soapy stair in the tower. George could have been
injured when her ski was sabotaged. Who knows what
would have happened if we'd eaten the dessert with
that muscle relaxant on it . . .
Joy watched impassively. “I didn't have anything to
do with any of that,” she said coolly.
“Oh, yeah?” Nancy countered. “Whoever knocked
that icicle down dropped this.” She held out the file
Ned had found. “I think it was used to cut the screws
on George's bindings.”
Joy shrugged. “You've got a lot of nerve, trying to pin
that on me,” she said in a voice that was deadly serious.
“I've had enough of your tricks. Back off!”
With that she strode past Nancy and started down
the main stairs. All Nancy could do was stare after her.
“What is going on?” she murmured. Why was Joy
acting as if she were the one being attacked?
By the time Nancy got back outside, Joy was gone.
The sun was low, and the western sky glowed a deep
purple-orange. Ned, C.J., and George surrounded
Grant, who held up the paper clue.
“We're in business!” he said.
“Just in time.” George cupped a hand to her ear as a
loud air horn echoed through the air. “Hear that?”
“The signal to end the Clues Challenge for today,”
Ned said. “We'd better check in with Mr. Lorenzo at
HQ,” he said. “We don't want him to think we're
looking for clues after hours.”
Nancy's grip tightened around the file in her jacket
parka. “There's something else I want to talk to him
about, too.”
When they got to the Sports Complex, they found
Mel Lorenzo at the snack counter in the atrium.
“Excellent. You're the third team to check in,” he
said. He grinned at them as he picked up a can of diet
soda and started back across the AstroTurf to the table
where he'd been camped out all day. “I'm just waiting
for the Sigmas now.”
“While you're waiting . . .” Nancy pulled the file
from her jacket pocket. “Is this yours?” she asked.
Mr. Lorenzo took the file and turned it over in his
palm. “Could be. It's the right size. But I'm afraid they
all look pretty much the same.”
“We found it on the roof of the administration
building,” Ned said. “Right after someone knocked off
an icicle that nearly killed Grant.”
Mr. Lorenzo kept turning the file over in his hand as
they told him about what had happened. He didn't look
up or speak until after Nancy described her encounter
with Joy.
“Wow,” he finally said. Putting the file down on the
table, he sipped from his can of diet soda. “Joy didn't
mention the incident. You say she denied that she was
the person you saw?”
Nancy nodded. “But we found her glove. Who else
could it have been?”
“I understand what you're saying,” Mr. Lorenzo
said. “But without something more solid . . .”
“I know, I know. You can't disqualify her team.”
George crossed her arms over the front of her parka.
“No offense, Mr. Lorenzo,” she said. “But that really
stinks.”
“It's my job to judge this competition fairly,” he told
her. “I can't jump to conclusions.”
Pulling Ned aside, Nancy whispered, “He's doing it
again. Why does he keep going out of his way to try to
convince us nothing funny is going on?”
“Maybe he just doesn't want any negative publicity,”
Ned suggested. “Bad press about the Clues Challenge
could translate to bad business for his store.”
“Maybe. But . . . I keep thinking about that com-
puter threat,” Nancy said. “What if whoever sent the
threat actually convinced Mr. Lorenzo to hand over the
answers?”
Ned shook his head. “It doesn't make sense,” he told
her. “If someone has the answers to the clues, they
wouldn't need to sabotage us.”
“True,” Nancy agreed.
She and Ned returned to the rest of the group in
time to hear Mr. Lorenzo say, “Just try to enjoy the rest
of the challenge. You'll be at the Tropical Paradise
dance party tonight?”
“Sure,” C.J. answered. “Randy's going to cover all
the Clues Challenge events, so he'll be there, too.”
“If he ever gets back from his trip to SportsMania,
that is,” Grant put in.
Mr. Lorenzo's head jerked up. “Randy went to the
store?” he asked. When C.J. nodded, Mr. Lorenzo
blew out an angry breath. “Man, oh, man. Why can't
that lowlife stay away from me?”
“Whoa,” George said under her breath as they all
headed toward the glass doors. “I wonder why he hates
Randy so much?”
“Add that to our list of unanswered questions,”
Nancy said. Shooting her friends a wry smile, she
added, “The Clues Challenge is over for the day, but
something tells me the mystery is just getting started.”
9. After-Hours Sleuthing
The first stars were already twinkling in the evening sky
above the lake when Nancy left the Sports Complex.
All across the snow-covered campus, lights blinked on.
Nancy stopped outside the glassed-in atrium just to
look at the post card-perfect scene.
“Isn't that Randy?” she asked as a red Jeep pulled
into the parking lot. Even in the darkening sky, his
white-blond hair shone.
“Yup.” C.J. waited until the Jeep stopped in front of
them and Randy got out, then he walked over and said,
“Hi. Where've you been?”
“Something came up,” Randy said. He scooped up
some papers from the passenger seat, folded them, and
shoved them under the cover of his notebook.
He seemed distracted, Nancy noticed. His eyes kept
flitting toward the glassed-in atrium, where Mel
Lorenzo sat.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Um, fine,” he said. “Just fine. Let's just—”
“Hey, C.J.!” a voice interrupted.
Looking over her shoulder, Nancy saw Dennis
walking toward them. He stopped in front of C.J., his
face red from the cold and his eyes filled with chal-
lenge.
“How about a race, C.J.?” Dennis said, shifting from
boot to boot. “You and me. Right here. Right now.”
“He can't race,” George spoke up. “He's hurt.”
“Oh, right. The big injury.” Dennis's voice was heavy
with sarcasm.
Nancy didn't miss the way his eyes flickered toward
Randy. A satisfied smile slipped across Dennis's face as
Randy reached for his camera and started snapping
photos.
Is he doing this just to get attention, or to distract us
from what's really going on? Nancy wondered.
“Hey, Garcia!” a voice called out.
Four silhouettes moved toward them across the
snowy parking lot. As they came closer, Nancy recog-
nized the rest of the Sigma Pi tea
m.
“What happened to you?” Malik asked, stopping
next to Dennis. “We waited two hours at the Student
Center for you to come back. What's up?”
“I—” Dennis began.
“Save the excuses,” Philip told him. “Let's check in
with Mr. Lorenzo so we can brainstorm the clue before
tonight's party.
Dennis started to walk away, then stopped to jab a
finger in C.J.'s direction. “Just remember, hotshot, I
can show you up anytime, anywhere,” he bragged.
C.J. just rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” he said.
“Hmm,” Nancy said as the guys from Sigma Pi went
through the atrium door. “If Dennis wasn't with his
teammates this afternoon . . .”
“Where was he?” Ned finished.
“The party doesn't start for another two hours,”
Nancy said. “There's something I want us to do first.”
Ned turned to Randy, C.J., and Grant and said, “You
guys go ahead. We'll meet you at the party.”
George grinned at Nancy and said, “I know that
look. What kind of plan are you cooking up, Nan?”
“It bothers me that Mr. Lorenzo keeps saying no
one threatened him,” Nancy said. “As long as he's still
busy here . . .”
“You want to check out Sports Mania?” Ned
guessed.
Nancy nodded. “If we hurry, we can be in and out
before Mr. Lorenzo leaves here.”
Fifteen minutes later Ned, Nancy, and George
paused just outside the patch of yellow the store lights
shed on the sidewalk outside Sports Mania.
“It looks like the place is empty, except for Jimmy,”
Ned said.
“Mr. Lorenzo's employee?” Nancy peered through
the display window at the young man behind the
counter. He was tall and gangly, with dark brown skin,
black hair cut close to the scalp, and baggy clothes.
“You guys distract him,” Nancy said. “I'll try to get
inside Mr. Lorenzo's office and look around.”
“Can I help you?” Jimmy asked as they came in.
George launched into a story about needing a warm-
up suit. The young man led her and Ned up to the loft
area. Nancy hung behind, looking at skis.
As soon as Jimmy was out of sight, she tiptoed to the
office door at the back of the store, turned the knob,
then frowned.
“Locked,” she whispered as she pulled a credit card
from her wallet. Quickly and carefully she worked the
card against the lock.
“Yes!” she whispered as the lock clicked open. One
quick step took her inside. Nancy shut the door quietly
behind her and looked around.
A desk, some shelves, a copy machine, and a filing
cabinet took up most of the space. It all had the same
modern look as the rest of the store, but more cramped
and messy Papers and books cluttered the desktop.
Nancy began leafing through the papers on the desk.
“Receipts, order forms, catalogs . . . Hmm. What's
this?”
She plucked a thick computer printout from
beneath some forms. At the top of each page, the
words “Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable” were
printed.
Daily sales figures were listed, along with expenses
for inventory, rent, insurance, and some payments
labeled Miscellaneous. Nancy saw nothing suspicious,
so she abandoned the printout and went through Mr.
Lorenzo's desk drawers.
“Supplies, printer cartridges, business cards, more
catalogs . . .” she murmured. Again, nothing suspicious.
“What now?” she wondered, sitting back in the desk
chair.
At that moment Nancy's gaze fell on a trash bin that
was tucked under the desk. It was a long shot, but. . .
Leaning forward, she began to pick through the
crumpled napkins, old order forms, coffee containers,
and discarded bits of paper.
Right under a Styrofoam dish still half full of fried
rice was a crumpled piece of paper. After shaking a few
greasy kernels from it, she smoothed the paper out on
the desktop and read the words printed in capital
letters:
MY PRICE JUST WENT UP TO $1,500.
PAY UP . . . OR I'LL TALK.
“Whoa!” Nancy's whole body jolted to attention. She
looked at the note again, zeroing in on the amount.
Fifteen hundred dollars. Hadn't she seen something
for that amount in the accounts printout?
Nancy shot her right hand out and grabbed the
printout. Her finger moved like lightning over the
entries until she found the one she was looking for,
near the end.
“Here!” she said under her breath.
It was a Miscellaneous payment for fifteen hundred
dollars. And the date was . . .
“Yesterday!”
Nancy paged back through the printout. Exactly
fourteen days earlier she found another Miscellaneous
payment. This one was for one thousand dollars. And
another thousand-dollar payment was listed fourteen
days before that.
Flipping back, Nancy made note of every Miscel-
laneous payment in the printout. There were seven in
all, made exactly two weeks apart. Each payment was
for a thousand dollars except the last one.
“When the blackmailer's price went up,” Nancy said
quietly.
Her mind whirled at top speed. The note she had
found made it pretty clear that Mr. Lorenzo was being
blackmailed. But whoever had left that note wanted
more than just the answers to the Clues Challenge.
Someone was blackmailing Mr. Lorenzo for serious
money.
10. Blackmail
George and Ned were still in the loft of Sports Mania
with Jimmy when Nancy found them again. She paused
at the top of the metal stairs, watching while George
modeled a bright red warm-up suit.
“I don't know about the color . . .” George said.
As soon as Nancy gave her a thumbs-up sign,
George pulled the suit off and handed it back to
Jimmy.
“I'll pass for now,” she said, grabbing her parka and
heading for the stairs.
Ned dumped another warm-up outfit into Jimmy's
arms and followed George. They clattered down the
stairs behind Nancy, leaving Jimmy alone in the loft
area.
“You found something?” Ned said as soon as they
were outside.
Nancy showed him and George the note and told
them about the miscellaneous payments.
“So someone is blackmailing Mr. Lorenzo!” George
wrapped her scarf around the collar of her parka as
they made their way back toward campus. “But . . . is it
the same person who's been sabotaging us?”
“That's the million-dollar question,” Nancy said.
“The payments go back to the beginning of October.”
“I doubt those payments have anything to do with
the Clues Challenge,” Ned said, hunching against the
wind. “Mr. Lorenzo didn't agree to sponsor the Clues
Challenge until ab
out three weeks ago. It was already
November.”
“On the other hand the last payoff was made just
yesterday.” Nancy shot a meaningful glance at her
friends. “The same day Mr. Lorenzo received that
computer threat.”
“There could be a connection,” George finished.
“Dennis and Joy were both out on their own after the
pre-challenge dinner. But”—she gave a shake of her
head, as if she were trying to clear it—“why would
either of them blackmail Mr. Lorenzo?”
The question hung in the air as they started through
the woods toward campus. Wind whistled eerily
through the tree branches.
“I'm starting to wonder about someone else, too,”
she said. “Have you guys noticed how Mr. Lorenzo
reacts to Randy?” Nancy asked.
George chuckled. “You mean, like Randy is a plague
that could destroy the human race?”
Ned shrugged. “That doesn't mean Randy is
blackmailing him. Randy didn't even show up at
Emerson until yesterday, and the blackmail started a
lot longer ago than that.”
Nancy sighed, trying to figure it out. “All I know is
that Mr. Lorenzo overreacts whenever Randy is
around—and I'd like to find out why,” she said.
“Wow. This place looks great!” Nancy said, an hour
and a half later.
She, George, and Ned paused in the doorway of the
Attic, a large, open room at the top of the Student
Center. A dozen dormer windows formed alcoves that
were furnished with sofas, chairs, and coffee tables. At
the far end of the room a band played on a low
platform, and the dance floor was already packed.
“Check out the tropical decor.” George bobbed her
head to the music as she took in the beach scene that
someone had painted on the walls in glowing,
iridescent colors.
“Luckily, we're dressed to match!” said Nancy. She
took off her parka, yellow team hat, and heavy sweater
to reveal a flowered sarong skirt and tank top. George
had on shorts and a tennis shirt, while Ned wore a red-
and-white Hawaiian shirt with jeans.
An alcove right next to the door was fitted with
hooks and shelves.
“Looks like C.J. and Grant are already here,” Ned
said, pointing to the bright yellow Omega team hats
that lay on one of the shelves. He grinned at Nancy and
George. “Let's dance!”