Chapter
One
TURN UP THE VOLUME, Bess,” Nancy Drew said, drumming her hands on the steering wheel. “This is my favorite song.”
Bess Marvin tapped her foot to the beat as she twisted the knob on the car stereo. “You know what this feels like, Nancy?” she asked. “Remember going back to school at the end of the summer? Getting ready to study hard . . .”
Nancy laughed and leaned back against the seat to stretch her shoulders. Sunlight danced through her red-gold hair as she turned to look at her friend. “Bess,” she teased, “it’s the middle of winter. And we’re going to school to investigate, not study.”
“You never know,” Bess said airily. “You can always learn something.”
“Well, maybe we’ll learn that Ava Woods just took off for a long weekend, and now she’s back safe and sound, and we can go to Florida as we planned.”
Bess’s blue eyes opened in surprise. “I thought we were off to save a desperate girl spirited away by her blind date. You mean she may not be missing? And I gave up a Florida tan for her?”
“Bess, what’s happened to your sense of adventure? I told you everything I know. Ava went on a blind date Friday night. She didn’t come back Saturday or yesterday. She may have had plans for the weekend that she didn’t tell anyone about, and she could be on her way back now.”
“Or maybe she fell in love at first sight and eloped,” Bess suggested.
“Maybe,” Nancy agreed. “Here’s the exit for Halloway College. We’re about to find out.”
Halloway College was a sprawling Gothic campus about an hour from River Heights. Nancy and Bess drove in through the main entrance and asked the guard on duty how to get to the administration building. As Nancy steered her Mustang along the meandering campus road, Bess turned her eyes toward their surroundings. “Nice place,” she commented.
“Mm-hmm. Looks a little like Ned’s campus.” Ned was Nancy’s longtime boyfriend, who attended Emerson College. Nancy pulled into the parking lot in front of a gray stone building. “Let’s go.”
Nancy and Bess were directed to Dean Selig, Halloway’s dean of students, who was expecting them. He was a short, pudgy man who looked lost behind a huge black desk. As he jumped up to greet them, he smoothed down the few wisps of hair on his mostly bald head. His gray eyes smiled from behind round glasses as he invited the girls to sit down.
“You’re Ava’s friend Nancy Drew,” he began.
Nancy introduced Bess and then corrected the dean. “I’ve never actually met Ava,” she explained. “Mr. and Mrs. Woods are friends of my father, and they asked me to help find her.”
Dean Selig looked disturbed. “I wish they would notify the police,” he said, shaking his head. “Please don’t be offended—I trust your abilities, Nancy—but you can never be too careful.”
“Well, Ava’s been gone only for the weekend,” Nancy said. “She could come back any minute. Does the school have a policy about notifying the police?”
“No.” The dean shrugged. “That’s why I haven’t pushed them. Students are responsible for themselves. They have to attend a certain number of classes in order to take their exams, but even that isn’t absolute.”
“According to Mrs. Woods, Ava’s roommate doesn’t know where she is,” Nancy explained. “I wanted to talk to some of her other friends to see if she told anyone where she was going. But I’d like to keep things quiet, if it’s possible.”
“Quiet?” Dean Selig looked puzzled.
“Well, we aren’t sure this is a case of foul play. If Ava just forgot to tell anyone where she was going, she’ll be pretty embarrassed if I tell everyone she’s missing. And if something serious did happen, we don’t want the person responsible to know we’re investigating.”
“So you want to go undercover,” the dean said, pressing a button on his phone with one pudgy finger. “You’re in luck. We’re just starting our January-term optional program of nonacademic study. We offer it every winter.”
“Nonacademic study?” Bess looked puzzled.
“The classes are very general, but the students get the flavor of a subject they’re interested in. Registration began on Thursday, so most of the classes will probably be full,” the dean continued. “But I’ll enroll you both as students and assign you rooms in the dorms. There’s plenty of space. The school is only about half full.”
The dean’s secretary appeared in the doorway, and soon Nancy and Bess were enrolled as transfer students. Nancy asked about the size of the student body and found out that seven hundred students were enrolled for the winter term. She and Bess would have to split up to cover enough ground, she realized. She asked for two separate rooms in Ava’s dorm so no one would connect her with Bess.
Dean Selig hovered nearby as they had their pictures taken for student ID cards. When he asked if there was anything else he could do, Nancy assured him she would call him the moment she needed help. After Nancy picked up a parking sticker for her car, she and Bess headed over to the gym to register for classes.
The campus buildings were scattered among lawns and small hills. Stark, leafless trees stood out against a snowy background. When Nancy and Bess reached the gymnasium, where registration was taking place, they were dismayed to find a line of students stretching out the door.
“Why don’t I stay here and register for both of us?” Bess suggested. “You can take our stuff over to the dorm and get settled.”
Nancy looked at her in surprise. “I don’t believe you’re offering to stand here in the snow,” she said. “Is there a cute guy in the line I missed?”
Bess smiled. “This will be a good way to meet people,” she said. “Besides, with your brain, you’d probably sign us up for calculus or something. I want to pick my own course.”
Nancy drove to Hartley Hall, the dorm that Ava Woods lived in. Dragging the suitcases into the lobby, she thought that Bess had packed enough clothes for a year, as usual. The girl at the front desk gave her directions to the head resident’s room. Leaving the bags in the lobby, she went to introduce herself and pick up her keys.
The head resident was a senior named Maura Parker, who had green eyes and a mass of curly black hair. As she looked for Nancy’s keys, she went over the rules of the dorm. According to Maura, the door was locked promptly at midnight and could be opened only with a card key. Hartley had one main phone number, with an extension on each floor for incoming calls. There was a loudspeaker system to let people know when they had calls.
“It’s not too bad, except at the beginning of the term,” Maura assured her. “After a few weeks, most students have phones installed in their rooms.”
Nancy thanked Maura and took her bags up to her room, leaving Bess’s by the reception desk. “They belong to someone I met at registration,” she explained to the girl on duty. “I had a car, so I said I’d bring them by for her.”
Nancy’s room was on the third floor, right next to Ava’s. It was small and bare. A narrow bed stood under the only window, and a desk and dresser leaned on the opposite wall.
Quickly she unpacked her jeans and sweaters, then took out the two dresses she had brought and hung them in the closet. She debated whether to wait for Bess, then decided not to waste any time. Grabbing a notebook out of her purse, she went next door.
An attractive young woman in a dancer’s leotard answered Nancy’s knock.
“I’m looking for Betsy Campbell,” Nancy said.
“You found her,” the girl said. “You must be Nancy Drew.” She moved out of the way to let Nancy pass. “Mrs. Woods told me you were coming.”
Nancy looked around for a place to sit. The room was larger than her own, with two beds, desks, and dressers. Nancy guessed Betsy’s side of the r
oom was the one with the poster of a dancer above the bed. She sat in the desk chair on the other side.
“Mrs. Woods gave me your name,” Nancy explained. “She said you were the one who reported Ava missing.”
Betsy blushed. “It wasn’t exactly what I meant to do. I hope I haven’t gotten her into trouble.”
“I don’t see how,” Nancy said encouragingly. “We’re all just interested in making sure she’s okay.” She gestured to her notebook. “Do you mind if I take notes? It helps me remember.”
Betsy shook her head and waited for Nancy to get a pen. “I woke up on Saturday and saw that Ava wasn’t here,” she began when Nancy was settled. “I just assumed she’d gone home for the weekend without telling me. She only lives about ten miles away, so she goes home fairly often. Then she got a couple of phone calls, so I tried to reach her. It wasn’t until I spoke to Mrs. Woods that I found out she hadn’t gone home.”
“And you don’t know where she might be?”
Betsy shook her head. “Mrs. Woods asked me if I knew who Ava’s Friday-night date was, but I don’t. I just know it was a blind date.”
Nancy picked up a large, silver-framed photograph that was sitting on the desk. Betsy was in it, her dark skin and hair contrasting with that of the pretty girl she hugged. “Is this Ava?” Nancy asked, pointing to the girl with long wavy blond hair and brown eyes.
Betsy nodded.
“Do you think I could have a picture of her?”
“Do you want that one?” Betsy asked doubtfully.
“No.” Nancy smiled. “Something a little smaller would be good.”
Nancy moved out of the way as Betsy began rummaging through Ava’s desk drawer.
“Here’s her extra student ID,” Betsy offered finally. “She lost it for a while, so she has two. Would that help?”
Nancy took the ID and looked at the small photo. “This is fine,” she said, slipping it into her purse. “Now tell me what Ava’s like—her hobbies, interests, anything that might have drawn her away over the weekend.”
As Betsy spoke, a picture of Ava emerged. She was funny, impulsive, and very well liked. She loved sports and adventure. She had a few good friends, but most of them were away during the winter term. A sophomore, she was an economics major. In her spare time she worked for a program in town called Elderly Assistance.
“She doesn’t sound like someone who would need help to get a date,” Nancy commented. “She doesn’t have a steady boyfriend, then?”
“Not at the moment,” Betsy said.
“Tell me about her Friday-night blind date,” Nancy suggested. “Whatever you remember.”
“I don’t think she was very excited about it,” Betsy said, uncrossing her slender legs as she leaned toward Nancy. “She was tired and wanted to cancel, but I pushed her to go. It was the night of the Winter Welcome Dance, and I invited her and her date to go with me, but she kept saying she didn’t want to.”
“So she and her date didn’t go to the dance?”
“No, I would have seen them,” Betsy said. “She grabbed her car keys on the way out and said she had to pick Jim up. I guess that was her date’s name. Apparently he lived off campus, and his car had broken down. I don’t know where they were going.”
“And she never came back from the date, as far as you know,” Nancy mused. “Are her keys around?”
Betsy shook her head. “No, I checked. By yesterday I was nervous. I even walked around campus looking for her car. It’s not where she usually parks it, and I haven’t seen it anywhere else, either.”
“Is there some record of cars on campus?” Nancy asked.
“I don’t think so. They give you a parking sticker if you’re a student, and that’s it.”
“Right,” Nancy said. “Now, who arranged the date?”
“There’s a student-run dating service called Campus Connections,” Betsy told her. “A lot of students use it. They match couples on the computer according to their interests.”
“Who runs it?”
“A senior named Luke Jefferies. I think he has a couple of people who help out.”
“Is it sponsored by the school?” Nancy said, wondering if the dean could get her more information.
“I’m not sure,” Betsy said.
“Can you think of anything else that might help me?”
Betsy frowned and shook her head. “I’ll let you know if something occurs to me,” she promised.
“What about the phone calls you mentioned?” Nancy asked. “Could one of them have been from this Jim?”
“No, they were from a woman. Now that you mention it, though, they were very strange calls. The woman wouldn’t tell me her name. She just kept saying Ava must call her immediately. And she said something about a box.”
“Can you remember exactly what she said?” Nancy asked.
Betsy shook her head in frustration. “She wasn’t making much sense. She kept saying Ava would know. And she said Ava had her box, or she needed to know about her box, or something.”
“An old voice, a young voice?” Nancy prodded. “Do you remember an accent or anything?”
“An older voice,” Betsy said slowly. “The woman sounded upset. I thought at the time it was one of Ava’s teachers or maybe a family friend, but I didn’t really worry about it.”
Nancy closed her notebook. “I’m next door in room three-fourteen, if you remember anything else or if you hear anything. Can you point me toward Campus Connections? They may be able to help.”
Betsy told her the dating service was on the north end of the campus and gave her directions for a shortcut.
On her way out of the room, Nancy stopped. “I don’t know what the Woodses said to you, but they asked me to keep Ava’s disappearance quiet as long as possible,” she began.
“Oh, I won’t say a word,” Betsy assured her quickly. “I feel bad enough as it is.”
Nancy looked sharply at Betsy. “Bad? Why?”
“Well, Ava’s parents did find out from me that she was gone.”
“But you didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance, right?” Nancy prompted.
“Of course not!”
“Then don’t blame yourself,” Nancy said.
As she went back to her room to change, Nancy thought about Betsy’s reaction. The girl seemed concerned about the fact that she’d told the Woodses Ava was missing. Why would Betsy want to keep quiet about Ava’s disappearance? Talking to Ava’s other friends might shed some light on Betsy’s attitude.
Nancy grabbed a turquoise sweater from her suitcase and slipped her boots on. When she got downstairs she saw that Bess’s bags were still in the lobby. She dashed off a note to tell Bess where she was going and slipped it under the handle of one suitcase.
Betsy’s directions took Nancy across the field she had seen from her window. There had been a snowstorm the previous evening, and the field was a pure white expanse, sparkling in the sunlight. The campus seemed deserted. No one had taken Nancy’s path across the field. As her boots crunched in the snow, Nancy almost felt bad about the footprints she was leaving behind.
She strolled along, collecting her thoughts. How much should she tell the people at Campus Connections? she wondered. If someone there was responsible for Ava’s disappearance, Nancy didn’t want that person to know she was investigating. And how did the phone calls from the woman fit into the picture?
Nancy heard fast footsteps and a male voice behind her. “Hey, you!” the voice growled.
She began to turn. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a dark figure wind up and hurl something at her.
Too late Nancy tried to duck. An explosion of cold hit her full in the face. Then she fell backward into the snow!
Chapter
Two
NANCY GASPED and rubbed her face, struggling to sit up. She opened her eyes to see a handsome, dark-skinned guy bending toward her. His face flushed as he saw her expression.
“Oh, excuse me,” he said, trying to hel
p her up. “I don’t know you! I mean, I thought you were someone else.”
“Someone you don’t like, obviously,” Nancy said wryly, brushing herself off.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, sounding sincere. “I wasn’t aiming for your head. I wasn’t even aiming for you! It’s a silly game that I play with a friend. Please forgive me.”
“Well, my jeans are soaked, but no broken bones,” Nancy said. “I suppose I can forgive you.”
The stranger’s face broke into an attractive smile. “Darien Olivares at your service, beautiful stranger,” he said, sticking his hand out.
Nancy grinned and introduced herself. “You certainly have an odd way of meeting women,” she teased. “Most of the guys I know stopped hitting girls to get their attention in first grade.”
Darien fell into step beside her. “May I escort you to your destination?” he asked.
“Actually, no, don’t bother,” Nancy said. “I’m just going to Campus Connections.”
“You’re looking for a date?” he asked. “Nancy Drew, your search is over. I’ll take you wherever you wish to go.”
Nancy smiled and shook her head. “That’s very kind, but no thank you. I prefer to go to Campus Connections.”
Darien feigned sadness. “Are you a student here?” he asked.
“For the January session,” Nancy said.
“Then you can get to know me,” he said. “And maybe you’ll change your mind.”
“Maybe,” Nancy said as they came to the building Darien had pointed out. “Now, if you don’t mind . . .”
“I’ll leave you here,” Darien said, taking the hint. “But promise you won’t forget me.”
How could I? Nancy thought, smiling.
Seeing no guard in the building, she checked the directory and climbed the stairs to the third floor. She rang the buzzer for room 303. After a moment she saw a shadow through the frosted pane in the door. A lanky guy with long, sandy hair answered the door.
“Hi, it’s usually open,” he said, letting her in. “You’re new, aren’t you?” After Nancy introduced herself, he said, “I’m Luke Jefferies. Sit down. I’ll be back in a minute.”