“I know, Dad.” I had to admit, I was feeling a little sheepish about the double trespassing I’d committed earlier that night—but how else was I supposed to find out the truth? “It’s just—I know it’s not a ghost. So what’s going on?”
Dad shrugged as he turned onto Heliotrope Lane. “I have learned in my law work that people are endlessly creative about finding new ways to drive each other crazy,” he said in an even tone.
“So you think Owen’s right?” I asked. “Izzy’s faking it?”
“I think it’s worth looking into that possibility,” he said.
“But how?” I asked. Dad was pulling up to the abandoned house at the end of the lane now, and I couldn’t bring myself to even look at it. He stopped near my parked car. “How do you prove someone is acting strange on purpose?” I pressed further.
“I suppose you try to talk to the people who know them best.”
“But who knows Izzy best?” I asked, seriously wondering. Willa is her best friend, and she can’t figure it out. I pulled my key fob out of my pocket again and unlocked my car’s doors. The car honked as though happy to be reclaimed.
Dad put his car in park and reached into his coat pocket. “I don’t know,” he said. “Who knows someone best?” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and handed me a small Ziploc bag—stuffed with two of Hannah’s famous oatmeal raisin cookies. I reached for it eagerly, and he smiled. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“Oh gosh, Dad, thank you.” I ripped into the bag and shoved a cookie in my mouth. Heaven. How did he know this was exactly what I needed to cheer me up?
“It’s just a house, Nancy.” I glanced up and saw my dad staring out the window at the Furstenberg house.
“I know.” I hugged Dad, opened the door, and climbed out, dashing the ten feet or so to my car and opening the driver’s-side door.
Just as he began to pull away, a chill went down my spine. I immediately turned and looked at the house. It felt like my gaze was being pulled there by a magnet. Nothing looked out of place, but I had the strong, distinct feeling that I was being watched.
Mrs. Furstenberg?
Hands shaking, I slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind me, quickly locking the doors. Still staring at the house, I turned the key in the ignition and threw my seat belt on, then flicked on the headlights. Without hesitating, I put the car into reverse and looked through the back window, ready to get away from Heliotrope Lane.
But when I looked over one last time, in the darkness, I could swear I saw something—and my blood went cold.
In the glow of the car taillights, a pair of eyes reflected back from a basement window.
“Hey, Nancy.” Willa grinned at me as she walked into the Coffee Cabin, a coffee shop not that far from River Heights Middle School. I’d e-mailed her to meet me here after school on Monday, and she was right on time. Her long hair was woven into a braid today that hung over her shoulder. “What’s up? Oh, remind me I have something to show you.”
I put down my hot chocolate and pushed a plate of butter cookies across the table to Willa. “Okay. Here, take one. Well . . . you probably already know from Owen. I went to the house on Heliotrope Lane on Saturday night.”
Willa grabbed a cookie and nodded seriously. “What happened?”
“Well . . . nothing, really,” I said honestly. “At least, nothing that gave me answers about Izzy. We did run into Owen, who was taking his friends on some kind of tour.”
Willa grimaced. “Yeah, he mentioned that. I’m sorry. He’s an idiot.”
I took a sip of hot chocolate. “He said he thinks Izzy is faking it,” I said slowly.
Willa had been taking a bite of her cookie, and she paused, startled, before quickly swallowing the bite in her mouth. “Um, yeah,” she said. “He told me after we talked to you. . . . I guess he doesn’t agree with me that something’s up with her. But think, who knows her better? Owen . . . or me?”
“It sounds like you,” I said.
“Right.” Willa smiled and finished her cookie.
“It’s just . . .” I looked out the window at the middle school kids passing by. They were all smiling and chatting, heaving backpacks up on their shoulders. Could any of them be capable of faking ghost possession, or worse? “I believe you, Willa, but I think I need to talk to someone else who knows Izzy really well. Her parents.”
Willa’s face turned pale, and she shook her head, her braid whipping back and forth. “No—Nancy, please.”
“But maybe there’s a perfectly rational explanation, Willa,” I said softly. “Maybe there’s something going on in Izzy’s life that you just don’t know about. . . .”
Willa groaned. “No, she tells me everything, Nancy. She’d tell me before she told her parents. Don’t you get that? We’ve been best friends since we were five.”
I sighed. “I just really think it would help to talk to them.”
“No,” she insisted. “Please, Nancy. As soon as you contact her parents, Izzy will find out that I told you about her weird behavior, and then . . .”
“Then what?” I asked.
Willa’s eyes unfocused, and she shuddered. “I don’t know,” she said, looking at me angrily. “That’s why I contacted you. She scares me. I don’t know what she’ll do if she knows I told someone. She gets so angry now!”
“But . . . what if her parents didn’t tell her?” I suggested. “What if I asked them not to?”
Willa looked doubtful. “I mean, you could try. But Izzy’s parents are like, crazy strict—she would be grounded for life if they knew we had snuck into the haunted house! I don’t think they’d be super concerned about how you wanted them to react.”
I nodded. Parents. “But maybe there’s some way . . . ,” I began, then trailed off, at a loss.
“I don’t think so—not without tipping off Izzy,” Willa said. “Look, is there anything else you can do? I’m really worried about my friend—that’s why I got in touch with you in the first place.”
I looked down into my mug, then out at the street. I need a way to make sure that what’s happening to Izzy is real. Then it occurred to me—with all the kids traipsing in and out of the house on Heliotrope Lane every night, if something really was happening in there . . . wouldn’t there be more than one victim?
“I have an idea!” Willa said suddenly, pointing her finger into the air. “It’s what I wanted to remember to show you. May I borrow your phone?” I handed my phone to her, and she went on, “Owen said something about a kid at his school. It’s new. Like, it happened to him recently.”
Wow. It’s like she was a mind reader!
“A high school student?” I prompted, wondering if it might be someone I knew.
“Yeah, a junior . . . his name is Gavin,” Willa said. “Gavin Yoo.”
Gavin Yoo. I was vaguely familiar with the kid—maybe we’d once had a class together? But I could only call up a vague picture. I didn’t know him well.
“The thing I want to show you is,” Willa went on, scrolling through my phone, “Owen sent me a video. Let me see if I can find it. . . . Oh! Here.”
She pulled up a video and showed me the screen.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” a tall, short-haired Asian boy was saying, sitting at a table in what looked like the cafeteria in RHHS. He looked down, blushing slightly. He was wearing a varsity baseball jacket.
“Oh, come on, Gavin,” a male voice off-camera teased. “Are you afraid Lila might find out?”
Gavin’s blush deepened. “Shut up,” he muttered, smiling down into his can of soda. “Let’s talk about something else. Did you guys watch the end of Bot Kingdom yet?”
“No,” the voice off-camera said. “So let’s talk about something else creepy.”
“Yeah,” another male voice chimed in. “Let’s talk about what happened the other night.”
Suddenly Gavin looked straight at the camera, and something immediately changed in his face. All the levity, all the
bashfulness disappeared, and he stared into the lens with a look of serious disapproval—even dread.
“Let’s not,” he said, and his voice was different, deeper.
“Yeah,” the other off-camera voice chimed in, laughing, clearly not picking up on how serious Gavin looked. “Let’s talk about what happened to you at the house on Heliotrope Lane.”
At the word “house,” Gavin’s face changed even more. The muscles in his jaw seemed to go slack, and he pitched his face downward, peering up at the camera through dark, furious eyes. I felt a chill go down my spine.
“I told you I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. Except it wasn’t really his voice anymore. It was deeper again, but this time, it was like he had gargled with rocks or drunk acid. The sound coming out of him was angry, dark, ugly. . . .
“He sounds like a demon,” I whispered to Willa. “Like Izzy sounded when she was angry with us outside the dance studio.”
Willa nodded. In the video, Gavin continued growling, “It’s none of your business. Don’t make me hurt you.” Then he raised his hand in a clawlike shape above the edge of the table.
“Oh, come on,” the off-camera voice chided again, still not sounding like he understood how serious this was becoming. “I just want to know—”
But then I jumped as I watched Gavin lunge forward, knocking the camera to the ground.
There was a crash, and then the video winked out.
I put the phone down and then looked up at Willa. “This is serious. Does he know Izzy at all?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t think so. I definitely don’t know him,” she said. “I just found out about him before school today.”
I frowned. “Why is there a video?” I asked. “Does Gavin know about it? Who took it?”
Willa glanced down at the phone as the screen turned black, then up at me. “I’m not really sure,” she said. “Owen said one of his friends took it. I think when they started taking the video, they didn’t realize how serious it was. But now they’re really worried.”
I pressed the wake button on the phone. The video had stopped on a freaky image of Gavin’s furious face. Willa looked at it a moment before continuing.
“Like me and Izzy,” she said, “Gavin’s friends are scared to tell anyone because they’re worried about getting in trouble for sneaking into the house. They know it was trespassing.”
I pressed play and we both watched the video again. This time I was even more struck by the difference between Gavin’s sweet, embarrassed demeanor at the beginning and the angry, vengeful force that seemed to emanate from him at the end. But is the transformation real? I couldn’t know, because I knew so little about Gavin.
“Maybe I can talk to him,” I said slowly, pushing the phone back over to Willa. “If he asks, I can say I got his name from Owen.”
A wave of relief seemed to wash over Willa’s face. “Thank you, Nancy,” she said. “I really appreciate your not talking to Izzy’s parents.”
I nodded. “For now. I can’t promise I still won’t need to,” I said.
“That’s okay,” Willa said, smiling. “As long as you keep working on the case. I really want to understand what’s happening to Izzy.”
Me too, I thought, remembering Izzy’s fury outside her dance lesson. For you—and for Izzy.
Then my mind went back to the house on Heliotrope Lane—and the eyes I’d felt watching me from the basement window.
And for Mrs. Furstenberg, I added mentally.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Another Victim
THE COOL WIND SEEMED TO pierce through my fleece jacket and hug my bones as I waited in the parking lot for Gavin Yoo. It was the day after I’d met with Willa, and unusually chilly for spring. I checked my phone and confirmed that baseball practice should be letting out any minute.
I was glad. It was cold, I was tired, and it was nearly time to go home for dinner. Hannah was making her famous pork chops; I’d deduced this by texting my dad.
But Gavin Yoo seemed to be taking his sweet time. After a few minutes, I began seeing his teammates walking from the baseball field to their cars, making their good-byes, climbing in and driving off. One by one, the cars in the parking lot dwindled. A few guys cast curious glances my way, but no one said anything.
I checked my watch. It had been half an hour since I’d arrived, and I was officially late for dinner.
TELL HANNAH I’M SORRY, I texted Dad. BUT I’M STARVING AND I’LL BE THERE ASAP.
Then another ten minutes ticked by with no sign of Gavin. I was pretty sure all his teammates had left—and he hadn’t been with any of them. Only two cars were left—mine and Gavin’s.
I stared in the direction of the baseball field, but I couldn’t make out any figures on the grass.
Maybe I missed him?
I wasn’t sure how. Maybe he got a ride home with a teammate while I was looking the other way?
But then why is his car still here?
It was weird. Why would he get a ride home with someone else if his car was right here?
But where else could he be?
I sighed and checked my phone again. Now it had been twenty minutes since I’d texted Dad—who’d texted back IT’S OKAY, MORE PORK CHOPS FOR ME—and I’d been standing in this parking lot for nearly an hour. It was getting dark. I shivered inside my fleece. Maybe Gavin’s car isn’t working, or else he decided to sleep over at a friend’s? Either way, I can’t stand here all night.
I was starving. And freezing. It’s time to go home.
When I’d arrived, the parking lot had been much fuller, so I’d parked way over by the high school gym. I turned in that direction now and began hustling along, pulling my car keys out of my pocket and fingering the unlock button. I couldn’t wait to get inside and blast the heat. It was one of those last-gasp-of-winter days where it’s been warm for a long time, and then suddenly you get this chilly weather back. . . .
A hand reached out from behind me and grabbed my shoulder.
“Looking for me?”
All the breath left my body in one gasp. It was the same gargled-with-rocks, evil voice from the video I’d watched with Willa.
Don’t show him you’re scared, a tiny voice whispered inside me. So I tried to pull myself up to my full height and hide the fear from my face as I turned around to face Gavin Yoo.
It took me a minute to make him out in the dwindling light. Still, I stifled a scream at the sight of him. His expression and bearing were completely different from the shy athlete I’d seen at the beginning of the video. His face was cast downward, and each muscle in his jaw seemed to be clenched tight. Again, he was staring at me from beneath an angry brow. He looks like a feral animal, I thought.
“Hi,” I said, hoping he couldn’t tell that I was struggling to keep my voice even. “I was looking for you, actually. I’m Nancy Drew—”
“We all know who you are, Nancy,” Gavin hissed. In addition to being deep and garbled, Gavin’s voice almost had a skittering tone to it—like there were bugs in his chest. Like something died inside him, I thought. “We all know what you’re trying to do.” He smiled, and the light from the streetlights seemed to catch his canines, giving him a kind of fanged look. “And we won’t let that happen, understand?”
He lunged forward, and I couldn’t keep my cool anymore—I shrieked and jumped back. But instead of advancing, this strange version of Gavin threw back his head and let out a high, terrifying cackle. When I paused, staring in confusion, he suddenly moved toward me and shoved me. The force was surprising, sending me toppling to the ground. I opened my mouth to scream but couldn’t draw a breath.
Gavin stood over me, leering. “Mind your own business, Nancy Drew,” he said, his words dripping with contempt, “or you’ll be next.”
Then, just as quickly as he’d appeared, he disappeared into the darkness.
I shakily got to my feet and pulled out my phone. The whole confrontation with Gavin had taken a whopping three minutes. A
nd there was a new text from my dad: BREAKING NEWS: APPLE PIE!!!!
My dad does love a good apple pie.
Still, I was still trembling as I walked the rest of the way to my car. My legs felt like spaghetti. And as hard as I tried, I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt weak and jumpy—like any minute, someone might try to grab me from another side.
He could, I supposed. I hadn’t seen where he’d gone. . . .
Finally I reached my car and unlocked it, jumping into the driver’s seat and locking the doors around me.
What was that? And who was he talking about when he said we . . . as in we won’t let that happen?
Gavin and Izzy? Or Gavin and Izzy and . . . someone else?
“I have to go back there.”
I was at George’s house now, having called Bess and George to meet me there as soon as I was done with dinner. I’d told them both about my experience with Gavin Yoo, and they seemed as shaken by my story as I felt.
“Go back where?” Bess asked. “Nancy, if this experience teaches us anything, it’s that you can’t go confronting these people alone anymore. If you want to try to talk to Gavin again, take me or George with you.”
“Not Gavin. I’m not talking about confronting Gavin.”
“Where, then?” George asked, one eyebrow raised. When I met her eye, I could tell she understood immediately. “Oh no,” she muttered.
I looked at Bess. “I have to go back to the house on Heliotrope Lane,” I said as she gasped, “and try to find out once and for all what’s going on there. Maybe I didn’t stay long enough last time. Maybe—”
Bess shook her head furiously. “No,” she said. “Nancy, no, no, no, no.”
“Why not?” I said. “I know it didn’t work out well last time. But—”
“I just don’t think we’ll find anything,” Bess interrupted, nervously fingering George’s fuzzy bedspread. “I mean, didn’t we do that already? We searched the house. We didn’t find anything unusual.”