulders as if they were bread dough. It felt unexpectedly good, but I couldn’t get into it. I tried to relax, but my mind was on the case.

  “You are very tense!” he said. “It’s good to have a real challenge, for once.”

  “Are most of the people here not very tense?”

  “Ha! They wouldn’t know tense if it bit them. All the guests here, with their money and their easy lives. They don’t know from hard times.” As he spoke, Petrovitch seemed to get angrier and angrier, and his hands became rougher and rougher. In fact, the massage was becoming downright painful!

  “They don’t even notice us, the people who work for them—who do everything! We might as well not exist.” His accent became more obvious as he became more excited. He clenched his hands harder and harder on my sore muscles. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Ow!” I said. “Enough! Stop.”

  My words seemed to snap him out of his anger and he stepped away from the table.

  “I let myself get carried away. I am sorry. Sometimes, it is hard for me to work here. Please, let me get you something to drink.” He seemed embarrassed and stared at his feet while he spoke. Then he hurried down the spiral staircase before I could respond.

  I lay there for a moment, my back aching. This massage had left me feeling worse than I had felt before he started. Petrovitch was the first unhappy employee I had met at the Wetlands. Was he angry enough to take out his feelings on the guests? Perhaps especially so on a rich celebrity?

  I sat up and noticed that Petrovitch had left his appointment book on the floor. I was alone on the platform. Glancing quickly down the spiral staircase to make sure he wasn’t going to be back anytime soon, I picked it up.

  Starting at the beginning, I found many entries with Jasmina’s name, and some with her room number. Petrovitch must have also been seeing her outside the spa. I heard heavy footsteps climbing up the stairs. Petrovitch was returning. I turned the pages quickly, looking for any information that might be important. Finally, I found the last entry with Jasmina’s name—on the night of June 23.

  That was the night Jasmina was attacked!

  CHAPTER 8

  FRANK

  MAKING A SPLASH

  “Where’s your brother?” Katlyn yelled in my face. Her breath stank of onions and garlic. Then again, so did everything else in the kitchen. They were two of the main ingredients on tonight’s menu.

  I didn’t blame her for yelling—the kitchen was a pretty loud place, with everyone running back and forth, the industrial-size dish dryers, and all the cooking noises—but she didn’t have to do it in my face.


  Joe had been missing for nearly an hour, though, so I could see why she was upset. It probably hadn’t helped that Joe had tried to hit on her earlier.

  “Uh, well, he was here a minute ago. I think he’s out getting more dishes?” I put my head down and kept scrubbing, hoping she would leave me alone.

  She waited for a moment, then threw her hands up in the air.

  “If he’s not back here in ten minutes, he is out of a job!”

  “But our shift is done in five minutes,” I pointed out.

  Katlyn looked at the clock, muttered something under her breath, and walked away. Looked like Joe would be keeping his job. I was sure he’d be overjoyed to hear it. I just hoped he’d found something so that this wasn’t all for nothing.

  I never wanted to wash another dish again for the rest of my life. For seven hours, every time I looked up, another pile of plates was being poured into the soap-filled sink in front of me. My hands became wrinkled and waterlogged, even inside my rubber gloves. And once Joe was gone, I had to cover for him too, running out to the dining room, carrying the plates back, and then washing them. It was like spending a day doing chores for Mom. Only worse, because there weren’t even any doughnuts.

  To make things worse, Matthias showed up to give us our work schedule for the rest of the week. We’d still barely talked about the case—all he seemed interested in was giving Joe and me more chores to do.

  “Where’s Joe?” Matthias asked. It seemed to be the only question anyone was interested in asking. “Is he off investigating on his own? I believe we discussed this, did we not? ATAC rules explicitly state that the superior agent must be notified at any time if—”

  “He’s not investigating. He felt sick and had to go back to the room.” I felt bad lying to Matthias, but he was such a stickler for the rules. And if we did it his way, we’d never get anything done. Plus, I was beginning to dislike him. Ugh, I thought, now Joe’s got me thinking like him.

  Matthias seemed almost pleased to hear Joe was sick.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll have a check-in to see how the case is going. Until then, remember to report anything you see or hear to me.”

  “Will do.” Yeah, right, I thought.

  “Oh, and, Frank?”

  “Yes?”

  “You missed a spot on that dish right there. Remember, a good agent pays attention to detail and gets the job done right.”

  I wanted to take my sponge and wipe that smile right off his face. Instead, I scrubbed the dish as hard as I could and pretended it was Matthias’s face.

  When my shift finally ended, Joe still hadn’t returned. I thought about calling him, but if his phone rang at the wrong moment, it would give him away. I couldn’t risk that. With no way of contacting Joe and no idea where he was, I wasn’t sure what to do. Joe can get himself into trouble at times. But two people sneaking around Nikitin’s office were more likely to be noticed than one, so I couldn’t go looking for him. Besides, Joe was just as good at getting out of trouble as he was at getting into it. Or, at least, nearly as good. Most of the time.

  I decided not to think about it and to go check out Nancy’s old room. If Joe didn’t find anything in Nikitin’s office, then the break-in would be our only lead. By tomorrow, the hotel would have cleaned up the suite—and any evidence the thief might have left behind. If we were going to learn anything, we had to get in there tonight.

  I took the elevator up to the penthouse. When I got out, I saw that there was security tape across the door and a Wetlands’ employee posted outside. He was big and burly, but he looked pretty young. I’d have to try to bluff my way past him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “This area is off-limits for the evening.”

  “I’m Frank. Mr. Nikitin sent me to replace you.” I held out my hotel ID for him to inspect. The important thing was to act like I knew what I was doing.

  “But I’m supposed to be on duty until midnight.”

  “Nah, they changed the schedule, so you’re free.”

  “But—”

  “I mean, if you want to stay, that’s fine with me. I’ll head back down to the pool.” I started to walk back into the elevator. It was a gamble.

  “No, wait! I mean, if they told you to come replace me, then I guess I should go.”

  Awesome, he fell for it!

  We switched places. I stood outside the door, trying my best to look bored, until the elevator doors closed behind him. Then I ducked under the security tape and into the suite. The place had been thoroughly trashed. Anything that could be thrown had been thrown. The dresser was knocked over, the drawers had been turned upside down, and there were clothes everywhere.

  My phone vibrated—a message from Joe. I flipped it open and read his text.

  Think Andrew Nikitin is in on the robberies.

  May have accomplice. Be careful.

  So it looked like Joe had found something after all. He was probably headed back to our room, so we could compare information later. Now I really needed to dig up some evidence. I couldn’t let him have all the fun. I had to concentrate and try to find clues among all the chaos.

  Nancy said they couldn’t find anything missing, I thought. That was strange. They hadn’t even taken George’s laptop, which was in plain sight. Almost all the other cases had been straightforward burglaries. None of the other rooms had been ransacked either. They had all been clean, the work of professionals. Except for with Jasmina, there had been minimal violence.

  In Nancy’s suite, it seemed like the thief had been searching for something. And searching in a real hurry. No time to be subtle. But what could he have been looking for? The girls were staying in the penthouse, so perhaps someone thought they had money hidden somewhere. But in that case, why wouldn’t they have taken George’s laptop, or any of their other belongings?

  Maybe he was searching for information. Other than Joe and me, only one person at the hotel even knew who Nancy was: Jack Thorton, the owner of the Wetlands. Could he have been involved?

  Nancy did say that her father had done some legal work for Mr. Thorton. Perhaps he wasn’t happy with the result. And it would make sense that he would be working with Nikitin, since Nikitin was the manager of the hotel.

  If Jack Thorton and Andrew Nikitin are the ones behind the break-ins, that would explain why ATAC didn’t want us to reveal our identities to anyone working at the hotel, I thought. But it didn’t make much sense for Mr. Thorton to put his own hotel in danger. And we’d heard that he wasn’t even around right now. I was going in circles.

  I tried picking through some of the piles of junk in the room. Pillow, T-shirt, jeans, T-shirt, pajamas.

  I dropped the clothes and turned to look somewhere else.

  I went back to the door. The Wetlands had a complicated electronic lock system, where each door was reset after the guest left. The sensor pad showed no signs of being tampered with, and there were no marks on the door frame, so it didn’t look like someone had forced it open.

  If Nikitin was involved, it was possible the thief had a key. If so, I wasn’t going to find anything, and I might as well give up. But if Joe was wrong, maybe the thief had gotten in some other way. It was worth checking, since I was up here already.

  I looked around, searching for another entrance. Off to the side of the main room was a set of sliding glass doors that led to a large balcony. Since the penthouse was on the top floor, it would be easy for someone to drop down from the roof onto the balcony and get in that way.

  Sure enough, the glass door had scratches around the lock. Someone had forced it open from the outside. Maybe they’d left behind evidence out on the balcony. I pushed the glass door open and stepped outside. I was so focused on looking for evidence that I didn’t notice the small step right in the doorway. The tip of my foot caught the edge of the step, and I fell down on my hands and knees.

  Bam!

  The rough surface of the balcony scraped my palms open, and my cell phone went flying through the bars
of the railing and off into the night. ATAC was going to be mad about that. Our phones have dozens of special additions, including GPS and a walkie-talkie mode, and I’m sure they cost a huge amount to replace.

  Staying calm, I reached up with one hand and grabbed the iron railing that ran all the way around the balcony. I started to pull myself up, but it gave way beneath me!

  I fell right back on all fours, my hands stinging with pain. The entire section of the railing separated from the balcony and fell off the side of the hotel. I heard a splash as it hit the water in the pool below me. Thankfully we were above the employee pool, which was already closed for the evening. Otherwise, that fence could have killed someone.

  What is going on?

  If I had been standing up and leaning against the railing, I would have gone right over with it. From where I had fallen, I could see that neat cuts had been made in each of the metal bars. I froze. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

  This was a trap.

  I got up and heard a strange cracking noise behind me. The ground shifted forward and I stumbled right toward the hole in the railing. I just barely managed to stop before I went over the edge.

  I turned around and realized…the whole balcony was coming off the side of the building!

  Cracks had appeared all along the floor, and in a few seconds the whole thing was going to end up in the pool below. From this height, hitting the water would be like hitting concrete.

  Crrrrrack!

  The balcony gave one last shattering sound and detached from the building entirely. I leaped off it just in time. I reached for the doorway—and missed. My hand caught one of the drapes inside, and I grabbed onto it for dear life. It tore off the wall, and I felt myself plunging toward the ground. This was it. I was about to be splattered.

  But soon the fabric pulled taut and I stopped falling. The shock of it nearly knocked my hands off the curtain, but I managed to hold on. I was about five feet below the now balcony-less doorway, and I could see that the fabric of the curtain had gotten wrapped around the handle of the door.