Free Flirting with Danger by Carolyn Keene Page A

“They’re doing the best they can.”
    â€œWell, their best isn’t good enough!” snapped Mr. Kline. He was dressed for the office, and he stood and excused himself from the table. “I’ll call Lieutenant Heller from my study,” he said in quieter tones. Josh left the room with him, since his father was giving him a ride to the studio. Nancy and Ned were going to use Rachel’s car.
    â€œReady?” Nancy asked, turning to Ned.
    He nodded, pushing back his chair.
    â€œWe’ll let you know the second we find anything,” Nancy told Karen Kline before they left the dining room. The woman nodded silently, obviously afraid to hope for too much. She had had too many disappointments so far.
    Ned, Nancy, and Mike set out for Dennis Harper’s apartment a few minutes later, with Mike giving directions.
    â€œDid you and Rachel get along pretty well?” Nancy asked cautiously, turning to look at Mike in the backseat as they sped along the freeway. “Before the breakup, I mean?”
    Mike stared out through the side window, and Nancy saw a muscle tighten in his jaw, then relax again. “Most of the time,” he answered, without turning his head.
    Since Mike seemed to hang out with Jessica so much, Nancy decided to feel him out about the girl. She was especially curious about why Jessica had intimidated Beth in the pizza place the day before. “Are Jessica and Beth good friends?” she asked.
    â€œNo way,” Mike blurted out. Then, after a long time, he added, “Jessica is nobody’s friend.”
    â€œThen why does she hang around with your crowd?”
    Mike shrugged. “Something to do, I guess.”
    â€œWhat makes her so nasty?” Nancy persisted. “Yesterday she was pretty hard on Beth.”
    â€œI don’t know,” Mike said noncommittally. “I know for a fact that she dislikes Rachel—intensely. That’s mainly because she’s jealous. Rachel has always been more popular and done better in school.” He pointed toward a green and white sign on the edge of the freeway. “Take this exit and turn right,” he said.
    Ned followed Mike’s instructions. “What do you think Beth could know that she’s too scared to tell us?” he asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” Mike said with a shrug of his shoulders.
    Nancy shrugged, too, and then concentrated on the road.
    Dennis’s apartment was in a large, rundown complex within a hundred yards of the beach. After getting out of the car, Nancy checked the mailboxes in the hall and found out that Dennis lived in number seventeen. They found it on the side of the building facing the water, on the ground floor.
    Nancy rang the doorbell. “Dennis!” she called out when there was no answer. Nothing came back but the sound of children laughing somewhere nearby and the soothing rush of the waves on the beach. “Try the knob,” Ned said.
    Nancy reached for it, and it turned. The door of the apartment opened with a little push.
    â€œDennis?” Nancy called again, stepping slowly over the threshold. The sight of the living room made her draw in her breath sharply. The chairs and sofa were overturned, and the screen on the small TV set had been smashed, scattering shards of glass all over the cheap carpet.
    â€œBe careful,” Ned warned, stepping in behind Nancy. “There might still be someone here.”
    Nancy moved on to the kitchen. All the dishes had been pulled from the cupboardsand broken on the floor. Houseplants had been dumped from their pots and ground into the mess of shattered glass, and the cotton curtains had been pulled off the wall, along with the rods that held them.
    Mike whistled under his breath. “Somebody is really mad at this guy,” he said.
    â€œOr looking for something,” Nancy said, remembering the scene in Rachel’s room. She went on through the apartment, finding the bedroom and