Maybe if I just creep out while he’s searching for me, I thought desperately, I can come back in a little while and act like I just got here.
I tiptoed toward the door and was almost home free when I felt a large hand clamp down on my shoulder. Despite myself, I let out a yelp.
“Nancy Drew?” a voice asked.
Puzzled, I whirled around and found myself face-to-face with Reggie Banks—Parker’s best man! “Reggie!” I exclaimed, filled with relief. “Oh, I’m so glad it’s you.”
Reggie smiled uncertainly. “Yes, well—I have to ship off a rare document to the state museum in Columbia before Monday. May I ask what you’re doing here . . . in the records room . . . alone?”
I felt my cheeks grow hot. “Well, it’s actually a long story. But I could really use your help.”
An instant later Bess and George tore into the room, out of breath. “Nancy, are you all right—oh!” Bess stopped short the moment she saw Reggie standing there next to me. “Why, hello,” she said to him.
“Hi,” Reggie replied. He looked between the three of us, utterly confused. “I really am missing something, aren’t I?”
For the next few minutes, the girls and I filled Reggie in on everything that had happened since we’d arrived. He was staggered to hear that as of last night, the wedding rings were missing. “I can’t believe Parker didn’t tell me,” he murmured, looking hurt. “I’m not only his best man, I’m his best friend!”
“Don’t take it personally, Reggie,” Bess said. “This only happened late last night, and we told him to keep it to himself—he didn’t want any of the guests to find out.”
Reggie nodded, and then turned to me. “You said you’re some kind of amateur detective. So, who do you think is behind all of this?”
“I’ve got a couple of hunches,” I replied. “But we need more evidence to figure out which one is right. That’s actually why we’re here. We couldn’t find anyone around when we arrived, so we decided to just poke around a bit on our own to look for information.” I bit my lip. “Sorry about that.”
Reggie grinned. “Don’t worry about it. If I were in your shoes, I would have done the same thing to help out a friend. I’m just happy it’s me who caught you and not my boss! He would have dragged you guys into the police station for trespassing—pretty faces or no.”
Bess’s cheeks turned pink at that. George rolled her eyes.
“But I still don’t understand what you were looking for here at the historical society,” Reggie finished.
“We need to know more about Alicia Coleman and her relationship with Charlotte and Parker,” I replied.
Reggie’s eyes went wide. “Alicia?! She’s one of your suspects?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “She’s got plenty of reasons to wish that it was her marrying Parker today instead of Charlotte—and envy seems to be a pretty strong motive, given the incidents so far.”
“I guess that’s true,” Reggie said after a moment. “But I just can’t imagine Alicia being capable of this kind of thing. She’s as hardcore about her career as Charlotte is and has a lot of good things going on in her life now—it doesn’t seem likely that she would risk losing all of that just to sabotage her friend’s wedding. And I can say that with confidence; Alicia and I worked together for several years, so I know her as well as anyone. Sure, she liked Parker when she met him—I mean, what woman wouldn’t?” Reggie paused and gave me a serious look. “But once she saw how happy Charlotte and Parker were together, she backed off right away. You have to believe me, Alicia never did more than flirt with Parker—she would never do anything to hurt him or Charlotte. And anyway . . .” Reggie stopped and cleared his throat, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “After the rehearsal dinner last night, Alicia and I went for a drive around town in my car. We didn’t get back to the inn until after midnight. If the rings were taken sometime between the end of the dinner and eleven o’clock, it couldn’t have been her.”
George’s eyebrows went up. “So you and Alicia are . . .”
Reggie looked at his shoes with a shy smile. “I’m not sure what we are. But I’ve always had a lot of respect for her, and seeing her again for this wedding, well . . . let’s just say it brought those feelings back to the surface.”
Bess clasped her hands together dreamily. “Oh, how romantic!” she said.
I sighed. So Alicia was another dead end!
“Well, we don’t want to take up any more of your time,” I said. “I know you’ve got a lot to do before the wedding starts. Let me just clean up this mess I made.” I walked back to where I had dropped the Grey Fox Inn file and knelt down to gather up the papers from the floor. Some of the historical documents talked about how several people had died at the inn back in the nineteenth century—deaths that had led to the locals’ belief that the inn was haunted. Years later, ghost sightings at the inn led to a surge in popularity, as described in the newspaper article we’d found back in the secret passage.
As I continued to pick up the papers, one in particular caught my eye. It was a familiar name that attracted my attention: John William Ross. It was a form transferring the deed to the inn from the previous owner to John William, about ten years ago. Paper-clipped to that form were a dozen others, all pertaining to events that had occurred at the inn since John William took ownership. Apparently, because the inn was a historic building, the city kept detailed records of anything that happened to the property. Looking through the papers, it seemed like the inn had endured one stroke of bad luck after another in the past decade. Hurricane damage, massive flooding, electrical malfunctions—the list went on and on. From the look of it, the inn was in major financial trouble.
My eyes flicked back and forth from the articles about the heyday of Grey Fox Inn, with its daily ghost sightings and guest lists reaching into the following year, and then back to the current state of things—no ghosts, no money. Well, no ghosts until three days ago, when a host of influential and wealthy guests arrived . . .
Suddenly a whole bunch of things clicked into place in my mind—things I hadn’t even considered until that moment. “Girls!” I said, dashing around the shelves back to where they were standing.
“What? Did you find something?” George asked.
“I’m not sure how this fits in with everything else,” I said, breathless. “But we need to get back to the inn right away. Reggie, would you mind if I borrowed this file for a while?”
Reggie shook his head. “Of course not. Whatever you need, Nancy. But what is it that you have to do at the inn?”
I slipped the file into my purse and pulled out my car keys. “There’s someone there that I need to talk to.”
CHAPTER NINE
Something Borrowed, Something Blue
THE GIRLS AND I SPED back to Grey Fox Inn, and I was out of the car almost before I’d pulled the key from the ignition. I ran into the lobby and straight up to the front desk. The maid, Annabelle, was sitting there, typing something into the computer. “Where is he?” I asked.
“That man, Mr. Salazar?” she asked, her eyes wide. “You’re looking for him, aren’t you? I knew someone would come looking for him!”
I cocked my head, puzzled. “Who? No, no—John William. Where’s John William?”
Annabelle’s face fell. “Oh. He’s out in the garden.” Without further explanation, she turned back to her work.
Salazar? What was that all about? I wondered. I shrugged at the girls and led the way out the back door that led to the lush garden at the rear of the inn. I asked Bess and George to keep their distance; I didn’t want John William to be spooked by the sight of all three of us coming out to talk to him. “I still don’t understand why you need to talk to him,” George said.
“It’s just a hunch . . . but I need to see where it leads,” I replied.
They nodded and agreed to stay close but out of sight.
I went on alone, stepping through the grass, which was still wet with morning dew. It was incredibl
y peaceful there—clusters of magnolia and sassafras trees surrounded wide beds of flowers and bushes in bloom, and the only sound was that of birdcalls from the treetops. I almost felt guilty for disturbing such a beautiful scene with the confrontation I was about to have.
I saw him crouching down in one of the flower beds, applying some kind of fertilizer to the soil. He was wearing army-green coveralls and rubber boots, which were dusted with the same stuff he was spilling onto the ground.
“Ash,” I said, breaking the silence.
John William started, almost falling over into an azalea bush. He clambered to his feet and faced me. “Oh, goodness, Miss Drew. You nearly made me jump out of my skin! I didn’t hear you come up. What’s that you said?”
“Ash,” I repeated, pointing to the bag at his feet. “It’s a good fertilizer, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” John William replied. “Cheap, too. It works a treat on my roses.”
“It also has a habit of sticking to your shoes,” I continued.
John William looked confused, as if he’d heard me wrong. “Pardon?”
“Ash leaves a lot of tracks behind, is what I mean,” I hinted, moving closer to him. “Sometimes in places that you don’t want people to know you’ve been.”
A few moments passed in silence, and John William’s face went from red with exertion to a ghostly white. Finally he cleared his throat, choosing his words carefully. “Miss Drew,” he said, “I’m not certain what you’re suggesting, but—”
“I’m suggesting that you put on a blue Civil War–era soldier’s uniform and used the secret passageways in the inn to terrorize the guests into thinking that the inn was haunted. In an attempt, I believe, to drum up more business and save the inn from financial ruin. My friends and I found the passageways, and we saw where each one led through those little peepholes. We were able to identify every secret entrance, except for one on the first level. And I’m fairly sure that last one leads to your office.”
John William’s mortified expression told me he was guilty, guilty, guilty.
“Please,” he croaked, pulling the gardening gloves off his hands and putting them together, as if they were begging too. “You have to understand. I—I didn’t mean any harm. If I don’t fill up all the vacancies for the rest of the year, I’ll be forced to sell the inn. This place has been in my family for generations! When your friend mentioned the old ghost sightings a couple days ago, I remembered all those old newspapers in the basement, talking about how popular the inn was when people thought it was haunted. My cousin down the street has a bunch of old uniforms from his war reenactment days, so I got the idea to borrow one and haunt the place myself. I figured it was worth a try. How could I not try, especially with that anchorman and all his newspeople staying right under my roof? They ate up all that ghost stuff like it was candy. If I got a story in the news about the inn, people would want to stay here, and I’d be able to keep this place running. You have to understand, young lady!”
Despite myself, I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for John William. He was clearly desperate to save the inn that he loved so dearly, and sometimes people do crazy things for love. That thought reminded me of another important piece of this mystery.
“Now that I know you were the ghost sneaking into everyone’s rooms, I have to know—did you have anything to do with the theft of the wedding rings?”
John William’s eyes bulged out of his head, and his mouth dropped open in shock. “The wedding rings were stolen?”
His surprise was so authentic, I couldn’t believe that he had committed the crime. But I had to be sure. “Where were you last night, between ten and eleven p.m.?”
John William frowned in thought, and then said, “I was in the kitchen, helping Annabelle wash up for the night. You can ask her yourself—she’ll tell you I was there.”
I nodded. I was happy to have figured out one part of this mystery, but the real culprit—the person intent on ruining Charlotte’s wedding—was still at large. “John William,” I began, “the rings are just the latest incident that has happened over these past few days. Someone has been sabotaging this wedding, and whoever it is somehow found out about the inn’s secret passages and used them to break into Parker’s room and steal the rings. I need to know if any of the guests could have seen you use the passages for your nightly hauntings. It’s extremely important.”
John William wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his shaking hand. The sun was now beating down with full force through the tree cover, even though it was still fairly early in the morning. “Only one thing comes to mind,” he said after a few moments. “Sometime during the first night you all arrived, after I had visited half a dozen rooms, I was rushing back down the passageway and tripped over something. I fell—made quite a racket, you see—and when I got up again, I checked through the peephole and saw someone looking directly my way. Whoever it was had turned on a bedside lamp, probably woken by the noise. He started walking toward the wall where the entrance to the passageway was. I got out of there right quick. Maybe he put two and two together and figured out that wall was hollow.”
I stepped in closer. “You said ‘he.’ Did you see this person’s face? Do you remember what room it was?”
John William looked pained. “It was late, and it was dark. I can’t recall which room it was, and the man’s face was backlit from the lamp—I couldn’t make out any details through the peephole. But I can tell you, just from the shape of him, it was a man. Medium build, probably on the younger side from the way he moved.”
The description was a perfect fit for Tucker Matthews. With Reggie having a pretty airtight alibi for Alicia, Tucker was the natural choice. “Thank you, John William,” I said. “That’s very helpful.”
John William nodded, but it appeared he had something else on his mind. “Miss Drew, I have to ask—are you planning on telling anyone about my, uh, indiscretions?”
I considered his request. “I understand why you did what you did. But sneaking into people’s rooms without their knowledge isn’t right. If you want to save your inn, you need to find a different way.”
The inn owner stared at his feet, looking ashamed.
“Here’s what I’m going to do. Parker is a good guy, and he cares a lot about this town. He wouldn’t want to see this inn be sold to some outsider and risk it being turned into a strip mall. He’s got connections who can help you”—John William’s eyes lit up—“but only if you never try this ghost thing again. I’m also going to tell Parker what you did, and if he ever finds out that you’ve haunted your guests again, it will be on the next morning’s news.”
John William smiled. “That’s mighty fair of you, miss. I promise I’ll do as you ask.”
I returned the smile and turned back to the house to find Bess and George. Time was running out, and we had another confrontation ahead of us!
CHAPTER TEN
The Nose Knows
BY THE TIME WE GOT back inside the Inn, the main lobby was crowded with family members and the bridal party, many of them already dressed for the big day. The ceremony was set to begin promptly at four p.m., and it was already creeping toward midday! That meant we had less than five hours to find those wedding rings.
As we made our way through the crowd, Parker caught sight of me and intercepted us at the foot of the staircase. “So? Any news?” he murmured, scanning the room to make sure no one else could hear us. “I can only keep this secret for so long. My mother has already asked to see the rings one last time to make sure they’re polished, and I had to come up with an excuse why I couldn’t give them to her!”
“I think we’re getting close,” I said. “I can’t be certain, but I’ve narrowed the suspect list down and am going to ask someone a few questions right now.”
Parker narrowed his eyes. “Who?” he asked, his voice low.
I swallowed, unsure of how wise it would be to reveal my suspicions to the anxious groom. “Well, like I said, I’m not sure of
anything yet,” I warned. “But right now I’m concerned that Tucker Matthews has a fairly strong motive.”
Parker straightened up like he’d been jolted by an electric shock. “Tucker?!” he spluttered. “Why that ungrateful, backstabbing—” He started to climb the stairs, making a beeline for Tucker’s room.
“No, Parker—wait!” I exclaimed. Bess and George exchanged worried looks, and we all ran up after Parker. But by the time we caught up with him, he had already stormed into Tucker’s room. Tucker was standing at the mirror in his tuxedo shirt, his hands still poised at his neck, grasping at a half-knotted bow tie.
“What—what’s going on?” he stammered, his eyes flitting back and forth between Parker’s red face and our three panicked ones.
“How could you?” Parker said. “I know you were mad about not getting the evening news position, but how could you do this to me?” He advanced on Tucker and grabbed the groomsman by the front of his shirt. “It’s my wedding, man!”
Tucker shoved Parker away, panting, his brows knotted in confusion. “Hey! Get your hands off me! Listen, Parker—I know weddings can make a guy crazy, but this is ridiculous. I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
I stepped in between the two of them. “Parker, I know you’re upset, but please, let me handle this.” Scowling, Parker nodded reluctantly, and I turned to our suspect. “Tucker, someone has been causing trouble for this wedding, and we need to find out who it is.”
Tucker readjusted his shirt and regarded Parker warily before focusing his attention on me. “You mean that knife prank at the rehearsal dinner?” he asked, and before he could stifle it, he chuckled.
I saw Parker rise to his feet, ready to attack Tucker once again, but I put a hand on his shoulder and willed him to stay back.