Free Circle of Evil by Carolyn Keene Page B

had left, Nancy forced herself to calm down so Hannah wouldn’t notice that anything was wrong and ask questions. In her room, she turned on the TV, then snapped it off, put a tape in the deck, then immediately took it out. When Hannah came home, Nancy told her that she wanted some fresh air. She got in her car and went for a drive.
    Nancy automatically turned toward the club. She didn’t know what she was going to do there, but maybe she’d be able to get inside and explore—look in the lockers as Ned had suggested.
    As Nancy was driving down the tree-lined entry drive toward the clubhouse, she thought of something that startled her. Her househadn’t been broken into. The door was just ajar, but it hadn’t been jimmied, and neither had any of the windows. She was positive now that she had locked the door, so the only way anyone could have gotten in was with a key.
    Nancy took her foot off the gas and let the car coast to a stop. She needed a minute to think it through. If the thief had used a key to get into her house, then maybe he had had keys for the other houses. But how?
    Sitting in the car, Nancy went over her day—what she’d done and where she’d been. She had had her keys in her canvas bag, and the bag was with her the whole time.
    Except, she remembered, when she had been in the weight room and when she had been having her massage. The bag had been in a locker then. Could someone have taken the key, made a copy, and put it back? Easy! After all, someone had put the note in her bag. Could it have been Cindy? Cindy certainly knew her way around the club.
    Nancy thought of Rita, too. Could she have done it? Rita had never left the room. But Nancy remembered suddenly that she had made a short phone call.
    What had she said? Something about being too busy to make it that night. Nancy thought she must have been canceling a date or something,and maybe she was. But maybe it was some kind of signal to let a partner know that Nancy’s key was in a locker, there for the taking. Who could the partner be?
    Nancy slowly backed her car up and out onto the main road. She drove about half a block until she came to a place where she could park so it would be half-hidden by trees. Then she walked through the grounds to the clubhouse. She decided it had been foolish to alert anyone that she was there by going up the driveway.
    The clubhouse was dark and appeared to be locked up tight. But Nancy got lucky and found one open door. There were two choices: someone had forgotten to lock it, or someone was inside. Cautiously, she pushed the door open and stepped into the cool, dark silence.
    Once inside, Nancy slipped off her sandals. She wished she weren’t wearing a white top—it stood out like a neon light—but there was nothing she could do about it then. Taking a deep breath, she moved deeper into the building. Except for the occasional spill of moonlight slanting in from the windows, the club was night-dark. The silence was broken only by the faint ticking of a distant clock.
    Bypassing the lounge, Nancy headed for the stairs that led to the locker rooms. She wanted to check out the locker she’d left her bag in tosee how someone could have gotten in, left her that message, and taken her key.
    There were a couple of yellow light bulbs burning downstairs, and they washed the hall in a sickly mustard glow. Walking soundlessly on the cool tiles, Nancy passed the locked women’s massage room, the boiler room, and then turned into the locker room.
    Using the weak glow from another yellow bulb, Nancy managed to find the locker she had used earlier. The key was in it, the same key she’d locked it with and kept in the pocket of her shorts. Most of the other lockers had keys in them, too.
    That had to be it—the keys were interchangeable. Nancy took one out and tried it on another locker. No—it didn’t work. Somebody must have used a key to get into the locker,