038 The Final Scene by Carolyn Keene Read Free Book Online Page B

before each performance.”
    “I checked them out myself last night,” George said as she neared the end of the row. “There wasn’t anything then. Now—look!”
    Nancy ran to the open door and peered inside. Joseph flipped the light switch, and a dim light came on.
    “Nancy, she was here!” George cried as she pointed out a rumpled pallet that lay bunched in the corner of the cubicle. “There’s herpurse—and her shoe. We left them just the way we found them.”
    Nancy’s heart wrenched as she looked at the pump lying next to the mattress. When she remembered how Bess had complained about those new shoes, she felt like crying. But she fought back her tears as she knelt down on the rumpled pallet.
    Laying her hand on the blanket, she said, “She couldn’t have been gone for very long. It’s still a little warm. I can’t believe we came so close to finding her.”
    Joseph knelt down beside Nancy and placed his hand on her shoulder. “At least the kidnapper has been feeding her,” he said, pointing to a half-eaten pizza that lay in a box on the floor beside the pallet. Next to the box were three empty soda cans.
    George laughed, but the sound was hollow and bitter. “Something’s wrong with Bess,” she said grimly.
    “Why do you say that?” Nancy asked.
    “Because if Bess was her normal self, she would never have left half that pizza uneaten. It’s pepperoni and mushroom.”
    “Come on,” Nancy said. “Let’s go to the office and call Detective Ryan. He needs to know about this.”
    • • •
    Early that evening the girls were standing in the theater auditorium. After Nancy had called Detective Ryan, he had brought his squad out to search the theater once again.
    After a grueling three-hour search, they still hadn’t found anything. Finally the police left, advising the girls to give up and go home.
    But neither Nancy nor George could pull themselves away.
    “Why didn’t I find Bess when I searched that room yesterday?” George asked as she leaned back against the edge of the stage and massaged her aching back. “I swear she wasn’t there then.”
    “I’m sure she wasn’t,” Nancy answered, stretching her legs out in front of her. “The kidnapper must be moving her constantly. She could be right under our noses and we wouldn’t even know it.”
    “Well, we know he moved her just before I went into that room today, because the pallet was still slightly warm. I wonder where Simon Mueller and Nicholas Falcone were then?”
    “I was thinking that myself,” Nancy replied. “So when I came up to the office to phone the police, I called them, too.”
    “And?”
    “And neither of them answered his phone. Brady and Deirdre were gone, too. Not that Isuspect them, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to check.”
    “It has to be Simon,” George said with conviction. “Nicholas and Brady wouldn’t do something like this.”
    “I’d like to think so, too,” Nancy said. “But someone is moving Bess all over this theater. And whoever it is must know the place pretty well.”
    “Simon Mueller doesn’t know the building,” George said. “So, if it is him, he would have to have an accomplice. Joseph told me that Brady worked here in community theater productions in the summers when he was in junior high school. Joseph said that was when Brady first developed an interest in acting.”
    Nancy twisted a lock of her reddish blond hair around her forefinger. “What if Simon set it up? And Brady, because of his loyalty to Simon, went along with the stunt, never dreaming that anyone else would become involved and hurt by it?”
    “By the time Simon grabbed Bess, it would be too late for Brady to back out,” George added.
    “Exactly.”
    “And it would be hard for Brady to come forward now that he’s an accessory.”
    “That’s all possible,” Nancy said, still thinking.“But then, too, it could be Nicholas Falcone. Did you see the way he was looking around this place? Like someone he