Stop the Clock (Nancy Drew (All New) Girl Detective Book 12) (8 page)

“I know you’re right, Dad, and I’ll try to keep that in mind,” I said. “It just seems odd to me that whenever I discover something else that’s gone wrong with the celebration, Deirdre is always around.”

“Well, you told me she’s on your committee,” Dad said, “so she does have a reason for being at the library at the same time you are.”

He had a point there. I’ve heard his lecture many times about how you have to avoid speculation and look for solid evidence if you want to win a case.

The next morning, just as I was getting out of bed, the telephone on my night stand rang. It was Ned.

“Listen, Nancy, I have a big favor to ask of you,” Ned said. “One of the copyeditors is sick today, so I’m down at the newspaper, helping Dad. But I
couldn’t get my car started this morning, so I had to come with him. Could you take me to the library in about thirty minutes, so I can meet with my study group?”

“Sure, Ned,” I told him. “That won’t be a problem.”

I jumped out of bed, ran to the bathroom, turned on the steaming shower jets, and allowed the hot water to wake me up. After I toweled off, I used the blow dryer on my hair, and then grabbed some clothes from my closet. A quick glance at the clock on my nightstand told me I was already running late. I dabbed on a little eye shadow, yelled good-bye to Hannah, and was out the door.

Ten minutes later I arrived in front of the
River Heights Bugle
. Ned wasn’t standing outside as he had promised, so I found a parking space two stores down and pulled in.

Just as I got out of the car and shut the door, I realized that my keys were still in the ignition. And the doors lock automatically.

I try never to panic about anything, because this is not a quality admired in detectives, but the real reason I wasn’t worried is because I have a very good friend with the road emergency service I belong to, Charlie Adams. He drives a truck for one of the local garages, and he’s always willing to drop whatever he’s
doing to come unlock my car door so I can retrieve my keys.

I pressed #12 on my cell phone autodial; I’ve forgotten my keys so many times I programmed Charlie’s number in. He picked up on the third ring.

“Hi, Charlie, it’s Nancy,” I said. “I need—”

“Just give me the address,” Charlie said, “and I’ll be there in a second.”

See, I told you this has happened more than once.

Within a few minutes he was at my car. “Where were you?” I asked, totally impressed by his speed.

“I was just two blocks over,” Charlie said. He gave me one of his biggest smiles. “I’m glad I was close by, because I wouldn’t want you to wait in this hot sun.”

It didn’t take Charlie long to open the door, using what looked like a flimsy ruler to me—and in that short time, he managed to fill me in on most of the River Heights gossip.

“But I saved the best for last, Nancy,” Charlie said. He opened my car door, retrieved my keys, and handed them to me. “The Smalley family has moved back to River Heights. I saw Merrie and Carrie at the grocery store last night. They’re just as—” His mouth suddenly dropped open. “There they are!”

I turned and looked. I felt my stomach drop. Merrie and Carrie Smalley were just going into Greene’s Department Store across the street.

“I have to go, Charlie,” I said. “I want to see what those two are up to.”

“Okay, Nancy, I understand,” Charlie said. “You’ve got a mystery to solve, right?”

“That’s right!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Thanks again for opening my door.”

If you’re wondering why I didn’t give Charlie any money for his work, it’s because he wouldn’t take it anyway. For years I would argue with him about it, but he insisted that it was up to him to decide if he needed to charge a customer for the work he did.

My mind turned back to Carrie and Merrie. Why in the world had the Smalleys moved back to River Heights? If there were two girls I disliked more than Deirdre Shannon, it was Merrie and Carrie. We also went to school together, and they tried to make my life miserable. Of course, they never succeeded—but I always felt as though I had to watch my back. Things had been bad between us forever, it seemed, because it was quite obvious they were jealous of me and my friends. But things went from bad to worse after I discovered that the bona fide will of a man named Albert Washington left the Smalley family nothing—after they thought they were getting
all
of his money!

What really concerned me now, though, was that the lawyer for the other Smalley relatives, the people
who were contesting the will, was Henry Mead. This couldn’t just be a coincidence. Right after the Smalleys were disinherited, they moved away from River Heights. Hearing that they were back in town now really bothered me. I knew they would not have forgotten my role in their legal troubles. And what I wanted to know is what they were up to now—and if it had anything to do with a missing clock.

The Smalley Sisters Return

A
fter making a quick
call to Ned, letting him know I’d be late—he was used to this—I headed toward the front entrance to Greene’s Department Store. My brain kept trying out reasons why the Smalleys had moved back to River Heights. It was just so unusual. When I pulled open the door, I immediately saw Merrie and Carrie. They were halfway down the wide main aisle of the store. They were laughing about something. Suddenly Merrie gestured dramatically, and her arm struck a large ceramic vase, knocking it to the floor.

A salesclerk on the other side of the display hurried over to them and surveyed the damage.

I was close enough to hear her say, “Oh, ma’am, this is terrible. That vase cost five hundred dollars!
You’ll need to talk to the manager about what happened.”

“What for?” Merrie said. “I’m certainly not going to pay for it, if that’s what you’re getting at!”

“Do you work in this department?” Carrie demanded.

“Why, yes, I do,” the salesclerk said.

“Are you responsible for how the vases are arranged in this display?” Carrie asked.

“Yes, I unpack them and put them on the table,” the salesclerk said. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Merrie said.

“You’re the reason the vase fell off the table!” Carrie shouted at her.

I saw the salesclerk’s face drop. “What do you mean?” she said. “There’s no way that it’s my—”

Just then another woman, who I knew was the manager of this department, walked up to the three of them.

“What’s the problem, Mary?” the woman asked the salesclerk.

Before the salesclerk could reply, Carrie said, “Your employee accused my sister of breaking this vase. It is obvious to us that she put it too close to the table edge. You should take the cost of the vase out of her salary.”

The salesclerk turned to the manager. “I’m sure it
wasn’t too close to the edge,” she said. “I never . . .”

Well, there was no way I was going to let these two creepy Smalley sisters turn the tables on this poor girl, so I hurried up to them and said, “I saw the whole thing! It wasn’t your salesclerk’s fault at all.” I looked at Merrie. “You weren’t watching what you were doing, Ms. Smalley. You shouldn’t gesture so dramatically near a table with breakable items.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” the salesclerk said. “I knew that I hadn’t put that vase too close to the edge of the display table.”

“Thank you, Ms. . . . Oh, I know you,” the manager said. “You’re Nancy Drew!”

“She most certainly is!” Merrie snarled.

Carrie glared at me.

Shoot. The dogs were loose!

“Well, thank you again, Ms. Drew,” the manager said, turning to the salesclerk. “Get the custodian to clean this up, Mary. We certainly don’t want anyone to get hurt. And I will expect you two girls”—she looked at the Smalleys—“to pay for the damage in due time.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the salesclerk said.

The Smalley sisters snarled at each other. Clearly this was not the way they thought their shopping trip would turn out.

Now I was alone with the Smalley twins, and I felt
as though the temperature had suddenly plunged to below freezing. But I was determined to try and find out as much as I could from them.

“I hear that you and your family are thinking about moving back to River Heights,” I said.

Merrie and Carrie looked at each other and smirked.

“Yes, if everything works out as planned—and I certainly see no reason why it won’t,” Merrie said.

“We’ll once again be residents of this fair city!” Carrie shrieked.

I felt a chill run through me. “Didn’t you like where you were living?” I asked.

“No!” Carrie almost shouted at me. “This was our home, and we didn’t want to leave. Your meddling forced us to.”

“You’ll be sorry for what you did to us!” Merrie added, menacingly.

With that, the two of them turned sharply and stormed out of the store.

I just stood there, stunned, trying to imagine my life in River Heights with Merrie and Carrie Smalley scheming to find ways to get even with me.

I waited for a couple of minutes, just to make sure the Smalley twins had disappeared from sight, then I left the department store myself and headed back toward the
River Heights Bugle.

Ned was sitting on the hood of my car when I got there. He had a bemused expression on his face.

“Oh, Ned, I’m so sorry. Something came up,” I shouted to him.

“I know,” Ned said. “Charlie told me.”

“This is probably one of the worst days of my life,” I said. “I was so happy when Merrie and Carrie moved. It was like a terrible gloom had lifted from over River Heights.”

“I’m just as disappointed as you are to hear this news,” Ned said, hopping down off the hood. “The Smalleys are such unpleasant people.”

I told Ned what the twins had said before they left. “I don’t know what to think, Ned,” I said. “You’ll probably think I’m just being paranoid, but now I believe that they’re somehow involved in everything that’s going on.”

“Well, I really do believe that’s a stretch, Nancy,” Ned observed. “You have to admit that you can’t be very objective where the Smalley twins are concerned.”

“Yes, I admit that, I really do, but . . . ,” I started to say, then I threw up my hands. “Oh, I don’t want to think about them now.” I looked at my watch and let out a big sigh. “I’m late for a library committee meeting.”

“Did I know about this one?” Ned asked.

I let out a big sigh. “I guess I forgot to mention it,” I said.

“Why don’t you just cancel it and we’ll go get some comfort food, like an ice-cream sundae?” Ned said.

“It’s tempting, Ned—but I’m already so far behind with my plans, that I may never catch up,” I said. “I’d rather explain why we’re late than explain why I just canceled the whole meeting.” I stopped and looked at him. “Oh, Ned! I was supposed to take you to the library, so you could meet with your study group,” I said. “I’m so sorry! Why didn’t you mention that when I got back?”

“Well, I knew how traumatic finding out about the Smalley twins would be for you, so I called one of the guys in the group on my cell phone, and told him I wouldn’t be there,” Ned said. “I’m basically just tutoring everybody when I go, anyway; this will force them to do a little digging on their own. It’s no big deal.”

I gave him a peck on the cheek. “You are the sweetest thing,” I said, “and I’m the biggest dope.”

Ned took me by the shoulders. “You are not a dope,” he said. “You’re Nancy Drew, and you’ve got a mystery to solve, so quit feeling sorry for yourself!”

“That is a little out of character for me, isn’t it?” I said with a grin.

“I’ll say it is,” Ned said.

“Come on,” I said, getting into my car. “Let’s go to the library, and get this case cracked.”

When Ned and I entered the library, I knew at once that something else was wrong. You know how you see people huddled together in a little group, and then when they see you approaching, they look all guilty—like they’re just sure you know they’re talking about you? And they are, but they try to look all innocent. Well, that’s what the librarians looked like.

It was almost funny. I say
almost
because I wasn’t laughing. I was starting to have another one of those sick feelings in the pit of my stomach.

“Get ready,” Ned whispered to me. “You may have to face the music sooner than you thought you would.”

Just then all the librarians started off in different directions, leaving the center of their huddle standing there: Mrs. Corning. She was giving me a steely look. I couldn’t imagine what had happened now.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I called to her, not really caring that she might tell me to remember that I was in a library and that I shouldn’t talk so loud. I could see no other patrons nearby, so I doubted I would be disturbing anyone. “Something came up. I guess the rest of the committee left.”

Mrs. Corning nodded, but she still didn’t say anything.

When Ned and I reached her, I said, “Is there anything wrong?”

“Well, I’ll give you two guesses, and the first one doesn’t count,” Mrs. Corning said.

I almost laughed. I hadn’t heard that line since elementary school, and even then it was from one of my classmates, not from an adult.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Corning,” I said. “I honestly don’t feel like playing guessing games.”

“Well, Nancy, that’s the problem,” Mrs. Corning said. “This celebration isn’t a game.”

“I wasn’t talking about the celebration, Mrs. Corning,” I said. Now I was beginning to get angry. I was tired of whoever it was creating problems for me. “I was talking about what was wrong.”

At that moment another one of the librarians came up and stood beside Mrs. Corning. She was holding the stack of envelopes that I had addressed to area children’s writers.

Mrs. Corning nodded at the stack of envelopes. “Martha found these in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet next to your desk,” she said. “They were supposed to have gone out by yesterday.”

“I know. That’s why I put them in the outbox on
my desk,” I said. “I have no idea who put them in the filing cabinet.”

“Perhaps you just
think
you put them in the outbox,” Mrs. Corning said. “You’ve been rather distracted lately, and things like this happen when people get distracted.”