163 The Clues Challenge

  Nancy barely had time to hang up her stuff before

  Ned dragged her and George to the dance floor.

  “After a day outside in the freezing cold, it feels

  good to work up a sweat,” she said over the music.

  C.J. and Dede were already dancing. And Grant left

  a soda on the counter to come over to dance with

  George. Nancy caught sight of most of the other Clues

  Challenge contestants, but it was so much fun to be

  close to Ned that Nancy didn't pay much attention to

  anyone but him.

  “I need a break!” she said after six long songs.

  While Ned headed to the counter for sodas, Nancy

  searched for a place to sit.

  “That must be Randy,” she murmured as the flash

  from a camera made her blink.

  He was taking pictures of C.J. and Dede from an

  alcove near the dance floor. Seeing that the two other

  chairs in the alcove were empty, Nancy quickly wound

  through the crowd to him.

  “Still working on your article?” she asked.

  “That's what I'm here for.” Randy snapped off an-

  other shot, then gestured to the empty chairs. “Have a

  seat.”

  “Thanks.” As she sat down, Nancy glanced curiously

  at him. “Do you work in this area a lot?” she asked. If

  he did, then it was possible that he knew Mr. Lorenzo

  from before.

  “I usually cover the West Coast,” Randy told her.

  “This is my first time here. I'm out of film,” he said.

  “I've got another roll in my jacket. Be back in a sec.”

  After he disappeared, Nancy noticed his notebook.

  It lay on the coffee table in front of them. Inside the

  front cover were the folded-up sheets from his Jeep

  that Nancy had seen him put there earlier. Right after

  he'd spent the afternoon away from Randy, she

  remembered.

  Nancy glanced quickly over the crowd. Then taking

  a deep breath, she slipped the papers out and unfolded

  them.

  “A fax,” she murmured. The cover sheet showed that

  it had been sent to Randy at the Emerson Inn that

  afternoon.

  Nancy flipped to the page beneath. It was a copy of

  a Sports World article, dated three years earlier. The

  title was, “Point-Fixing Scandal Ruins Western Tech.”

  And the name on the byline was . . .

  “Randy Cohen,” Nancy murmured.

  Why would Randy want an article he wrote three

  years earlier?

  Quickly Nancy read on: “Three of Western Tech's

  top basketball players were expelled last week after

  admitting their involvement in a point-fixing scam.”

  Nancy knew it was illegal for players to score low on

  purpose to lose games. She also knew that there was

  lots of gambling on college basketball games and that

  point fixing was a way to guarantee winning big money.

  What did that have to do with what was going on at

  the Clues Challenge?

  Nancy turned her attention back to the article: “Ty

  Brubaker, Kent Atwood, and Jamal Warner all gave

  statements to the district attorney, stating that they had

  kept scores low in order to lose games. Their coach

  expressed shock and disappointment in his three top

  players, all of whom had hoped to . . .”

  “What are you doing?” a voice spoke up right next to

  Nancy, making her jump about a foot in the air.

  “Ned!” She breathed a sigh of relief as her boyfriend

  sat down, setting two glasses of soda on the table.

  “Thank goodness it's you. I was just. . .”

  Her voice trailed off as the band stopped playing in

  midsong. Mel Lorenzo stepped up to the microphone,

  wearing a parka, hat, and scarf.

  “Excuse me for the interruption,” he said gruffly.

  “I'd like to see the members of the Omega Chi Epsilon

  team at the drinks counter right away.”

  “He sounds serious,” Ned murmured.

  “Maybe he found out something about the sabo-

  tage,” Nancy said. Shoving the faxed papers back under

  the cover of Randy's notebook, she got to her feet. She

  and Ned made it to the counter at the same time as

  Grant, George, and C.J.

  “What's going on?” C.J. asked.

  Mr. Lorenzo unzipped his jacket with a yank. “I

  have reason to believe that someone from your team

  has broken Clues Challenge rules,” he said.

  “What!” Nancy, Ned, C.J., George, and Grant all

  cried at once.

  “You know the rules. Searching for clues after sun-

  down is forbidden,” Mr. Lorenzo went on. “Yet on my

  way here I saw one of you in the woods near the

  library.”

  Nancy blinked at him. “That's impossible. We were

  all right here,” she said.

  “I know what I saw. Those yellow Omega hats are

  impossible to miss,” Mr. Lorenzo insisted. He turned

  his eyes on each of them in turn. “I'm sorry, but as of

  this minute your team is disqualified from the Clues

  Challenge.”

  11. An Unfair Judgment

  Nancy's mouth dropped open. “I don't know who you

  saw,” she said, “but it wasn't any of us.”

  “We've all been here for at least half an hour,”

  George added.

  Mr. Lorenzo pulled off his parka and hat, and shook

  out his ponytail. “I'll need more than just your

  assurance,” he told them. “You'll have to prove it.”

  Mr. Lorenzo scowled as Randy joined the group

  with his camera and notebook. Randy must have heard

  them talking because he said, “I saw them, Mr.

  Lorenzo. All five members of the Omega team have

  been here for some time now.”

  Sparks of irritation shot from Mr. Lorenzo's eyes.

  “You expect me to believe that?” he scoffed. “You re-

  porters will say anything.”

  “He's not the only one who saw us,” Grant said.

  He, C.J., and Ned began pulling over other students.

  Mr. Lorenzo spoke to them one by one. After talking to

  about ten people, he waved the rest away.

  “See, Mr. Lorenzo?” said Ned. “With all those

  people to back us up, you have to believe us.”

  Mr. Lorenzo nodded grudgingly. “All right. Omega

  Chi Epsilon is back in the Clues Challenge,” he said.

  “Does he have to sound so disappointed?” George

  whispered in Nancy's ear. “It's almost like he wants to

  disqualify us.”

  “Hmmm.” Nancy turned to George and Ned and

  said, “I want to check something.”

  She led the way to the alcove where they had left

  their jackets. “We all wore our team hats tonight,” she

  said. “If Mr. Lorenzo saw someone wearing one of the

  hats . . .”

  “Then someone else must have taken one of them!”

  Ned finished. “Here!” he said, plucking two bright

  yellow Omega hats from the jumble of things. “C.J.'s

  and Grant's are still right here.”

  George scanned the rows of jackets and coats that

  were piled on top of one another. “Here's yours, Ned,”

  she said, pulling out a green sleeve.
“The hat's in your

  pocket.”

  Nancy finally found her own jacket. She reached in

  the pocket searching for her hat, but came up empty-

  handed.

  “It's gone,” she said.

  George leaned against the wall. “So someone wore

  your hat to set us up to be disqualified,” she said. “But .

  . . how could anyone know Mr. Lorenzo would see

  her?”

  “Or him,” Nancy said. “We don't know how yet. But

  maybe we can figure out who.”

  She stepped out of the alcove and looked over the

  party. “Dennis was here,” she said as she caught sight

  of him near the band. “I saw him dancing a few

  minutes before Mr. Lorenzo got here.”

  “So he probably wasn't the person, because he

  couldn't be in two places at once,” Ned said. “What

  about Joy?”

  “She was here when we arrived. But not now. Do

  you guys see her anywhere?”

  Ned and George shook their heads.

  “We'd better make sure.” Nancy pressed her mouth

  into a determined line and moved toward the other

  end of the room, where the band played. She, Ned,

  and George made their way up one side of the room

  and down the other.

  “She's missing in action,” Ned said. “Wait—scratch

  that.” He nodded toward the entrance. “There she is.”

  Nancy turned in time to see Joy step out of the al-

  cove where the coats were. “Her cheeks are bright

  red,” Nancy murmured. “And look at the way she's

  blowing on her hands—like she needs to warm them

  up after being outside.”

  Nancy, George, and Ned practically bowled over the

  people on the dance floor in their rush to get to Joy.

  “I've been looking for you,” Nancy said. “Where've

  you been?”

  “Been?” Joy shot a cool glance at George and Ned,

  who had ducked into the alcove where the coats were.

  Ned reemerged a moment later, holding up a bright

  yellow Omega team hat.

  “Look what I found in your jacket pocket, Nancy,”

  he said, holding it up. “Your hat made a miraculous

  reappearance.” He fixed Joy with a probing stare. “You

  wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would

  you?”

  Joy's eyes flickered uncertainly. “I—I don't know

  what you're talking about,” she said.

  “Someone took Nancy's hat and did some clue

  searching in the woods near the library,” George ex-

  plained. “Our whole team was here, but nobody's seen

  you for a while. Now you reappear—and so does

  Nancy's hat.”

  Joy shook herself, and her uneasiness hardened to a

  look of cool arrogance. “I haven't broken any rules, and

  you know it,” she said. “You act like victims. But if you

  ask me, you're the ones causing all the trouble around

  here.” With that, she elbowed past Nancy and headed

  for the dance floor.

  George stared blankly at Nancy and Ned. “Can

  someone explain what just happened?”

  “Joy obviously isn't going to admit she took my hat,”

  Nancy said. “I guess she knows we can't prove for sure

  it was her. But I still want to tell Mr. Lorenzo.”

  “Someone took my team hat,” Nancy told Mr.

  Lorenzo. “Ten minutes ago we couldn't find my hat or

  Joy, but then the hat reappeared in my jacket pocket.

  Right after Joy turned up again.”

  Nancy wasn't surprised to see the doubt on Mr.

  Lorenzo's face. “I know it's not proof,” she said quickly.

  “But you have to admit it's suspicious.”

  “I still don't have enough to disqualify anyone,” he

  said, picking up his soda from the counter. “But I'll

  keep my eyes open.”

  “Thanks,” Nancy said. She hesitated a moment, not

  sure how to phrase her next question. After all, she

  couldn't admit that she had sneaked into his office at

  the store. “About the threat I saw on your computer,

  are you sure it wasn't serious? No one is trying to

  blackmail you?”

  Mr. Lorenzo's eyebrows shot up. “Your imagination

  is working overtime, Nancy,” he said. “There's no

  threat. No blackmail.”

  This time Nancy knew he was lying. All she had to

  do now was find out why.

  “What a day.” Nancy yawned as she, Ned, and

  George walked back across the campus toward Ned's

  frat. “We've been soaped, icicled, filed, disqualified,

  and reinstated—and we're still not done for the day.”

  George pushed up the cuff of her parka to check her

  watch. “What time did we tell C.J. and Grant we'd

  meet to brainstorm the third clue?” she asked.

  “Nine-thirty,” Ned said. He glanced at the brick

  fraternity house to their left, then chuckled. “I guess

  we're not the only ones working on clues.”

  “Sigma Pi,” Nancy said, reading the Greek letters on

  the banner over the doorway. She glanced through the

  front window and saw Philip, Jake, and Malik. They

  were sitting around a wooden plank balanced on milk

  crates that served as their coffee table. On the plank

  was a slip of paper that looked like a clue.

  “Where's Dennis?” she wondered out loud.

  As she spoke, a door to the left of the living room

  opened. Dennis and the other guy on the Sigma Pi

  team emerged from a bedroom and joined everyone

  else.

  “Did you guys see that bedroom? Do you think it's

  Dennis's?” Nancy asked.

  Without waiting for an answer, she stepped off the

  path and waded through the snow toward the brick frat

  house.

  “What are you doing?” George whispered.

  Nancy made her way around the side of the house to

  the window of the bedroom from which Dennis had

  emerged. “If he's the saboteur, maybe we'll find

  something to prove it in his room.”

  “We don't know for sure it is his room,” Ned pointed

  out. He followed Nancy, shooting uncertain glances at

  the living room window. “What if they catch us?”

  Nancy pushed the window frame up, then grinned

  when it rose noiselessly. “We'll have to make sure they

  don't, that's all.”

  “I'll keep watch,” George whispered, ducking next to

  some bushes near the living room window. “Just be

  fast!”

  Moving as quickly and quietly as they could, Nancy

  and Ned climbed through the window. To their left

  was a desk with a sleek laptop computer that Nancy

  recognized immediately.

  “That's Dennis's. We're in luck!” she whispered.

  The muffled sounds of Sigma Pi voices came

  through the door. Nancy took a calming breath and

  looked around at the bed, dresser, and bookshelf that

  took up most of the space. The walls were plastered

  with

  Emerson

  Wildcat

  pennants.

  Trophies,

  photographs, books, and papers cluttered every

  surface. A jumble of clothes and sports equipment was

 
visible through the half-open closet door.

  “I'll check in there,” Ned whispered, tiptoeing to the

  closet.

  Nancy nodded. “Keep your eyes open for soap, a

  screwdriver, or any sign that Dennis is the one black-

  mailing Mr. Lorenzo.”

  She turned to the desk. Nancy didn't dare turn on

  the computer—Dennis would definitely hear it boot

  up. Instead she sorted through the books and papers

  on the desktop.

  Nancy glanced at a couple of photographs as she set

  them aside to get at a notebook. One photo was of

  Dennis, a middle-aged couple, and a slightly older boy

  with dark eyebrows that stretched above his eyes in a

  solid line. Nancy guessed they were Dennis's brother

  and parents. The other was an autographed photo of

  Ziggy Laroquette, the hottest player in professional

  basketball. At the bottom of the photo someone had

  written a message: “The stars are in your reach. The

  sky's the limit.” The signature, in the same slanted

  scrawl, read simply, “Pops.”

  Pops? Nancy knew Laroquette's nickname was the

  Rocket. Did that mean someone else had written that

  message?

  Nancy forced herself to focus on the sabotage and

  blackmail. Putting the photo aside, she continued her

  search.

  Notebooks, address book, schedule of football

  games . . .

  She was just moving to the drawers when she heard

  Dennis's voice, right outside the door.

  “I'll get my computer,” he said. “I think I have a

  program that will . . .”

  Nancy gasped. Ned straightened up from the closet

  like a bolt. His brown eyes locked on the door,

  widening as the doorknob rattled.

  Dennis was about to catch them red-handed.

  12. Close Call

  Nancy watched helplessly as the doorknob twisted.

  The sound of a door banging open made her jump.

  Her body went totally rigid—until she realized the

  door she'd heard wasn't the one to Dennis's room.

  “Hello?” George's voice called out. “Dennis! I need

  to talk to you.”

  Nancy went limp. It must have been the front door

  of the frat that had been opened.

  Go talk to George, Nancy begged silently. She kept

  her eyes on the bedroom door, hardly daring to

  breathe. Please, don't come in now!

  The knob stopped moving. “What do you want?”

  came Dennis's voice. Nancy heard his footsteps move

  away from the bedroom.