034 Vanishing Act

by Carolyn Keene

  At last she found her voice. "As you say, that's interesting," she said. "But it can't be true—for a very simple reason. I know that Tommy Road is still alive." From the corner of her eye she could see George turning to stare at her, but she kept her gaze on Officer Squires.

  "And just how do you know that?" he asked.

  "I'm working on the evidence right now," Nancy replied. I'll find some, anyway, she thought. "And I'm sure that TV Rock will back me up. I'm heading right over to the station to bring one of their camera crews here."

  To her secret satisfaction, Officer Squires was starting to look worried. "And now," Nancy asked, "where's Jesse? We'd like to talk to him."

  "He's out of the hospital," the officer answered a little sullenly. "You can see him any time. He's waiting for you in there." He pointed to a door at the end of the room and turned his back on them. "I've got a lot of work to do," he muttered. "What a way to spend a Sunday morning."

  Jesse was sitting on a bench, his head against the wall. He stood up when he saw them—and then wjnced. "I've got to remember to move more slowly," he said.

  Under his shirt, his shoulder was bulging with bandages. "How's your arm?" George asked solicitously.

  "Much better." He started to smile, but the smile faded instantly. "It'll have plenty of time to heal in jail, too."

  "Don't talk that way!" Nancy said. "You're not under arrest. And we're going to beat this thing!"

  "I'm glad to hear you say that, Nancy," George said, "and I can't wait to hear how. But let's talk about it outside. I don't want to turn around and find Officer Squires looming over me."

  There was a little coffee shop next to the police station. Over coffee and doughnuts Nancy told George and Jesse about her hunch. Both of them looked at her doubtfully when she'd finished.

  "It would be great if it were true," Jesse said, "but why are you so sure? Just because there's no body doesn't mean there wasn't a body once, if you know what I mean. Believe me, I'm not eager to face a murder rap, but I don't trust hunches."

  "Nancy's hunches are always right," George said loyally. "And not because she's psychic or anything. She only gets hunches when she's noticed some little detail subconsciously. It's as if something trips her memory. That's why I'm sure she's right now. But how you're going to explain this to the police and Mr. Thomas, I just don't know."

  "It's the shirt," Nancy said.

  "Excuse me?" Jesse asked.

  Nancy was frowning thoughtfully. "When you think about it, that bloody shirt doesn't make any sense," she said. "Let's just say it's true that there's a witness to the fight who doesn't want to get involved. Let's take it even further and say that the witness did hang onto the shirt all this time, hoping that when Jesse did turn up, he or she would be able to incriminate him. Okay, it's possible—barely.

  "But it was a T-shirt! Can you imagine anyone who'd watch the fight, wade into the water to retrieve a body, take a bloody T-shirt off a corpse, and then decide just to leave the body in the water? It's not believable. It just doesn't make any sense! I don't think there was ever a dead body. I think Tommy Road survived the fall, kept his shirt, and only came forward now that Jesse's back."

  "You know, you're right! That's just Tommy's style," said Jesse. He gave a giddy laugh. "I guess I'm not a murderer after all! Boy, I feel as though you've lifted a ten-ton weight off my head!"

  "But we've still got to convince everyone else," Nancy said. She set her coffee cup down with a click. "Let's get over to TVR now. Fm going to call Mr. Thomas and ask him to meet us there."

  "He's on his way," she said, returning from the pay phone. "He wasn't tremendously happy to be woken up this early on Sunday, but I told him it couldn't wait."

  The TVR building was all but deserted. A sleepy-looking receptionist in the lobby winced when she saw them rushing in. "You look much too wide-awake," she said with a yawn. "Go on into Mr. Thomas's office. He's expecting you."

  He was sitting behind his desk when they walked in, his fingers drumming the desktop impatiently. "This had better be good," he began —and then he saw Jesse.

  His eyes widened. "Jesse Slade!" he exclaimed. "I thought you'd been arr—I mean, taken to hospital!"

  Nancy was sure Mr. Thomas had been about to say "arrested." Now, how did he know that? she wondered. Did he find out about it on TV? But what news station could have gotten the story so quickly? Jesse had only been with the police for half an hour.

  And why had he said "taken to hospital" instead of "taken to the hospital"?

  The ghost of a suspicion was beginning to float around Nancy's brain. Could Winslow Thomas be British? Tommy Road had been British, too. . . .

  Before she could think about it further, Mr.

  Thomas jumped up with his hand extended. "I'm so pleased to make your acquaintance," he said rapidly. "On behalf of TVR, I'd like to welcome you back to the world."

  "Nice to meet you," Jesse said. He was looking a little perplexed, Nancy thought. "We—we haven't met before, have we?"

  "I wish we had," Winslow said regretfully. "But TVR hadn't really taken off when you—uh —vanished. I hope we'll have the pleasure of working together often from now on."

  He turned to Nancy. "Was this why you had me come—to meet Jesse?"

  "Not exactly," said Nancy. She took a deep breath. "Mr. Thomas, I've gone ahead and stuck my neck out on something. I hope you won't mind." And she described what had just taken place at the police station.

  "You what?" Mr. Thomas asked, reddening angrily. "How could you involve this station in something so farfetched? That seems a little nervy to me, Nancy."

  "I really had no choice." Nancy met his gaze steadily. "You see, I know I'm right."

  Winslow Thomas's face was contorted with rage now. "I've never heard of such a thing! You wheedled your way in here, and now you're going to make a laughingstock of us! I should call the police and have you thrown out of here!"

  What was happening to his accent? All of a sudden it was British! Nancy looked at her friends and saw that they were as puzzled as she.

  The hint that had been nagging her began to surface. Suddenly she realized it had to be true.

  "Go on, get out!" he was shouting.

  "You are Tommy Road!" Nancy whispered.

  Mr. Thomas froze. "What—what are you saying?" he sputtered. "You really are crazy!"

  "No, she's right!" Jesse gasped. "I knew I'd seen you before!"

  "It's all starting to make sense now," Nancy said. "Your voice. The British phrases that kept popping out. Your weird-looking beard. And there was plenty of time for you to get over to Jesse's house last night, once I'd told you everything. You were the one who shot him. You must have been hanging around and watching to see what happened. You gave that shirt to the police. That's why you thought Jesse had been arrested!"

  Mr. Thomas—Tommy Road—hesitated for a second. Then he gave her an ironic bow. "I must congratulate you," he said, his eyes full of hate. "I'm only surprised our friend Mr. Slade didn't recognize me sooner."

  He wheeled around to turn his full fury on Jesse. "You tried to kill me," he spat out.

  Jesse's face was white with shock. "I—I didn't! You know I didn't mean for you to fall off that cliff! It was an accident!"

  "It may have been an accident," Tommy Road

  said in a steely voice, "but you'll pay for it. When I'm done with you, you'll wish you'd been the one who'd slid off that cliff."

  "You didn't even really manage to hurt me," he sneered. "I sprained my ankle, but that was about it. I watched you come down the cliff. I could tell it was too dark for you to see me. I swore I'd kill you when you reached the bottom. But when you took off down the beach, I thought —wait, this is my big chance!

  "I assumed you'd report that I'd died. I hoped you'd be found guilty of my death. Whichever one happened, I knew no one would be trying to arrest Tommy Road for embezzlement. You can't arrest a dead man! It was my big chance to get away with the money and start a new life
. I wouldn't even have to leave the country.

  "Of course I saved my bloody shirt just in case it might come in handy someday," he continued. "And earlier that week—when I found out you'd been snooping around the accounts—I'd taken the precaution of switching the money in my account to a numbered Swiss account. No names necessary. All I had to do was grow a beard, wait until my hair grew in—and start life over. First I invested in record production. Then in music videos. And then I got my own music channel." He chuckled suddenly. "Of course I don't let any of the bands I used to handle perform on TVR."

  Now he turned to Nancy. "You've obviously done a lot of thinking, Ms. Drew. It's a pity that you're so clever, because I'm not about to let anyone interfere with my plans. Not an amateur detective. Not a has-been rock star. Not anyone!"

  And before anyone could stop him, he bolted from the room.

  "We've got to catch him!" Nancy shouted.

  The three of them dashed out of the office. Tommy Road was just disappearing into one of the preview rooms at the end of the hall. They pursued him to the door.

  "It was this room," Nancy called, and they ran into it so fast that they piled up at the entrance.

  The little room was pitch-dark. "Wait!" Nancy said. "He's not—"

  There was a click—the sound of the door being locked.

  Nancy whirled around to test the door they'd just come through. "He just locked it," she said.

  Frantically Jesse rattled the knob of the door at the other end of the room. It was locked, too.

  Then a light came on in the production booth on the other side of the glass wall. Tommy Road was sitting at the controls.

  "Now that we're all gathered together, I've got a little number for your listening pleasure," he cooed into the microphone. "It's the first play of a song that I know will go gold. I know you're going to love it."

  He smiled—and hit a switch in front of him.

  A screeching blast filled the preview room. It was the same noise—the same unbearably loud noise—that Nancy had heard in her car. But now it was magnified a hundred times.

  Nancy clapped her hands over her ears, but it was no use. Nothing could protect them against that deadly shriek.

  Jesse collapsed to the floor, writhing. George looked as if she was screaming, but the evil blast was drowning out her voice.

  So he's the one who rigged the car stereo, Nancy thought dazedly. It was all she could do to hold on to that thought. George had fallen to the floor, and Nancy knew she also was about to collapse.

  The sound was killing them!

  Chapter Sixteen

  As she fell to her knees, Nancy could see Tommy Road laughing maniacally. She reached her hand pleadingly out to him, but all he did was wag a teasing finger at her. He'd gone mad. He picked his suit jacket up off the chair next to him and strolled leisurely out of the control booth.

  He's leaving us to die! Nancy thought desperately.

  The preview room was soundproof. If there was anyone in the building, he or she couldn't hear the sound that was slowly draining the life out of Nancy and her friends. Nancy hurt so badly she couldn't move a muscle.

  But she knew she had to try.

  The electric guitar, Nancy ordered herself. Someone had left it there—she couldn't remember who. It was still leaning against the wall across the room.

  With torturous slowness Nancy set out to crawl across the floor toward it. She felt like a diver whose last bit of air was gone, but she made herself move until she'd reached the wall.

  Pick up the guitar, she ordered herself. She reached forward—but her hand wouldn't close.

  Pick it up! she screamed at herself. And this time she did. Staggering, she dragged the guitar over to the sound booth and hoisted it into the air. With all the force she had, she hurled it at the glass separating them from the sound booth. Then she grabbed the window ledge and pulled herself up into the booth.

  Her brain was screaming instructions at her. What switch? What switch? It had to be that one—the red one right in front of her. Feebly Nancy reached forward and flipped it.

  The sound stopped, and a miraculous silence filled the room.

  Nancy let out a long, shaky breath and collapsed into a chair. All she wanted to do was let the quiet soak into her.

  On the floor in the preview room, George and Jesse were slowly uncurling and sitting up. To Nancy, both of them looked as though they were just coming out of a long, wrenching nightmare.

  "Thanks, Nancy," Jesse said. He cleared his throat. "Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. I really think that if that sound had gone on for one minute longer, I'd be dead now."

  "I know I would have been," said George, and quickly shuddered. "I can't believe you've had to go through this twice, Nancy." She looked around. "I suppose it's no good hoping that Tommy Road is still around."

  "No. He left a few minutes ago," Nancy said. "I'm sure he didn't hang around, either. He's probably off to plan some alibi."

  "Do you mean he's going to get away with this?" George asked in horror.

  "No, he's not," Nancy answered firmly. "What we need to do is think up a way to trap him. And I think I've got a perfect idea. Tommy Road has never seen Bess, has he? Well, then . . ."

  Winslow Thomas's press conference at the Wilshire Hotel was attended by everyone who was anyone. The dozens of reporters packed into the room listened attentively as he described his feelings about Jesse Slade's return.

  "To put it simply, I couldn't be more delighted," he said, "both for the music world and for TVR. This is a bloke with a tremendous talent who hasn't even begun to tap his potential in music videos. We're going to do great things together."

  "Do you know Slade personally?" one reporter asked.

  The flicker of a frown passed across Mr. Thomas's face and quickly vanished. "Of course I do," he said sincerely. "He's a fabulous, fabulous person. It wouldn't be putting it too strongly to say I love him."

  "What about his legal problems, Mr. Thomas?" another reporter asked. "Will he be charged in Tommy Road's disappearance?"

  "As far as I'm concerned, that problem doesn't exist," Mr. Thomas said graciously. "Of course we'll do all we can to help him if he needs help, but we're not interested in dragging up the past here. It's much more important to—"

  "He's dead! Jesse's dead!" came a heartbroken wail from the doorway.

  There was a gasp of shock. Everyone turned to see Bess standing by the door. Her face was contorted with grief and terror, and she was shaking from head to foot.

  "They're all dead," she sobbed. "I—I went over to TVR, and they were all lying dead in one little room! Oh, Jesse!" And she burst into fresh tears.

  It was Winslow Thomas's finest hour. As he listened to Bess, he actually grew white. Horror seemed to shrink him in his clothes. He groped blindly behind him for a chair and sank into it.

  "What—what happened?" he asked hoarsely. "What do you mean, he's dead? How can that be?"

  Bess wiped her eyes. All the cameras in the room were focused on her now.

  "I—I went, to TVR to pick up two friends," she choked out. "I couldn't find them anywhere, so I started looking up and down the hall. And in one of the rooms at the end, I—oh, it was too horrible!" She buried her face in her hands for a minute while the cameras clicked avidly. "I saw my friends and Jesse just lying there in a pool of broken glass!"

  "Mr. Thomas" was clearly stricken. He rose tremblingly to his feet.

  "Because of the tragic circumstances," he almost whispered, "I'd like to end this press conference immediately."

  There was a murmur of sympathy through the room. Mr. Thomas tried to walk toward the door, but shock had made his legs too weak. Two men sprang to his aid. and—leaning heavily on their shoulders, the very image of a broken man—he staggered toward the door.

  "Hi, Tommy," said Nancy breezily as she, George, and Jesse walked in right in front of him.

  "Jesse!" It was a strangled scream—and Nancy knew that this time Tommy's horror wa
s real.

  "You're not here. You're not," he babbled. "None of you. No one could survive a noise like that—I made sure of it. You're dead. You've got to be dead."

  "Why, Tommy," Jesse protested in a syrupy voice, "don't you know that it would take more than a little rock 'n' roll to kill me? What do you take me for?"

  Tommy Road just stared at him, transfixed. Then, for the first time, he realized that all the cameras in the room were still rolling. Screaming, he turned to run.

  But he wasn't quick enough. Nancy tackled him like a ton of bricks—and the reporters were there to catch every detail.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "So Tommy Road has confessed to everything?" Dan Kennedy asked.

  It was the day after the press conference. Nancy, Bess, and George were entertaining a few visitors in their bungalow. Renee Stanley and Vint Wylie were sitting next to each other on the sofa. Dan Kennedy was lounging comfortably on the floor. And Jesse Slade was sitting in an easy chair that supported his bandaged arm.

  Even with the bandages, Jesse already looked like a different person. It wasn't only that he'd shaved and bought himself some new clothes. "If I'm going to pick up where I left off, I need to dress the part," he'd told Nancy. And Bess had had a wonderful time helping him shop. It was more a change in his expression. He no longer seemed beaten, lost, and withdrawn. Now he looked calm, relaxed, and confident. As George had teasingly told him, his star quality was back.

  "Yes," Nancy told Dan. "He confessed to everything. Including spreading rumors at TVR that I was a spy from a rival video station."

  "I sure fell for that one," said Renee, wincing. "He came in the night before I met you, Nancy, and told me that he'd hired you as a guest veejay because he thought that would be the best way to keep you from finding anything out. In fact, he ordered me to keep you from finding out anything. He told me it was fine to give you a hard time on the job—and he also told me to keep him posted on your schedule. It wasn't my fault that you're so quick on your feet." She smiled at Nancy, and Nancy smiled back.