The Cheating Heart (3 page)

S
OPHIE GAVE A WEAK PUSH
to Nancy's arm, indicating that she would be all right. Nancy stepped back and watched the woman closely, wondering why she had reacted so strongly. Two or three seconds went by, then Sophie lifted her head and stared at the wall in a daze.

“What did you say?” Nancy asked her gently.

Sophie shook her head. “I am sorry. I just—I feel sorry for the students, they work so hard, to take this test a second time . . .”

“Do you know something about the missing test answers?” she pressed.

Sophie shook her head with vigor. “No, I know nothing. I never see any paper.”

“I believe her,” the professor said quickly. “Sophie, you go on back to work. Thanks for talking to us.”

As soon as the woman was out of earshot, Nancy turned to the professor. “Professor, you were the one who wanted this incident checked out,” she reminded him. “I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't interfere with my work.”

Tavakolian reacted with surprise. He clearly expected all teenagers to be in awe of him. “I wouldn't dream of interfering,” he said. “But don't you think you ought to interrogate Ned Nickerson? He is our prime suspect, not this poor laborer.”

Nancy stifled a smile. “Yes, I agree. I'll go interview Ned Nickerson right now.”

“Good,” the professor nodded. “Now, if you'll excuse me—I have a lot of tests to grade.”

After saying goodbye to the professor, Nancy walked back to the Omega Chi Epsilon house, hoping to find Ned. As she expected, he had gone back there and was waiting for her in the living room.

“Let's go to the downstairs study lounge,” Ned suggested as he took her arm. “No one'll be there today, and we can talk.”

They passed through the living room into the lounge and sat down on a lumpy green sofa. “I can't tell you how good it is to see you, Drew,” Ned said, his dark eyes gazing into hers. “When you walked in the dean's office, I felt frustrated, having to pretend I didn't know you. All I wanted was to take you in my arms—like this.” He slid
his arm around Nancy's shoulders, drew her to him, and gave her a long kiss.

Nancy's insides melted as she surrendered to the kiss. But halfway through it she surprised even herself by pulling away.

“Remember what the dean said,” she whispered softly as she drew away. “I can't let our relationship influence my investigation.”

Ned brushed her comment aside. “I'm not worried—I know I didn't take that answer sheet,” he murmured, lips brushing her cheek.

“So why don't you tell me your side of the story?” she said.

Ned reluctantly straightened up and began his version of events. “Okay—Monday afternoon. The English department secretary, Ms. Belzer, called and asked me to go to Tavakolian's office. He handed me the test to photocopy. I went down the hall to the English department's photocopier.”

“You went straight there?” Nancy asked.

Ned nodded. “Yeah. But then, while I was at the machine I saw that one page of the test was missing. I went back to ask the professor where it was, but he wasn't there.”

“Where was he?” Nancy asked.

“I don't know.” Ned shrugged. “I figured he was coming right back, because his computer screen was still on. Then I noticed he'd left the manila folder he kept the test in right on his desk.
I looked inside it for the missing page, but all I saw was the answer key and a computer disk.”

Nancy frowned. “So the answer sheet was there then,” she said. “What did you do next?”

“I figured the disk had the test on it, so I took it back to the English department office,” Ned continued. “Ms. Belzer let me boot it up on her computer. I printed out the missing page, then took the disk back to the professor's office. He still wasn't there, so I put the disk back in the file folder.”

“And was the answer sheet still there then?” Nancy checked.

Ned nodded. “Then I went back to the copier and made the copies. I took them to Tavakolian—he was back in his office by then. I handed him the stack of copies, which he then put in the bottom drawer of the cabinet. That's when I left.”

“So Tavakolian doesn't know that you used his disk with the test on it,” Nancy mused.

Ned looked nervous. “What difference would that make? The answer sheet is what's missing.”

“True,” Nancy agreed. “But if the professor knew you'd borrowed his disk, he'd be even more convinced that you're guilty. We can't clear you until we find out where that answer sheet went.”

“And how do we do that?” Ned asked.

Nancy leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, frowning. “That's the part I haven't figured out yet,” she admitted.

An hour later, after Nancy and Ned had had a chance to chat and catch up, they decided it was time to get something to eat. As they went out the front door of the frat house, Paul DiToma came sauntering down the stairs behind them. “Hey, Ned! I see you found Nancy,” Paul called out.

“Yeah, thanks, Paul.” Ned turned, grinning.

Paul said to Nancy, “Going to meet Brook?”

Nancy looked confused. “Did she say she was expecting me?”

“Not that I know of,” Paul said, and Nancy noticed the slight blush on his face. “I was just asking.”

“Oh, so you know Brook?” Ned asked.

“I just met her today,” Paul explained, following them out the door. “It's funny, even though we're both English majors, we never got to know each other before. Does she, uh, have a boyfriend?”

“No, not right now,” Nancy said.

“Come on, Paul, go for it—ask her out,” Ned urged his friend. This time, Nancy saw the blush deepen to scarlet.

“Ned and I were heading for the snack bar—want to join us?” Nancy asked.

Paul considered for a moment. Digging a hand inside his pocket, he pulled out a couple of crumpled one-dollar bills and some loose change. “Better not tonight,” he said. “I don't want to spend any more money until the weekend.
Thanks, though—some other time.” He waved goodbye and set off in another direction.

Ned and Nancy went on to the student center, a large, old-fashioned stone building that had once been the home of the university president. “I like Paul,” Nancy said as they sat down with their burgers at the far end of the main room where tables were clustered. “He's a refreshing change from all the jocks in your frat.”

Ned playfully punched Nancy's arm. “Hey. I'm one of those jocks.”

“You know what I mean,” Nancy said with a smile. “Should I warn Brook about him?”

“No, Paul's a decent guy,” Ned assured her. “He doesn't date much. He's kind of shy, around girls
and
guys. It would be great if he and Brook got something going.”

“What about the personal ad addressed to Paul that was in the
Emersonian
today?” Nancy asked. “Jerry and Rich were teasing him that it was from some girl.”

Ned shrugged. “Who knows? Hey, Jerry and Rich might even have put in the ad as a joke.”

“I'm not so sure. Maybe I should call the newspaper office tomorrow to find out who placed the ad,” Nancy mused.

“Nan, you've already got one mystery to solve—don't go inventing new ones.”

“Oh, you know me—one mystery is never enough,” Nancy said good-naturedly.

Ned reached up under her red-blond hair and ran his fingers lightly along the nape of her neck. “I think I can find a way to get your mind off mysteries for the evening,” he said in a husky voice.

“Promise?” Nancy asked, her blue eyes shining.

“Promise,” Ned replied.

• • •

Before breakfast the next morning, Nancy met Ned on the Theta Pi lawn and they went jogging around the campus lake. “Out of shape, Drew?” Ned teased her as they pounded up the final slope.

“No way, Nickerson,” she retorted cheerfully. “Want to do another lap?”

Ned laughed and slowed to a walk. “Sure, I could handle it. But I have to stop by the library to sign up for a study carrel—a private cubicle in the book stacks. I want to make sure I get one near the political science books. Do you mind if we swing by there now?”

Nancy agreed, and they walked up the hill to the library, a new building with walls of shining reflective glass. After Ned filled out a carrel request form, the librarian gave him the number of his carrel. Ned led Nancy down into the underground book stacks where his carrel was situated.

The stacks were long, low-ceilinged, windowless
rooms, with rows of bookshelves on each side of a center aisle. “I've never seen so many books in one place,” Nancy said, marveling.

“Some students are complaining that we need a new library wing already,” Ned told her. “The library was crowded practically from the day it was built. So they installed these sliding bookshelves to store more books in the limited space.”

He pointed to long lines of gray steel shelves on each side of the center aisle and perpendicular to it. Ned grasped a handle on one and cranked it. It moved slowly forward, shoving a stack of other shelves forward. A space opened between the shelf Ned was pushing and the one behind it. Each bookcase sat on wheels, which rolled along two steel tracks the length of the center aisle.

“If I wanted a book on this shelf, I could slip in and get it now,” he said, pulling out a book at random. “Of course, who'd want to read about Sumerian archaeology?”

Nancy laughed. “I'm sure somebody does, and that person is glad the library made room for these books.”

Leaving the library, Ned and Nancy returned to their houses to go to their rooms to shower and dress. Reaching Brook's room, Nancy found a message on the answering machine from Professor Tavakolian, asking her to call him. She dialed his number quickly.

“Well, I stayed up late last night grading the
tests,” Tavakolian told her. “I'm only halfway through, but I've already found three perfect scores—more than usual.”

Nancy grabbed a scrap of paper. “Why don't you give me the students' names?” She jotted them down as the professor spelled them out: Carrie Yu, Gary Carlsen, and Steve Groff. Then Tavakolian rang off, after promising he'd call her later with any more names.

Looking up the three students in Brook's new campus directory, Nancy phoned them. Introducing herself as Professor Tavakolian's assistant, she set up appointments to interview the first two students at the professor's office—Carrie Yu at eleven o'clock, Gary Carlsen at eleven-thirty.

But when she talked to Steve Groff, Nancy immediately sensed trouble. “Why do you need to interview me?” Groff asked. “All this orientation stuff is taking up too much time. I came here on a swimming scholarship. If Emerson wants me to swim, why don't they let me get on with it? I need to spend all day training at the pool.”

“Then I'll meet you at the pool in twenty minutes,” Nancy suggested quickly. “It should only take five or ten minutes. You'll recognize me—I've got red-blond hair and I'll be wearing a white T-shirt and dark blue running tights.” She hung up before Groff could object.

After a brief phone call to Ned to tell him she'd meet him for lunch, Nancy grabbed a raisin-bran
muffin from the Theta Pi kitchen and sprinted over to the sports center, an enormous complex on the far side of campus. The pool was in a large room with one glass wall overlooking the football field. Nancy sat on the bleachers beside the empty pool, watching the locker-room door. Soon a tall, tanned guy with huge shoulders and chlorine-bleached short hair walked out in his trunks.

“Steve?” Nancy called out hopefully.

The guy looked up at her.

“Hi, I'm Nancy Drew,” she said, standing up. “I called you earlier.”

The swimmer stared at her belligerently.

“Professor Tavakolian tells me you did quite well on the placement test,” Nancy continued. Steve's eyes flickered, but he said nothing. “I just wanted to ask you how you studied for the test, and what your high school English teachers taught you to prepare for it,” Nancy pressed on, improvising her story.

Steve snorted. “My high school teachers did nothing to prepare me for it. They were jerks—I taught myself everything.”

“That test covered a lot of material,” Nancy said guardedly. “How did you know what to study?”

“I read a lot, okay?” Steve replied, snapping his towel. “Just because I'm a jock, you think I can't read? Hey, what is this really about?”

Nancy decided to risk showing her cards.
“There was a question about whether a copy of the test answers leaked out,” she began.

“Oh,” Steve interrupted, beside himself with fury. “And you jumped to the conclusion that I cheated?” His eyes flashed with a nasty gleam, the veins in his forehead protruding. “Well, I'm sick and tired of being sold short. Let me tell you, Nancy Drew, you'll be sorry if you don't get off my back!”