But it would be a lot easier if Matt Glover turns out to be an impostor and you get some of Mr. Glover’s money, Nancy thought. Clearing her throat, she said, “Do you mind if I ask where you were this afternoon between, say, five and six o’clock?”
“Right here, where I always am,” Tony replied. “What’s this about?” he asked irritably.
The look on his face darkened as Nancy explained, and finally he blurted out, “Look, if anything’s happened, it was caused by that jerk who’s calling himself Matt Glover. Didn’t you check out his scar?”
Nancy nodded. “He has a scar, but it looks kind of fresh—maybe too new to have been gotten when he was a kid. I couldn’t tell, though.”
She took a deep breath. “I’d like to trust you, Tony, but you’re not being totally open with me. There’s something you’ve never mentioned.”
Tony glowered at her as he raked a hand through his blond hair. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“Clayton Glover’s money,” Nancy said.
He put up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I won’t deny that I’ll miss the money. Mr. Glover used to make a donation to me every year, but what can I do? He can’t give from beyond the grave, can he?”
“I didn’t mean his donations, Tony. I meant big money, enough to let you run this place in style.”
“Where’s that supposed to come from?” he asked, giving her a skeptical look.
Leaning forward, she told him, “Giralda’s Environmental Action is in Mr. Glover’s will. It was one of the charities he provided for. Because of Matt’s reappearance, you stand to lose a lot, Tony. Obviously your interest in proving him to be an impostor goes beyond just a ’gut feeling.’ ”
Tony’s jaw hung open in disbelief. “And you thought I knew that?” he asked. “I had no idea!”
His reaction was so shocked that Nancy had a hard time thinking he could be lying. But she was puzzled. “If that’s true, then why is it so important to you to expose Matt? I mean, could you really have known him well enough to be so convinced he’s a phony?” She shot him a sarcastic look and added, “I think we can drop the idea that you knew him like a brother.”
Tony flushed. “Okay, maybe I stretched the truth a little when I said that Matt and I were really tight, but only because I thought you wouldn’t take me seriously otherwise.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “I wasn’t part of his circle of close friends or anything. They were pretty elite, and I didn’t feel comfortable around them. But Matt was a regular guy. He was always really nice to me—not stuck up at all. We used to talk a lot at school, and he did invite me out to the Corners a few times.” He smiled sheepishly. “Not as much as I made it sound, though.”
“But you still think you knew him well enough to know that this Matt is a fake?” Nancy asked.
“It’s just a feeling I have. Maybe it’s because I’m a guy and I’m not distracted by his good looks.”
Nancy ignored his annoying comment. “Look, Tony,” she told him, “I promise you I’ll expose Matt if he isn’t who he claims to be.”
Nancy got up to leave, and Tony walked her to her car. “So Mr. Glover really left me something in his will, huh?” He looked both proud and surprised. “That was pretty decent of him.”
After saying good night, Nancy drove back toward her house. Could she scratch Tony off her list of suspects? He claimed he hadn’t even known he had anything to gain from Mr. Glover’s will. But he could have found out—the provisions of the will seemed to be common knowledge to other people.
Nancy rubbed her temples. Her head was still aching, and she was ready to get some sleep.
“Talk about long days,” she said to her father as she entered the house. “Today was a killer.”
Carson Drew was sitting in the living room, reading. He looked up at her with concern. “You almost did get killed,” he reminded her. “Promise me you’ll be careful, Nancy.”
“Dad, you know I always am.” She sat down on the sofa next to him. “Bess told me Matt passed the lie-detector test.”
Her father held out the sheets of paper he’d been reading. “Yes,” he said. “In fact I was just looking it over more closely. I want to make sure of the results before we wrap this up.”
“And?” Nancy looked at him expectantly.
“Matt did extremely well. The important things checked out in his favor. The test shows he’s telling the truth when he says that he is Matthew Glover, that he was born in River Heights, that he is the son of Clayton Glover— essential things like that.”
“Was there anything that didn’t check out?”
“Only one thing. We asked him the same question several times, and he always answered yes. But the machine went haywire, indicating that he might not have been telling the truth.”
Nancy looked at her father. “What was the question?”
“It was,” said Carson Drew, “ ’Have you ever been in Colorado?’ ”
“You’re kidding!” Nancy exclaimed. “But the real Matt would have to have known he’d been in Colorado. That’s where he was lost in the avalanche!”
Chapter
Thirteen
NANCY STARED at her father. “If Matt was lying about being in Colorado,” she said slowly, thinking out loud, “he must have been lying about all the other stuff, too.” She paused, frowning. “But the test showed that he was telling the truth. Why?”
Carson held up his hands. “These tests aren’t always reliable,” he said. “There can be all sorts of inconsistencies.”
Nancy yawned, then rubbed her head, which was still throbbing. “Well, I won’t be able to think straight until I get a good night’s sleep.” She said good night, then went up to her room, dropping off almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
The following morning she woke up with only a ghost of her headache. Her first thought as she sat up in bed was about the way the reins had felt as they snapped apart in her hands right before the accident.
She blinked as the thought struck her—reins didn’t simply rip in two. A stable that rented horses and sleighs couldn’t afford to let their leather get so dried out that their clients were in danger.
“Somebody tampered with them,” she said aloud. Jumping out of bed, she dressed quickly in jeans, a white turtleneck, and a blue sweater. After eating a bowl of cereal and gulping down some juice, Nancy grabbed a jacket and went out to her car. “First stop, Thurston’s livery stables,” she said.
The sun reflected off the fields of dazzling snow in a blinding glare, and Nancy had to squint to see as she drove to the stables, a few miles outside of River Heights. She turned into the entrance, marked by a sign in the shape of a huge horse’s head. It read: “Thurston’s Livery—Horses for Hire, Sleigh Rides in Season.”
Nancy parked in a lot in front of a big red barn that had that same horse’s head and motto painted on it. A wooden shack jutted out from the barn on one side of the entrance, and Nancy went over to it.
She knocked on the door, and a young man with ruddy cheeks opened it and gestured for her to enter. He introduced himself as Charlie Murphy.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, all smiles.
Inside, the pungent odor of horses and hay struck Nancy immediately. A rear door in the shack opened into the barn, and Nancy caught a glimpse of stalls against one wall.
“I just wanted to check on something,” Nancy said, returning Charlie’s smile. “When things like reins get old, and the leather becomes thin, is there a way to mend them?”
“Mend them?” Charlie’s smile faded. He pulled out a chair for her and perched on the edge of his makeshift desk. “We wouldn’t let our reins be used if they were old and thin. When they start to wear out, we replace them. Why do you want to know?”
He seemed to be a little alarmed, and Nancy guessed he thought she might be an investigator, checking to see if Thurston’s was renting unsafe equipment.
“I’m not here to accuse Thurston’s of any
thing,” she reassured him. “The fact is, there was an accident yesterday involving one of your sleighs.”
“What kind of accident?”
Instead of answering, Nancy said, “Let’s say some equipment of yours was damaged, entirely through the negligence of the renters. What would happen? Would they have to pay for what they’d damaged?”
“Sure.” Charlie continued to look at her suspiciously. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but I don’t think I should say anything more until Mr. Thurston gets back.” His jaw was set in a straight and stubborn line.
I’m not getting anywhere! Nancy thought, frustration building inside her. “Look,” she blurted out. “I was in that accident yesterday. As you can see, I’m still in one piece. I don’t plan to sue Thurston’s, but I do want to know who sawed into a set of your reins yesterday and nearly got me killed!”
Shock played over Charlie’s face. “That’s terrible!” he said sincerely. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little protective of the stables.” He paused for a moment. “What was it that you said about the reins?”
“I think someone sabotaged them, but I need to be sure.”
Charlie rubbed his jaw and let out a low whistle. “Sabotage— So that’s what Mr. Thurston was yelling about yesterday.”
“What do you mean?” Nancy asked.
“Well, when Mr. Thurston gets mad, I try to keep out of his way, so I didn’t exactly hear everything. But he was going on about some jerk who’d ruined a brand-new set of reins. Mr. Thurston was really burned up about it. The guy didn’t get his deposit back.”
Nancy leaned forward excitedly. “Do you know who it was?”
Charlie picked up a ledger from the desk and flipped through it until he found the right page, then ran his finger down a column of names. “Here it is. Glover. Matthew Glover.”
Nancy drove back toward River Heights, still reeling from what she’d learned. Matt Glover had to have sabotaged her sleigh. Someone had ruined a brand-new set of reins. How many brand-new sets could have been ruined in a day? It had to have been her set, and it had to have been Matt. He was the one who had gotten the sleighs from the stable. No one else had gone near them until she, Bess, and George joined him for their ride. He had deliberately tried to hurt her, and that could mean only one thing: Matt was afraid she was going to expose him as a phony. He was an impostor, and he had to be working with someone—the person in the red jacket who had spooked her horse.
Nancy braked for a red light. Well, Matt was about to find out she didn’t scare so easily! she fumed. The problem was, she still needed concrete proof. She knew the broken reins weren’t enough evidence to convince a court that he was an impostor.
When the light turned green, Nancy turned in the direction of the River Heights library. All copies of the local papers for the last ten years were on microfilm there. She intended to check every shred of information about Matt’s disappearance five years earlier. Something would come to her. It had to.
• • •
Forty-five minutes later Nancy still hadn’t found anything that would break the phony Matt’s story. Letting out a frustrated sigh, she closed her eyes and massaged them with her fingers. The microfilm was making her headache come back.
Suddenly she felt a strong hand grip her shoulder. Her eyes popped open and she looked up— straight into the blue eyes of Matt Glover.
“Still at it, I see,” Matt said. He was using his old teasing voice, but Nancy could hear the undercurrent of steely anger. Or was she just imagining it?
Was it just a coincidence that he was there? Or had he followed her? Suddenly Nancy was glad she was in a public building and not some isolated place. “Still at it,” she admitted, trying to act casual.
“Well, you’d better work fast,” he said. “By noon tomorrow I’ll be granted my rightful place as Clayton Glover’s son. The lawyers are drawing up the papers now.”
Rightful place! What a bunch of baloney!
Matt gave her his trademark grin, then with a casual wave he sauntered off. Now that Nancy knew for sure he wasn’t the real Matt, he seemed smug and arrogant, not charming. He was right about one thing, though. She had to work quickly if she was going to prove he was an impostor before noon the next day!
Nancy returned the microfilm, stepped out into the cold winter air, and briskly walked the short distance to her father’s law firm.
“This is a surprise,” Carson Drew said, smiling as she came into his office. “Uh-oh. From the dark look on your face, you’re not here to tell me I’m the number-one father of the year.”
Nancy laughed and gave him a quick hug before taking a seat. “Well, you are, Dad, but I came about something else.” She told him what she had figured out about Matt. “He has to be working with someone else, and I have an idea who, but I don’t have a shred of proof.” She explained about Jake Loomis.
“Well, maybe we can dig something up just by talking. Why don’t you talk through what you know about the case and see if we can figure anything out,” her father suggested.
“It’s worth a try,” Nancy agreed. Leaning back in her chair, she began reconstructing her investigation for Carson Drew.
When she got to the part about Tony Giralda, a concerned look came into her father’s face. “Nancy, that was privileged information you gave to Tony. Nobody is supposed to know the terms of the will but the lawyers and Matt.”
“What?” Nancy leaned forward, beginning to feel excited. “You’re sure no one but you and some other lawyers and Matt knew the terms of the will?”
“Positive. Well, there was one other person who knew.” He pointed a finger at her, an amused smile on his lips.
Nancy quickly told her father about her visit to Jake Loomis. “The point is,” she finished in an excited rush, “when we talked to Loomis, he said he hadn’t seen Matt since he was interviewed by him. But he knew all about which businesses would inherit Mr. Glover’s money. He must have found out from Matt. There’s no other way, is there? So they’ve definitely been in touch.”
She remembered seeing Matt on the telephone by the diner that day in Chicago. He might have been speaking to Loomis.
Carson Drew frowned. “This is very serious, Nancy. If Matt told Loomis about the will, that must mean—”
“That we can prove he and Matt are partners in a giant scam to steal Mr. Glover’s fortune!”
Chapter
Fourteen
NANCY JUMPED UP. “I’ve got my proof. Loomis and Matt—I mean Gary Page—set up the whole scheme.” She gave her father a big hug. “Thanks, Dad. You just helped me clear everything up.”
She was already halfway to the door when Carson asked her, “Where are you going?”
“To catch some criminals!” she called over her shoulder.
Her mind was racing as she got back into her Mustang, the pieces of her plan falling together. She had to set a trap to bring Loomis and Matt together, where she could confront them and get hard evidence—evidence to stand up in court. She knew just how to do it, too.
Bess was the answer. There was no way Matt would let his guard down with Nancy, but he would have no reason to suspect Bess. She had believed in him from the start. As far as Matt was concerned, she was his loyal dupe. Of course, Nancy would first have to convince Bess that Matt was an impostor—something she wasn’t looking forward to at all.
First Nancy drove to Tony Giralda’s office. After parking in front of his building, she pulled a small notebook and a pen from her purse and carefully composed a short script.
This is Mr. Loomis’s client in River Heights. I’m having trouble with my garden, and I need to see Mr. Loomis at seven this evening—in person.
When she was done, she reread it, satisfied. If she could get Tony to call Jake Loomis’s office and say exactly that, she was sure it would be enough to set Loomis up.
“You want me to do what?” Tony boomed when Nancy proposed her plan to him. He stared at the words.
“You won’t
be talking to Loomis,” she explained. “You’ll be speaking to a receptionist. Just give her the message and hang up. There’ll be no way he’ll ever connect you to the call.”
“I don’t know. . . .” Tony said.
“Come on, Tony. Where’s your sense of justice?”
“Why can’t you make the call?” he argued.
“It has to be a man’s voice, or Loomis will know it wasn’t really Matt who called,” she told him.
Tony shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not very good at this kind of thing.”
“Please, Tony, just practice it a few times. Think of it as a rehearsal for your part in bringing justice to River Heights.”
Reluctantly, Tony took the paper and read woodenly. His face was flushed bright red, and he stumbled on every other word.
“Lighten up,” Nancy said with a smile. “Try it again.”
His second attempt was even worse. Nancy had to struggle to keep from laughing. “You sound like a taped announcement,” she said.
“Did I ever say I was an actor?” he retorted irritably.
Nancy read the message out loud, showing him where to pause so that he would sound natural. He got better with each try, and at last Nancy punched out Loomis’s number on Tony’s phone and handed him the receiver.
Tony clutched it tightly, perspiration beading his forehead and color rising in his cheeks. “I feel like a dope,” he said, but then the line was picked up in Chicago. He straightened up and said his piece, then hung up.
“She started to ask questions, so I figured I’d better get off.” He let out a huge breath of relief and told her, “I’m shaking all over. Is that what stage fright is like?”
“Not bad, Tony, not bad at all,” she said. “You might be headed for a new career.”
“Cut it out,” he said, but now the pink in his face came from pleasure.