Club Dread by Carolyn Keene Page B

to learn anything, we had to get in there tonight.
    I took the elevator up to the penthouse. When I got out, I saw that there was security tape across the door and a Wetlands’ employee posted outside. He was big and burly, but he looked pretty young. I’d have to try to bluff my way past him.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said. “This area is off-limits for the evening.”
    â€œI’m Frank. Mr. Nikitin sent me to replace you.” I held out my hotel ID for him to inspect. The important thing was to act like I knew what I was doing.
    â€œBut I’m supposed to be on duty until midnight.”
    â€œNah, they changed the schedule, so you’re free.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œI mean, if you want to stay, that’s fine with me. I’llhead back down to the pool.” I started to walk back into the elevator. It was a gamble.
    â€œNo, wait! I mean, if they told you to come replace me, then I guess I should go.”
    Awesome, he fell for it!
    We switched places. I stood outside the door, trying my best to look bored, until the elevator doors closed behind him. Then I ducked under the security tape and into the suite. The place had been thoroughly trashed. Anything that could be thrown had been thrown. The dresser was knocked over, the drawers had been turned upside down, and there were clothes everywhere.
    My phone vibrated—a message from Joe. I flipped it open and read his text.
    Â 
    Think Andrew Nikitin is in on the robberies.
    May have accomplice. Be careful.
    Â 
    So it looked like Joe had found something after all. He was probably headed back to our room, so we could compare information later. Now I really needed to dig up some evidence. I couldn’t let him have all the fun. I had to concentrate and try to find clues among all the chaos.
    Nancy said they couldn’t find anything missing, I thought. That was strange. They hadn’t even taken George’s laptop, which was in plain sight. Almost all the other cases hadbeen straightforward burglaries. None of the other rooms had been ransacked either. They had all been clean, the work of professionals. Except for with Jasmina, there had been minimal violence.
    In Nancy’s suite, it seemed like the thief had been searching for something. And searching in a real hurry. No time to be subtle. But what could he have been looking for? The girls were staying in the penthouse, so perhaps someone thought they had money hidden somewhere. But in that case, why wouldn’t they have taken George’s laptop, or any of their other belongings?
    Maybe he was searching for information. Other than Joe and me, only one person at the hotel even knew who Nancy was: Jack Thorton, the owner of the Wetlands. Could he have been involved?
    Nancy did say that her father had done some legal work for Mr. Thorton. Perhaps he wasn’t happy with the result. And it would make sense that he would be working with Nikitin, since Nikitin was the manager of the hotel.
    If Jack Thorton and Andrew Nikitin are the ones behind the break-ins, that would explain why ATAC didn’t want us to reveal our identities to anyone working at the hotel, I thought. But it didn’t make much sense for Mr. Thorton to put his own hotel in danger. And we’d heard that he wasn’t even around right now. I was going in circles.
    I tried picking through some of the piles of junk in the room. Pillow, T-shirt, jeans, T-shirt, pajamas.
    I dropped the clothes and turned to look somewhere else.
    I went back to the door. The Wetlands had a complicated electronic lock system, where each door was reset after the guest left. The sensor pad showed no signs of being tampered with, and there were no marks on the door frame, so it didn’t look like someone had forced it open.
    If Nikitin was involved, it was possible the thief had a key. If so, I wasn’t going to find anything, and I might as well give up. But if Joe was wrong, maybe the thief had