037 Last Dance

by Carolyn Keene

  They found Laurie propped up on her pillows, her head bandaged. Her skin was pale and she looked tired, but she smiled when she saw Nancy and George. Her father had already left, and Mrs. Weaver slipped out to go to the cafeteria for coffee.

  “Hi,” George said to Laurie, going to stand at the foot of her bed. “How are you feeling?”

  Laurie smiled sadly. “Not so good, actually. When I think of what could have happened—”

  Nancy touched Laurie’s shoulder. “You were lucky,” she said.

  Laurie settled back, lifting a hand to her head and wincing with pain. “That depends on your viewpoint,” she replied. “You’re sure the other driver is all right?”

  “He’s fine,” Nancy answered.

  “And my car?”

  Now it was Nancy who winced. “It’s on its way to the shop. I’m not sure whether it can be repaired or not.”

  Laurie smiled sadly. “I guess I really blew it this time,” she said.

  Before Nancy or George could answer, a nurse came in with a pill for Laurie to take. It seemed like a good time to leave, so the girls said goodbye to their friend and left the room.

  “What now?” George asked.

  Nancy sighed. “Adam was the only real suspect I had besides Jon. So I guess that leaves only one choice.”

  They took the elevator downstairs and walked out of the building, hurrying across the parking lot to Nancy’s car.

  “I think I’ll go for a drive—I really need to sort all this out,” Nancy said, as they pulled out into afternoon traffic. “Want to come along?”

  George shook her head. “I’d like to, but I’ve got some stuff to do at home.”

  Nancy dropped George off at her house and then set out for the lake. She turned on the radio. A familiar love song rolled out of the speakers, its melody sad and romantic. Now, where had she heard that song recently?

  Ahead of Nancy, the traffic light turned red. She coasted to a halt. Why did she feel so completely wrong about this case? Why was it that she couldn’t bring herself to believe—really believe, in her heart—that Jon Villiers could be a cold-blooded killer? All the evidence pointed to him and no one else.

  As the light changed, Nancy gripped the steering wheel tightly. I have to talk to him, she realized. I have to lay it all out, give him a chance to explain.

  Taking a deep breath, Nancy swung into a right turn and headed for Moves. She hoped her instincts were right.

  Because if she were wrong, she was playing right into the hands of a murderer.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  THERE WERE ONLY TWO CARS left in the parking lot at Moves as Nancy arrived. Nancy parked near the kitchen entrance to the club, thinking she’d find Jon in his office. The small room was empty, so Nancy picked her way through the debris of the fire until she reached the dance floor.

  Jon was in the sound booth, frowning as he appeared to be examining the expensive equipment. When he saw Nancy, he gave her a weary smile.

  “Hi,” he said, stepping out to speak with her. “I’m afraid it’ll be a while before we can open the club for business again. I’ve had to let all the waitresses go temporarily—”

  “I didn’t come here about my job,” Nancy broke in quietly, folding her arms. It was time to be honest with Jon. “I have to ask you some serious questions, Jon—and I need straight answers.”

  “This sounds pretty important,” Jon replied with a weary grin. “Let’s talk in my office.” He paused to look around at what remained of his club. “It’s about the only place in the building that wasn’t burned to a crisp.”

  Nancy led the way back to Jon’s office and sat down in a chair facing him while he took a seat behind his desk. His elbows on the desktop, he made a steeple of his fingers and sat back to wait for Nancy to begin.

  She took a deep breath to prepare herself. This could be unpleasant. “Who was the man who was in here last night, just before the fire?” she asked finally. “I heard him tell you to ‘pay up or get the job done.’ ”

  Jon’s face darkened. “So Pam was right. You were here to snoop,” he muttered.

  Nancy leaned forward in her chair. “This situation has gotten really dangerous,” she said. “If I can’t get answers from you, I’m going to have to go to the police.”

  “Don’t do that,” Jon said quickly. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

  Nancy watched him, waiting calmly for an answer to her original question.

  Jon sighed. “The man you heard was my uncle, Mike Rivers.”

  “And?” Nancy prompted after a long time.

  Jon became reticent to continue. “We were only talking business,” he said, glaring at her.

  Nancy decided then and there to let him know all her suspicions. “What job did your uncle want you to get done? How. did he get out of the fire? That day of Laurie’s party, when you were talking to someone on the telephone in Mr. Weaver’s study, you promised to ‘take care of her.’ Who was the ‘her’ you were going to take care of, and what were, you going to do? Was the deep-fryer ‘accident’ just a dress rehearsal for last night’s ire?” She paused to take a breath. “Were all your problems just going to go up in smoke, Jon—including Laurie?”

  Jon was staring at Nancy in amazement all the while she talked, but her last question seemed to break down the wall he’d been hiding behind.

  “I came to liver Heights hoping to make a fresh start,” he explained angrily. His frustration was obvious to Nancy. “I really needed to get away from Chicago and shake off my past, and I had a good idea—Moves. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the money it took to get a club like this going.”

  “So you borrowed,” Nancy guessed.

  Jon nodded sadly. “I went to some friends of my uncle’s,” he confessed. “From the very first, they’ve been waiting for me to blow it so they can step in and take over—run it their way, with some illegal gambling to liven things up a little. Moves has turned a profit since I opened it, though, and I’ve always been able to make the payments on the loan. There’s only one left, in fact.”

  Nancy sat in silence while Jon struggled with some inner emotion that prevented him from going on.

  Finally, he began again. “I haven’t been able to come up with that last payment, since the last quarter’s taxes were higher than I expected. That’s the money you heard my uncle demanding last night.”

  Nancy nodded, urging Jon to keep talking.

  “As for the job he referred to,” Jon went on, “that was a little scheme he came up with to help me meet the payment and get those loan sharks off my back.” His face twisted with self-disgust. “He wanted me to case the Weavers’ house, so he could rob it.”

  Nancy remembered Brenda Carlton telling her that Jon’s uncle was a convicted burglar. It all clicked. “But you refused?”

  “I really care about Laurie,” Jon said hotly, meeting Nancy’s eyes.

  Nancy decided not to test Mm on that yet. There were other things she needed to find out first. “What about the fire? Did you set it?”

  The expression in his eyes was bleak. “No,” he said, in a forceful whisper. “This place was the best chance I had of making something out of my life.”

  Nancy asked, “How about your uncle? Could he have done something like this? He was around just before the fire, Jon, and then I didn’t see him again.”

  “He left the minute he smelled smoke,” Jon answered. “He didn’t want to be here when the police arrived. And before that, he was with me.”

  “Then who did it?” Nancy pressed.

  Jon raked his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I know one thing—I’m going to get the blame because of my record. Because of a stupid thing I did when I was a kid.”

  “The insurance inspectors still think you set the fire?” Nancy prodded.

  Jon nodded. “I’m looking at a long stretch in prison for arson and insurance fraud, and I’m not guilty!”
he said angrily.

  Nancy was beginning to believe Jon. He was smart—he’d have known that the insurance people would suspect him of arson, and that it would be hard to collect his money. But even more than that, Nancy believed he wouldn’t destroy the club that meant so much to him.

  “Let’s go back to the idea of casing the Weavers’ house for a burglary,” she said. “Was that what you were talking about in Laurie’s father’s study during her party?”

  “I was trying to stall,” Jon confessed. “But, at the same time, I had to pretend that I would go along with the robbery. I figured if I could come up with the money I needed some other way, there would be no need to steal from the Weavers. When I said I’d ‘take care of her,’ I meant I’d make sure Laurie was out of the house when the time came.”

  “I see.” Nancy nodded for him to continue.

  “I didn’t want Laurie to be hurt in any way,” Jon said miserably. “I tried to break off with her—I thought that would get my uncle off my back about robbing her family. After all, if I wasn’t seeing Laurie, how could I be the finger man for a burglary?”

  “But you went on seeing Laurie,” Nancy pointed out.

  Jon’s shoulders moved in a forlorn shrug. “Right from the first moment I saw Laurie, I was crazy about her,” he said. “Giving her up was too hard. Especially since she didn’t want me to.”

  “And Pam? What’s going on with her?”

  Jon’s lips formed a tight line for a moment before he answered, “Nothing. Not a thing.”

  “I’ve seen you together, Jon,” Nancy told him. “Maybe you aren’t involved with Pam now, but you have been.”

  Jon looked away, unwilling to meet Nancy’s eyes. “I told you, there’s nothing going on,” he said forcefully. Nancy didn’t press him—she knew she’d hit a brick wall. It was clear that Jon wasn’t going to say another word on the subject.

  “All right, it’s nothing,” Nancy said, echoing his words. “What about Sheila Day? Was that nothing, too? Why did you lie about her?”

  Jon stared at Nancy as though she’d sprouted an extra set of eyes. “Sheila? You mean you don’t—” He broke off abruptly. There was a wary look in his eyes. “Sheila’s not involved in this. I assure you, she’s very much alive. I’ve got problems with her, but she has no part in what’s been going on.”

  Nancy let the subject drop. “Did you know I found Laurie unconscious on the cellar floor last night? She didn’t get there by accident—somebody struck her over the head and took her down there to die in the fire. Do you think your uncle could have taken matters into his own hands and tried to get Laurie out of the way?”

  Jon didn’t hesitate for a moment. He immediately shook his head. “Uncle Mike might steal, but he’d never kill anybody. And why would he Ml his meal ticket? Without Laurie he wouldn’t learn any more about the Weavers.”

  Jon riffled through the papers on his desk until he found a check. “Here,” he said, extending it to Nancy. “This is yours.”

  Nancy shook her head. She hadn’t taken the job at Moves for money, and they both knew it now. Accepting payment wouldn’t be right. “Give it to charity or something,” she said.

  Jon laid the check down and leaned forward in his chair. “She—” He stopped and moistened his lips. “Pam was suspicious about you from the first, you know,” he told her. “She wanted me to fire you. I’m glad I didn’t, though—I’m really glad I didn’t.”

  “Why?” Nancy asked, honestly puzzled. She was about to leave and had risen out of her chair.

  “Because if I had, you wouldn’t have been here to save Laurie from the fire. I’ll always be grateful that you got Laurie out in time.”

  Nancy winced. That brought her to the one topic she hadn’t discussed yet: Laurie’s accident. Briefly, she explained how Laurie had gotten upset and wrecked her Mustang.

  “Somebody cut her brakeline,” she finished, watching Jon carefully.

  “What?” Jon choked out, shooting up from his chair.

  Nancy held up a hand. “She’s all right! They’re only keeping her overnight for observation,” she said.

  Jon didn’t even hear her. Looking as though he’d just seen a ghost, he pushed past Nancy and raced out of the office at a dead run.

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  NANCY REMAINED in the small, cluttered office for a few moments after Jon had left, thinking. As far as she was concerned, another suspect had just been ruled out. Whatever Jon Villiers might have lied about, whatever he’d done, he wasn’t behind the attacks on Laurie—he cared too .much. And they would serve no purpose.

  Nibbling at her lower lip, a frown furrowing her brow, Nancy stepped out into the hallway.

  Who was left to suspect? Now that she’d ruled out Adam Boyd—he’d been in the hospital with two injured hands when Laurie’s brakeline was cut—and Jon himself, there seemed to be no one with a real motive.

  There was Jon’s uncle Mike, but that was unlikely. The attacks on Laurie seemed, at the very least, geared to driving her away from Moves and Jon. Nancy knew that would be the last thing Jon’s uncle would want. The more Laurie loved and trusted Jon, the more it would suit the older man’s purposes.

  What about Pam? There was definitely something between Pam and Jon. Maybe it was in the past, but . . .

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute!” Nancy whispered as an incredible idea suddenly struck her.

  What if she’d been on the right track when she’d thought Adam Boyd was behind all the mischief? He and Laurie had loved each other in the past, and he was jealous of Laurie and Jon.

  But Nancy took the idea one step further. Laurie and Adam weren’t the only ones with a past. What about Jon and Pam? More to the point, what about Jon and Sheila Day?

  Nancy had assumed that Sheila was out of the picture—that she was still in Chicago, where she and Jon had been dance partners. Nancy had been guessing that Jon had come to River Heights partly to get away from Sheila. He met Pam right away, then dropped her as soon as he met Laurie.

  But if Pam and Jon had dated for such a short time, why did they seem to know each other so well? The times Nancy had seen them together, there had been a connection between them that could only come from knowing each other a long time.

  And they danced together so perfectly. . . .

  What was it Jon had said? “She—Pam was suspicious about you from the first.” Now, there was an interesting slip of the tongue. Could he have been about to say, “Sheila was suspicious about you . . .”?

  In fact, what if Sheila Day had been in River Heights all along? What if she was the one trying to kill Laurie? It would make perfect sense. . . .

  From the main part of the club came the soft strains of a slow song. Nancy nodded to herself. Right on cue, she thought.

  Quickly and quietly, she made her way to the doors and slipped inside the dancing area, being careful to keep to the shadows.

  Pam Hastings was standing in the center of the enormous, burned-out room. As Nancy watched, she set a large portable radio down on the floor beside her. Music flowed from its speakers.

  Pam was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a lightweight jacket. Even in the poor light, Nancy could see the wild glint of emotion in the girl’s eyes.

  Facing her, his hands in his pockets, was Jon.

  Nancy was surprised, since he’d been in such a hurry to leave the club and see Laurie.

  “For once, Jon Villiers,” Pam was saying, “you’re going to listen to me. I love you. I’m the only woman who can make you happy.”

  Jon’s answer confirmed all Nancy’s suspicions. “Sheila, give it up,” he said quietly. “Please.”

  Sheila Day—alias Pam Hastings—stepped toward Jon, holding out her arms, as the music continued. “Let’s dance, like we used to. We had a good thing going.”

  “We did,” Jon agreed, his voice steely, “but I told you again and again—it’s over. You and I are through.”

  Sheila shook her head. “You don�
�t understand. I did it all for you—I did so many things for you.”

  Jon’s shoulders slumped as if a great weight had suddenly fallen on them. “Like what?” he asked wearily, barely listening.

  Sheila shrugged her shoulders and spread her hands. “All of it. The slashed tires.”

  “So that was really aimed at Laurie, not Nancy,” Jon guessed, suddenly more alert.

  Sheila nodded. “They both have Mustangs—I got them mixed up.”

  “What else have you done?” Jon asked.

  As Nancy watched, Sheila seemed to puff up with pride. “I left a noose on Laurie’s porch, and I held that nosy Nancy Drew under the water at the lake, too, She never learns, you know. When that didn’t work, I arranged the grease ‘accident’ in the kitchen—to scare her off.”

  Nancy saw Jon shudder slightly. “And you’re responsible for this, too?” he asked, indicating the burned-out club with a wave of one hand.

  Sheila shrugged. “You didn’t give me a choice, Jon. I tried to talk to you, but you wouldn’t listen. I had to do something big, don’t you see?”

  Jon simply stared at her, stunned by what she’d done.

  Sheila went on, almost proudly. “I knew you’d love me again, if I could just get Laurie out of the way. We need to get away from here, you and I, mate a new start. I decided to kill two birds with one stone, if you’ll excuse the expression. I hit Laurie over the head and dragged her into the cellar, then. I set the fire.” She paused, and a frown altered her features. “Everything would have been okay, if it hadn’t been for Nancy Drew. By rights, she and Laurie both should have gone up in smoke.”

  Jon was shaking his head in amazement. “You’re crazy,” he muttered.

  Sheila’s eyes shone with tears. “That’s right,” she answered, sounding a little worried. “Crazy about you.”

  Jon started to leave. “I’ve got to get to Laurie,” he said.

  Sheila immediately stepped in front of him. “No,” she said. “There is no Laurie, not anymore. I cut the brakelines in her car—it’s too late. She’s dead.”