Date With Deception

by Carolyn Keene

  “We’d be through, too,” Bess muttered. “Okay, I see your point. But let’s hurry!”

  There was a copier in the file room, with extra-large paper in it. Nancy turned it on, praying that it wouldn’t make too much noise. It was a fairly new, expensive-looking machine, and it ran with only a faint hum.

  Nancy quickly fed the blueprints they’d selected through the copier. Then she switched it off, and they replaced the original prints in the file cabinet. Nancy hoped they’d gotten the right prints into the right drawers—it was hard to be sure, since they all looked so much alike.

  When everything was back in its original shape, they divided the copies of the blueprints among themselves, folded them carefully, and tucked them under their shirts.

  “There’s just one more thing I want to check,” Nancy told the others quietly. “Bill Fairgate’s office.”

  “Oh, Nancy, do you have to?” Bess wrung her hands nervously. “I feel like we’re tempting fate just by being here.”

  “I may not get another chance,” Nancy explained. “If he’s the leak, I need some way of proving it.”

  Single file, the four friends crept down the darkened hallway until they found Bill Fairgate’s door. Nancy tried the knob. It wasn’t locked.

  She eased the door open and went in. Gary, George, and Bess stayed out in the hall, waiting anxiously for her.

  Nancy shone her penlight around Bill’s office. Her eyes widened in surprise. The desk that had been buried under an untidy mound of papers the other day was clean and bare.

  Wondering, Nancy pulled open drawer after drawer in the desk. They were all nearly empty, and what was in them was unremarkable: pens, paper clips, rubber bands, neat files of old memos. No bank statements or brokers’ reports. No Jetstar blueprints. No notes. In fact, nothing that even remotely resembled current work!

  Nancy exhaled slowly. Bill Fairgate was up to something. Maybe he knew someone would be searching his office, and he cleared it out so no one would find anything that might incriminate him. Did that make any sense?

  She slipped back out to the hall and reported to the others. They were as puzzled as she.

  “Maybe he just cleaned up,” George suggested in a doubtful whisper. “Maybe the mess got to him after a while.”

  Shrugging, Nancy turned toward the exit. “Whatever it is, we can’t figure it out tonight,” she said. “Shall we go?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Bess murmured gratefully.

  “We’ll have to be careful going over the fence,” Nancy warned.

  “Right,” Bess agreed. She patted her shirt, and the blueprint underneath it made a rustling noise. “And try not to crinkle too loudly, either.”

  Quickly and quietly, they moved through the hall to the outside door. Gary checked the guards’ schedule, then his watch, and finally nodded to himself. “We’re okay,” he told the others. “We’ve got five minutes before somebody checks this door again.”

  “Mission accomplished,” Nancy said. “Let’s get out of here!”

  It was ten-thirty when Nancy started the car and turned it onto the road leading back to town. “So far, so good,” she said to the others. “Just keep your fingers crossed that we’ll be able to make some sense out of these blue^ prints.”

  “Gary’s our expert on that,” George said.

  “Not quite,” Gary retorted, grinning. “But I’ve taken a few classes in engineering and design—all pilots have to. If we got the right stuff, I think I’ll be able to find what we’re looking for.”

  “What exactly are we looking for?” Bess asked.

  “Some change in the design or engineering—or both,” Nancy explained. “If we can figure out what’s been changed, then we might be able to tell who’s been working on it. That ill person would have the best chance to copy the changes and pass them on to Aviane.”

  “Well, from what I saw of these plans,” Bess commented, “it’s going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “Maybe,” Nancy agreed with a smile. “But at least now we’ve got the haystack.”

  The farther they got from Jetstream, the more Nancy relaxed. Going in there had been very risky. If Jetstream discovered that the blueprints had been tampered with, Nancy knew there was going to be big trouble. She just hoped they’d find some answers soon. If they did, the risk would have paid off.

  Sitting next to Nancy in the front seat, Bess yawned loudly. “I don’t know why I’m so sleepy,” she said. “I guess breaking into Jetstream is enough to wear anybody out.”

  “Speaking of getting worn out,” George commented, “look—they’re still rehearsing at the institute.”

  Slowing the car down, Nancy glanced over at the dance institute. Bright lights could be seen in the windows of one of the rehearsal rooms.

  “That seems kind of cruel,” Bess remarked. “The performance is tomorrow night, and Yves told me they’d be rehearsing during the day tomorrow, too. If they don’t get some rest, they’ll sleepwalk their way through the performance.”

  “It looks like only a few people are still there,” Nancy said, slowing the car down even more. “I wonder who.”

  “Uh-oh,” Bess said. “I have the feeling we’re going to make a quick stop, right, Nan?”

  “Right.” Passing the institute’s parking lot, Nancy pulled the car to the side of the road right at the end of the property. Probably it was just a few dancers, working on a routine, she thought. But what if Dmitri was there? What if he was meeting his Jetstream connection? The institute would be the perfect place for that, she suddenly realized.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a minute,” she said to the others as she got out of the car. “I just want to take a look.”

  Trotting swiftly across the grass, Nancy reached the main door of the institute. It was unlocked, and she pushed it open, then quietly eased it shut behind her.

  Standing in the dimly lit lobby, Nancy could hear the sound of voices coming from the rehearsal room down the hall to the left. There was no music, and she didn’t hear any sounds of bodies leaping or moving. She knew the dancers could just be discussing a routine.

  Moving on tiptoe, Nancy left the carpeted lobby and turned down the hall toward the rehearsal room. It was the only one with lights on; all the other rooms were dark.

  One person was speaking now—a man—and his voice became louder as Nancy got closer. Halfway down the hall, she stopped, her heart pounding. The voice was speaking in Russian, and it was the voice of Dmitri Kolchak.

  Swallowing hard, Nancy moved forward again. The door to the rehearsal room was halfway open, and light spilled out into the hallway. Nancy crept up behind the door and peered through the crack.

  Dmitri was still talking, but she couldn’t see him. The only person she could see was Marina. The dancer wasn’t in her rehearsal clothes; she was wearing jeans and a pink cotton pullover, and her hair was a mass of tangles, as if she’d just gotten out of bed.

  Just then, Dmitri crossed Nancy’s line of vision. She didn’t get a good look at his face, but he sounded angry, and before he moved out of her sight, he pounded a fist into the palm of his other hand.

  The chaperon wasn’t talking to Marina, and Nancy knew there must be a third person in the room.

  Dmitri’s voice softened, then got loud again. Nancy couldn’t understand anything he was saying.

  Finally Dmitri stopped talking. Nancy held her breath, keeping her eyes on Marina. The ballerina turned her head and said something to the third person.

  Finally, the third person spoke. Nancy had no trouble recognizing his voice. It was Sasha Petrov.

  Still out of Nancy’s sight, Sasha spoke quickly and forcefully in Russian. Nancy closed her eyes, frustrated at not being able to understand him.

  At last, though, Sasha said something she did understand. It was only one word, but the word was Jetstream.

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  BEFORE NANCY HAD TIME to think about what she�
��d just heard, Marina interrupted Sasha. Looking back and forth between the two men, who were still invisible to Nancy, the ballerina spoke quickly and angrily, tapping at the watch on her slender wrist.

  She wants to go, Nancy thought. And I better go, too, before they spot me.

  Nancy wanted to run, but she was afraid of making noise. Forcing herself to move slowly, she backed down the hall, keeping her eyes on the door. If she saw a shadow cross it, she planned to slip into one of the other rooms. No one came, though, and Nancy could still hear their voices as she reached the end of the hall.

  Once she got out of the building, Nancy gave in to her urge to run and was back at the car in seconds.

  “What happened?” Bess asked as Nancy slid breathlessly into the driver’s seat. “You look really upset!”

  Nancy started the car and drove off. On the way home, she told her friends what she’d heard. “So it looks like all the Soviets are in it together. I guess I shouldn’t be upset, but I am. I’m disappointed, too.” She shook her head and shrugged. “Anyway, let’s not talk about it now,” she said, pulling up in front of Eloise’s house. “Let’s get to work and see if we can find that needle in the haystack.”

  The house was quiet when they let themselves in. “Aunt Eloise must be asleep,” Nancy whispered. “Let’s try not to wake her. The less she knows about what we did tonight, the better.”

  Quietly the four of them tiptoed into the kitchen. Bess started a pot of coffee, and George found a box of doughnuts in the bread drawer and put them on a plate.

  Nancy helped Gary spread out the blueprints, and then they all gathered around the kitchen table.

  Bess’s eyes widened as she looked down at the intricate drawings. “Where on earth do we begin?”

  Gary grinned at her. “At the beginning;”

  An hour and two cups of coffee later, Gary shook his head and whistled.

  “What?” George asked. “Did you find something?”

  “No.” Gary shook his head again. “I hate to admit it, but this is a lot more complicated than I thought. But don’t worry,” he added. “Something’ll show up.”

  “Look,” Bess said, using her doughnut as a pointer. “The engines are at the back. That’s kind of different, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but they didn’t build it with the engines in front first and then rebuild it with them at the back,” Gary said. “It’s always been that way.” He held up the two-year-old blueprint and tapped it with a finger. “See?”

  “What’s the point of putting them on the back?” Nancy asked.

  “Less resistance,” Gary said. “When they’re in front, they pull the plane. In back, they push it. That’s kind of a simple way to put it, but basically, that’s it.”

  “The simpler the better,” Bess remarked. “But does it change the way they’re built or wired or something if they’re at the back?”

  Gary looked thoughtful, then snapped his fingers. “Maybe it does in the Jetstar. Bess,” he said happily, “you might just have hit on something there.” Reaching for another doughnut, he bent over the table again.

  But Gary’s excitement proved premature. Bess had given them an idea, but even with that, they couldn’t seem to find any earthshaking change in the blueprints.

  Another hour later George straightened and rubbed a crick in her back. “It’s got to be here!” she said in frustration. “Unless Aviane was just lying to Susan Wexler.”

  “They might have been,” Nancy agreed. “I hate to say this—maybe we just didn’t find the right blueprints. Or the latest ones.”

  “You mean Bill Fairgate—or whoever—has them?” Bess asked.

  Nancy nodded. “He was carrying a briefcase when he left. Maybe he took them home with him tonight,” she suggested.

  “But he’d have to leave the originals at Jetstream, wouldn’t he?” George protested.

  “I would have thought so,” Nancy said, rubbing her eyes. They felt as if they were full of sand. “I guess he could return them in the morning, as long as he made sure no one saw him.”

  Gary looked worried. “He did clear out his office. Maybe he’s getting ready to leave the country and take the final plans to Aviane in person.”

  “We can check on it tomorrow, but I doubt he’d risk that,” Nancy said, shaking her head. “He’d know there’s no way he could get out of the country once Jetstream discovered he was the spy—which they’d figure out pretty fast if he didn’t show up for work one morning. And anyway, if it became provable that Aviane had been mixed up in industrial spying, Jetstream would slap them with a lawsuit that would break them. The only way they can possibly get away with what they’re doing is by covering their tracks completely.”

  Nancy looked at the clock over the stove. It was two-thirty in the morning. The doughnuts were long gone, and nobody could stand to look at another cup of coffee.

  “Listen,” she said, “we’re all wiped out. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m having trouble seeing straight. Let’s call it off for tonight. Maybe we’ll be able to find something after we get some sleep.”

  Everyone agreed, but they were all disappointed. They’d known it wouldn’t be easy, but they thought they would solve it.

  After Gary left the three girls took the blueprints up to their room and hid them in the closet.

  “Has anybody thought about how we’re going to find out if Bill Fairgate has the latest blueprints?” George asked, peeling off her jeans.

  “I can’t think of anything but sleep,” Bess said, yawning widely. Then she looked at Nancy, who was standing at the sliding doors leading to the deck. “Nan?” she asked. “You’re still upset about Sasha, aren’t you?”

  Nancy finished tying the belt on her short yellow robe and turned around. “I’m more upset about not solving this case tonight,” she said. “But you’re right, I’m upset about Sasha, too.”

  “You heard only one word,” Bess pointed out. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Bess is right,” George agreed, pulling on the big T-shirt she slept in. “I mean, they found that blueprint in Gary’s locker, and everybody but us believes he took it. So just because Sasha said something about Jetstream doesn’t mean he’s involved in the spying.”

  “I know.” Nancy shook her head, annoyed with herself. “Here I am, worrying about Sasha, when it’s Gary who’s in trouble.” She stepped into her flip-flops and headed for the door. “I’m going to take a shower. Maybe that’ll clear my head.”

  The warm shower felt great, but Nancy’s head wasn’t any clearer when she got out.

  Bess and George were right, she told herself as she toweled herself off. She couldn’t decide Sasha was guilty without proof. Still, it didn’t look good. She was almost positive Dmitri was involved. So why else were Sasha and Marina having a midnight meeting and talking about Jetstream if they weren’t involved, too?

  What made it really bad was the attraction she felt for Sasha. If only she couldn’t stand him!

  Suddenly Nancy felt so tired she couldn’t think straight, about anything. Her eyes burned, and every time she closed them, she saw blueprints. Her hair was still damp, but she didn’t care. She brushed her teeth and went back to the guest room.

  George and Bess were already asleep in the twin beds. The three of them took turns, and it was Nancy’s night for the futon. She unrolled it and stretched out, planning to listen to the low roar of the ocean for a few minutes. But she was asleep the minute she closed her eyes.

  • • •

  When Nancy woke up, she could tell by the light that it was late. Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock on the dresser. Almost ten.

  Nancy rolled up the futon, dressed quickly in a pair of white cotton shorts and a blue tank top, and headed for the kitchen. George and Bess were already there, and so was her aunt Eloise.

  “Hi,” Bess said when Nancy came in. “How’d you sleep? I had nightmares about blueprints all night.”

  “Don’t worry,
” George said, when Nancy looked guiltily at her aunt. “We told her what we did,”

  “I should have known something was up when you left here dressed like cat burglars last night,” Eloise said, pouring a glass of juice for Nancy. “I can’t say I approve, but I certainly understand. I’m just thankful you didn’t get caught.”

  “I am, too,” Nancy said, sipping some juice. “Now we’ve got to figure out where to go from here. I wonder if Bill Fairgate is in today? I think I’ll make an appointment to talk to him if he’s there.”

  “Call Jetstream and ask,” George said. “Also, how about taking another look at those blueprints? Now that we’ve had some sleep, maybe we can spot something. I think I’ll call Gary,” she added, “and see if he’s awake yet.”

  The phone rang as George started for it. Eloise was closer and picked it up.

  Nancy was putting bread in the toaster when Eloise, still on the phone, cried, “Oh, no!”

  Nancy glanced over at her aunt. Eloise looked shocked, and she was gripping the phone tightly. “You’re sure?” Eloise asked. “That’s horrible! What could—Please, try to calm down. I know it’s awful, but you can’t afford to get hysterical,”

  Nancy, George, and Bess exchanged puzzled glances.

  Eloise listened intently, getting paler by the second. Finally she said goodbye and hung up.

  “Aunt Eloise?” Nancy said. “What happened?”

  “That was Dana Harding.” Eloise cleared her throat. “This is simply unbelievable—Sasha Petrov is missing!”

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  MISSING!” BESS CRIED. “What does she mean? How could he be missing?”

  “Dana is absolutely beside herself, so I’m afraid she couldn’t give me many details,” Eloise said. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All she managed to tell me was that Sasha didn’t show up for rehearsal this morning. Neither Dmitri nor Marina knows where he is.”

  Forgetting about her toast and the plans she’d been making, Nancy headed for the door. “Come on,” she said over her shoulder to Bess and George. “Let’s get over to the institute and find out what’s going on.”