“Maybe we weren’t looking in the right places,” I said, glancing at George. “I mean . . . there was that room in the basement. . . .”
“Room in the basement?” Bess asked, her forehead crinkling as she looked from George to me.
“Bess, the door to the room in the basement where Mrs. Furstenberg’s body was found was closed, and we couldn’t get it open. It must have been locked from the inside.”
Bess looked back and forth from George to me. “But who would have locked that door? And why?”
“Someone who doesn’t want anyone finding out what’s inside,” I speculated. “Which makes me think there’s more to see. I also . . .” I paused, not sure whether I wanted to continue.
“What?” George looked at me expectantly.
I shook my head. “Later, when I went back to get my car . . . When my dad dropped me off . . . I felt like . . . I know this sounds crazy . . . but like something was watching me.” I looked down at the floor, then back at my friends.
They were both staring at me, openmouthed.
“When I drove away,” I added, “I thought my headlights reflected off . . . a pair of eyes. In the basement.”
Bess let out a huge breath and said, “Hoo boy. Okay.” She went on resolutely, “Listen, guys, I need to be honest with you right now. I can’t go back there.”
George looked at her cousin, her expression disappointed. “Why not?”
Bess ran her hand over her face. “I know this is going to sound crazy. I know you’re going to be like, ‘Oh, spooked-out Bess, always getting freaked by the silliest things.’ But”—she stopped for a moment, then met my eyes—“I just can’t go back there, Nancy. I know we didn’t find anything weird. But something about that place . . . it felt evil to me.”
Bess’s words should have upset me, but they didn’t. Instead, when she spoke I felt that weird sense of relief that I often do when someone says what I’m feeling so I don’t have to.
Because Bess was right, in a way. I felt it deep in my soul.
“I’ll go back with you, Nancy,” George said, looking serious, but she didn’t exactly sound eager to do it. “If you want to. But remember . . . we got rounded up by the police last time.” She paused. “Maybe we should wait until we have a clearer game plan?” she asked. “Maybe we all need to think about this some more.”
I nodded. George was right—I didn’t know what I expected to find in the Furstenberg house, anyway. I didn’t know what I was looking for.
I just knew there was something.
Something about this whole thing was bothering me . . . and I couldn’t figure out what it was.
Later that night, I jumped up in my bed, startled from sleep. As I stared out the window at the moon, it came to me—what had been bothering me about Willa’s case.
“That’s it!” I shouted.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Confrontation
THE NEXT AFTERNOON FOUND ME back in the RHHS parking lot—but this time, waiting for a different person. I pulled my fleece close around me, watching the clouds roll in over the baseball field and wondering when I would find out the truth about what had happened to Izzy and Gavin. Soon, I hope, I thought.
“Hey!” I cried, watching my mark walk from the main building toward a car.
Owen turned and looked at me with an expression like I was something he’d scraped off the bottom of his shoe. “You’re out of luck,” he called with a sneer. “I’m not picking up Willa today. You’ll have to find some other way to get in touch with her.”
I advanced toward him, shaking my head. “No,” I said, “it’s you I want to talk to.”
Owen grimaced. “Can we at least get in my car?” he asked, pulling his arms around himself. “It’s getting cold, and I don’t have a jacket.”
I noticed he was just wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt, black with some kind of heavy metal band logo. “Fine,” I said. “But I’m leaving my door open.” I’ve worked too many cases where a friend suddenly turned enemy after I’d climbed into their car.
But Owen just rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
He led me to the same battered Honda Civic I’d seen at the Furstenberg house the night he’d shown up with Dev and Wyatt. He opened the driver’s door, leaned over, and unlocked the passenger side by hand. I walked over to that side and climbed in, leaving the door open wide and one foot on the parking lot ground.
He was already settled in the driver’s seat. He sighed as I put my purse on the floor in front of me.
“All right, shoot,” he said, looking away and out the front windshield toward the baseball field. “I don’t have all day.”
I stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to turn his attention back to me. I wanted him to know I was taking this conversation seriously.
“What?” he asked, looking openly annoyed now.
“Do you remember what you told me at the haunted house—that you don’t believe in ghosts?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said.
“So that means you think Izzy is faking it,” I went on.
He nodded abruptly. “Yup,” he said, raising his eyebrows as if to add, Duh. “I think I made that pretty clear at the house too.”
“Then why,” I asked, “did you back up Willa in the movie theater parking lot?”
Owen’s expression changed for a second—his protective armor failed, and I saw something like panic flash in his eyes. But he quickly sat up straighter, taking in a deep breath through his nose. “I’m entitled to change my mind,” he said.
“You seemed pretty sure when I saw you at the house,” I pointed out, “that there was no case to solve. It seemed like you’d felt that way for a while.”
Owen scowled. “Do you have a little sister?” he asked.
“No,” I said, not sure what that had to do with anything.
“She never gives up,” Owen went on. “Willa never stops badgering me. So I knew if I didn’t let her try to sell you on Izzy having this ‘problem,’ she’d drive me nuts. With you working on it, I figured she’d calm down.”
I frowned at him. “At the movie theater, you said Izzy was acting strange. Darker, somehow.”
“She is,” he said. “She’s just faking it.”
I shook my head. “But yesterday you sent around a video of Gavin Yoo.”
Owen furrowed his brows. “I did,” he said.
I went on, “So you think they’re both faking it? Gavin and Izzy?”
Owen turned his face away and shrugged. “I guess so,” he said. “I got that video of Gavin from some guys at school. A lot of people were talking about it. It was a thing.”
I nodded. “And how did Gavin know I was looking for him yesterday?” I asked. Owen swallowed; I watched the lump travel down his throat. “Because it’s clear that he knew,” I said. “But I only told Willa I was planning to talk to him. And the direct link between Willa and Gavin would be . . . you.”
Owen gazed out the windshield for a few seconds more and coughed. Finally he turned back to me, not quite meeting my eyes. “What exactly are you accusing me of here?”
I lowered my voice, forcing him to lean in. “When I saw you at the haunted house,” I said calmly, “you said you had told your friends about Izzy and taken them there.”
“So what?” Owen demanded, his voice getting sharp. “They were just looking to have some fun.”
I didn’t reply for a few seconds, giving him a hard stare. He twitched uncomfortably, staring back. Finally I said, “It just seems like a lot of the rumors about kids getting messed up at the house on Heliotrope Lane are coming from you.”
Something lit in Owen’s eyes—I was on to something. But he looked surprised that I’d figured this out—and not in a happy way.
“Do you have something to gain from kids wanting to go there?” I asked. “I mean, are you charging admission, or—”
Owen suddenly contracted in his seat like a spring snapping back into place. “Go away,” he said, his voice deepenin
g into a growl. “I’m done humoring you. I don’t have to answer your questions.”
I just sat there, not moving an inch. “Maybe you’d like to talk to the police instead,” I said in the same calm voice.
But Owen surprised me then; he pushed back in his seat and started to laugh. If he’d looked threatened before, that fear was gone now. He shook his head.
It unnerved me. “What are you laughing at?” I asked.
Owen laughed for another few seconds before answering, “Talk to the police about what?”
I frowned. “This whole thing,” I replied, like it was obvious. “Izzy, and the house, and whatever—”
Owen cut me off with another sharp chuckle. “What charge would the police be holding me on, Nancy Drew?” he asked, looking me in the eye. His expression was different now. His eyes looked darker, harder. “Telling scary stories about a haunted house?” he asked, then suddenly moved a little closer to me.
I jumped back.
“Gossiping?” he pressed.
I scratched the foot that remained outside the car against the pavement; was he crazy? No, he’s not, I realized. He’s right. I had the terrible sense that Owen was involved in all this, somehow—but how could I prove it?
Telling scary stories wasn’t a crime. Trespassing on abandoned property was a crime—but it was one I was guilty of too. And it wasn’t like the police weren’t aware that dozens of kids were in and out of the Furstenberg house each week.
The truth was, beyond the trespassing and possibly telling some lies, I wasn’t sure a crime was being committed here at all.
Owen started laughing again, then reached out to start the car and pull his seat belt over his chest. “I’m gonna go now, Nancy Drew,” he said. “Since you were so worried about me driving you to some secret location, you might want to get out now.” He flashed me an insincere smile. His eyes were still dark and hard. “Have a nice day.”
He threw the car into reverse, and, grabbing my purse, I struggled up and jumped clear of the car just in time to avoid having my foot run over as he backed up. The passenger-side door was still flapping open, and he paused, leaned over, and closed it before driving on out of the parking lot.
I could feel myself fuming as I watched the car disappear over a hill.
I’ll get you, I promised myself, gritting my teeth. I will get you, Owen—and if Gavin won’t talk to me, maybe someone else will.
“Oh, hello, Izzy.”
A few hours later I was sitting in Izzy’s living room with her mom when Izzy walked in the door, arriving home from dance class.
Izzy stared at me as though I were an actual demon. She knows who I am, I realized. And not just as the market researcher who cornered her about scary movies.
I shot a look at her mother. “I was just telling your mom,” I said, smiling toothily, “how I’m on the high school student council and how you’re helping me set up for the high school orientation for middle schoolers at the end of the year. Anyway, I just wanted to go over a couple of ideas with you, Iz.”
Izzy looked furious, as I’d expected, but she pasted on a smile for her mom. “Sure,” she said, looking at me brightly. “Why don’t we go talk in my room?”
I got up and said good-bye to her mom, then followed Izzy down a narrow hallway to a big, green-painted bedroom at the back of their house.
As soon as I was completely inside, Izzy reached behind me and shut the door. “What are you doing here?” she hissed. “You told Willa you wouldn’t come. Willa is going to be furious!”
I looked at Izzy, trying to make my face the picture of cool, calm, and collected. “Is she?” I asked. “And just how would you know what I told Willa? Did Willa tell you herself, or did she tell Owen, and Owen passed it along?”
Izzy turned red. “I—she—what are you—”
I’d hit a nerve. As she sputtered, I looked around the room. A full-size bed was covered with a chevron-striped comforter, a shelf bearing several horror-themed DVDs hung on the opposite wall over an old tube television, and a somewhat newer DVD player and movie posters—The Blair Witch Project, a movie called Final Warning—decorated the walls.
“Final Warning. I just saw that movie with my friends. It was a Freaky Friday double feature,” I said, pointing to the poster. Izzy looked even more confused. “Actually,” I went on, “there’s a girl in that movie who gets possessed by an evil spirit—and she kind of acts a lot like you’ve been acting! When you’re acting possessed, that is.”
I turned back from the poster and frowned at her.
“That’s—that’s a coincidence,” Izzy said, smoothing her hair behind her ear. Her eyes still looked wild.
I nodded. “Hmmm. Well, the thing is, also—if you were truly possessed by some kind of evil spirit or whatever role you’re trying to sell, Izzy, you probably would have attacked me in your living room rather than pasting on a smile for your parents and then sniping at me in your bedroom.” I paused, and Izzy’s expression turned ferocious—a combination of frustration and anger.
“In fact,” I said, “if you were really possessed, you probably would act just as violent with your parents as you do with other kids, right? But then, people who are really possessed—if that’s possible—probably don’t care about getting in trouble for trespassing.”
I folded my arms in front of me and smiled. Izzy glared at me, then seemed to reach some sort of decision and tipped her chin up. When she spoke, her voice was the same creepy, raspy, gargled-with-rocks voice that both she and Gavin had used before.
“WE don’t like girls who question us,” she began. . . .
But I just shook my head and laughed. “It’s too late, Izzy,” I said, gently pushing her aside and reaching for the doorknob. “I got what I came for.”
Before I opened the door, I turned back to Izzy. I could see the wheels turning in her mind—she was trying to figure out what this meant, how much trouble she was in.
“I don’t know why you’re faking it,” I said quietly, “but now I’m sure that you are.”
CHAPTER NINE
An Invitation
THAT NIGHT I FELL ASLEEP practically on top of my laptop. I’d downloaded Final Warning and watched it again, and now I was sure—both Izzy and Gavin had stolen their “possessed by a demon” acts from that movie. But why? I’d fallen down an Internet rabbit hole, Googling things like fake demon possession why and why make a haunted house. While these searches had led me to some interesting Halloween party ideas, I wasn’t really any closer to answering my question.
Finally, sleep seemed to decide it wasn’t going to just wait around for me and knocked me out flat. I wasn’t even aware of dreaming—until I heard it.
Loud, evil-sounding laughter. Almost like a cackle.
I sat straight up in bed, startled awake. At first I figured I’d been having a nightmare, but then the sound came again.
Hoo hoo ha ha ha HA HA . . .
It seemed to be coming from outside the house.
Right outside the front door, actually.
I tiptoed out of bed, pulled on a robe, and quietly started down the stairs. Suddenly a dark figure moved in the hallway, and I stifled a scream, but still let out a huge gasp.
“Nancy?” a familiar voice called. The figure turned on a flashlight and shined it in my direction.
“Hannah?” I replied.
She was standing at the foot of the stairs in her striped flannel pj’s. “Did you hear it too?” she asked.
“The laugh?” I asked. “It was super creepy . . . and really loud. It woke me up.”
“Me too,” Hannah said. “It sounded like it was coming from just out here.” She shined the beam of her flashlight in the direction of the front door.
I walked down the rest of the stairs and joined her at the front door. “Should we open it?” I whispered.
Hannah nodded. “I brought something else,” she said, putting the flashlight down on the hallway table and picking up her heavy wooden rolling pin. ??
?If anyone is out there . . .” She swung the rolling pin down in a motion that definitely looked like it could knock a bad guy out.
“Good call,” I whispered, thinking, Dang, maybe I should be bringing Hannah out sleuthing with me instead of Bess and George.
“I’ll open it, then,” I whispered. “You be ready.”
I unbolted the door, then put my hand on the doorknob and slowly, carefully turned it and pulled.
I was shaking in spite of myself as I looked outside—scared of seeing something huge, leering, and evil right on the front steps. I didn’t think it would be a ghost or anything—but I wasn’t completely ruling it out.
“Oh,” Hannah said, and I murmured, “Yeah.”
Because there was nothing and nobody. I grabbed the flashlight from the table and shined it across the front lawn, into the bushes near the house, around the cars parallel parked on the street. But nothing moved—not even a squirrel.
I could feel my breathing start to slow down.
“Nancy,” Hannah said, “look.”
She was pointing the end of her rolling pin at the top step. The flashlight illuminated a simple white envelope with the word NANCY written in uneven red block letters. My heart gave a little squeeze of fear, but I reached down, picked it up, and retreated back into the house, gesturing for Hannah to follow. Then I closed and locked the front door, turned off the flashlight, and put it back down on the table.
After hesitating for just a moment, I slid a finger under the envelope’s seal.
“What is it?” Hannah asked. “Who would leave you a note in the middle of the night?”
I pulled out the note, written in the same creepy red letters as my name, and read it out loud:
“ ‘If you want the truth, meet us at the house now. Come alone.’ ”
“What on earth?” Hannah asked. “Who wrote this to you?”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry, Hannah,” I said. “It’s just a case I’m working on. Not a big deal.”